[In the following review of The Island of Crimea, Peterson points out the variations in different translations of the novel and builds a case for the merits of Heim's translation.]

The Island of Crimea, a translation of Vasilij Aksenov's Ostrov Krym (1981), is the first of his novels printed abroad to appear in English. Two others, which were in fact published earlier, Ozhog and Zolotaja naša zhelezka (both 1980), have also been translated and will be brought out in the near future: The Burn, in Michael Glenny's rendition, by Random House, and Our Golden Ironburg, translated by this reviewer for Ardis. Since The Island of Crimea has the most appeal for a Western reader, its appearance first is appropriate, and the responses in the media have been largely favorable, though in some cases reviewers have mistakenly assumed that it is his first novel to appear in English, over-looking his work of the early 1960's.

Aksenov's intentions, as stated in his 1983 Preface to the English version, center on an investigation, in fictional form, of the question "What if Crimea had developed as a Russian, yet Western, democracy alongside the totalitarian mainland?" But The Island of Crimea is more than a response to a "what if" scenario and more than a fanciful refutation of the "Soviet authorities' … firm and realistic view of geography … that the world rests on three whales and two elephants." Though one can agree with the reviewer for Newsweek (21 November 1983) that it helps to be familiar with the background Aksenov relies upon, still the motives for wanting to reunite with the rest of the USSR seem quite clear: "Because Russia needs Russians" to help it (185). True, Aksenov is harsh on Stalin, Stalinism, the KGB, official lack of tolerance, and other aspects of current life in his native land, but he also displays a belief in Russia's role as a messianic nation and in the necessity of allowing the liberal elements of the Russian intelligentsia to play a part in shaping a more positive future for the country.

Fortunately for the author and his readers here, the translation is quite good. Professor Heim, certainly one of the better translators in our field, has come up with an English version that is true to the spirit of the original yet avoids the pitfall of a too literal, word-by-word rendering. Aksenov himself advocates a free approach in this area, and he dislikes footnotes and other such aids in his fiction, so Professor Heim's accomplishment is doubly impressive, especially since Aksenov's style and fondness for paronomasia make this task rather difficult. One central example of Aksenov's tendency to use puns, for instance, calling the island "OK" or "Okay," is not amenable to an exact rendering, thus Heim explains unobtrusively: "OK being the initials for its Russian name, Ostrov Krym." He is also adept at inventing suitable phrasing when appropriate: for example, the original ibu and ebu tribes becomes the "Kikuyus and the Wiskruyus," a podljanocka reappears as an "off-white lie," and Walter Gesundheit, a TV host whose name appears only in the translation, is a punning combination wholly appropriate to Aksenov's style of writing. Occasionally, however, some of the choices are less understandable: Hollywood for Beverly Hills, a "new Mercedes" for a Japanese Datsun, and "he ran up to twenty-one meters" for "jadro letelo stabil' no za dvadcat' odin metr." And there is one significant misstep, which substantially alters the sense at the end of the fifth chapter: Luchnikov's interlude with the French sex kittens does not signal the "dawn of civilization," but rather the "twilight" (in the original—zakat civilizacii).

But where Professor Heim's efforts truly shine are his renderings of the original's fairly numerous English phrases into the urbane, witty, hip, colloquial, idiomatic English these cosmopolitan characters should command. "He's blotto" ([325], instead of the original "He is a heavy drunk"), "As you wish" ([155], for "Up to you"), and "Barfsville' (20) are just a few examples. Because of these and other felicities, the English version of this "Russian, yet Western" novel (based in part on impressions gained when Aksenov visited UCLA in 1975) at times works better than the original. And it is a pleasure to recommend it to scholars, students, and general readers alike.