Analysis and study on the first Spanish translation of the Ode to God by Derzhavin

Abstract

The first Russian work translated into Spanish was the “Ode to God”, a masterpiece by Gavrila Romanovich Derzhavin, the best Russian poet of the xviii century and the first among the Russian writers to acquire international fame. This fact is considered indisputable and is endorsed by studies on translations of the Russian literature. The aim of the present article is to establish the date of the first translation of the Ode and the name of its author since till now the translator was considered as anonymous. We discuss and compare arguments of different researches of this subject and carry out an analysis of the first two Spanish translations of this poem. As a result of this study the name of the author of the first translation of the “Ode to God” into Spanish is discovered, as well as the publishing date of the first article about Russian literature in Spain and the name of the journal in which it appeared.