Playing with Fire

TRANSLITERATION

Transliteration from Cyrillic and the Romanization of Russian into the various European languages is a minefield. The possibilities are numerous in English alone, not to speak of the different systems used in such languages as French, German and Italian.

I have chosen to use a composite system, which attempts to make things look and read as simply as possible for the general reader. Therefore I do not adhere to any one particular system such as Grove or Library of Congress, which are most commonly used in scholarly publications.

• I leave the already familiar, if incorrect, spellings of composers’ names. Hence Tchaikovsky (instead of Chaikovsky), Taneyev (instead of Taneev), Scriabin (instead of Skryabin), Prokofiev (instead of Prokof’ev or Prokof’yev), Asafiev (instead of Asaf’ev or Asaf’yev). Also for the philosopher Losev (instead of Losyev), and the politician Khrushchev instead of Khrushchyov.

• For the common endings of male given names in ий (i and short i or ï) I simply use the letter ‘i’. Hence Dmitri, Yuri, Georgi, Vasili and so on.

• Conversely for the same endings for surnames I use the accepted spelling of ‘y’. Hence Gorky, Florensky, Lossky, Ossovsky and so on.

• The Russians differentiate between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ E/e. For names beginning with the soft ‘e’ I use ‘Ye’. Hence Yevgeni, Yelena, Yekaterina, Yevtushenko, Yefimov, Yershov and so forth.

• I also use the ‘ye’ in the middle of the patronymic. Hence Dmitriyevich, Sergeyevich.

• The Russian names Aleksandr and Aleksei are written with an ‘x’ to conform with Western spellings: Alexander and Alexei.

• Zh is like the G in the French name Georges. A difficult name like ‘Skrzhinskaya’ hence has four (not five) consecutive consonants, so it can be pronounced without too much difficulty.

• The Russian ‘x’ is usually transliterated as ‘kh’, with the same sound as ‘ch’ in Scottish ‘loch’. Hence Khlebnikov, Khrushchev.

• The Russian hard ‘i’ (ы), pronounced at the back of the throat, is represented by a ‘y’, rather than the more scholarly and correct ‘ï’. A normal ‘i’ is used for the soft and open Russian ‘i’ sound (more like an English ‘ee’ in ‘meek’ or ‘leek’).