I wonder if this exchange consciously echoed the Book of Job? It is similar: Pushkin-Job’s despairing nihilism, his interlocutor’s affirmation of divine intervention and design, and P.’s resolution-acceptance at the end. Taken in this light, I’m not sure that Oleg Proskurin’s speculation is accurate. The Bible is full of the dangerous God.
One reaction right off, with more to come about the nuts and bolts of your translation: Do the originals reflect the trochaic meter of your translations for Pushkins’ first poem and Philaret’s response, with the iambic measure for Pushkin’s second poem?
About the (as far as I can tell) repeating rhyme schemes of poems 1 and 2, knowing your meticulousness, I’m sure they’d be in your translations if that were possible. You do echo some of it, though, which is what made me notice it.
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