Indo-Soviet bridges, through books MOSCOW: The Indian who has lived in Russia for the longest period and who has rendered many masterpieces of Russian literature into Hindi was feted at a function here. Russian scholars, translators and members of the Indian community gathered at the D.P. Dhar hall of the Indian Embassy to celebrate the 50th anniversary of poet, translator and journalist Madan Lal Madhu’s work in Russia. He came to Moscow half a century ago with a group of Indian intellectuals under an Indo-Soviet inter-government programme to bring out Russian fiction and non-fiction books in Hindi and other Indian languages. Over the decades they translated hundreds of titles ranging from Leo Tolstoy to Vladimir Lenin and science books. These were made available to Indian readers free of cost or at heavily subsidised prices. Many Indians grew up reading Russian fairytales and learning science from Russian textbooks in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam and other languages. Dr. Madhu himself has translated more than 100 books of Russian classical, modern and children’s literature. His first translations were done through English. But soon he learnt Russian and thereafter worked with original texts. His translations include Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, works by Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Gogol, Chekhov, and children’s poems by Chukovsky, Marshak and many other Russian classics. In 1991 Dr. Madhu was awarded the Padma Shri for distinguished services in literature and education. In Russia he was awarded the Friendship Order and the Pushkin Gold Medal. Indian Ambassador to Russia Prabhat Shukla hailed Dr. Madhu’s “immense contribution” to building cultural bridges between India and Russia and described him as a “rock of strength” for the Indian community in Moscow. For more than 30 years Dr. Madhu served as president of the Hindustani Samaj. Married to a Russian for 40 years, he chose to stay in Russia even after the Indo-Russian book-publishing project ended in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. He has been writing books and covering Russian affairs for Hindi and English-language Indian daily newspapers. “Russia is my second homeland and I am happy to have been useful to both India and Russia,” Dr. Madhu said. Source: The Hindu (URL: hindu/2008/11/16/stories/2008111657811800.htm)
Posted on: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 14:43:59 +0000
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