O. Goldsmith’s Oriental Parable in the Magazine Ni To Ni Sio (Neither This Nor That)

The essay argues that the oriental parable “Ziou-Zioung. A Chinese Anecdote” published in No. 9 of the magazine Ni To ni Sio (“Neither This nor That”) on April 25, 1769, is a fragment of “The Citizen of the World, or Letters from a Chinese Philosopher” by Oliver Goldsmith (1760–1761, book edition 1762), translated with some changes. The translation is presumably attributed to Fyodor Lazinsky. The paper traces the way of Goldsmith’s plot from the English original to the Russian version. The parable is taken from the French translation of Goldsmith’s book by P. Poivre (1763) and reprinted in the magazine Recueil pour l’esprit & pour le cœur under the title “Ziou-Zioung” (1764). The text of the French magazine is translated into German; it appears in Berlinisches Magazin (1765), from where it is borrowed by the Russian translator. The separation from the original context and a chain of transformations in successive translations, although each of these transformations is minor leads to a substantial change of meaning. While Goldsmith aims his satire at those who are proud of unworthy things, German and Russian versions condemn pride as such.