VOICES OF CONSCIENCE: PHRASEOLOGICAL EXPRESSION AND ITS RE-CREATION IN THE UZBEK TRANSLATION OF DOSTOEVSKY

Abstract

This article examines how phraseological units shape the psychological and ethical fabric of F. M. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and how these culturally saturated expressions are rendered in I. G‘ofurov’s Uzbek translation. Drawing on a corpus of 118 idioms (with 15 discussed in depth), the study combines comparative-contrastive, contextual-semantic, and cultural-semiotic analysis to trace shifts in meaning, tone, and worldview. Findings show that literal transfer is rarely adequate: G‘ofurov systematically employs functional equivalence, cultural substitution, and selective paraphrase to preserve the novel’s “emotional temperature” and moral tension. Christian demonological imagery (e.g., bes) is reinterpreted through Islamic ethical symbolism (iblis); nature-based Russian metaphors are recast via domestic and agricultural Uzbek imagery (e.g., xamir/patir), producing culturally native yet psychologically faithful effects. The article argues that successful translation of Dostoevsky’s phraseology is less a replication of verbal form than a re-embodiment of inner drama in another cultural universe, maintaining the polyphonic interplay of voices at the heart of the novel