TY - JOUR
TI - “Fartaytsht un farbesert”: Wolf Biermann and Yitskhok Katsenelson’s Dos lid funem oysgehargetn yidishn folk
AU - Sitarz, Magdalena
AU - Pawelec, Andrzej
TI - “Fartaytsht un farbesert”: Wolf Biermann and Yitskhok Katsenelson’s Dos lid funem oysgehargetn yidishn folk
AB - 
	In this essay we offer a preliminary discussion of Biermann’s phenomenally successful rendering of Katsenelson’s elegy. First, we place Biermann’s attempt in a wider historical and biographical context to throw some light on his motivation to grapple with the text written in a language he did not know (Yiddish) and thus was forced to rely on a literal version provided by a native speaker. Second, we provide some examples from the work in question of Biermann’s more general attitude to translation, as epitomized by the Yiddish phrase he likes to quote: ‘fartaytsht un farbesert’ (translated and improved). We conclude that Biermann’s adaptation should be assessed first of all as an act of cross-cultural communication rather than according to the criteria of strictly textual equivalence.
	 
VL - 2015
IS - Volume 10, Issue 1
PY - 2015
SN - 1897-3035
C1 - 2084-3933
SP - 37
EP - 44
DO - 10.4467/20843933ST.15.004.4095
UR - https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/studia-litteraria-uic/artykul/fartaytsht-un-farbesert-wolf-biermann-and-yitskhok-katsenelsons-dos-lid-funem-oysgehargetn-yidishn-folk
KW - Yiddish poetry
KW - translation
KW - Katsenelson
KW - Biermann
KW - Dos lid funem oysgehargetn yidishn folk