Vsevolod Bagno
Born: 1951
Quick Study: Vsevolod Bagno is a distinguished literary scholar and translator of Spanish literature, director of the Institute of Russian Literature (aka the Pushkin House, a constituent institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences specializing in literature), editor-in-chief of the journal Russkaya literatura, and member of several Russian Federation cultural committees and councils.
The Bagno File: Bagno studied Spanish language and literature at Leningrad State University and wrote his two dissertations at the Pushkin House, eventually becoming that eminent institution’s director. He went on to produce an extensive body of scholarship on Russian literature, Spanish literature, and the cultural and literary connections between the two. He is also a professor at Saint Petersburg State University and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He has translated poetry, prose, and drama from Spanish, Catalan, English, and French (including Francisco de Quevedo, José Ortega y Gasset, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar, Germain Nouveau, Ramon Llull, and John Keats); edited editions of collected works of Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, and Julio Cortázar in Russian translation; and since 2001 has periodically released collections of punning, paradoxical aphorisms entitled Pod absurdinku (a play on words combining the meanings of “muted,” “on the sly,” and “absurd”).
Bagno’s myriad other services, duties, and positions include:
- Editor-in-chief, Russkaya literatura
- Member, Zvezda Community Council
- Member, Big Book Prize Community Council
- Member, Read Russia Prize jury
- Member, International Association of Cervantes Scholars
- President, St. Petersburg Cervantes Fund
- Member, St. Petersburg Writer’s Union
- Member, Supervisory Board of the Institute of Translation
- Member, Russian Language Support, Conservation, and Development Advisory Board of the Federation Council’s Committee on Education and the Sciences
- Member, Ministry of Culture’s Science and Innovation Committee
- Member, St. Petersburg Mayor’s Committee on Cultivating Language
- Board Member, Likhachev Fund
- Member, Supervisory Board for the Humanities for the Russian State University of the Humanities
- Member, St. Petersburg State University Federal Funds Committee (evaluates university faculty research proposals that request federal funds)
- Co-Chairperson of the committee on Connections and Cultural Relations between Russia, Spain, and Latin America of the Russian Academy of Science’s Research Council on the History of Global Culture
- Deputy Chairperson of the Editorial Board of the series “Literary Monuments” (releases academic editions of important literary works from around the world)
- Chairperson of the Editorial Board of the 35-volume Complete Collected Works of Dostoyevsky
- Member, Editorial Board of the Complete Collected Works of Pushkin
Psssst….........: Bagno was granted the Spanish Order of Isabella the Catholic (Officer of the Cross) in recognition of his dedication to promoting cultural ties between Spain and Russia.
Bagno’s Places: Born in Engels, Saratov Oblast; lives and works in Saint Petersburg.
The Word on Bagno: According to his membership profile on the webpage of the Worldwide Petersburger’s Club, his hobbies include photography, sculpture, and karate. He was recently one of the judges for the UK-Russia Year of Language and Literature Translation Contest (2016).
Bagno on Russian Literature: “We say that [Pushkin] is “our everything,” and foreigners are willing to believe it, but they have no idea what Pushkin did that was so special in the context of world literature, or what it is that makes Russians love him so much. And until this very day we still haven’t been able to explain this to the world. We were able to explain it with Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, but not with Pushkin. And he wasn’t the only one. Lermontov, Gogol, Goncharov, Leskov, Kharms, Tsvetaeva, Platonov…. the world literary community still hasn’t fully grasped their significance.”
Bagno on the Survival of Literature: “In order for it to survive, literature will develop other devices, other possibilities, ones that weren’t fully utilized before the advent of the Internet. Literature doesn’t have a predetermined period of existence. After all, nobody really knows exactly what it is. If we could precisely define the nature of the object, then we could talk about it having an expiration date, like sausage, or a bicycle.”
Bagno on Translation: “Translation isn’t the best form of communication on this earth, it is the only possible form. If we don’t translate what we want to say into our interlocutor’s language, then we have no chance of even being heard, much less understood.”
Bagno on Reading: “After all, if a person who likes trashy novels happens to open up some Dostoyevsky instead, then it will be a completely different Dostoyevsky. Not the one that, say, you and I know. There is one Leo Tolstoy, but then there’s a different one, and there’s also a third one, and it all depends on who’s reading him, and how. Unfortunately, we don’t know which Tolstoy or Pushkin the class delinquents at school are reading. It’d be interesting to find out.”