Talk:Han Sorya

Bad Translation, Needs POV and Content Work
Came across this article by accident. What's up with this weird "jackals" word choice for sungnyangi? That's not a North Korean translation. North Korean news and propaganda in English always say "wolves" for sungnyangi. Don't believe me? Do a STALIN search (www.nk-news.net/search.php) of the KCNA website.


 * 0 results for jackal
 * 0 results for jackals
 * 4 results for wolfish
 * 39 results for wolves
 * 105 results for wolf

Still don't believe me? Heck, just look at North Korean cartoons: "Squirrel and Hedgehog - Episode 31" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuXJBJWR36Y). You'll see the word sungnyangi in Korean letters (승냥이) at 0:39. Guess what. The sungnyangi in the cartoon are -- big, bad, and mean grey wolves.

I am seeing in the article that this "jackals" mess up comes from some guy called Myers. Okay, whoever he is, that's a really bad translation. I mean, like, really bad. Bad POV in the article with him too.

Checked out one of the linked works in the endnotes, "Savage Nature and Noble Spirit in Han Sorya's Wolves", by some other guy called West. Some discussion on pages 3 to 5 about how North Korea got the wolf/wolves propaganda from the 1930s to 1950s Soviet Union under Stalin. So how come that isn't in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Porkypines (talk • contribs) 09:35, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Official Title of Short Novel is "Wolf"
Continuing from my last post. Official North Korean title of that short novel is Wolf. Here are Korean and English sections from KCNA, August 31, 2015.

연극 《승냥이》 공연 한창 / Drama "Wolf" Re-created in DPRK

(평양 8월 31일발 조선중앙통신)최근 조선의 국립연극극장에서 연극 《승냥이》공연이 진행되고있다. / Pyongyang, August 31 (KCNA) The performance of drama "Wolf" is now going on at the National Theater in Pyongyang.

국립연극단 예술인들이 출연하는 이 작품은 주체40(1951)년 한설야가 창작한 단편소설 《승냥이》에 기초하여 지난 시기 형상하여 공연하던것을 재형상한것이다. / The drama, adapted from a short novel "Wolf" written by Han Sol Ya in Juche 40 (1951), has been recently re-created by the National Theatrical Troupe.

(Korean: http://www.kcna.co.jp/calendar/2015/08/08-31/2015-0831-014.html; English: http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2015/201508/news31/20150831-20ee.html) Porkypines (talk) 02:23, 2 December 2016 (UTC)
 * "Jackals" is the name this novella is best known in English because it's the one Myers used in his 1994 English translation. Not only was that the only English translation of the novella but it appeared in the only book-length work on North Korean literature that had been published in the West (there have been more in recent times). Myers is the best authority on Han and "Jackals" for sure, though his later work on North Korean ideology is controversial. For a discussion of the name, see Fields 2015 who notes that "Dholes" is the literal translation and "Wolves" is sometimes used, but settles on "Jackals".


 * I've made some changes to the text based on your suggestions and explained the issue in a footnote. Nevertheless, "Jackals" is undeniably the WP:COMMONNAME. As for KCNA results, don't expect to find anything about people who have been purged and removed from official histories; that theater adaptation was the only thing I could find and even that is quite surprising. You'll find out that the rest of your hits for "wolf" and "wolves" don't talk about this work at all. I've added David-West's view on the use of beast imagery in Soviet texts. There is a lot more on "Jackals" and the section could be split to its own article someday. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 09:51, 20 December 2016 (UTC)