Specificity of (not) intentional distortions in the transfer of political languages from English-speaking discussions to Russia (on the example of the Lausanne Covenant)

The paper refers to the issue of distortions that political languages undergo when they are transferred from the English-speaking Protestant discussions to the Russian-speaking ones. The material for consideration is the text of the Lausanne Covenant of 1974 – the most significant Protestant document of the 20th century, as well as its official translation into Russian, published in 2011. John Stott and his co-authors of the original text have sought to express their opinion on the majority of the most controversial issues affecting both the purely theological and political issues. Thanks to their efforts, a document was created that served as the basis for the development of modern Protestant theology, including political theology. On the contrary, those responsible for the translation through their actions smoothed out all controversial aspects, and in some cases resorted to substantial replacements of the most “problematic” in their opinion fragments of the text. The consequence of this was a significant distance from each other not only between the two versions of the same text, but also related discussions in the respective linguistic contexts. This document makes it possible to trace, using its example, those distortions to which the corresponding idioms are subjected when they are transferred from one language context to another. Within the framework of the Cambridge School approach, this requires the study of the historical context of the origin and publication of these texts, the reconstruction of the main idioms, as well as the identification and interpretation of linguistic gestures and political moves that their authors made. In the course of the study, 19 language versions of the document were comprehensively studied, which allowed us to obtain a holistic picture of the development of Protestant discussions in different linguistic spaces. Through a detailed analysis of the Lausanne Covenant in English and Russian, as well as comparison with other existing translations and the involvement of a wide corpus of auxiliary literature, the author of this paper shows how a formally identical text turns from an ambitious political message into a more neutral confessional declaration. The study has shown that the main distortions in the transfer of the above languages from English-language discussions to Russia are not related to their untranslatability, but mainly to the traditionalist views of the translators and their reluctance to mention issues that are problematic from their point of view.

Lausanne Covenant, History of Concepts, Cambridge School, Universal Priesthood, Lausanne Movement, Political Theology, Protestantism, Practical Theology, Historical Theology, Theoretical Theology