Participants

Alessandro Achilli⁴; Helen Stuhr-Rommereim²; Martina Napolitano³; Noemi Albanese¹;  ¹ University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy;  ² University of St Andrews, UK;  ³ University of Trieste, Italy;  ⁴ University of Cagliari, Italy

Discussion

Despite its major influence on Russian literature, Sokolov’s work has been relatively inaccessible to non-Russian audiences and represented a major challenge for translators and critics. Between Dog and Wolf (1980), which was translated into English only in 2017, embodies the author’s idiosyncrasies. It consists of three interlocking narratives: a first-person account of the knife-grinder Ilya’s life; another set of chapters about a whipper-in, Yakov; and 37 poems written (presumably) by Yakov. However, not everything is as it appears. Characters have multiple identities, names, and relationships to one another, timelines are mixed (and therefore anyone may be alive or dead at a given moment), and the language is replete with puns, realized metaphors, and other devices.

The aim of this project, The Encyclopedia of the Dog: An Annotated Edition of Sasha Sokolov’s "Between Dog and Wolf," is to make the novel and its special language more accessible through a freely available digital edition of the Russian original and its English translation.

In our roundtable, we will present the Encyclopedia to the public, discuss its tools and functionalities, and consider how digital humanities approaches such as this one open up new avenues for approaching and analyzing complex literary works such as Sokolov’s novel. 

This digital edition features both the original Russian text and Alexander Boguslawski’s English translation and facilitates comprehension and interpretation for several audiences: scholars, students of Russian, and readers of the translation. The annotations cover numerous layers: register, style, characters, location/setting, motifs, themes, time, changes to editions, inter- and  intratextuality, etc. This digital platform incorporates links, images, audio, and video that a traditional physical book does not allow. Overall, the project overcomes the absence of tools necessary to enter Sokolov’s complex literary world and advances scholarship on the novel.

>Our process involves using hypothes.is to generate annotations that we then ingest into our static site to be displayed in a scrollable window. Current features include a bilingual text with language and annotation toggles; an interface navigable by tabs and accessible to those with disabilities; responsive design for devices; and contextual materials. Supported by the Digital Scholarship Program at Bryn Mawr College and by a Digital Bryn Mawr Project Grant, the Encyclopedia has been developed by an international team of contributors under the direction of José Vergara (Bryn Mawr College) with Martina Napolitano (University of Trieste) as annotation editor. 

The discussion will address the project’s evolution in the context of Sokolov’s works and examine the role and value of digital tools in making such texts more accessible to students and scholars alike.