Birthplace of the first critical publication of the Bible can become the birthplace of full Quran translation into Ukrainian. It is accomplished by Master student of religious studies of National University of Ostrog Academy Mikhail Yakubovich.
Interview of Victoria SKUBA, newspaper “The Day”.
Mikhail Yakubovich, Master student of religious studies of National University of Ostrog Academy is one of the few specialists in the field of Arabic studies in Ukraine, who at the age of twenty translated the fifth part of the Quran into Ukrainian.
No doubts, that to learn Arabic on one’s own and to translate the original writing of the Quran can only unique person. That is why, going to the interview I expected that I will meet someone absolutely extraordinary. Though, I have seen a pleasant and communicable young man whose geniality is displayed not by pathos behavior, but by scientific accomplishments.
Mikhail Yakubovich is Master student of religious studies of National University of Ostrog Academy. On the question why he chose for himself this speciality he answered that he likes to delve deeply into himself and into others.
Mikhail started to study Arabic when he was in 11th class. He explains his extraordinary hobby as follows, “Someone studies English, someone German, someone Polish, and someone Arabic. The world is diverse, that is why it is difficult to define the moment when you want to learn something, and I like it”. Mikhail studied the language on his own, without special university training. However, he thinks that it is impossible to learn the language on one’s own, maybe only literary language, the language of writing. In the plan of content helps communication with native-speakers and, first of all, work with the texts. “I had a chance to communicate with representatives of the Arabian world in Ukraine, in Kiev in particular. The development of informationally-technical means of communication helps a lot, and it assists in communication with representatives of other countries”. Mentor and consultant of Mikhail Yakubovich in studying of Arabic is Professor of Al-Azhar University in Cairo Ahmad Ash-Sharqawi.
Enthusiasm for the Arabic language found its displaying in the Quran translations which Mikhail started to accomplish two years ago. First editor of the translations who supported the initiative of the student, was pro-rector on scientific and educational work of Ostrog Academy, Professor Peter Karluck. “There is no tradition of translations from Arabic in the Ukrainian language, and that is why one has to become an innovator. On one hand it is good, but on the other hand it is very difficult. It is always hard to translate texts, because the translator is like a privileged reader, for he has right to interpret someone’s thought, though he knows, that he changes this thought”, shares his expressions Mikhail Yakubovich. According to him, at the time of creation of a good translation matters absolutely everything: the translator’s knowledge of the subject, terminology, correspondences, what determines the difficulty of the work. Consultations with the specialists from the United States and Russia who know the text partially help. In the course of two years Mikhail Yakubovich translated the fifth part of the Quran. In the future he is planning to make full translation. In his work he is, first of all, oriented at readers’ auditorium, for he thinks that there should be no translator, who will never mind his reader.
Translation of the Quran is just one of the branches of Mikhail’s activity. Basis field for his researches is medieval philosophy of Islamic word, expressed in the Arabic language. In the context of the specified topic Mikhail Yakubovich studies hermeneutical problems, i.e. interpretation of text as a meaningful basis of philosophical thought, and the question of definition of religion in philosophy of Muslim mediaeval age. “It is important to explain what frames philosophical outlook of Islamic world defines for religious outlook. We percept East in the paradigm of contrast of faith and mind, alongside with European philosophy, though in Muslim philosophy there is no such contrast at all. That is why it is more topical to study the relation of mind to tradition”.
Work under the Quran translation is connected with hermeneutical problematic, though Mikhail does not consider the Quran to be philosophical text, rather, he defines it as fore-philosophy through sacrality. Moreover, he studies the topic of exegesis, i.e. studying the commentaries to the Quran.
“It is wrong to compare Ukraine just with the West, ignoring the East, which plays very important role in contemporary world. Every developed nation compares itself with the others and gets in this way definite discourse of identity. In the countries of the Western Europe, for instance, there is no ideological unity of texts. Today in our society we can see a lot of copies of Western examples, but there are some other traditions, able to provide for the development of man’s outlook, to give him certain food for thought, to display paradigm of another cultural being, which can include the same problems and demonstrate different attitude, and suggest ways of their solution”.
Translation of the Quran into Ukrainian will Serve Mutual Understanding between Confessions and Peoples, Living in Ukraine.
Valentina ODARCHENKO, radio “Svoboda”
Mikhail Yakubovich became interested with the Holy Book of Muslims when he got acquainted with the history of Ukraine of the 14th century. It turned out, that at that period Lithuanian duke Vitovt invited to his service a huge number of Tatars, who lived in Volyn’.
“They started to assimilate, and there, in their area appeared first commentaries to the Quran, written in Belorussian and Polish languages, and the Quran translations into these languages. But just imagine – in the Belorussian language with Arabic letters, same as Ukrainian ancient literary language was written by these letters. These, so called “kitabs” are the books which are still not enough investigated, especially in Ukraine”, says Yakubovich.
Full translation of the Quran into Ukrainian was published in 1915 in Lvov, but it was done not from the original writing.
First scientific worker who tried to make the Quran translation on his own was Yerema Polotnyuk, who in 1990 published partial translation of the Quran in “Vsesvit” journal. That text, maximally adapted to Ukrainian, still contains a lot of inaccuracies of these or that senses and follows Russian tradition of oriental studies, using just one commentary to the Quran.
“In Polotnyuk’s translation element of building rhetorical over-structure which was understandable, first of all, to Ukrainian, practically destroyed the text of primary source”, says the researcher.
There is also more modern translation of Valeriy Rybalkin, but it is also partial, too.
As it explains Yakubovich, interest to the Holy Book of Muslims is not accidental; it is dictated by the history of Ostrog Academy which was stronghold of Orthodox faith, and at the same time birthplace of philosophical polemical gatherings.
“I believe that this cultural integration, which we are talking about, in European context, too, will take place due to translations of other cultural traditions. I think that I occupy my own definite plane in Ukrainian science. For really, we have very few people who do this work. In Ostrog in the 16th century existed Tatar mosque, Catholics, Jews, Sicilians, Lutherans, - practically all religious confessions. This is continuation of Ostrog traditions. But if at that time cultural context was deeper, now it is wider”, emphasizes Yakubovich.
How to translate the Quran into Ukrainian, for there exist particular problems with lexis, grammatical constructions, connected with essential differences in languages and meanings, asks young researcher.
For instance, the Quran is oriented, first of all, at oral tradition, and in it everything what we call possessive pronouns is placed after nouns, and it has certain psycholinguistic effect, he says.
“We should also consider this moment, i.e. to construct structure of the sentence in that way, that it more or less will correspond to Arabic one. One should definitely pay attention to that Ukrainian language, which is used for the Quran translation, than it will really be the Ukrainian translation, not the work, which imitates Russian oriental studies”, thinks the researcher.
Mikhail Yakubovich is sure that his work should serve to mutual understanding between peoples and confessions, who dwell in Ukraine, “In general, Islam, Judaism and Christianity are three branches of one and the same thesis of monotheism, of only one God. There is more common, than different”.
Young scholar considers that in this way he revives traditions of religious tolerance and polyconfessionality and scientific approach to religious original texts which ruled in medieval Ostrog.
