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The article discusses the characteristic features and categories of the short story genre and the levels of translation analysis of such texts from the point of view of theoretical understanding of various aspects of literary translation. The purpose of our study is to consider the existing approaches to the translation analysis of the literary text as a whole, to correlate them with the format of the short story genre, and to justify the need for developing a translation strategy for this genre. The research is based on the data extracted from the analysis of 42 short stories by a German writer Wolfgang Borchert, the translation of which into Russian is currently being done by the authors of this article. The categories selected as relevant for the translation process are the categories of chronotope, dynamics, and narrator. The chronotope reproduces the spatio-temporal picture of the world and organizes the composition of the work. The dynamics is associated with both the generation and perception of the content of the text. The examined components include the components of the text dynamics such as the plot movement and statics, neutrality and expression of the style of speech, the economy and redundancy of language tools, the pragmatics of direct and indirect speech. The narrator is a mediator between the author and the reader, the fictional creator of the fictitious world of a work of art. One of the main tasks of the translation analysis of an original text is to identify these categories and their means of expression, and find means for their parallel deployment in the translation text.

Deontic modality is a modality of motivation for action, for compliance with certain laws, requirements and norms. It can be expressed in the form of an order / appeal, prescription, instruction, request, recommendation, permission, persuasion, reasoning, etc. The aim of the study is to show how the genre of the text can influence the choice of explicit and implicit means and ways of expressing this type of modality in the German language, which is realized during a specific discursive practice. Popular science, legal and literary texts became our empirical material. Particular attention was paid here to the phenomenon of isomorphism of modal verbs as markers of various situations of deontic modality. Isomorphism in this case is understood as the uniformity of the ways of expressing modal shades of an utterance in different linguistic forms. Due to this characteristic of German modal verbs, which are combined into one group, primarily based on the commonality of their etymological roots, the same verb can be a marker of different situations of deontic modality, which the article shows in the use of the verb können as an example.

The article discusses the problems of scientific criticism of literary translation. The research material was translations of short stories. The purpose of the study is to determine the spiritual semantic dominants of the analyzed texts, including emotional, evaluative and pragmatic components, based on the analysis of the role of Orthodox concepts and realities in the structure of the content of the stories, and to find an algorithm for their translation interpretation, which can become a starting point for searching for relevant translation equivalents and for constructive and critical analysis of the finished literary translation. The chosen strategy is based on a categorically oriented model of analysis of the original text, namely, an appeal to the ways of transmitting the categories of the author, chronotope and text dynamics, the most important in the genre of the story. The author’s category, author’s intentions, and hidden dynamics make up the complex structure of the subtext. This phenomenon of Chekhov’s short stories is the main translation problem and requires an in-depth analysis. Specific language problems are associated with misinterpretation of individual situations and inadequate vocabulary selection.