University translator unveils a literary gift from Russia, with love

It started out like any one of the hundreds of translation projects that John Woodsworth has tackled over his 40-year career. But this research associate in the University’s Slavic Research Group had no inkling that his latest assignment would transform him into the English-language emissary for a publishing phenomenon that has swept Russia by storm.

The work in question is a series of novels by an entrepreneur from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Vladimir Megre. The 10 books published in Russian tell an ongoing tale of spiritual discovery, reading like an extraordinary combination of adventure story, ballad, and dissertation on science, economics and philosophy.

The initial book, Anastasia, was originally rejected by publishers who found it all but impossible to classify. In 1996, Megre paid to have 2,000 copies printed and distributed. They were quickly snapped up and a wave of popular interest was sparked, spawning clubs and on-line discussion groups across Russia. Soon a commercial publisher was enticed to begin a more formal distribution, which resulted in more than 10 million copies being sold in Russia alone.

The books have since been translated into 20 languages, but Woodsworth’s represents the first authorized English version. He has now completed the first five in the series, the latest of which goes to press this fall. As the world’s English-speaking readers begin to sample these texts for the first time, he has been fascinated by the reaction.

“People are affected by these books,” he says, referring to the remarkable evolution of Megre’s writing style from book to book. What begins as a simplistic narrative takes on a much more sophisticated form of artistic expression as the series proceeds.

He adds that Megre touches on a number of highly relevant issues, including dealing with the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States in book six, which is currently being translated. According to Woodsworth, this blend of high art and practical advice represents some of the best that literature offers.

At first glance, Megre is merely describing his bid to develop Siberian cedar nuts and their oil as products with medicinal potential. While travelling to learn more about this resource, he encounters a woman named Anastasia, who engages him in lively exchanges about the extraordinary properties of the cedar trees, along with their meaning for human existence. In this way, Megre offers an account of his business trip as the beginning of a personal enlightenment. 

With hundreds of Anastasia clubs formed across Russia, Megre and his publisher have received poems by the thousands from devoted fans. This is beginning to happen, too, with the English translation.

All of which begs the question, for Woodsworth, of whether the books relate real events, or whether the author cleverly invented Anastasia as a vehicle to present ideas somehow revealed to his own consciousness. “Certainly, she exists as an idea,” he says. “Whether or not she exists in the flesh, I’m reserving judgement for now. I’m not ruling out the possibility. The most important thing is the ideas that she stands for.”