Date of Award

Spring 4-15-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Modern Languages & Literature

First Advisor

James McGavran

Second Advisor

Anna Aydinyan

Abstract

The Lay of Leithian (Лэ о Лэйтиан) rock-opera documents Beren's quest to retrieve the Silmaril, with help from Lúthien, and from Finrod, the king of Nargothrond and friend of Barahir. It is based on J.R.R. Tolkien's epic poem of the same name, with original lyrics and music by its author Lyudmila “Skadi” Smerkovich. It was originally released in 2020 as a soundtrack and has been running as a stage version since it was produced in 2021 by Vita Theater. My honors project seeks to translate this musical both literally and singably into English, with the help of my co-translators Astri and Cara. I begin with an introduction tracing the cultural and linguistic context of the musical within the broader history of Russian Tolkienism to show the influence of translation and adaptation on the subculture. Then, I discuss my own translation process for songs, focusing on singable (rhyming and equirhythmic) translations, which my co-translators and I pursued in our work with the Lay of Leithian. The bulk of this project is the translation itself. The translation is based on my initial draft that underwent extensive editing with the help of Astri and Cara. The first collumn shows the original Russian; the second, our collaborative literal translation used in performance subtitles; and the third, our singable translation. Any parts not included in every performance of the Lay of Leithian are italicized. The singable translation is still in many ways a work in progress: a few lines are left untranslated, and some word choice we still consider not entirely sufficient. However, it does have the potential to be put on as a staged musical, and one of the songs (Lullaby) has been recorded professionally. Through this translation, we bring the Lay of Leithian rock opera into the language of Tolkien, thereby contributing another link to Tolkien's long chain of adaptation.

Rights Statement

All rights reserved. This copy is provided to the Kenyon Community solely for individual academic use. For any other use, please contact the copyright holder for permission.

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