Setters in Russia

[Margaret Sierakowski]

I think there are one or two setter breeders from Russia on this list?
I recently had the luck to acquire the two volumes of Sabaneev on Hunting Dogs published in Russia in 1896. This is an important dog book and has a large section (around 130 pages) on setters , going back to the arrival of the first setters in Russia in the 1840's . Unfortunately my knowledge of Russian is almost non existent and its very frustrating to know that there is probably a lot of very interesting material in this book which I cant read!
Alfred King was in Russia in the 1990s and got to make a synopsis of the section on English (Laverack and Llewellin) Setters which he published in two parts in the Llewellin Setter Association journal

http://www.nationallsa.com/LSARussianSpring96.pdf

There are about forty pages on Irish Setters in Sabaneev and I'm wondering if there has ever been a translation made? Maybe somebody in Russia knows? It would be interesting reading and great if it could be published. Maybe somebody in Russia or with a knowledge of Russian would be interested in doing a translation? There is even a reference to Irish Red and White Setters with an engraving of an IRWS taken from Ernest Bellecroix's Les Chiens d'Arrets (1881)

Sabaneev was clearly a very important cynological writer . The first book in English about Irish Setters was Millner (1924), preceded by Sodenkamp's Le Setter Irlandais published in French in 1911. Sabaneev summarised Laverack's book but there is great deal more information about setters in his book on hunting dogs. I would love to be able to read it all!
I dont know how easily available the book is in Russia, but if anybody is interested in translating the Irish Setter pages (or even making a synopsis) I would be glad to provide a photocopy
Anybody interested?
I also have the last Russian Kennel Club year book published before the revolution which has pages on Irish Setters with photos
Margaret Sierakowski
Dalriach Irish Red and White Setters

[Dušan Rauški]

I find this article from Llewellin Setter Association journal very interesting and i hope some of our friends from Russia will step forward to translate the rest of it from the book and maybe to share it with the rest of us!?
i understand a bit of Russian and a bit of English but hardly a candidate for such a big job. although would love to read that book and hope this thread will not be buried and forgotten somewhere on the forum.

[Londa Warren]

What an interesting situation to be in! I don't know if this URL will help, but it's an on-line translator which translates many languages from one to another - either way. I would imagine your problem would be typing in the cyrillic characters which could then be translated into English. But it might be worth a try!

Go to: http://www.google.com/translate_t - it may be useful to you. I'm going to copy and paste some of the foreign (to me) language posts from this list into it so I can actually read what has been said in anything other than English!

Londa

[Henk ten Klooster]

Gennadi I had the luck once to read a lot of old archives on working style. In the beginning, Irish setters here were very versatile so ok for work before and after shot. You can glimpse styles during centuries in a Setter Museum in Germany, confirming trends. But theres also in Rays book sharp differences between pointer style and Irish setter style especially the gallop described. A few experts here alas dead and gone said the difference is pointer always highnosed, the Irish setter always adjusting. Why did you throw away all your Russian lines? Or are they still alive and kicking?

[ursula wilby]

londa, these translation-sites are good for the odd word, but once you start with full sentances, they are likley to produce just about anything! Amusing and (if you know what it says) quite fun to note how far from the truth you can get! :-)

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Unfortunately one cant cut and paste from a book, and one needs a cyrillic keyboard to type in the Russian for ther automatic translator
If anybody who can read Russian is interested, I could provide a photocopy of the 40 pages about Irish Setters, so he or she could either do a translation or write a summary of what is in it, maybe translate any particularly interesting passages. If your English isnt too good, dont worry, a literal translation would be fine, I could tidy up the English afterwards

Much of it may turn out to be copied from Laverack, Rawdon Lee and Bellecroix, but some could be more original writing about setters in Russia . There seem to have been some very good setters and pointers who went to Russia from England in the late nineteenth century before the revolution, how much has survived from those old imports? Russia had a great tradition of breeding good hunting dogs and there were some very wealthy Russians who imported only the very best dogs that money could buy

As well as the Russian books, there is more older writing about setters in other European languages that has never been translated into English. Bellecroix's Les Chiens d'Arret published in France in 1881 ( a reprint of the series of articles he wrote for La Chasse Illustree in the 1870s) is another excellent book that should be more widely known. Among other things the book has the first written account of the Irish Red and White Setter
Millner's The Irish Setter (1924) is usually thought to be the first book about the Irish Setter, but it was preceded by Sodencamp's Le Setter Irlandais published by L'Eleveur in Paris in 1911. This small book has some faults (he thought IRWS were English Setters). It seems to be almost unknown
Much later Verwey's book on Setters and Pointers, written in Dutch and published in 1949 has also never been translated. A very interesting book, one wonders why it has never been translated. Now that would be an interesting job for Henk :))
When one starts to look, there is lots of old material written about setters lying around in various European countries, it would give us a much more complete picture of how the setter breeds developed accross Europe, not only in the UK, Ireland and America
Schilbred and Waldemar Marr were translated, but there is more that hasnt been.
If anybody can point me in the direction of more early material, books, articles etc written about setters, especially Irish Setters, in European languages other than English I would be interested in putting together a more complete bibliography. And maybe this could lead to more material being translated ?
Margaret Sierakowski

[Henk ten Klooster]

You are right captain G.J. Verweij "Setters en Pointers" (Amsterdam, 1947) is a standard-work.

It was used as a source by under more Gilbert Leighton-Boyce (UK) "A Survey of Early Setters" (London, 1985) and William C. Thompson (USA) "The New Irish Setter" (New York, 1968).

No question mark for Verweij where the setter got his point from (the pointer).

He wrote his book while being imprisoned by the Germans during WWII so he had lots of time... In 1990 I've read a few thousand of his letters as well, very intresting!

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Ah, this is just what I need. I just tried cutting and pasting two paragraphs into Babelfish, and it produced a reasonable literal translation into English (with one or two oddities - took me a moment to work out that a "hepatic spaniel" is a liver coloured spaniel ! )
I think I could probably produce a translation of the setter section (although it doesnt look like as much as the 40 pages in the original?)
Anyway I will have a try
A big thank you, Gennady!
Margaret

[Margaret Sierakowski]

Even bigger thank you!
I will put the whole lot through Babelfish for a literal translation, and see if I can produce a better English version from it. Which could take several weeks. If I get really stuck on something I will come back and get help from somebody who speaks Russian :))
As I thought, it looks like a large part is a summary of Laverack, Rawdon Lee and others and about dogs from England and Ireland, so nothing new there, but some is about setters in Russia which will be more interesting
Margaret

[Christiane Lohmann]

So to get it right:
Russian Sabaneev thinks of PALMERSTON as a tall dog, being 23 '' inches = 58,42 cm.

Thanks
Christiane