Inés García de la Puente

Inés García de la Puente is a Spanish-born American medievalist specialising in the East Slavic Middle Ages and Translation Studies. She is a research assistant professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at Boston University, and an expert in the history and culture of Kievan Rus', particularly the role of women in the ruling elite and trade routes, as well as camels in pre-Mongol Kiev.

Biography Inés García de la Puente obtained her PhD at the Complutense University of Madrid. She has lived, taught and researched for extended periods of time in Russia, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and France. As of 2010, she was working in the United States as a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University on trade routes in early Kievan Rus'. By 2017, she worked at Boston University and Ohio State University.

In 2019, she completed the first translation of the Primary Chronicle (Tale of Bygone Years, PVL) into modern Spanish under the title Relato de los años pasados. Susana Torres Prieto wrote a positive review, saying that unlike the previous 2013 Spanish translation by A.L. Encinas Moral, Garcia's edition was "updated and fully in line with the findings of our colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean." In particular, Torres praised the concise yet insightful, up-to-date scholarly introduction: "Only someone extremely familiar with the text and its background would be capable of such a synthesis." Taking the critical edition of the PVL by Donald Ostrowski et al. (2003, 2014) as the basis of her literal translation, she sometimes gives motivated explanations for opting a divergent reading, or freer translation when the Slavonic original is incomprehensible, complete with a critical apparatus and justifications for all relevant editorial decisions. Yet, Torres was rather critical of the further structure of the translation, with long footnotes but no index, leaving her wondering who the intended audience was, and that Garcia's otherwise excellent translation deserved a better publisher's approach.

Works Monographs (modern Spanish translation of the Primary Chronicle).

Book chapters (selection) Ed. by D. Ostrowski and C. Raffensperger

Journal articles (selection)

Inés García de la Puente, "Beyond the Sea: On the Use of за море in the Primary Chronicle". Ruthenica. 16. 28–36. 2022.