LA FAVOLA TOLSTOIANA ASSARKADON, RE D’ASSIRIA (1903) NELLA TRADUZIONE DI CAMILLO ANTONA-TRAVERSI

The essay is inspired by the first Italian translation of Tolstoy's fairy tale about King Assarchadon (1903) by Camillo Antona-Traversi, a notable scholar, author of important critical works on Boccaccio, Foscolo, Leopardi, Metastasio, but also playwright and translator. Most likely, Antona-Traversi translated the fairy tale from the French edition (L. TOLSTOÏ, Le roi d’Assyrie Assarkadon, traduit par W. Bienstock, «Le Temps», 5 Décembre 1903). Indeed, both the Italian and the French versions differed from to the text published by Tolstoy in the same year and then included in his Collected works (1928-1958) by the inclusion of a new passage. The essay reconstructs the genesis of such a new 'variant', which is certainly not an authorial variant, but rather a text arbitrarily assembled by Vladimir Čertkov (1854-1936) - Tolstoy's friend and right-hand man - who carelessly sent it to his trusted translators (including Bienstock). It is essentially a curiosum that reveals how the works of Tolstoy (who had decided to release them from copyright years earlier) circulated freely, even before completion, were copied in hurry and, as in the present case, were subjected to obvious manipulation.