The 19th century was the period of formation of Ossetian literature, one of the first representatives of which was Ivan Yalguzidze (1775-1830). In his work, the main idea was the national revival of the Ossetian people, the path to which he saw in education and friendship with Russia.
Yalguzidze wrote in Georgian. There was a lot in common in the life and work of Temirbolat Mamsurov and Inal Kanukov. Both of them belonged to a privileged class, were educated in Russia, and served in the Russian army.
The writers experienced the tragedy of the resettlement of the highlanders to Turkey, against their will they left Ossetia and lived almost their entire adult lives away from it. Both Mamsurov and Kanukov spoke with pain about the life and suffering of their people. However, many things distinguished them from each other.
Mamsurov expressed the feelings of that part of the Ossetian people who, not of their own free will, left their homeland and ended up in the “same faith” Turkey in the mid-60s of the last century. The settlers in a foreign land suffered a bitter fate. Eleven poems by the poet, dated 1867-1898, have reached us.
They reflect one of the most dramatic moments in the history of the Ossetian people. The poet talks about immigrants who, on their way to the “promised land,” drowned in the sea, died in thousands in the sands of Anatolia, and abandoned hungry children to their fate (“Two Comrades”). Love for the homeland, fear of losing one’s national dignity is the main motive of his work (“Lullaby”, “Thoughts”).
From the standpoint of the old patriarchal freemen, Mamsurov also considered the problem of liberating Ossetia from tsarism. The poet, cut off from his homeland, did not know about the socio-economic and cultural changes that took place there as a result of the end of the Caucasian War and the abolition of serfdom.
These events were not collapse and death, as it seemed to him from a foreign land, but the beginning of a new era in the history of the Ossetian people. Mamsurov is dear to Ossetian culture as a humanist and patriot, as the first poet whose work in his native language found a response among the people.
The exponent of the advanced social ideals of post-reform Ossetia was the poet, publicist, and leading educator Inal Kanukov. In his essays “In an Ossetian village” (1870), “Mountain settlers” (1875), “Notes of a highlander” (1873), in the stories “Two Deaths” (1878), “Theft-Revenge” (1876), in an excerpt from the story “From Ossetian Life” (1876) realistic pictures of the difficult situation of the post-reform Ossetian village were created, changes taking place in the life, worldview and psychology of Ossetians were shown.
The writer for the first time shows the complexity and contradictory nature of the national character of the Ossetian mountaineer, talks about the difficult lot of the Ossetian woman, her powerless position in the family and society, and how he depicts the resettlement of the mountaineers to Turkey as a national disaster.
In Kanukov's work of the 80s and 90s, essays about Siberia and the Far East occupy a prominent place. In them, he examines the problems that worried advanced Russian social thought at that time. Kanukov, speaking about the progressive role of capitalism in the industrial development of Russia, at the same time clearly sees its predatory nature.
His judgments about the fate of the working people of Russia echo the thoughts and statements of G. Uspensky, Shelgunov, Chekhov, Korolenko, Serafimovich, Gorky. Sharply condemning the Russian autocracy, Kanukov, as a typical educator, believed that social evil could be corrected through enlightenment and re-education of people.
In his poems of the 90s, Kanukov talks about the difficult lot of the people (“Yellow Flag”, “In Time of Passion”). Exposes bourgeois society with its cult of Mammon, hypocrisy, inhumanity, moral ugliness (“Is it possible to live?”, “I went out on the road...”, “The Sorrowful Muse,” “Blood and Tears,” etc.). Criticism of the existing system and at the same time the absence of a social ideal, pain for a person and ignorance of the true ways to combat social evil, deeply suffered feelings and traditional, sometimes stereotyped, poetics - these are the contradictory features of Kanukov’s poetry.
The founder of Ossetian literature and the creator of the Ossetian literary language was Kosta Khetagurov (1859-1906), poet and prose writer, playwright and theater figure, artist and publicist, journalist and public figure.
Khetagurov also wrote poems, poems, journalistic articles, and stories in Russian; he wrote the comedy “Dunya” and the historical and ethnographic essay “The Person”. He gained fame as a national poet after the publication of the collection of poems “Ossetian Lyre” (1899).
The poems included in the collection became known long before their publication. They were distributed in lists, orally, they were sung, composing melodies for them. One of her contemporaries wrote to the poet about his enormous popularity: “You are known in every Ossetian home...”
Kosta Khetagurov was born and spent his early childhood in the small village of Nar, in the mountains of the Central Caucasus. He studied at the Vladikavkaz Progymnasium, the Stavropol Gymnasium, and then the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
The poet's worldview was formed under the influence of the revolutionary-democratic traditions of Russian culture.
Returning to his homeland in the mid-80s, Khetagurov was shocked by the appalling poverty and lack of rights of his people, who were on the verge of extinction. His poem “Grief” sounds like a lament for a desecrated homeland: “They bound our bodies with an iron chain, // They give no rest to the dead in the earth. // Our land is desecrated, and the mountains are taken away, // They disgrace us all and beat us with rods” (translation by A. Guluev). The poet mourns the hungry children who cry in the snow-covered huts (“Mother of Orphans”, “Song of the Poor Man”, “Heart of the Poor Man”, “Naughty Man”), about the bitter lot of the Ossetian woman (“Who are you?”, “Mother of Orphans”) .
The hero of the poem “Who Are You?” talks about his childhood as a farm laborer and his lonely, unsettled youth; a young recruit (“Soldier”) complains about the heavy yoke of soldiery; the hero of the poem “Thought” speaks with longing about his slave existence; the mother sings to her son that their life is worse than death and that when he grows up, the fate of his father, exhausted under the weight of backbreaking labor, awaits him (“Lullaby”).
But it was not in the poet’s character only to grieve; by his nature he was a fighter and was looking for a way out. And although in the poem “Look!” the poet, in despair, appeals to Uastirdzhi, the main deity of the Ossetians, his hopes are by no means turned to heaven.
In “Ossetian Lyre,” the theme of a national hero, a defender arises, which sounds either like a bitter regret that “we have so few worthy people” (“Look!”), or as a passionate desire to gather all the people “into a single family” (“Look!” Without a shepherd"), then as a reproach and curse to those who are indifferent to the fate of the people. And a call full of tragedy is heard: “The Motherland is crying and groaning... // Our Leader, hurry to us - we are going to death!” (“Grief”).
Khetagurov himself became the ideological leader of the people. In the struggle for freedom, he saw not only his civic and patriotic duty, but also the highest happiness (“Testament”, “If only!”). Thinking about the future of his homeland, the poet turns to young people, awakening their social and national self-awareness (“Anxiety”, “Marching Song”).
Talking about the exploits of his ancestors, creating images of strong-willed working people, showing a ripening protest against the oppressors (“Soldier”), the poet taught young people to fight social evil. In parables and fables, the artist satirically ridiculed greed and laziness, talkativeness and class arrogance, envy, stupidity and other vices.
His poems about love became a revelation for the stern Ossetian mountaineer, restrained in expressing his emotions.
Kosta Khetagurov
Photo
Khetagurov's poetry was truly folk not only in content, but also in form. His work is organically connected with Ossetian folklore, which the poet knew well and loved from early childhood. On the title page of the collection of his poems there is an inscription in the author’s hand: “Thoughts of the heart, songs, poems and fables.”
The poet creates images of folk singer-storytellers (“Kubady”), reworks the motifs and images of ritual poetry (“At the Cemetery”), writes the poem “Khetag” based on Ossetian tales and legends, draws plots and images from folk songs, fairy tales, proverbs and etc. (“New Year’s Eve”, “Lullaby”, “Mother of Orphans”, “In the Shepherds”, “Deer and the Hedgehog”, “Mad Shepherd”, “Reproach”, “Radish and Honey”, etc.).
The poet’s work in Russian is organically connected with the ideological and thematic content of the “Ossetian Lyre”. His historical and ethnographic essay “Osoba” (1894) is one of the best works on the ethnography of Ossetians. The essay contains rich factual material about the life of Ossetia, the economy, social relations and legal norms of the Ossetian patriarchal-feudal structure. The reader finds in it the same picture of the difficult, joyless life of a toiling mountaineer as in “The Ossetian Lyre.”
According to M. Shaginyan, Khetagurov the publicist was a prominent representative of Chernyshevsky’s school. In poems written in Russian (“In the Storm”, “Song of a Slave”, “To the Death of a Mountain Woman”, “You Can’t Help My Burning with Tears”, etc.), in the story “Hunting for Tours”, poems “Before the Trial” ( 1893), “Fatima” (1889), “Weeping Rock” (1894), the poet develops many themes characteristic of his poetry in the Ossetian language. First of all, this is the theme of the homeland.
The image of the spiritual leader of the “Ossetian Lyre” merges with Nekrasov’s image of the poet-accuser, poet-fighter, singer of freedom in the cycle of poems about the poet (“Last Meeting”, “Muse”, “Don’t Reproach Me”, etc.) and especially in his program in the poem “I am not a prophet,” where the poet openly declares: “... I boldly tell everyone about the truth.”
Selfless service to the homeland and people, love of freedom and humanism was what Costa valued most in Russian writers and great figures of Russian culture (“Before the Monument”, “In Memory of M. Yu. Lermontov”, “In Memory of A. N. Pleshcheev”, “In Memory of A. S. Griboedov”, “In Memory of A. N. Ostrovsky”). He recognizes them as his ideological leaders, learns from them “to be ready to fight for a great, honest cause” against the same “world of slavery, lies, violence and persecution” against which the best people of Russia rebelled.
His poems about love are imbued with Pushkin’s bright humanism. They reflected the personality of the poet - deeply feeling, suffering, ready for self-sacrifice and forgiveness, but at the same time faithful to his high ideals, unable even in the name of love to compromise with his convictions (“Yes, I love her...” , “I understood you...”, “I did everything...”, “Premonition”, “Forgive”, “No fiery prayers...”).
Kosta Khetagurov deeply and comprehensively reflected in his work the historical destinies and life of the Ossetian people, their psychological makeup, moral and cultural image, their dreams and aspirations. He raised his social and artistic consciousness to a new level and made his contribution to world culture.
History of world literature: in 9 volumes / Edited by I.S. Braginsky and others - M., 1983-1984.
Ossetian language(iron æzag) - language. Belongs to the eastern subgroup. Distributed in ( RSO-A) and in . The number of speakers is estimated at 450-500 thousand people, of which in North Ossetia - approx. 300-350 thousand people.
The modern Ossetian language was formed as a result of the mixing of the Iranian-speaking population of the foothills, who had escaped from the invasions of the Tatar-Mongols and into the Central Mountains, with the aboriginal population already living in the area (who presumably spoke the language of the Caucasian linguistic group). As a result, the language was enriched with phenomena unusual for Indo-European languages (glottal consonants), morphology (developed agglutinative case system), and vocabulary (words with obscure etymology and clearly borrowed from the Adyghe, Nakh-Dagestan and Kartvelian languages).
The Ossetian language retains traces of ancient contacts with Turkic, Slavic and Finno-Ugric languages.
Writing
Based on the analysis of the Zelenchuk inscription, it can be assumed that the ancestors of the Ossetians - Caucasian - had writing already in .
The Zelenchuk inscription is characterized by the constancy of the transmission of the same Ossetian sounds by the same Greek signs, which indicates the existence of well-known skills and traditions in this area. ( Gagkaev K. E. Ossetian-Russian grammatical parallels. Dzaudzhikau: 1953. P. 7)
Modern Ossetian writing was created in the city by a Russian philologist of origin. B - was translated into a Latin base, from 1938 in North Ossetia - Russian graphics, in South Ossetia - the Georgian alphabet (s - Russian graphics). When switching to Russian graphics in 1938, a number of symbols of the Sjögren alphabet were replaced ( dz, j, x etc.), of the symbols not included in the Russian alphabet, only the letter remains æ . Letter Æ/æ is an unmistakable determinant of Ossetian texts: of all the Cyrillic alphabets, it is found only in Ossetian.
Dialect division
In Ossetian language there are two - Digorsky(common in the west) and ironic- the differences between them are significant. Speakers of different dialects usually do not understand each other well unless they have sufficient experience communicating in another dialect. Typically, speakers of the Digor dialect (about 1/6 of the speakers) also speak Ironic, but not vice versa.
In the Iron dialect, the dialect of the inhabitants of South Ossetia stands out (the so-called “Kudar” or “Southern”), characterized by regular transitions of consonants ( dz V j etc.) and the quality of the front vowels. In the southern dialects there are more Georgian borrowings, in the northern dialects there are Russian roots in place of the same borrowings (for example, “rose” in the north is called rose, and in the south wardy). The literature describes a more detailed division into dialects, however, in modern conditions, minor differences in the mixed population of cities and large settlements are being leveled out.
Grammar
The Ossetian language is one of the few Indo-European languages that have long existed in the Caucasus. Having experienced the influence of Caucasian and Turkic languages, he was enriched with interesting phenomena that do not exist, for example, in the Russian language. Among these “curiosities”:
- a rich system of agglutinative declension unusual for Iranian languages;
- twentieth count;
- three tenses in the subjunctive mood of the verb;
- absence of active use of postpositions;
Phonology
Morphology
Declension of names (there are 9 or 8 cases, depending on the criteria; rich case system - presumably Caucasian influence) and
“Wer das Dichten will verstehen, Muss ins Land der Dichtung gehen; Wer den Dichter will verstehen, Muss in Dichters Lande gehen" (Goethe, Noten und Abhandlungen zu besserem Verständnis des West-östlichen Divans)
“Costa is a poet who loses so much in translation, regardless of the translator’s rank, that he begins to resemble Antaeus, cut off from mother earth.”
Preliminary notes
It is well known that translating poetic works is an extremely labor-intensive and somewhat thankless task; in the case of Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov (hereinafter Kosta), the matter is further complicated by the fact that he is not only the founder of the modern Ossetian literary language, but also the primary source of the Ossetian artistic tradition, closely related to oral folk culture. As an Ossetian poet, Kosta is original; he “grew up on the soil of folklore and folk language”; when his poems are read in the Ossetian language, continues Dzakhov, “...almost no associations arise with any other poems... the main task of the translator is to transfer the work so that the Russian reader feels the psychological originality of the original.”
In addition, Costa’s poetic works immediately became national property: they very quickly spread throughout the country, they were performed in all corners of Ossetia to the accompaniment of the lyre. It is significant in this regard that in a collection of Ossetian texts published by the Danish scholar A. Christensen on the basis of materials provided to him during the First World War by Ossetian prisoners of war who escaped from a German camp in Denmark, Costa’s poem “Nyfs” is cited as a folk song (chanson populaire), without author's title. A similar fate was shared, several years before him, by the outstanding German Caucasus expert A.M. Dirr, who recorded a poem by Fsata from his informants in Dargavs, which completely coincides with the work of the same name by Costa.
In all this, one cannot neglect the important historical and cultural circumstance that for Costa “Russian literature was a true support in the creation of original works in his native language” 1 .
In any case, when trying to find suitable lexical and linguistic techniques, in fact, you need deep knowledge of the Ossetian language and a special poetic flair, which we, alas, far from possess. In addition, it is also necessary to be able to adequately and artistically convey the form and content of the original using the means of the translating language, not to mention the difficulties associated with the rhythm and syllabic-tonic structure of Ossetian versification, whose tradition was created and firmly established precisely by the poetic work of Costa.
To illustrate the above, let’s take several trivial, but very illustrative cases of a lexical nature found in Russian translations of Costa’s poems 2 .
Autochthonous words and expressions
In the poem “Chi dæ?” – “Who are you?”, for example, appears the Ossetian word ærchhitæ, meaning “mountain shoes (the upper is made of a single piece, the sole is made of intertwined straps that prevent slipping)” (s.v. ærk'ī | ærk'e - see: ; see. Also ).
It is left untranslated and presented in an easily Russified cover in all Russian translations written by E. Blaginina, A. Akhmatova 3 and L. Ozerov:
Ossetian original
Nymæt thin, ærchhitæ,
Mæ ronbast – uærdækh...
Farsys ma mæ: chi dæ?
Uæd baykhus dæbækh!..
Translation by L. Ozerov
Archita, worries
Unbearable day.
He asked me: who are you? –
So listen to me.
Translation by A. Akhmatova
I wear archita
And my belt is a rod,
But who am I, listen
Pay attention here.
Another translation by A. Akhmatova
Belted with a rod,
I wear Archita...
And who am I? Well, listen -
Please pay attention. (; see also )
In E. Blaginina’s translation, in the archita form, the Russian plural ending in -ы is striking, while A. Akhmatova and L. Ozerov give the Ossetian lexeme in the form (neuter?), which is phonetically closer to the original:
Translation by E. Blaginina
My twig belt
Archits are simple.
Find out about me
Are you curious?
The preservation of the Ossetian lexeme is explained not only by the lack of lexical correspondence in the Russian language, but, perhaps, also by the desire to give the translation a national flavor of the source text. It should be borne in mind that the Russian language, thanks to its special, historically determined role as a means of interethnic communication (lingua franca) of the pre-revolutionary and Soviet space, has always been very receptive to the languages of other peoples living in the North Caucasus and adjacent territories .
There is no need to point out that such a decision, if translated into Italian, would be very difficult; we only note that the author of the Hungarian translation of 2009 (Kakuk Mátyás), unlike his Russian predecessors, chose the more neutral term bakancs.
In the poem “Chi dæ?” The problem of love between representatives of different social classes is presented. Christopher Dzhioev, the first reviewer of the “Ossetian Lyra,” briefly outlined the content of the poem in his report sent on October 25, 1898 to the trustee of the Caucasian educational district: “An orphan, fed at the mercy of one compassionate woman, endures a lot of hardships in the fight against poverty. Finally, thanks to incredible hard work and sobriety, he achieves complete material well-being and wants to marry the same girl. The parents, contrary to the wishes of the girl herself, do not agree to marry their daughter to a rootless man. At the end of the poem, this young man with pain in his heart says: “I am a lonely, bitter orphan!”
The word “uzden” (mountain nobleman in the Caucasus) is a foreign language borrowing of Turkic origin (s.v. uzden - see:). As noted by V.I. Abaev, “in feudal Ossetia, the wæzdans occupied a middle position between the Aldar princes, on the one hand, and simple peasants, on the other... After the Mongol invasions with their catastrophic consequences for Ossetia (Alania), class differences lost their former meaning. But right up to the revolution, in each of the gorges of Ossetia there were several families that claimed the title of wæzdan and enjoyed certain privileges recognized by the tsarist authorities” (s.v. wæzdan | wezdon - see: ; see also: ).
As in the previous case, with the Russian lexeme uzden we are talking about a phonetically adapted borrowing, giving the translation a certain “exotic” force:
Translation by A. Akhmatova
Don't ask who I am?
After all, I am not a bridle.
I'm not one of the handsome guys
At least dress in silk.
Translation by L. Ozerov
Don't ask who I am.
It's clear as day -
And I won’t hide this, -
That I'm not reined in.
In E. Blaginina’s translation, on the contrary, the more understandable term “nobleman” appears:
Translation by E. Blaginina
Don't ask - who are you?
- I'm not one of the nobles...
And I'm not handsome, -
My figure is ordinary.
The same is found in the Hungarian translation, which uses the usual term nemes to designate a nobleman: nem vadyok nemes.
Let us now move on to the area of phraseology. Describing the rude, cunning and insidious character of the bride’s father, who with all his might resists the groom’s matchmaking, the poet resorts to a figurative comparison with the famous hero of the Nart epic named Syrdon, who is distinguished by “cunning, resourcefulness and wit, but also by evil tongue and a tendency to all sorts of intrigues. His poisoned tongue sowed enmity and discord everywhere” (s.v. Syrdon |
Sirdon – see: ; see also: ):
Ossetian original
Mæguyr lægmæ – shjældzyrd,
Ænæbarvæsson;
Khubæsty – khædy syrd,
Khædzary – Syrdon.
The mention of the Nart hero is preserved in the translations of A. Akhmatova and L. Ozerov, despite the obvious fact that “understandable for a reader familiar with the Nart epic, the mention in Syrdon’s poem does not mean anything to a person who does not know the heroes of Nartiada. However, the venerable translators did not look for an adequate replacement for Syrdon, obviously assuming that an inquisitive reader, if desired, could find out about who is named in Kosta Khetagurov’s poem":
Translation by A. Akhmatova
Proud before the poor
And he is closed
Rude to neighbors
And at home - Syrdon.
Another translation by A. Akhmatova
And proud and arrogant
He is before the poor;
He's rude to his neighbors
And at home - Syrdon.
Translation by L. Ozerov
He's arrogant
Always with a farmhand.
Syrdon and the beast
He entered his house.
In the translation by E. Blaginina, who completely abandoned the search for a suitable equivalent in the Slavic mythological tradition, the Russian colloquial word madcap is used:
This old man is evil
He lives by pride.
In the village he is a beast,
And the family is crazy.
The Hungarian translator left aside the problem of adequate translation of the phraseological unit: A lányom nem adom – szólt fennhéjázón, i.e. “I won’t give you my daughter,” he said arrogantly.
Costa, moreover, uses an etymological play on words, since the personal name Syrdon is derived from the noun syrd, meaning “beast”; such a play on words, based on the word-formation relationship between the original and derived words, cannot be translated into another language.
Here, however, a more significant question arises about the transfer of the personal name Syrdon. There is no point in leaving it as in the original, since the average Italian reader is unlikely to be familiar with the Nart epic, and, therefore, will not be able to understand the clear hint at the purely negative qualities of the father of the bride. In our opinion, in order to provide the passage with its inherent brightness and expressiveness, it is necessary to replace the Nart hero with a figure from ancient mythology closer to Western culture. An elegant way out of the translation impasse could be functional identification
Syrdona with the three-headed dog Cerberus, causing a similar negative association.
At this stage, the search for a lexically and stylistically suitable equivalent goes beyond the scope of our more modest, but nevertheless important task: to make the text of the “Ossetian Lyre” accessible to Western readers who do not speak Russian. Despite the insurmountable difficulties that we constantly encountered in reading and analyzing texts, we made the bold decision to voice some preliminary conclusions arising from our joint work in recent years. First, we will present the initial draft of a complete translation of the Ossetian Lyre into German, then we will move on to presenting a new version of the publication and, in conclusion, we will draw some general conclusions.
Initial draft
The material is presented in three-line format. The top line contains Ossetian text in modern spelling; in the middle line, in a smaller font, Latin transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet is used, and the text is divided into morphological units, provided, in the third and last line, with a morphemic lexical and grammatical annotation; The principles of glossing and abbreviation basically follow the Leipzig system of rules:
Skolai læppu – Der Schüler
Der Schüler
Wessen Sohn bist du?
Jeden Tag bin ich dort.
(die Buchstaben) A-B,
Oft schreibe ich
(die Buchstaben) B-V,
When translating into German, we compared the resulting text with Russian and Russian-German translations taken from the dictionaries of V.I. Abaeva (1958, 1973, 1979, 1989) and V.F. Miller (1927, 1929, 1934). They quite often contain individual expressions or even entire passages from the “Ossetian Lyre”. We often turned to these literal translations in order to check and, if necessary, clarify or correct our translation. Sometimes we discovered inaccuracies in the translation available in Miller's dictionary:
(Poem “Nyfs”, quoted from: .)
German working translation: Selten entspricht der Sohn dem Wunsch seines Vaters; wer in seiner Jugend Fehler begeht, (der) ist (als Erwachsener) nicht schlecht.
Miller's erroneous translation: bad is not wrong in youth / der Schlechte irrt nicht in seiner Jugend (s.v. rædīіn – see: .
Correct translation by Abaev:“Whoever makes mistakes in youth is not bad (in adulthood)” (s.v. rædyjyn - see:).
Similar cases in Miller’s dictionary confirm to a certain extent the correctness of Abaev’s harsh criticism of A.A.’s editorial work. Freyman: “Noted by V.I. Abaev, the shortcomings in the two published volumes of the “Ossetian-Russian-German Dictionary” deserve attention, but the verdict passed by the reviewer seems too harsh” 5 .
New translation option
An important event in the study of the “Ossetian Lyra” was the recently published publication by T.A. Guriev, which offers an English translation of several poems from Costa’s collection, notable for its closeness to the Ossetian original. As the title of the book itself suggests, literal (interlinear) translation, according to the author’s intention, serves as a convenient means of interpreting each individual word of the Ossetian original; Therefore, we decided to take advantage of this happy opportunity by easily changing our own publishing concept.
According to the new publishing concept, the left column contains the Ossetian text (in the modern Cyrillic alphabet), the right column contains the English translation, line by line, according to Guriev’s edition; below is a translation into Italian, which makes no claim to poetic merit. At the very end, the Ossetian text is once again offered, but in Latin transliteration, with an English interlinear gloss, which basically coincides lexically with Guriev’s English translation. Thus, the text can be perceived by different users at different levels and for different purposes:
Nystuan
Nybbar myn, kæd-iu dæm mæ zaræg,
Kæægau fækæsa, miyag,–
Kæy zærdæ næ agury kharæg,
Uyy zaræd yæhi fændiag!..
Æz dzillaæyæ kaddær kuy darin,
Kuy bafidin iskuy mæ hæs,
Uæd aftæ ænkyardæy næ sarin,
Næ khuysid mæ kæyn hælæs...
Request
Forgive me if my song
Sounds (will sound) like a dirge.
Whose heart doesn't want weeping
May sing to his heart's content.
Where my duties are less to the people,
Were I able to pay my debt, –
Then I'd not sing so sadly,
My tearful voice wouldn't be heard...
Testamento
Perdonami, se il mio canto
ti pare, forse, un lamento, –
chi nel cuore non cerca il pianto
canti pure a suo piacimento!
Se dovessi meno alla (mia) gente,
se mai potessi il mio debito pagare,
non si udrebbe la mia voce gemente,
(e) le mie note non suonerebbero
amare...
conclusions
So, our main goal is to provide the Italian public and all those interested in Ossetian culture and language with an opportunity to become more familiar with the masterpiece of world literature, the poetic encyclopedia of the life of the Ossetian people, the treasure of ancient folk tradition, which is Costa’s “Ossetian Lyre”.
The literal translation into English and Italian allows deeper insight into the text, while the interlinear gloss can be used for linguistic analysis or even for didactic purposes.
Here it is worth emphasizing once again the dual role of the Russian language: on the one hand, it serves as a key-passepartout, with the help of which a huge cultural space is opened, which usually eludes the field of view of specialists in Russian culture, who, as a rule, are not very interested in studying “ peripheral" phenomena; on the other hand, precisely because of its intermediary role, the Russian language becomes an obstacle to the direct and immediate perception of other cultures and languages, which are reflected more or less clearly in the Russian mirror.
The Italian translation, we hope, will fill such a gap, freeing, so to speak, the perception of Ossetian culture from the beneficial, but at the same time restrictive influence of the Russian language.
When we began to read and translate the “Ossetian Lyre,” we pursued the goal of studying the grammar of the Ossetian language using the example of specific and representative texts. As we worked, we became more and more aware of the narrow scope of the original plan, which now needs to be expanded and enriched in terms of cultural space, with the addition of introductory notes about the origin and content of each poem. At the moment, our contribution to the study of the work of the great Ossetian poet is too modest and limited; we are still far from completing the main tasks set by Dzakhov:
a) accurate transmission of meaning;
b) transfer of the figurative system of national originality of Costa’s poems;
c) accurately finding matches to idiomatic expressions and idiomatic phraseology;
d) transfer of sound recordings of Costa’s poems;
e) compliance with equirhythm, equilinearity and stanza of the “Ossetian Lyre”.
However, we hope that our concept will continue to develop and constantly improve, “iu abonæy innæ abonmæ.” This is probably a matter of the foreseeable future.
1. In Stalin’s time, when the culture of the Ossetian and other peoples of the former tsarist empire, national in form and socialist in content, was persistently created or developed, “the ideological and artistic connection of Kosta Khetagurov with the best representatives of the Russian people” was constantly emphasized (from the speech of A.A. Fadeev at the anniversary celebrations in 1939, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the poet’s birth (quoted from: ; see also: ).
2. A brief overview of Kosta Khetagurova’s translators is offered by M.L. Chibirova.
3. For the first time, she pointed out the existence of different versions of Akhmatova’s translation (; regarding the translation activity of A. Akhmatova in relation to the poem “Chi dæ”, see also:). I take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to F. Naifonova, who provided me with enormous, invaluable and selfless assistance in organizing my first and unforgettable trip to Vladikavkaz in 2006 (V.T.)
4. At the same time, we must not forget about the importance of studying the author’s version (handwritten autograph), free from editorial changes, as A.A. convincingly showed. Tuallagov when analyzing the poem “Salam”.
5. It is curious that Ossetian studies have not yet paid due attention to either A.A.’s remark. Freiman, nor to the even more pointed response of V.I. himself. Abaev a few years later. An attempt to interpret Abaev’s sharp criticism of Freiman within the framework of the epistemological discourse of Soviet science in the thirties, when there was a fierce struggle between adherents of Marrism and representatives of the traditional school of comparative linguistics, was made by one of the authors (see:).
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1. Dzhusoity N. Kosta Khetagurov // Kosta Khetagurov. Poems and poems. Introductory article, compilation, preparation of text and notes by N. Dzhusoity. L., 1976. P. 5-48.
2. Epkhiev T. About the work of Kosta Khetagurov (Preface to the publication) // K. Khetagurov. Collection Op. in 3 volumes. M., 1951. T. I. Iron fændyr / Ossetian lyre. pp. 5-58.
3. Salagaeva Z.M. Kosta Khetagurov and Ossetian folk art. Ordzhonikidze, 1959.
4. Dzakhov I.M. On the translations of Costa’s “Ossetian Lyre”. Vladikavkaz, 1996.
5. Abaev V.I. Ossetian national poet Kosta Khetagurov // Selected works. Vladikavkaz, 1990. T. I. Religion, folklore, literature. pp. 542-551.
6. Khadartseva A. Creative history of the “Ossetian lyre”. Ordzhonikidze, 1955.
7. Dzasokhov G. Kosta Khetagurov. Critical-biographical essay. Poems. Letters and memories. Documents for the biography. Portraits. Rostov-on-Don, 1909.
8. Khetagurov K.L. Collection Op. in five volumes. M., 1959. T. I. Iron fændyr / Ossetian lyre.
9. Christensen A. Textes ossètes, recueillis par Arthur Christensen avec un vocabulaire. København, 1921.
10. Temirbolatova A.I. Problems of language policy and language construction in the North Caucasus (based on the manuscripts of the archive fund R-1260 of the State Archives of the Stavropol Territory - “North Caucasus Mountain Historical-Linguistic Research Institute named after S.M. Kirov” (1926-1937). Stavropol, 2012.
11. Sabaev S.B. K.L. Khetagurov and Russian literature. Ordzhonikidze, 1989.
12. Kosta Khetagurov: [website]. . URL: http://hetagurov.ru/po_kosta/perevody/if/ir_mag/ (access date: 07/13/2013).
13. Karginova-Kaitukova S.N. The fate of the mountain woman in the poems “The Weeping Rock”, “Before the Judgment”, “Fatima” // Bulletin of the Vladikavkaz Scientific Center. 2009. Vol. 9, 5. pp. 54-59.
14. Chibirova M.L. On the history of literary translation in Ossetian literary criticism // Questions of literature and folklore: Collection of scientific articles. Vladikavkaz, 2010. Issue. IV. pp. 158-175.
15. Abaev V.I. Historical and etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M.-L., 1958. T. I.
16. Nayfonova F. Anna Akhmatova - translations from Ossetian poetry [electronic resource]. URL: http://byloe.h1.ru/anna_ahmatova.shtml (access date: 07/10/2013).
17. Tomelleri V.S. Anna Achmatova and K'osta Chetagurov. La genesi del testo poetico. 2014. (in print)
18. Khetægkaty Kosta. Uatsmysty æhhæst æmbyrdgond fondz tomæy. Dzædzhikhæu, 1999. Fizzag vol.
19. Ossetian literature. M., 1952.
20. Akhmatova A. Collected works. M., 2005. T. 8. Translations. 1950-1960s.
21. Khetagurov K.L. Selected Poems. M., 1939.
22. Bigulaeva I.S. Pora Dzhioev is the first censor of Kosta Khetagurov’s collection “Iron fændyr”. Vladikavkaz, 1999.
23. Vasmer M. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language: In 4 volumes / Transl. from German and additions by corresponding member. USSR Academy of Sciences O.N. Trubachev. Moscow, 1987. T. IV.
24. Abaev V.I. Historical and etymological dictionary of the Russian language. L., 1989. T. IV.
25. Khodarkovsky M. Of Christianity, enlightenment, and colonialism: Russia in the North Caucasus // The journal of modern history. 1999. Vol. 71, 2. P. 394-430.
26. Abaev V.I. Historical and etymological dictionary of the Russian language. L., 1979. T. III.
27. Abaev V.I. Ossetian Nart epic // Selected works. Vladikavkaz, 1990. T. I. Religion, folklore, literature. pp. 142-242.
28. Dumezil J. Ossetian epic and mythology. M., 1976.
29. Abisalova R.N. Allusions to the Nart epic in the works of Kosta Khetagurov // Materials of the International Anniversary Scientific Conference “Russia and the Caucasus”, dedicated to the 235th anniversary of the annexation of Ossetia to Russia, the 150th anniversary of the birth of K.L. Khetagurova, 225th anniversary of the founding of the city of Vladikavkaz (Vladikavkaz, October 6-7, 2009). Vladikavkaz, 2010. pp. 140-147.
30. Tuallagov A.A. Vsevolod Fedorovich Miller and Ossetian studies. Vladikavkaz, 2010.
31. Miller V.F. Ossetian-Russian-German dictionary / Ed. and with additional A.A. Freyman. L., 1929. T. II.
32. Abaev V.I. Historical and etymological dictionary of the Russian language. L., 1973. T. II.
33. Abaev V.I. Review of Miller's dictionary 1927 and 1929 // Language and thinking. 1934. Issue. 2. From 169-173.
34. Guriev T.A. From the history of Ossetian linguistics // Problems of Ossetian linguistics / Iron æzagzonynady farstatæ. Ordzhonikidze, 1987. Vol. 2. P. 3-22.
35. Freiman A.A. About the Ossetian dictionary // News of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Department of Social Sciences. Vol. 3. pp. 297-304.
36. Abaev V.I. Review of Miller's dictionary 1934 // News of the South Ossetian Institute of Language, Literature and History. 1941. Issue. 4. pp. 246-261.
37. Tomelleri V.S. V.I. Abaev control A.A. Frejman. Un paragrafo di storia della linguistica sovietica fra lessicografia osseta e ideologia // Rivista italiana di linguistica e dialettologia. 2013. Vol. 15. (in print).
38. Guriev T.A. Kosta. Selected poems, interlinear translations by T.A. Guriev. Vladikavkaz, 2009.
The famous Ossetian poet Kosta Khetagurov, whose biography is given in this article, lived and worked at the end of the 19th century. He was also a journalist, playwright and painter. He is considered the founder of all Ossetian literature.
The meaning of the poet's work
Kosta Khetagurov, whose biography is full of interesting facts, was born in 1859 in the mountain village of Nar in North Ossetia.
He is the recognized founder of the Ossetian literary language. For this people it has the same significance as Alexander Pushkin for Russian literature.
His first famous collection was published in 1899. It was called "Ossetian Lyre". For the first time in history, poems for children written in the Ossetian language were published there.
At the same time, Kosta Khetagurov wrote a lot in other languages. The biography of the poet is also interesting to Russian people, since he composed many works in Russian. He actively collaborated with periodicals in the North Caucasus. His essay on ethnography entitled “Person” was very popular.
The first Ossetian poet
It’s worth mentioning right away that the leadership of this Ossetian poet has been disputed more than once. A short biography of Kosta Khetagurov contains information that the first major poetic work in Ossetian was published by Alexander Kubalov. He was 12 years younger than Khetagurov.
In 1897, Alexander wrote the poem "Afhardty of Hasan." This work is close in spirit and style to folklore and oral folk art. It is dedicated to the custom of blood feud, popular among mountain peoples. Moreover, in the poem this tradition is condemned. For many years, this particular work was considered the best of what was written in the Ossetian language.
Kubalov was a representative of Ossetian romanticism. Translated poems by Byron and Lermontov. His fate ended suddenly and tragically. In 1937, during the period of Stalinist repressions, he was arrested. It is believed that he died in custody in 1941.
At the same time, Kosta Khetagurov officially remains the main Ossetian writer. His biography proves that he made a significantly greater contribution to the further development of Ossetian literature.
Khetagurov's childhood
The biography of Kosta Khetagurov originates in the family of ensign of the Russian army Levan Elizbarovich Khetagurov. The hero of our article practically does not remember his mother. Maria Gubaeva died shortly after giving birth. A relative of his father, Chendze Dzeparova, was involved in raising the boy.
Five years after his wife’s death, Kosta Khetagurov’s father brought a new woman into the house. The poet's biography briefly tells about his stepmother, who was the daughter of a local priest and did not love her adopted son. Therefore, the boy spoke coldly about his father’s new wife and often ran away from home to distant relatives with whom he had more sincere relationships.
Poet's education
Kosta Khetagurov is extremely popular in his homeland. The biography in Ossetian tells in detail what kind of education the hero of our article received.
He went to school in his native village of Nar. Soon he moved to Vladikavkaz, where he began studying at a gymnasium. In 1870, together with his father, he moved to the Kuban region with the capital in Ekaterinodar (today it is Krasnodar). Levan Khetagurov transported the entire Nar Gorge to Kuban; he was the leader of the local Ossetian dynasty. In the new place, the settlers founded the village of Georgievsko-Ossetinskoye. Today it is renamed in honor of Khetagurov Jr.
The biography of Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov contains one surprising fact. Somehow he missed his father so much that he ran away to him from Vladikavkaz to a distant Kuban village. After this, his father was only able to place him in the elementary village school in Kalandzhinsk. And even with great difficulty.
In 1871, Costa entered the provincial gymnasium in Stavropol. Here he studied for ten years. Several of the poet's early texts have reached us from this period of his life. The poem "Vera", written in Russian, and two poetic experiences in Ossetian - "New Year" and "Husband and Wife".
Success in creativity
The biography of Kosta Khetagurov in Ossetian tells how his artistic talent was appreciated back in the early 1880s. In 1881 he was accepted into the prestigious Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. He studied with the master of genre and portrait painting Pavel Chistyakov.
However, my studies were not entirely successful. Two years later, he was deprived of his scholarship, leaving him practically without a livelihood. He had to leave the academy and soon return to Ossetia.
Khetagurov begins to live permanently in Vladikavkaz. Until 1891 he created most of his famous texts. Mainly in Ossetian language. Published in the all-Russian and local press, in particular, in the newspaper "North Caucasus", which was published in Stavropol.
Link
What else is Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov known for? His biography is similar to the story of Pushkin. Both are considered the founders of the literary language of their people, both were sent into exile for their excessively freedom-loving poems.
The hero of our article ended up in exile in 1891. He was expelled from Ossetia. By 1895 he settled in Stavropol. At the newspaper "Northern Caucasus" he published his own collection of essays in Russian.
Illness and death
In those same years, doctors gave Khetagurov a disappointing diagnosis - tuberculosis. He undergoes two operations. In 1899 he arrived at the place of official exile in Kherson. He feels very bad in the local climate and constantly complains of dust and stuffiness. And also because there is no one to communicate with here, it is impossible to meet a single intelligent person. According to Khetagurov, there are only traders and merchants on the streets.
In this regard, he asks to be transferred to Odessa. They refuse him this, agreeing to let him go to Ochakov. This is a town in the Nikolaev region (Ukraine). Khetagurov finds refuge in the family of fisherman Osip Danilov. He is captivated by the sea, which is already visible from the windows of the hut. During these months, the hero of our article only regrets that he did not take paints with him to capture the beauty of these places.
In Ochakov, he hears rumors that his collection “Ossetian Lyre” has been published in his homeland. True, not in the form in which it was expected. The tsarist censors could not allow these poems to be published as they were. As a result, many texts were shortened or changed beyond recognition, others were not included in the collection of poems at all. The censors were confused by their revolutionary content.
Khetagurov's condition did not improve. Including due to the fact that his period of stay in Ochakov ended and he had to return to Kherson, which he hated.
In December 1899, the exile was finally lifted. Faced with transport problems, Costa left Kherson only in March of the following year. To begin with, he stopped in Pyatigorsk, and then moved to Stavropol to resume publication of the newspaper "North Caucasus".
A serious illness struck Khetagurov in 1901. She prevented him from finishing his important poems - "Khetag" and "Weeping Rock". At the end of the year he moved to Vladikavkaz. Here his health deteriorated sharply, and Kosta found himself bedridden.
All of Khetagurov’s friends and acquaintances noted that all his life he cared little about himself and his well-being. Only at the end of his life he tried to start a family and build a house, but he didn’t succeed.
On April 1, 1906, he died in the village of Georgievsko-Ossetinskoye, struck down by a serious illness and constant persecution by the authorities. Later, at the insistence of the Ossetian people, his ashes were transported and reburied in Vladikavkaz.
Key works
Khetagurov wrote the first major work that made critics and readers pay attention to the young writer while he was studying at the Academy of Arts. It was the play "Late Dawn", and a little later another dramatic work was published - "The Attic". True, contemporaries noted that both plays were not perfect in their artistic form. This was one of the author's first literary experiences.
In "Late Dawn" the aspiring artist Boris is in the foreground. He is young, progressive and even revolutionary. He decides to devote his life to the liberation of the people. For this reason, he even rejects his beloved, explaining his choice by the fact that he wants to serve the people. To do this, he seeks to leave St. Petersburg to work exclusively for the common good. His fiancée Olga tries to dissuade her lover, considering the dream of universal equality to be a utopian nonsense. Olga convinces Boris that it is his duty to serve society with his talents. At the end of the play, Boris still leaves the city on the Neva. He goes to the people.
"Mother of Orphans"
To understand the problems of Khetagurov’s lyrics, the poem “Mother of Orphans” from the collection “Ossetian Lyre” is well suited. This is a vivid example of Ossetian poetry performed by Costa.
In the text, he describes one of the ordinary evenings of a simple mountain woman with many children, who remained a widow. She is a native of his native village of Nar.
In the evening, a woman has to tinker with a fire while five hungry and barefoot children frolic around her. The mother's only consolation is that very soon dinner will be ready, for which everyone will receive their portion of beans. Instead, exhausted and tired children fall asleep without even waiting for food. The mother cries because she knows that in the end they will all die.
This work clearly shows the poverty and deprivation in which ordinary Ossetians live. This was one of the main themes of Khetagurov’s work.
Very big changes have taken place in the field of healthcare. In pre-revolutionary Ossetia, medical care was received mainly by representatives of the privileged classes. Caring for the health of the people was left to healers, self-taught doctors and all kinds of charlatans who robbed the working people. In 1913, throughout South Ossetia there was only one medical center and one private pharmacy in the town of Tskhinvali.
Under Soviet rule, healthcare was put at the service of the people. A large number of medical and sanitary institutions have been created to serve the population free of charge. Medical stations and paramedic and obstetric centers are open in the most remote corners of mountain gorges. Thanks to the good organization of medical care and a radical improvement in the working and living conditions of the population, the incidence of tuberculosis, malaria and other previously common diseases has sharply decreased and smallpox, cholera, etc. have been completely eliminated.
The growth of healthcare in North Ossetia can be clearly demonstrated by the example of the city of Mozdok, where before the revolution there was not a single medical institution. Currently, there is a hospital with 250 beds, a clinic, tuberculosis and children's hospitals, women's and children's clinics, a maternity hospital, a physiotherapy clinic, an orphanage, a sanitary-epidemiological station, an outpatient clinic. About 200 medical workers in the city have higher and secondary specialized education.
On the territory of South Ossetia in 1958 there were 21 hospitals with 670 beds, 12 outpatient clinics, 3 paramedic stations, 5 maternity hospitals, 2 sanitary-epidemiological stations and other medical institutions. Medical personnel have grown accordingly. If in 1922 there were only 6 doctors and 10 paramedical personnel in the region, then in 1958 there were 178 doctors and 642 paramedical personnel.
A large number of rest houses and sanatoriums have been created in the republic and in the region, some of which are of all-Union importance; such, for example, is the South Ossetian resort of Dzau, founded in 1930, famous for its mineral springs.
Folklore and literature
For centuries, the Ossetian people have created works of oral folk art: epic tales, fairy tales, songs, proverbs, riddles. Nart legends, the oldest epic of the Caucasian peoples, occupy a large place in Ossetian folklore. Ossetian Nart tales are unique and rich in content. They were formed over many centuries and reflected the change in socio-economic formations - from the primitive communal system to feudalism inclusive. Nart legends reflect the economic and social way of life, customs, beliefs and other aspects of Ossetian life. The mythological ideas of the people also played a certain role in the formation of these legends.
Nart tales glorify the courage and love of freedom of the people, devotion to their homeland, man’s perseverance in the fight against the elements of nature, etc.
The collection and study of the Ossetian Nart epic was started by the Ossetian intelligentsia (V. Tsoraev, the Shanaev brothers, etc.) in the 60s of the 19th century; Pre-revolutionary Russian scientists (academicians V. Miller, A. Schiffner, etc.) made a great contribution to this matter. However, only in Soviet times was systematic work undertaken to record, systematize, study and publish the Nart epic. North Ossetian and South Ossetian Research Institutes published in 1925-1930. collections of Nart tales (“Monuments of Ossetian Folk Art”) in two dialects of the Ossetian language and in Russian.
Later, government committees were created in North and South Ossetia, which, together with research institutes, carried out enormous work in the villages of Ossetia to record Nart tales and prepare the epic for publication.
In 1946, a consolidated text of Nart tales in the Ossetian language was published in North Ossetia, and then expositions of Nart tales were published in prose and verse in Ossetian and Russian. In 1954 (to mark the 30th anniversary of the autonomy of North Ossetia), a consolidated text of Nart tales was published in Ossetian and Russian.
In South Ossetia, a consolidated text of Nart legends was published in 1942 in the Ossetian language, and in 1957 it was published in Russian translation by the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In the coming years, an academic publication of the Ossetian Nart epic in several volumes is expected. Russian scientists and writers take an active part in the work of collecting, translating and publishing Nart tales.
Ossetians have a rich musical folklore. There are a variety of folk songs: labor songs, related to agriculture, cattle breeding and hunting, heroic, historical, everyday, ritual, lyrical, etc. Many * folk songs were created in Soviet times - songs about V.I. Lenin and the Communist Party, about the heroics of the civil war , about socialist construction, about a new collective farm village. During the Great Patriotic War, songs arose dedicated to the heroic struggle of the peoples of the USSR against the Nazi invaders. Dance melodies also occupy an important place in folk music.
The best works and traditions of oral folk art had a great influence on the development of Ossetian literature, the emergence of which dates back to the 19th century.
Writing in the Ossetian language has existed since the end of the 18th century. based on the Church Slavonic alphabet. In 1798, the first book in the Ossetian language, “Elementary teaching by a person who wants to study the books of divine scripture,” was printed using this alphabet.
In South Ossetia, attempts were made to create an Ossetian script based on the Georgian alphabet. One of the initiators of this was Ivan Yalguzidze, a famous Ossetian educator of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, author of the poem “Alguziani”.
In the 40s of the XIX century. Russian scientist academician Andrei Shegren compiled a more advanced alphabet of the Ossetian language than before, based on the Russian civil alphabet, and wrote “Ossetian Grammar”. Sjogren's grammar was of great importance for the spread of literacy and the development of Ossetian writing. The modern Ossetian alphabet is also built on the basis of Russian graphics. Under the influence of the Russian* language, the Ossetian language, especially its vocabulary, is developing and enriching.
The creator of the Ossetian literary language and the founder of fiction was a revolutionary democrat, a follower of the great Russian revolutionary democrats, Kosta Levanovich Khetagurov (1859-1906), a native of the villages. Nar in mountainous Ossetia. K. Khetagurov is not only an outstanding poet, prose writer and publicist, but also a talented artist, the founder of national painting. K. Khetagurov studied in Russian educational institutions and wrote in Ossetian and Russian. The formation of him as a poet was greatly influenced by the classics of Russian literature A. S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov, N. A. Nekrasov, as well as Ossetian folk art. The poet’s deep love for powerful Russian literature is evidenced by such poems as “In Memory of A. S. Griboyedov”, “In Memory of A. N. Ostrovsky” and others.
Most of K. Khetagurov’s works are devoted to the life of working mountaineers, their struggle against the exploiting classes. The poet boldly exposed the colonialist policies of the autocracy and the predatory exploitation of the people by the local feudal nobility and the Russian bourgeoisie. The tsarist government persecuted K. Khetagurov for revolutionary activities; he was repeatedly expelled outside his native land.
With his literary and social activities, K. Khetagurov contributed to a closer rapprochement between the Ossetian people and the great Russian people. The influence of K. Khetagurov on Ossetian literature is enormous; young Ossetian poets and writers were and are being educated on his works. The literary heritage of K. Khetagurov became the property of the entire Soviet people. His works have been translated into 13 languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Georgian, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Kabardian, etc. Kosta Khetagurov’s traditions were continued by Ossetian writers S. Gadiev, B. Gurzhibekov, A. Kotsoev, R. Kochisova, Ts. Gadiev, E. Britaev, Niger (I. Dzhanaev), etc.
Modern Ossetian literature is part of multinational Soviet literature. It develops under the beneficial influence of Russian literature and the best examples of literature of other fraternal peoples. During Soviet times, all literary genres developed in Ossetia - fiction, poetry, drama. Two literary magazines are published in the Ossetian language: in North Ossetia “Makh Dug” (“Our Epoch”), in South Ossetia “Khurzarin” (“Sunshine”), as well as the almanacs “Soviet Ossetia”, “Pioneer”, etc.
The best works of Ossetian writers are widely known. In recent years alone, more than 20 collections of Ossetian literature and books by individual authors have been published in Moscow in Russian. A. Tokaev's play “Grooms” is staged in many cities of the Soviet Union. In turn, Ossetian writers translate works of Russian writers and writers of other nations into their native language.
