dark days in Russian translatio​n

[gleameil]

I'm reading David Bellos' Is That a Fish in Your Ear: Translation and the Meaning of Everything, and I came across the following tidbit. 

"The Belarusan novelist Vasil Bykaŭ, for example, was translated into Russian, which provided first entry to the world concert of books.  However, Soviet translators did not dare reproduce his meaning too closely.  In Alpjskaja Balada (Alpine Ballad; 1963), the hero tries to explain to a naive foreigner about his country, saying, 'It will get better someday.  Things cannot go on being lousy forever.'  In Russian translation, the sentence reads, 'The collective farm is good.'"