On May 21, Russia celebrates the Day of the Military Translator. This date was not chosen by chance. On May 21, 1929, 89 years ago, Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR Iosif Unshlikht signed an order "On establishing the rank for the commanding staff of the Red Army" Military translator "". This order laid the legal foundations for the profession of a military translator, which, of course, existed in the Russian army throughout its entire history.
Even at the dawn of Russian statehood, “interpreters” appeared in the princely squads - people who knew other languages (as a rule, the languages of their closest neighbors and potential opponents) and were able to perform the functions of translators. In 1549, the Ambassadorial Prikaz was created, which served as a diplomatic department and included a staff of translators. Initially, the Ambassadorial Prikaz included 22 translators and 17 interpreters engaged in interpretation. The division into civilian and military translators did not exist at that time. The further development and strengthening of Russian statehood, the entry into Russia of vast lands in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East, the establishment of contacts with various countries of the world demanded a more attentive attitude from the country and the organization of translation.
In 1885, at the Oriental Languages Division of the Asian Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, special officers' courses were founded, which trained military translators. The courses immediately gained fame among the officers' environment and became very prestigious - no less than 10 officers of the Russian Imperial Army applied for each place of the course listener. The profession of a military translator was very interesting for many - after all, it provided not only the opportunity to learn foreign languages, but also to visit many places, including abroad, to make a career in the military diplomatic service. Graduates of the courses served in the Caucasus and Central Asia as border guard officers and district chiefs. In 1899, the Oriental Institute was opened in Vladivostok, where orientalists with knowledge of the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and Manchu languages were trained, then the Tibetan language was added to the institute's program - at that time the Russian Empire showed a very great interest in Tibet and Central Asia generally. In addition, the training of translators was carried out in foreign language courses, which were opened at the headquarters of the military districts of the Russian army.
In 1911, special district preparatory schools for military translators were opened at the headquarters of the Amur, Turkestan and Caucasian military districts. In the Tiflis and Tashkent schools, five officers were trained annually, in the school at the headquarters of the Amur Military District - twelve officers. The Tiflis school taught Turkish and Persian, the Tashkent school taught Persian, Uzbek, Afghan, Chinese and Urdu, and the Irkutsk school taught Chinese, Japanese, Mongolian and Korean.
In Soviet Russia, as noted above, the start of the profession of a military translator was given on May 21, 1929 by a corresponding order. Nevertheless, a full-fledged system of training military translators was established only by the middle of the twentieth century. In 1940, a year before the start of the war, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution on the creation of a special Military Faculty at the 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages (2nd MGPIIYa), which had the status of a higher military educational institution. The faculty was supposed to train military teachers of English, German and French for schools and academies of the Red Army.
Major General Nikolai Biyazi, a man of amazing origin and biography, was appointed head of the faculty. A descendant of Italian immigrants, Nikolai Nikolaevich Biyazi began service in the tsarist army - in ordinary positions, and then, for his courage and ability, he was sent to short-term training courses for ensigns, rose to the rank of second lieutenant. After the October Revolution, he went over to the side of the Bolsheviks, served in the Red Army, where he was head of the Tiflis Infantry School, then the Fourth Tashkent Joint Command School named after V. I. Lenin in Tashkent. Before being appointed head of the faculty, Nikolai Biyazi served as the USSR military attaché in Italy. Interestingly, in addition to a brilliant military career, Nikolai Nikolaevich Biyazi was one of the first Russian sports judges. He became the first certified football judge back in the Russian Empire, in June 1918 he judged the final of the first football championship in Soviet Russia.
In early 1941, the faculty was renamed the Military Faculty of Western Languages at the 1st and 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institutes of Foreign Languages. In June 1940, almost simultaneously with the opening of the Military Faculty at the 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages, the Military Faculty of the All-Union Institute of Oriental Languages was also opened. It trained military translators and teachers of oriental languages.
However, during the Great Patriotic War, the need for translators and teachers of foreign languages increased so much that the Military Department of Western Languages at the 2nd Moscow State Pedagogical Institute was reorganized into the Military Institute of Foreign Languages of the Red Army (VIIYAKA) on April 12, 1942. The Military Faculty of the All-Union Institute of Oriental Languages was also included in the VIIYAK. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Red Army was involved in the reorganization of faculties and the creation of the VIIYAK, for which the bulk of the personnel was trained at the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. The institute's curricula were also approved by the head of the GRU of the General Staff of the Red Army.
As part of the Military Institute of Foreign Languages, Western and Eastern faculties were created, as well as retraining courses with departments of Western and Eastern languages. The terms of study at the faculties were three years, and at the retraining courses - one year. The Institute trained specialists in two main areas - military translators-referents and military teachers of foreign languages for military schools and academies of the Red Army. No more than 20% of the students of the Institute could be citizens sent to study by the People's Commissariat of the USSR Navy and the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the USSR.
The shortage of military translators in the active army forced the command of the Red Army to transfer the Military Institute of Foreign Languages for the duration of the war to the course system for training specialists, which made it possible to train cadets in the shortest possible time. During the war years, the famous Soviet and Russian artist Vladimir Etush studied at such courses. The courses taught German, as well as other languages of the countries - opponents of the Soviet Union. At first, the institute was in evacuation - in the city of Stavropol on the Volga, and in the fall of 1943 returned to Moscow.
During the years of the Great Patriotic War, the institute and courses trained more than 3,000 specialists - translators who served in the army, partisan detachments, newspaper offices, directorates and headquarters of the Red Army. The contribution of military translators to the victory over Germany is invaluable. Very often it was possible to avoid unnecessary bloodshed precisely thanks to the work of military translators. For example, thanks to Captain Vladimir Samoilovich Gall, he managed to take the citadel defended by the Nazis without a fight. On June 24, 1945, at the Victory Parade, the crew of the Military Institute of Foreign Languages was headed by Lieutenant General Nikolai Nikolaevich Biyazi.
It is interesting that in 1949 one of its most famous graduates, the future writer Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky, graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages. He qualified as a translator from Japanese and English and served in the Soviet Army for six years. In particular, Arkady Strugatsky was an interpreter during the investigation during the preparation of the Tokyo trial over the top of militarist Japan, then taught foreign languages at the Kansk Military Infantry School, in 1952-1954. served as a divisional translator in Kamchatka, and in 1955 - in Khabarovsk in a special purpose unit.
After the war, the service of military translators awaited a new, no less difficult time. The era of strategic confrontation between the USSR and the United States began, anti-colonial and revolutionary movements intensified in Asia, Africa, Latin America. The confrontation with the West in the third world countries demanded from the USSR high-quality training of specialists who spoke a wide variety of foreign languages - from English and French to Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, and the languages of the peoples of South Asia.
The Military Institute of Foreign Languages could no longer cover the growing needs of the Soviet Army and the KGB of the USSR for military translators, therefore, as in the years of the Great Patriotic War, accelerated courses for military translators were opened, which trained specialists with knowledge of foreign languages.
Graduates of the VIIYa and training courses for officer-translators served all over the world, where the USSR had its own interests. They served in Angola and Afghanistan, Mozambique and Egypt, Algeria and Ethiopia, Libya and Iraq, Vietnam and South Yemen, not to mention the Warsaw Pact countries. A whole detachment of flight interpreters was also trained. Especially actively in the 1960s they trained translators with knowledge of the Arabic language - at that time the Soviet Union actively participated in Middle East politics, increased cooperation with Arab countries - Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and many other states.
In 1974, after being admitted to the Institute of the Military Law Faculty of the Military-Political Academy named after V. I. IN AND. Lenin, the Military Institute of Foreign Languages was renamed the Military Institute of the USSR Ministry of Defense. Currently, military translators are trained at the Foreign Languages Department of the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.
The profession of a military translator has always been prestigious, but also dangerous. In Afghanistan alone, according to official figures, 15 military translators were killed. In fact, the losses are, of course, greater - it is necessary to take into account those who worked in the line of the special services, and the statistics are silent about their losses. In Soviet times, forty foreign languages were taught at the Military Institute. It was a unique educational institution that had no analogues in the world. And all the same, the institute did not cover the needs of the army and navy, state security agencies in military translators. Therefore, the posts of military translators were often closed by graduates of civilian universities called up for military service. There was especially a shortage of specialists in relatively rare languages, so they could be sent abroad even before graduation.
For example, Igor Sechin, who studied in the Portuguese group of the philological faculty of the Leningrad State University named after A. A. Zhdanov, was sent on a business trip to Mozambique while still in his fifth year. Then, after graduating from high school, he was called up for military service in the Armed Forces of the USSR. The future head of Rosneft spent several months in the Turkmen SSR, where the international center for training air defense specialists was located. Since many cadets from Angola and Mozambique studied at the center, translators from Portuguese were in great demand there. Then Sechin was transferred to Angola, where there was a civil war. He served as senior translator for the Naval Adviser Group in Luanda, then with the Anti-Aircraft Missile Forces Group in Namib province.
In the 1990s, a significant blow was dealt to the system of training military translators, which was also associated with a general weakening of the state's interest in the armed forces. But now, when Russia is once again showing activity on an international scale, increasing its military and political influence in various regions of the planet, the profession of a military translator is rapidly reviving. The Near and Middle East, Southeast and South Asia, the Far East, the African continent - everywhere Russia has its own interests, which means there is a need for military specialists who speak the languages of the local population.
Being a translator in uniform is interesting, prestigious and honorable. Voennoye Obozreniye congratulates all current and future military translators and veterans of military translation on their professional holiday, wishes them maximum professional and life success, no losses, peaceful and interesting service.
