Translation issues of doom.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

I am preparing for a translation exam that is coming up this wednesday, and in order to prepare I am taking old versions of the exam. The only problem is that there is no one to correct my mistakes, so for all I know, I'm making the same mistakes over and over again. And I just translated a chunk of text that gave me a lot of trouble, and was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to correct my translation. I would be eternally grateful. I beg you, be brutal.

The test is three hours with a dictionary, and consists of 4 excerpts; Usually from a political science journal, an economic journal, a piece on Russian history, and an excerpt of 19th century historiography.

This is a piece of the text on Russian History.

Be nitpicky especially if I mistranslate a grammatical construction. Lord knows the graders will be. The english is supposed to be understandable but not pretty. The test is timed, so I don't have time to bother with style. THe bits in the square brackets are the parts that particularly threw me.


Строя общество на указанных политических основаниях, московская политика крепко держалась за общественный порядок, унаследованный ею от удельного времени. В удельное время, как мы видели, общество распадалось на две главные части, разливавшиеся между собой отношениям к князю и хозяйственным положением. Служилые люди несли личную службу князю, административную и ратную, и в их же руках сосредоточивалась частная земельная собственность. Люди тяглые пользовались чужой землей, княжеской или частной, и за то несли мирские платежи и работы. Московсая политика начала перестройку удельного общества тем, что этот порядок, создавшийся посредством соглашения частных интересов, закрепила во имя интересов государственных, сообщив им обязательности.



Building society on the indicated polical bases, Moscow politics (policy?) firmly stuck to the social order inherited by it from the specific (That can't be right, but that's what I found in my dictionary) time. In the specific (?) time, as we saw, society split into two main parts which were distinguished between each other by the relationships to the prince and ownership position. Service people held personal service to the prince, administrative and martial, and in their hands were dispersed private land property. Laboring (?) people used others' land, either crown or private, and for this held [ something] compensations and work. Moscow politics started a restructuring of society [by virtue of the fact that] that order, which was created thanks to the agreement of private interests, strengthened in the name of the state interests, [Which informed mandatoryness to them. (Which gave mandate to them? Made them mandatory? Huh?)]

Comments

[gera.livejournal.com]

It's pretty cruel to subject a Russian learner to such an exam. It's full of archaic words and specific historical terms. Many native speakers would have troubles with this text.

Удел is a piece of territory ruled by князь (duke or prince).
Удельное время - the corresponding epoch.

московская политика - here - Moscow policy, not politics.
сообщив им обязательности - making them mandatory - doesn't sound like modern Russian at all.

разливавшиеся - doesn't make sense to me. Maybe разделявшиеся? Then distinguished is correct.

и за то несли мирские платежи и работы (a really archaic construction!) - and they had to carry the burden of tributes and labor (for using the land).

[quem98.livejournal.com]

I know it's cruel and unusual, but I still need to pass the damn thing if I want to get my degree.

I wrote that wrong, it's различавшиеся.

[gera.livejournal.com]

I know it's cruel and unusual, but I still need to pass the damn thing if I want to get my degree.

Just to let you know it has very little to do with testing your Russian knowledge.

I wrote that wrong, it's различавшиеся.

Then distinguished is correct.

[oryx_and_crake]

If I were you, I would try to find a specialised dictionary for all the historical terms (like служилые and тяглые) or at least an article on medieval Britain - I am 100% sure that there is an equivalent in English feudal system. The terms you use now are taken from a generic dictionary and definitely do not convey the meaning of the original Russian terms. (I agree with gera that it is quite unreasonable to subject a Russian learner to this kind of test, unless you are majoring in history; but then you would know all the terms.)

By the way, удел is quite probably a feud, удельная система is therefore a feudal system, and тяглые люди are very much like serfs.

Service people held personal service to the prince, administrative and martial, and in their hands were dispersed private land property. -> Yeomans (I am not sure, you should check) held personal service to the prince, administrative and military, and owned their shares of land property.

[oryx_and_crake]

P.S. Don't go for word-to-word translation, it never works. Rather, try to picture the meaning of the whole sentence and then put it down it as you would if it were written in English in the first place.