Evgeny Boratynsky and the Russian Golden Age is the first translation of nearly all the lyrics by Evgeny Boratynsky (1800–1844), one of the greatest poets of the Golden Age of Russian poetry. The translation retains the meter and rhyming of the original. The commentary following each work provides the necessary background information and often includes translations from the works of Boratynsky’s contemporaries and of later poets. Boratynsky is thus presented against the background of contemporary poetry, both Russian and French, and as an influence on later poets. The book opens with a long introduction on Boratynsky’s life and achievements as well as an analysis of the previous translations of his works into English. Two indexes—of names and of subjects—help the reader to navigate through the poet’s world and works.

Professor Liberman is a wide-ranging scholar and an experienced translator both from Russian into English (with volumes of Lermontov’s and Fyodor Tyutchev’s poetical works and selections from the works of folklorist Vladimir Propp) and from English into Russian (the complete sonnets of Shakespeare). He has clearly taken time with these poems and thought a great deal about them: many feel polished, well-rubbed, warm from the hand of the translator. Readers may be confident that he approached each of the verses with care and subtlety, deploying a rich and varied vocabulary to do them justice. — “Unchangeably Appealing”: On Anatoly Liberman’s “Evgeny Boratynsky and the Russian Golden Age”, by Sibelan Forrester, Los Angeles Review of Books, https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/unchangeably-appealing-on-anatoly-libermans-evgeny-boratynsky-and-the-russian-golden-age/, accessed 23 November 2020."

Anatoly Liberman is professor of Germanic philology at the University of Minnesota, USA. He has published over 650 works, including 15 books, of which he is the author or editor.