The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online IX

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The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 8 alphabet Russian names into Latin-alphabet English. Thus a non-Russian name originally spelled with a non-Cyrillic alphabet, say Hungarian for example, had been translated into Russian and affixed to a Comintern file now located at RGASPI. The Russian name on the file is now being translated into English. The inherent problems of this double translation is compounded in that in English phonetically identical names can often be spelled with different combinations of letters with equal linguistic accuracy. Consequently when linguists translated these names from Russian into English, while most were entirely accurate, a portion will inevitably not be spelled correctly compared to the original non-Russian spelling. This will cause problems for someone searching under one spelling and not realizing that it may be in the database under a variant spelling. The problem cannot be eliminated entirely. To go back into the files to verify the native language spelling of more than one-hundred thousand names was not a practical possibility. INCOMKA sought to reduce the extent of the problem by sending the translations prepared by Library of Congress linguists to scholars who know the Comintern and the national parties and can match the translations with their knowledge of names of real persons. The American personal files for example The American personal file list illustrates the nature of the problem and the usefulness of having the translations reviewed by subject area scholars. The Comintern maintained personal files on more than 6,800 Americans. One of the files has the name, in Russian, of »_______, E___.« The linguist working on the list rendered that into »Brauder, Earl«. When historians reviewed the translation, they recognized this as a translation garble for »Browder, Earl«, the man who headed the Communist Party, USA from the early 1930s to 1945. This was not a linguistic error on the part of the translator: »Brauder« and »Browder« are phonetic equivalents in English. Rather, the translator simply picked a variation in English spelling that was not the one Earl Browder actually used. Similarly, the translator rendered the Russian »B_________, __’____« as »Vagenknekht, Alfred«. Historians recognized that as a leading
The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online 16/2003 9 member of the party in the 1920s he spelled his name in English as »Wagenknecht, Alfred«. Again, this is not an error but the sort of inevitable garble one occasionally gets when phonetically translating Russian into English with the variety of ways names can be spelled in English. The engagement of international specialists The INCOMKA project sought out specialists throughout the world to review and correct garbles and misspellings in the lists of personal files. Sometimes the specialists were also able to identify files that were labeled with a pseudonym and supply the correct real name. By any measure it was highly successful example of international cooperation. Thousands of translation garbles and misspellings of personal names have been corrected. Researchers for decades to come who will be using the INCOMKA database will be spared frustration, wasted time, and missed files due to this international effort. For that, the international community of scholars should be truly grateful. The Incomka project is now in its final stage, and it is anticipated that the final product will be available for research use at each member institution by mid-2003. National biographical file lists – personal/biographical file titles for 100 countries with 130,000+ individually named biographical files 2 Initial Translations made by Library of Congress specialists under the supervision of Ronald Bachman; John Haynes coordinated sending the translations to reviewers. Afghanistan: fond 495-192, 34 files; initial translation by Library of Congress (LoC). Reviewed by A. R. Rahin. Albania: fond 495-188, 230 files; initial translation by LoC. Reviewed by Stephen Schwartz and Shaban Sinani. 2 Including 3 special Comintern Institutions.
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