Ricard San Vicente leaves the classrooms of the University of Barcelona

Last lesson of Ricard San Vicente
Last lesson of Ricard San Vicente
Institutional
(05/06/2018)

Ricard San Vicenteʼs academic activity ends this year. The lecturer, essayist and translator of Russian literature retires, and the Section of Slavic Philology from the Department of Modern Languages and Literature and of English Studies of the University of Barcelona organized an activity in the room Joan Maragall, in the Faculty of Philology, on May 30, to pay tribute to San Vicente and open the doors of his last lecture to everyone.

Last lesson of Ricard San Vicente
Last lesson of Ricard San Vicente
Institutional
05/06/2018

Ricard San Vicenteʼs academic activity ends this year. The lecturer, essayist and translator of Russian literature retires, and the Section of Slavic Philology from the Department of Modern Languages and Literature and of English Studies of the University of Barcelona organized an activity in the room Joan Maragall, in the Faculty of Philology, on May 30, to pay tribute to San Vicente and open the doors of his last lecture to everyone.

The dean of the Faculty of Philology, Javier Velaza; the director of the Department, William Charles Philipps Mockford; and the vice-rector for Students and Language Policy, Mercè Puig, will attend San Vicenteʼs last lecture.

Ricard San Vicente (Moscow, 1948), son of Basque people who exiled in the USSR, lived in Moscow until 1957, when, thanks to an amnesty, his family went back to Spain and settled in Barcelona. Through his parental ties, San Vicente knew Russian and Spanish languages since he was a kid, and learnt French and Catalan in the French Liceu of Barcelona. As a result of this diverse language learning, together with the teaching of August Vidal, he started his career as translator in 1979. Also, thanks to his studies in Philosophy and Arts, in 1987, he started his career as lecturer at the University of Barcelona with the courses on Old, Modern and Contemporary Russian Literature, as well as literary translation, which he continued until this date.

San Vicente worked on translation, edition and dissemination of Russian literature since 1970, separately from his teaching activity. He translated Tolstoy, Zoshchenko and Shalamov, among others, and is the responsible for the first Spanish translation of Voices from Chernobyl, written by the Byelorussian journalist Svetlana Aleksiévitx, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2015. As a literary translator, Ricard San Vicente has been known over his career for his rigour regarding reality and language of origin as well as his sensitiveness in change of style in the different authors he was worked on. One of his greatest contributions to the Spanish literary system was the incorporation of the complete book of short stories by Varlam Shalamov, the Kolimá Tales, published by Minúscula. As a critic and disseminator, he wrote articles for the Spanish press and paratexts for translations of his own and others.

Ricard San Vicente is one of the most relevant figures in the dissemination and knowledge of Russian literature in the Hispanic field in the last third of 20th century and 21st century.