Boris Solomonovitch Schnaiderman ( Russian Борис Соломонович Шнайдерман; 17 May 1917 – 18 May 2016) was a Brazilian

translator Translation is the communication of the Meaning (linguistic), meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The ...

, writer and essayist. Born in

Uman Uman ( uk, Умань, ; pl, Humań; yi, אומאַן) is a city located in Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, to the east of Vinnytsia. Located in the historical region of the eastern Podolia, the city rests on the banks of the Umanka River ...

, Ukraine, in 1917, he went to

Odesa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative ...

when he was barely more than one year old, living there until he was 8, when he came to Brazil. He was the first teacher of

Russian literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...

University of São Paulo The University of São Paulo ( pt, Universidade de São Paulo, USP) is a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. It is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution, the best ...

, in 1960, despite being graduated in

agronomy Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...

. He translated renowned Russian writers and poets, like

Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky,

Babel Babel is a name used in the Hebrew Bible for the city of Babylon and may refer to: Arts and media Written works Books *Babel (book), ''Babel'' (book), by Patti Smith * Babel (2012 manga), ''Babel'' (2012 manga), by Narumi Shigematsu * Babel (20 ...

Pasternak Pasternak or Pasternack (Cyrillic: Пастернак, ) means parsnip, ''Pastinaca sativa'', in Polish, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Yiddish. Notable people with the last name "Pasternak" include: * Anne Pasternak (born 1964), A ...

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

and Mayakovsky. When he was eight years old, before leaving the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, he witnessed the filming of the Odesa Steps sequence in

Sergey Eisenstein Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (russian: Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪtɕ ɪjzʲɪnˈʂtʲejn, 2=Sergey Mikhaylovich Eyzenshteyn; 11 February 1948) was a Soviet film director, screenw ...

's film '' The Battleship Potemkin''. Schnaiderman only later realised what he had seen when he saw the film in the cinema.''Boris Schnaiderman: War and Peace with Dostoevsky''
/ref> He became a naturalized citizen of Brazil in 1941 and fought in World War II with the

Brazilian Expeditionary Force The Brazilian Expeditionary Force ( pt, Força Expedicionária Brasileira, FEB), nicknamed Cobras Fumantes (literally "the Smoking Snakes"), was a military division of the Brazilian Army and Air Force that fought with Allied forces in the Me ...

, an experience that inspired him to write the romance ''Guerra em Surdina'' ("Muted War"). Due to the way that the Russian culture was seen in the period of military dictatorship in Brazil, his positions against the repression and his Soviet passport, he was later arrested while he was lecturing. In 2003 he received the Prize of Translation by the

Academia Brasileira de Letras The Academia Brasileira de Letras (ABL) ( English: ''Brazilian Academy of Letters'') is a Brazilian literature, literary non-profit society established at the end of the 19th century. The first president, Machado de Assis, declared its found ...

. He was the first person who translated to Portuguese classical Russian books directly from the

Russian language Russian (russian: русский язык, russkij jazyk, link=no, ) is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language mainly spoken in Russia. It is the First language, native language of the Russians, and belongs to the Indo-European langua ...

; before this, indirect translations which decharacterized them were very common. In 2007 he also received the Medal of Pushkin from the Russian government. Schnaiderman said of Dostoevsky that he was "...the kind of writer who drags us; while we have to agree with him, we have to turn against him. I mean, sometimes I translate something that contradicts my deepest convictions. Dostoevsky was a great writer, he had that understanding, that extraordinary humanity, while he was racist, chauvinistic, sexist."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schnaiderman, Boris 1917 births 2016 deaths 20th-century translators Brazilian Jews Brazilian military personnel of World War II Brazilian people of Ukrainian-Jewish descent Brazilian translators Recipients of Russian civil awards and decorations Russian–Portuguese translators Soviet emigrants to Brazil Translators to Portuguese Ukrainian Jews