Much, very much snow in the Russian forest (rereading the pages of Wolfgang Borchert’s story “Der viele viele Schnee” in the original and in translation)

Abstract

The main positions of the unit to which the German machine-gunner belongs are somewhere behind him on the forward outpost. Here, in the deserted forest, he is completely alone — just him and a great deal of snow. The occasional rustle of snow falling from the trees is perceived by the soldier as the cautious, stifled breathing of a creeping enemy. Trying to suppress his fear, the sentry begins to sing Christmas carols — even though it is already February, and German Christmas is long past. Seeing the feldwebel hurrying towards him, the soldier stops singing and decides that now he will be shot for singing on guard duty. However, the feldwebel, who is no less afraid than the soldier of the invisible enemies lurking in the forest, does not connect the singing of Christmas carols with the sentry. To him, it seems like a hallucination and that he is going mad. Running up to the soldier, the feldwebel grabs hold of him and, glancing around nervously, hastily confides his fears. The plot of the story is based on the author’s personal experiences: as a Wehrmacht soldier, he once found himself, against his will, alone in a snowy Russian forest near Tver in the winter of 1941–1942. The article presents fragments of translations of the story into Russian and English, undertaken by translators of varying skill levels and executed at different levels of mastery.