Abstract:

This article is devoted to the ideas of Leo Tolstoy on translation issues represented in his almost unknown book Soedineniye i perevod chetyrekh Evangelii (The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated) (Tolstoy 1957; Tolstoy 1896; Tolstoy 1904 a, b), in which the major parts of the New Testament were translated and commented upon with regards to the official (a.k.a. Synodal) translation into Russian as well as the original Greek text. Though Tolstoy attempted to simplify and even omit some passages as irrelevant, many of his translation methods had a clear correlation with the approaches formulated in 20th century theory of translation, namely semantic analysis, inner and surface structures and cultural equivalence.

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