The Realities of Moscow Life in M. A. Bulgakov’s Novel “The Master and Margarita”: A Study of Chinese Translation

As an urbanist writer, M.A. Bulgakov develops the plots of so many manifestations in the urban space, depicting the surrounding environment as reliably as possible. The author pays special attention to the Moscow chronotope. The subject of analysis in this article is the translation into Chinese of the realities of Moscow life in the novel by M.A. Bulgakov “The Master and Margarita” (chapters one and three). The relevance of the topic is determined by both the significance of M.A. Bulgakov’s work in world literature and the circumstances of a translation nature, including the need to identify and eliminate, using various techniques, inconsistencies between the original text and the translation. The main research method was a comparative analysis. The classification of realities proposed by us consists of five groups: toponyms, their varieties horonyms and urbanonyms; realities reflecting the culture of everyday life; realities of intellectual life; realities characterizing the worldview of the heroes; vocatives. The article examines the translation into Chinese of the realities of the first three groups, which are quite informative: toponyms, their varieties horonyms and urbanonyms; realities reflecting the culture of everyday life; realities of intellectual life. The hermeneutic approach made it possible to determine the merits of the Chinese translation and identify fragments that need to be specified, which is proposed to be done using clarification techniques, translation commentary, and detailing the existing translation commentary. The use of the listed techniques will help bring the translation closer to the original text, as well as expand the horizon of perception by Chinese readers of the geographical, political, social, everyday, cultural, literary aspects of Moscow life, represented by M.A. Bulgakov. The translation chosen for analysis, carried out by Qian Cheng, is considered to be the closest to the original.