Mihai Eminescu’s Luceafarul (Evening Star) is being translating into Gagauz for the first time by the former ambassador of Moldova to Turkey, Fiodor Angheli.
Fiodor Angeli has told Info-Prim Neo he has been working for one year on Eminescu’s masterpiece and has already translated 80 of 98 stanzas. The Gagauz version is very close to the original by form: paired rhyme quatrains, the same metric measure and rhythm, the iambic verse. The translator left unchanged the characters’ names - Luceafărul (Luceafêr), Cătălina, Hyperion. Yet the poem has the title “Çoban yildizi” (the Shepherd’s Star), as Venus is called in Gagauz. The translator recognizes Eminescu’s verses sound better in original, but assures in Gagauz they are easily read and sound extraordinarily: “Olur masaldaki gibi-/ Sevgidä yok dibin dibi./ Geçmiştä hiç olmayan olmuş-/ Kral soyundan bir evlad duumuş.”
The translator’s idea is to publish the poem in a bilingual edition. He thinks this way the book is going to be useful both to teachers and students and to all those wanting to study any of the two languages. The author would like to include in the same book the fairy tale “Prince Charming from the Teardrop” by Mihai Eminescu, which is, in his opinion, the most valuable prose work of the national genius. Fiodor Angheli has already translated the tale into Gagauz, but in verses.
Fiodor Angheli has recently published a book in Gagauz called “Masallar” (“Fairy Tales”), in which he included 5 tales by A.S. Pushkin in Gagauz. The book was published with the support of the Russian embassy to Moldova. Yet he has not found yet sources to support the publishing of “Luceafarul”. The authorities still ignore his notifications, and the translator opened a special bank account in this respect.
The former ambassador says he has been struggling with the Moldovan officials for three years that they grant more attention to the study of the state language in the schools for national minorities. “Now, neither the Gagauzians, nor the Ukrainians, nor the Bulgarians and nor the Russians have possibilities to study Romanian. They do not know the state language not because they do not want to, but because they are not created the conditions. The state gives no penny for the Gagauzian students to learn Romanian. They don’t have textbooks, and qualified teachers,” Fiodor Angheli says. He considers the Government should develop a special program for 1-20 years ahead and to allocate special funds to have the minorities study the state language. “Unless such measures are undertaken, in 10-15 years we’re going to have a big problem in our small country,” Fiodor Angheli warns. “The graduates of national schools, especially the ones living in villages do not speak Russian, while the graduates of ethnic schools do not speak Romanian. The lack of a language to communicate will lead to many clashes,” the former ambassador thinks. He is certain that namely Romanian should become a means of inter-ethnic communication, as Russian was once. “The language is the element cementing a people, and our people should be united,” Angheli says.
Born on 24 October 1935 in Gaidar village, Ceadar-Lunga district, Fiodor Angheli graduated the “M. Lomonosov” University and the Communist Party High School from Moscow. He was a correspondent for the newspapers “Novosti” (1967-1972) and “Pravda” (1974-1979) in Bucharest. He worked in the foreign relations section of the Communist Party in Chisinau (1972-1974). He was the general director of the state news agency “Moldpress” (1983-1990) and later the head of the “Itar-Tass” bureau in Moldova (1990-1994). He was parliamentarian from 1994 to 1998 and Moldova’s ambassador to Turkey, Egypt and Kuwait in Ankara (1998-2001).
