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Around Sonja: On The First Russian Translation, Victor Fet

Victor Fet

The first Russian translation of Wonderland was published anonymously in 1879 as Sonja v tsarstvie diva (Sonja in a Kingdom of Wonder, hereinafter referred to as Sonja).1 Deep Victorian mysteries surround it. Its translator remains unknown—but a hint from Lewis Carroll himself leads one to Russian aristocrats, patrons of the arts, and famous writers. Its readership is undocumented, but the faces of children who most likely first read this book are still well known in Russia today, having been painted by the most famous nineteenth-century Russian artists. Further, as one looks carefully at the text itself, one finds it remarkably …