This article analyses the main concepts of the work published in 1937 by the famous Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset “The misery and splendour of translation”, unusual in its form and content and a landmark in the history and theory of translation. The article of José Ortega y Gasset has not lost its relevance for the modern translation theory. We revealed implicit contradictions in José Ortega y Gasset’s views on translation. On the one hand, the author considers translation an utopian pursuit and unrealizable intention as a result of divergence between languages, different views of the world and traditions of understatement. On the other hand, the Spanish scholar examines translation as a special literary genre with its own standards and purposes. Translation implies variation of the adequate decisions and two contradictory approaches to it: domestication and foreignization. Translator’s activities are highly intellectual and as a result of them there appears the aesthetic value of translation. The ideas of the Spanish philosopher about the problems of translation remain the source of scientific research in the sphere of translation and interpretation. In our article we analyse the ideas formulated by José Ortega y Gasset in respect to their application to modern translation theories and pay special attention to the centuries-old problem of translatability and untranslatability, which has important meaning for the history and theory of translation. Though José Ortega y Gasset expresses in his famous article pessimistic views on the art of translation, he admits on the whole practicability, necessity and importance of translation.