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A Demonstration on 17 October 1905 (Ilya Repin, 1911)
This work is the basis of the header art of my companion blog, Voices from Russia. The people are celebrating the granting of a Duma, a parliament. The word duma in Russian is derived from the word meaning to think, to ponder, to contemplate. So, the emphasis is not like Congress, which means an assembly, nor it is the same as a parliament, which is a place to talk. The Duma is a place to think things over. These distinctions are not fine, they go to the very essence of what a people convene a legislature for.
It is one of the primary reasons why Russians do not have the same expectations or criteria for democracy as the West does. A great deal has to do with the thought-world of the Russian language, which differs significantly from that found in many Western languages. Do not underestimate this. It is one of the reasons why translation is so damnably difficult. Not only do grammar and idiom differ, but, the very concepts conveyed are often unintelligible in another tongue. I cannot find exact English equivalents for vostorg, sobornost, narodny, or dukhovny. Yes, there are English words we can use, but, they do not bring forward the full depth of these words that is immediately apparent to a Russian-speaker. I hope that my efforts along the line of translation convey to you some of the things that are out there. I can assure you that it is not easy. http://01varvara.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/ilya-repin-a-demonstration-on-17-october-1905-1911/
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