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From A Wandering Student, Sir Bernard Pares, 1948
THE Slavonic Review
In June, 1922, we founded our Slavonic Review ;, later to include the non-Slavonic countries of Eastern Europe, such as Hungary and Finland, we extended the title to �Slavonic and East European.� A witty critic of our ambitions in King�s College suggested the omission of the word �East�!
It was a gorgeous opportunity. The smaller countries, apart from their not very convincing propaganda, had no mouthpiece in English—and for their scholarship, none at all. In Russia, the restrictions of the press to Communist views left none to the better half of Russian scholarship in arts and to such historical material. All the while, we were salvaging materials which should on no account be lost and would be keenly sought after whenever Russia should again recognize freedom of press. We held reserves for the future use of Russian libraries; but they were all destroyed by a single German bomb that wrecked the store-rooms of the King�s Printers, Eyre and Spottiswoode.
We published three numbers a year, one in each university term, each of about 250 pages. It was a delightful task, not really spoiled by the furious editorial fights over the make-up of each number. We had the whole Slavonic world at our disposal, a world that is so specially near to nature with an infinite variety of materials of all kinds, and the only
question was what to exclude; so that there was no doubt about being able to maintain the highest standard. . . .
After a while, we began regularly with literature—if possible with a really good verse translation of a whole block of Slavonic poetry. Of course, one has no right to expect of any verse translation better than good second class. There is one English translation from Pushkin which Pushkin might himself have acknowledged. It is of the most inspired poem that he wrote, The Prophet, reproduced in its full inspiration by Maurice Baring.1 But later, when we also had American help, we did some kind of justice to world poets not otherwise accessible, the Russian Pushkin or, equally magnificent, the Pole, Mickiewicz.
As I had charge of this section, this involved for me a very pleasant correspondence. Our best source of supply was the splendid School of Slavic verse translation built up in the University of California by that fine scholar and most lovable colleague, George R. Noyes. He had the sternest standards for himself as for others, and at the same time a perfect selflessness. Those are the qualities which really build up a school. For a given task, he would associate with himself a
student, to whom he always gave the chief credit. I too shared in this association with him though at very long range, from London to California, so that we always had to start operations months in advance and every letter had to be answered immediately on its receipt. This co-operation was much easier than it might seem. We could easily put on a single sheet of paper, with the references, our various questions and suggestions. . . .
1 Reprinted in the Slavonic Review, Vol. XII, No. 34, p. 1.
( pages 296 - 298 )
Syracuse University Press, in cooperation
with Howell, Soskin, 1948.
Author Zieli�ski, Tadeusz, 1859-1944.
Title The religion of ancient Greece, an outline by Thaddeus Zieli�ski. Translated from the Polish with the author's co-operation, by George Rapall Noyes.
Publisher London, Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1926.
Description x, 235, [1] p. 23 cm.
Added Entry Noyes, George Rapall, 1873-1952.
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