Page 19 - Inside the Film Factory New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema

Note on transliteration and translation

Transliteration from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet is a perennial problem for
writers on Russian subjects. We have opted for a dual system: in the text we have
transliterated in a way that will, we hope, render Russian names and terms more
accessible to the non-specialist while in the scholarly apparatus we have adhered to
a more accurate system for the specialist. Accepted English spellings of Russian
names have been used wherever possible and Russian names of Germanic origin
have been returned to their roots.
The translation of film titles poses problems as Russian does not have either an
indefinite or a definite article. We have preferred to insert an article: hence The
Battleship Potemkin, The Arsenal, etc. The convention by which Soviet films are
known by bald titles like Earth, Mother, Strike is itself arbitrary: consider, for
example, how Chekhov’s plays have become known in English as The Seagull and
The Cherry Orchard, but Three Sisters.