Interpreters and dragomans. Russia celebrates Military Translator Day

It is not known exactly when exactly the profession of a military translator appeared. But certainly not yesterday, but in time immemorial, when ancient armies began to take prisoners, collect intelligence materials, and negotiate with foreign allies and opponents.

In Ancient Rus', translators, or, as they were called in the old days, dragomans and interpreters, appeared from the beginning of the formation of Russian principalities and campaigns against Constantinople.

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Dragomans were interpreters at European (including Russian) embassies in Eastern countries, and interpreters were interpreters during negotiations with foreign guests and officials. For a long time, the recruitment of translators for the sovereign service went by itself. Interpreters and dragomans recruited self-educated sextons or foreigners who had taken root on Russian soil. There was no system for training specialists as such.

However, already in XVI century, at the state level there was a need to organize translators into a separate service, as a result of which the Ambassadorial Order was born, which consisted of 22 translators and 17 interpreters for diplomatic and military tasks.

The situation improved noticeably after the mandatory requirement for the service class to study foreign languages, and after Russia’s access to the Black Sea and the beginning of the Crimean campaigns, the need arose to recruit translator officers into the army.

The Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs began to train military translators on a permanent basis at the end of XIX century. In 1885, courses for training translator officers were opened at the department of oriental languages ​​of this department. The first students were recruited exclusively from guards units.

In 1899, the Oriental Institute was opened in Vladivostok, whose students could only be officers. The main directions are oriental studies, English and French languages. There were so many people wishing to go to study at the institute that the command of the Russian Army took additional measures to train personnel in foreign languages ​​and special disciplines.

In 1911, special district preparatory schools for military translators were organized at the headquarters of the Amur, Turkestan and Caucasian military districts. Five officers were trained annually in the Tiflis and Tashkent schools, and twelve officers were trained in the school at the headquarters of the Amur Military District. The Tiflis school taught Turkish and Persian, the Tashkent school taught Persian, Uzbek, Afghan, Chinese and Urdu, and the Irkutsk school taught Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and Korean.

As you can see, despite the desire of Russian army officers to study foreign languages, the road to military translators was open only to a few, and completely closed to lower ranks, which did not greatly contribute to the interests of the matter.

The situation changed radically in 1920, when Soviet Russia set out to liberate the Far East from Japanese and American invaders. An Eastern department was opened, where students were taught special disciplines, English and Asian languages ​​according to the chosen direction.

On May 21, 1929, Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR Joseph Unshlikht signed the order “On establishing the rank of “Military Translator” for the command staff of the Red Army.

However, more than a decade passed before military translators had their own professional holiday. It was founded in 2000 on the initiative of a group of graduates from different years of the Red Banner Military Institute of the Ministry of Defense (VKIMO), which trained military lawyers and translators.

During its existence, the institute changed many names: Military Institute of the USSR Ministry of Defense, Military Institute of Foreign Languages, Military Institute of Foreign Languages ​​of the Red Army, and it grew out of the military faculty of Western languages ​​of the 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages ​​and became an independent university by order No. 0271 People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR on April 12, 1942.

However, the registration of the military faculty of the 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages ​​into a separate university was a pure formality, since it already had the status of a higher military educational institution. The training of specialists (English, German and French) was carried out in the interests of military schools and academies of the Red Army.

Major General Nikolai Nikolaevich Biyazi, an incredibly interesting and gifted person, was appointed head of the military faculty. A descendant of Italian settlers, Nikolai Biyazi began serving in the tsarist army - first in the lower ranks, and then, for his courage and ability, he was sent to accelerated courses for ensign training, rising to the rank of second lieutenant.

With the beginning of the October Revolution and the Civil War, there was no question for Biyazi who to serve, and he joined the ranks of the Red Army, where his military and organizational talents were useful.

First, Nikolai Biyazi led the Tiflis Infantry School, then the Fourth Tashkent United Command School named after V.I. Lenin. By the way, both military schools became forges of personnel that gave the country famous commanders and Heroes of the Soviet Union.

Before his appointment as head of the military department, Nikolai Biyazi gained invaluable experience by serving as a Soviet military attache in Italy. It is no less interesting that in addition to a brilliant military career, Nikolai Nikolaevich Biyazi was one of the pioneers of Russian sports refereeing. He became the first certified football referee in the Russian Empire, and in June 1918 he refereed the final of the first football championship in Soviet Russia.

During the Great Patriotic War, the need for translators and teachers of foreign languages ​​increased significantly, which was the reason for the reorganization of the military faculty of the 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages ​​into the Military Institute of Foreign Languages ​​of the Red Army (VIYYAKA), which organically included the Military Faculty of Oriental Languages, created in 1940 year.

All organizational issues of the newly established VIYAK were dealt with by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army, for which the lion's share of personnel was trained at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. The institute's curriculum was also approved by the head of the GRU of the General Staff of the Red Army.

VIIIAK included Western and Eastern faculties, as well as retraining courses with departments of Western and Eastern languages. Studying at the faculties lasted three years, and retraining courses lasted one year. The institute trained specialists in two areas - military translators and referents and military teachers of foreign languages ​​for military schools and academies of the Red Army. 20% of the institute's training places were allocated for students sent by the People's Commissariat of the USSR Navy and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

It is interesting that the famous Soviet and Russian actor Vladimir Abramovich Etush studied at short-term courses at VIIIAKA in Stavropol on the Volga during the war.

At these courses, students were taught German and other languages ​​of countries allied with Nazi Germany.

A victory achieved with a word is no less valuable than a victory achieved with a bayonet and a grenade. Cases at the front were not so rare when the words of Soviet translators and propagandists forced enemy soldiers to lay down their arms and surrender.

The beginning of the war. Interrogation of a German prisoner of war.

The feat of the Soviet officer-translator Vladimir Samoilovich Gall is well known, who volunteered to negotiate with the garrison of the Spandau fortress together with the German anti-fascist Konrad Wolf (he became a prominent filmmaker in the GDR). As a result of negotiations, the fortress surrendered without a fight, and thus the lives of not only Soviet soldiers and the fortress garrison were saved, but also hundreds of civilians locked within its walls, whom the Nazis hoped to use as a human shield in the event of an assault.

The Germans did not forget the human feat of Vladimir Gall. The military translator and decades later were thanked in letters by the people he saved and their relatives, including former soldiers of the garrison, invited to visit Spandau, interviewed not only by East German, but also West German media, including ARD и ZDF.

On May 8, 2015, a memorial plaque to Vladimir Gall (died in Moscow on September 9, 2011) was installed on the wall of the Spandau Citadel.

During the years of the Great Patriotic War, the institute and courses trained more than 3000 qualified translators who served in the Active Army, partisan detachments, editorial offices of front-line newspapers, departments and headquarters of the Red Army. Their contribution to the common Victory over the enemy is invaluable.

Interrogation of a captured German military intelligence officer.

In 1949, one of its most famous graduates, the future science fiction writer Arkady Strugatsky, graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, having received the specialty of translator from Japanese and English.

The eldest of the Strugatsky brothers served in the Soviet Army for six years, was a translator for the investigation during the preparation for the Tokyo Trial against the top of militaristic Japan, then taught foreign languages ​​at the Kansk Military Infantry School, and in 1952-1954 served as a translator at the division headquarters in Kamchatka , and in 1955 - in intelligence agencies, in Khabarovsk.

After the end of the Great Patriotic War and the beginning of the Cold War, the need for military translators only increased. The era of global confrontation between the USSR and the USA began. Anti-colonial and Marxist movements intensified in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The confrontation with the West in the countries of the “third world” required from the USSR high-quality training of specialists who knew the languages ​​of the entire planet, without exaggeration.

In the Soviet Army and the KGB of the USSR, an acute shortage of military translators again arose, as a result of which, as during the war years, accelerated courses were opened to train specialists with knowledge of foreign languages. By the way, in the training course for GRU special forces officers and Airborne reconnaissance officers, knowledge of two or three foreign languages ​​has become commonplace.

The profession of a military translator has always been prestigious and dangerous at the same time. In Afghanistan alone, according to official data, dozens of military translators from the army and intelligence services were killed.

Photos on the wall: the military translators who died in Afghanistan are graduates of the Institute of Asian and African Studies.

In Soviet times, VKIMO gave students knowledge of forty foreign languages. It was a unique educational institution that had no analogues in the world. And still, the institute did not cover the needs of the Armed Forces and state security agencies for military translators. Therefore, graduates of civilian universities who were called up for military service often filled the positions of military translators. There was especially a shortage of specialists in relatively rare African and Asian languages, which is why students in these specialties could be sent abroad even before graduating from an educational institution.

In general, practice went hand in hand with theory and people grew along with the profession.

In the “holy nineties” the system of training military translators (as well as many other well-functioning state institutions) was dealt a strong blow. The Yeltsin-Gaidar “young democrats”, under the whispering of American advisers, proclaimed: “having got rid of communist ideology, Russia has also gotten rid of external enemies.” Hold your pocket wider. The beginning of NATO's expansion to the East and the terrorist war against Russia quickly showed that such an idea could only be adopted by a fool and an enemy at the same time.

Russia had to restore the school of military translators literally bit by bit. Many VKIMO graduates, excellent specialists, did not disappear under the new conditions. Among my classmates, the author of these lines has three VKIMO graduates who studied Chinese and English and served in the intelligence agencies of the Far Eastern Military District and the Pacific Fleet. After leaving the army, all three became in-demand and highly paid specialists in Russian and Chinese business structures.

Nowadays, Russia is once again taking an active position on a global scale, increasing its military-political influence in different parts of the planet, which contributes to the rapid revival and awakening of interest in the profession of military translator. The Middle and Far East, Africa and Central Asia, Latin America - everywhere Russia has its own interests, which means there is a need for military translators, masters of their craft.

Happy holiday to everyone involved!