I am a Russian-American English language poet and translator, primarily of Russian poetry into English, literary editor, and teacher. My first book, Russian Absurd: Daniil Kharms, Selected Writings came out in the Northwestern World Classics series (2017). I was awarded an NEA Fellowship in Literary Translation in 2015.
The first two poems here are homophonic. The third is based on the Brothers Quay 1985 film, the"E... more The first two poems here are homophonic. The third is based on the Brothers Quay 1985 film, the"Epic of Gilgamesh".
As a lover of Hopkins’ verse and a poet and translator of
Russian poetry into English myself, the... more As a lover of Hopkins’ verse and a poet and translator of Russian poetry into English myself, the small contribution I can offer to Hopkins scholarship consists primarily in communicating an appreciation of what he might have sounded like had he composed in Russian...
... Though difficult for me to judge definitively across two cultural divides, I suspect that Kim... more ... Though difficult for me to judge definitively across two cultural divides, I suspect that Kim’s book is more likely to find sympathetic readers in Russian than in English because of their more closely shared oral traditions. There is a kinship here with the Russian love for telling “anecdotes.” I would also conjecture that Kim’s early study of French literature accounts for another shared heritage, that of the humorous journalistic sketch, “the feuilleton.” If I am correct, then this volume is likely to become a welcome addition in a language that, moreover, counts some half a million ethnic Koreans (the Koryo-saram) among its speakers.
Translations of a dozen short poems, a long mixed prose/poetry text, "Quarter to Paradise," and a... more Translations of a dozen short poems, a long mixed prose/poetry text, "Quarter to Paradise," and a long lyrical prose piece, "The Notes of a Trojan Horse".
TEAR
Embraces again too snug for comfort, we’ll hide our faces from each other. Let’s have no more sighs, words, gazes – Shedding one tear will be sufficient.
Landscape itself grows dim and blurry, and then replenished, as it must be – a denuded bush, the road, a boulder – Let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
About the past or what’s not yet known? About the present? In fog, shrouded, the local precincts, a long time now familiar, will shed the snow like a coat of sheep’s wool.
But there we’ll meet, a happy occasion; we’ll hide our faces from each other. Shedding one tear will be sufficient; let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
1976
From "Quarter to Paradise"
At so early an age, I was deprived of everything, all at once: the sea, the fruit gardens, the chestnuts and acacias, the alleyways and streets of Odessa. And I found myself in the Kazakh steppe. The wind there was always marauding, never allowing for a cultural layer to form on the barren spot. There was neither spring nor fall there: with the end of the infernal winter began an infernal summer. It is not incidental that Stalin chose precisely this part of the country for his prison camps, where a human being had no time to live, thinking only of how best to survive....
From "The Notes of a Trojan Horse"
Either because I am an idiot, or because I am a Russian, I was persistently betrayed by People and Circumstances, Cities and Years, Novels and Tales, Women and Beasts, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tragedy and Comedy, Problems and Exercises. Betrayed by Life itself. And, moreover: I was abandoned in the fray, my girlfriends were stolen from me, ideas appropriated, warning notices issued, I was dismissed from jobs, given smacks on the nape, had death sentences passed on me, and all through treachery. But I betrayed no one in revenge and therefore am pure, like every Russian fool. And like all Russian fools, I cannot explain any of it cogently....
Dmitry Kedrin (1907-1945), a second-generation Russian Modernist, remains almost entirely unknown... more Dmitry Kedrin (1907-1945), a second-generation Russian Modernist, remains almost entirely unknown in the English language. That this master craftsman was almost certainly murdered is not what makes him an ideal subject for this miniature study in literary history. While Kedrin's very substantial gift spanned both lyrical and dramatic poetry; he is perhaps best known, and most interesting for having dwelt in myth and history, his work with folk and epic materials. Though he published only a single slim volume in his lifetime, the 1940 Witnesses (17 poems), he was influential, much read and admired, including for his translations (from Bashkir, Balkar, Tatar, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belorussian), and published widely in the periodical press. In addition to his civic lyrics from the beginning of WWII presented here, he is perhaps best known for his longer free verse poem), “Zodchie” (“Master Builders,” 1938,) which retells the story of Ivan the Terrible, who had the architects of St. Basil's Cathedral blinded to prevent them from recreating their masterpiece. The poem was widely perceived as a deliberate, conscious, and conscientious attempt to directly address the current tyrant. Stalin's personal animus casts a long shadow over Kedrin's lack of book publication, and ultimately, over the untimely “cause of his death.”
Dmitry Kedrin died on the night of September 18, 1945 when he was thrown from a train platform, in a second, successful, attempt on his life.
With this attentive selection of Yesenin’s short lyrics, Yakovlev has given us something I though... more With this attentive selection of Yesenin’s short lyrics, Yakovlev has given us something I thought impossible, an English Yesenin. Sergei Yesenin stands alongside Blok and Tsvetaeva in the pantheon of Russia’s greatest lyric poets and, similar to them, has remained among the most untranslatable. Anton Yakovlev’s conscientious handling of the elements of the craft, as well as his own substantial skill as a poet, manage to convey a palpable voice and persona for Yesenin, and persuade us he truly was a major poet.
“January 10, 1934” is among the last poems in Mandelstam's Moscow Notebooks and one of several d... more “January 10, 1934” is among the last poems in Mandelstam's Moscow Notebooks and one of several dedicated to Andrei Bely, the poet-novelist and important older Modernist who had died on January 8th. It was followed shortly by Mandelstam's second arrest and exile, a product of which were the short “Kama” lyrics, titled after the river along which Osip Mandelstam and his wife Nadezhda were transported. The second, untitled poem here dates from this period and is one of two “Chapayev poems”. In her memoir Hope Against Hope, Nadezhda writes that they had seen, and Mandeltsam was deeply struck by, the 1934 film projected at one of the stops along their train route from the Kama eastward. The verse seems to be driven by the same manic energy as the film itself. Many of the references otherwise obscure to the reader will be clarified by an explication of the first line: the two of them had been accompanied by three guards (hence, “five-headed,” etc.)
Translations of Dmitry Kedrin's "The Master Builders," "Christ and the Foundry Worker," and "The ... more Translations of Dmitry Kedrin's "The Master Builders," "Christ and the Foundry Worker," and "The Finch" and Maximilian Voloshin's "War," "The Terror," and "Famine". Here are the closing stanzas of the final two by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Voloshin and the first by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Kedrin.
... As daylight broke, wives, mothers, hungry hounds Made their way towards the same ravines And, digging up the dirt with their bare hands, Scuffled for the bones, and kissed dear flesh.
April 26, 1921, Simferopol
... When through the winter gloom the spring curdled Above this pus-filled pestilence of humanity And the flame raced with its tongues The breadth of the fields and the height of the naked Twigs, its sweet fragrance seemed an affront, The light of the sun, a mockery, and flowers, sacrilege.
1923
... And their church stood So beautiful That it seemed as in a dream. And its bells rang As though it were mourning them, And the forbidden song Of the terrible mercy of the Tsar Was sung in the secret places By gusli players everywhere Across all of wide Russia.
Vasilisk Gnedov (1890-1978) is one of the most undervalued members of the remarkable generation o... more Vasilisk Gnedov (1890-1978) is one of the most undervalued members of the remarkable generation of Russian Futurism that included those more prominent practitioners of neologism, Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Gnedov's lyricism is every bit as magical as his nome de plume (the chimerical Basilisk) implies: in place of Kruchenykh's dark sarcasms and Khlebnikov's folkloricism, what we have here in the impressively playful English versions of Loseva and Winkler, is the sheer, unalloyed musical pleasure of folksy patois and child's babble. The inclusion of a few of his late poems – he returned to poetry in the 1970s after a long silence engendered by repression and 20 years imprisonment – offers a hint of the genuine lyrical talent that would have undoubtedly developed, if…
Kupriyanov was seminal in giving legitimacy to free verse in Russia in the 1970s and has publish... more Kupriyanov was seminal in giving legitimacy to free verse in Russia in the 1970s and has published 2 books of his Rilke translations.
Four Centuries. Russian Poetry in Translation, 2018
The Russian poet, writer, and dissident Naum Korhzavin passed away last summer at the age of 92. ... more The Russian poet, writer, and dissident Naum Korhzavin passed away last summer at the age of 92. Laureate of the distinguished Poet (2016) and Big Book (2006) prizes for his lifetime contributions in verse, prose, drama and translation, he was the subject of Kultura TV Channel's Pavel Mirzoev prize-winning documentary Naum Korzhavin: Time is Given... (2016). The poem is a fitting testimony to his prescience and foresight re: the events since. Here is from the middle.
...They will spit into your soul and with impunity spill blood. With the complex weave of theories finding a cover for your betrayal, You'll sell everything with a calm: conscience, and love and life. So that no one might trouble the pleasant peace of plenitude -- Moscow's luxuriance, consecrated by the deception of commodity....
Nekrasov remains to this day Russia's most beloved "civic poet". "...With remarkable wit and atte... more Nekrasov remains to this day Russia's most beloved "civic poet". "...With remarkable wit and attention to form, [Nekarsov's poem] serves as lasting testimony to Russia’s eternal and ongoing struggle between the so-called Slavophiles and Westernizers, as exemplified by its two geographic and cultural polarities: Petersburg and Moscow." In closing my Introduction, I note "the relevance of all this to our own cultural war, and the associated debate about the function and relevance of poetry in general, as exemplified by Nekrasov’s feud with the other preeminent Russian poet of his age, Afanasy Fet, who wrote: “The notion that poetry’s social mission, moral value, or relevance could be superior to its artistic aspects, is nightmarish to me; I abandoned this notion long ago.”
The first two poems here are homophonic. The third is based on the Brothers Quay 1985 film, the"E... more The first two poems here are homophonic. The third is based on the Brothers Quay 1985 film, the"Epic of Gilgamesh".
As a lover of Hopkins’ verse and a poet and translator of
Russian poetry into English myself, the... more As a lover of Hopkins’ verse and a poet and translator of Russian poetry into English myself, the small contribution I can offer to Hopkins scholarship consists primarily in communicating an appreciation of what he might have sounded like had he composed in Russian...
... Though difficult for me to judge definitively across two cultural divides, I suspect that Kim... more ... Though difficult for me to judge definitively across two cultural divides, I suspect that Kim’s book is more likely to find sympathetic readers in Russian than in English because of their more closely shared oral traditions. There is a kinship here with the Russian love for telling “anecdotes.” I would also conjecture that Kim’s early study of French literature accounts for another shared heritage, that of the humorous journalistic sketch, “the feuilleton.” If I am correct, then this volume is likely to become a welcome addition in a language that, moreover, counts some half a million ethnic Koreans (the Koryo-saram) among its speakers.
Translations of a dozen short poems, a long mixed prose/poetry text, "Quarter to Paradise," and a... more Translations of a dozen short poems, a long mixed prose/poetry text, "Quarter to Paradise," and a long lyrical prose piece, "The Notes of a Trojan Horse".
TEAR
Embraces again too snug for comfort, we’ll hide our faces from each other. Let’s have no more sighs, words, gazes – Shedding one tear will be sufficient.
Landscape itself grows dim and blurry, and then replenished, as it must be – a denuded bush, the road, a boulder – Let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
About the past or what’s not yet known? About the present? In fog, shrouded, the local precincts, a long time now familiar, will shed the snow like a coat of sheep’s wool.
But there we’ll meet, a happy occasion; we’ll hide our faces from each other. Shedding one tear will be sufficient; let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
1976
From "Quarter to Paradise"
At so early an age, I was deprived of everything, all at once: the sea, the fruit gardens, the chestnuts and acacias, the alleyways and streets of Odessa. And I found myself in the Kazakh steppe. The wind there was always marauding, never allowing for a cultural layer to form on the barren spot. There was neither spring nor fall there: with the end of the infernal winter began an infernal summer. It is not incidental that Stalin chose precisely this part of the country for his prison camps, where a human being had no time to live, thinking only of how best to survive....
From "The Notes of a Trojan Horse"
Either because I am an idiot, or because I am a Russian, I was persistently betrayed by People and Circumstances, Cities and Years, Novels and Tales, Women and Beasts, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tragedy and Comedy, Problems and Exercises. Betrayed by Life itself. And, moreover: I was abandoned in the fray, my girlfriends were stolen from me, ideas appropriated, warning notices issued, I was dismissed from jobs, given smacks on the nape, had death sentences passed on me, and all through treachery. But I betrayed no one in revenge and therefore am pure, like every Russian fool. And like all Russian fools, I cannot explain any of it cogently....
Dmitry Kedrin (1907-1945), a second-generation Russian Modernist, remains almost entirely unknown... more Dmitry Kedrin (1907-1945), a second-generation Russian Modernist, remains almost entirely unknown in the English language. That this master craftsman was almost certainly murdered is not what makes him an ideal subject for this miniature study in literary history. While Kedrin's very substantial gift spanned both lyrical and dramatic poetry; he is perhaps best known, and most interesting for having dwelt in myth and history, his work with folk and epic materials. Though he published only a single slim volume in his lifetime, the 1940 Witnesses (17 poems), he was influential, much read and admired, including for his translations (from Bashkir, Balkar, Tatar, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belorussian), and published widely in the periodical press. In addition to his civic lyrics from the beginning of WWII presented here, he is perhaps best known for his longer free verse poem), “Zodchie” (“Master Builders,” 1938,) which retells the story of Ivan the Terrible, who had the architects of St. Basil's Cathedral blinded to prevent them from recreating their masterpiece. The poem was widely perceived as a deliberate, conscious, and conscientious attempt to directly address the current tyrant. Stalin's personal animus casts a long shadow over Kedrin's lack of book publication, and ultimately, over the untimely “cause of his death.”
Dmitry Kedrin died on the night of September 18, 1945 when he was thrown from a train platform, in a second, successful, attempt on his life.
With this attentive selection of Yesenin’s short lyrics, Yakovlev has given us something I though... more With this attentive selection of Yesenin’s short lyrics, Yakovlev has given us something I thought impossible, an English Yesenin. Sergei Yesenin stands alongside Blok and Tsvetaeva in the pantheon of Russia’s greatest lyric poets and, similar to them, has remained among the most untranslatable. Anton Yakovlev’s conscientious handling of the elements of the craft, as well as his own substantial skill as a poet, manage to convey a palpable voice and persona for Yesenin, and persuade us he truly was a major poet.
“January 10, 1934” is among the last poems in Mandelstam's Moscow Notebooks and one of several d... more “January 10, 1934” is among the last poems in Mandelstam's Moscow Notebooks and one of several dedicated to Andrei Bely, the poet-novelist and important older Modernist who had died on January 8th. It was followed shortly by Mandelstam's second arrest and exile, a product of which were the short “Kama” lyrics, titled after the river along which Osip Mandelstam and his wife Nadezhda were transported. The second, untitled poem here dates from this period and is one of two “Chapayev poems”. In her memoir Hope Against Hope, Nadezhda writes that they had seen, and Mandeltsam was deeply struck by, the 1934 film projected at one of the stops along their train route from the Kama eastward. The verse seems to be driven by the same manic energy as the film itself. Many of the references otherwise obscure to the reader will be clarified by an explication of the first line: the two of them had been accompanied by three guards (hence, “five-headed,” etc.)
Translations of Dmitry Kedrin's "The Master Builders," "Christ and the Foundry Worker," and "The ... more Translations of Dmitry Kedrin's "The Master Builders," "Christ and the Foundry Worker," and "The Finch" and Maximilian Voloshin's "War," "The Terror," and "Famine". Here are the closing stanzas of the final two by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Voloshin and the first by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Kedrin.
... As daylight broke, wives, mothers, hungry hounds Made their way towards the same ravines And, digging up the dirt with their bare hands, Scuffled for the bones, and kissed dear flesh.
April 26, 1921, Simferopol
... When through the winter gloom the spring curdled Above this pus-filled pestilence of humanity And the flame raced with its tongues The breadth of the fields and the height of the naked Twigs, its sweet fragrance seemed an affront, The light of the sun, a mockery, and flowers, sacrilege.
1923
... And their church stood So beautiful That it seemed as in a dream. And its bells rang As though it were mourning them, And the forbidden song Of the terrible mercy of the Tsar Was sung in the secret places By gusli players everywhere Across all of wide Russia.
Vasilisk Gnedov (1890-1978) is one of the most undervalued members of the remarkable generation o... more Vasilisk Gnedov (1890-1978) is one of the most undervalued members of the remarkable generation of Russian Futurism that included those more prominent practitioners of neologism, Velimir Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchenykh. Gnedov's lyricism is every bit as magical as his nome de plume (the chimerical Basilisk) implies: in place of Kruchenykh's dark sarcasms and Khlebnikov's folkloricism, what we have here in the impressively playful English versions of Loseva and Winkler, is the sheer, unalloyed musical pleasure of folksy patois and child's babble. The inclusion of a few of his late poems – he returned to poetry in the 1970s after a long silence engendered by repression and 20 years imprisonment – offers a hint of the genuine lyrical talent that would have undoubtedly developed, if…
Kupriyanov was seminal in giving legitimacy to free verse in Russia in the 1970s and has publish... more Kupriyanov was seminal in giving legitimacy to free verse in Russia in the 1970s and has published 2 books of his Rilke translations.
Four Centuries. Russian Poetry in Translation, 2018
The Russian poet, writer, and dissident Naum Korhzavin passed away last summer at the age of 92. ... more The Russian poet, writer, and dissident Naum Korhzavin passed away last summer at the age of 92. Laureate of the distinguished Poet (2016) and Big Book (2006) prizes for his lifetime contributions in verse, prose, drama and translation, he was the subject of Kultura TV Channel's Pavel Mirzoev prize-winning documentary Naum Korzhavin: Time is Given... (2016). The poem is a fitting testimony to his prescience and foresight re: the events since. Here is from the middle.
...They will spit into your soul and with impunity spill blood. With the complex weave of theories finding a cover for your betrayal, You'll sell everything with a calm: conscience, and love and life. So that no one might trouble the pleasant peace of plenitude -- Moscow's luxuriance, consecrated by the deception of commodity....
Nekrasov remains to this day Russia's most beloved "civic poet". "...With remarkable wit and atte... more Nekrasov remains to this day Russia's most beloved "civic poet". "...With remarkable wit and attention to form, [Nekarsov's poem] serves as lasting testimony to Russia’s eternal and ongoing struggle between the so-called Slavophiles and Westernizers, as exemplified by its two geographic and cultural polarities: Petersburg and Moscow." In closing my Introduction, I note "the relevance of all this to our own cultural war, and the associated debate about the function and relevance of poetry in general, as exemplified by Nekrasov’s feud with the other preeminent Russian poet of his age, Afanasy Fet, who wrote: “The notion that poetry’s social mission, moral value, or relevance could be superior to its artistic aspects, is nightmarish to me; I abandoned this notion long ago.”
First three chapters available FREE in PREVIEW. Sergei Loiko, former LA TIMES photojournalist and... more First three chapters available FREE in PREVIEW. Sergei Loiko, former LA TIMES photojournalist and correspondent, was the only American ever embedded with the Ukrainian troops at the siege of DONETSK airport.
(SEE BEGINNING of the BOOK, on GOOGLE.) A writer who defies categorization, Daniil Kharms has com... more (SEE BEGINNING of the BOOK, on GOOGLE.) A writer who defies categorization, Daniil Kharms has come to be regarded as an essential artist of the modernist avant-garde. His writing, which partakes of performance, narrative, poetry, and visual elements, was largely suppressed during his lifetime, which ended in a psychiatric ward where he starved to death during the siege of Leningrad. His work, which survived mostly in notebooks, can now be seen as one of the pillars of absurdist literature, most explicitly manifested in the 1920s and ’30s Soviet Union by the OBERIU group, which inherited the mantle of Russian futurism from such poets as Vladimir Mayakovsky and Velimir Khlebnikov. This selection of prose and poetry provides the most comprehensive portrait of the writer in English translation to date, revealing the arc of his career and including a particularly generous selection of his later work.
Thank you to the folks over at Public Seminar/The New School for publishing this healthy selectio... more Thank you to the folks over at Public Seminar/The New School for publishing this healthy selection from my Russian Absurd: aka Daniil Kharms (Northwestern University Press) that was part of our "A Day of Translation" event at the school a couple of weeks ago. Please, enjoy!
Himmelkumov was searching for an internal idea he could immerse himself in for the span of his entire lifetime. It is pleasant to be concentrated all in one point like a madman. Everywhere and in everything such a person sees his own object. Everything is his great pleasure. Everything bears a direct relationship to his beloved object....
...If you’d like, I will describe for you how I once lived an entire summer at the Lakhtinsky zoological station, in the castle of Count Stenbock-Fermora, living on a diet of life worms and Nestle’s milk powder, in the company of a nearly mad zoologist, spiders, ants, and snakes....
...Khvilischevsky squinted with his right eye and, with a look of mighty distinction, strode out of the reception hall. But still, he had a niggling suspicion that he had heard Tsuckerman snicker.
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Papers by Alexander Cigale
Russian poetry into English myself, the small contribution I can offer
to Hopkins scholarship consists primarily in communicating an
appreciation of what he might have sounded like had he composed in
Russian...
TEAR
Embraces again too snug for comfort,
we’ll hide our faces from each other.
Let’s have no more sighs, words, gazes –
Shedding one tear will be sufficient.
Landscape itself grows dim and blurry,
and then replenished, as it must be –
a denuded bush, the road, a boulder –
Let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
About the past or what’s not yet known?
About the present? In fog, shrouded,
the local precincts, a long time now familiar,
will shed the snow like a coat of sheep’s wool.
But there we’ll meet, a happy occasion;
we’ll hide our faces from each other.
Shedding one tear will be sufficient;
let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
1976
From "Quarter to Paradise"
At so early an age, I was deprived of everything, all at once: the sea, the fruit gardens, the chestnuts and acacias, the alleyways and streets of Odessa. And I found myself in the Kazakh steppe. The wind there was always marauding, never allowing for a cultural layer to form on the barren spot. There was neither spring nor fall there: with the end of the infernal winter began an infernal summer. It is not incidental that Stalin chose precisely this part of the country for his prison camps, where a human being had no time to live, thinking only of how best to survive....
From "The Notes of a Trojan Horse"
Either because I am an idiot, or because I am a Russian, I was persistently betrayed by People and Circumstances, Cities and Years, Novels and Tales, Women and Beasts, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tragedy and Comedy, Problems and Exercises. Betrayed by Life itself. And, moreover: I was abandoned in the fray, my girlfriends were stolen from me, ideas appropriated, warning notices issued, I was dismissed from jobs, given smacks on the nape, had death sentences passed on me, and all through treachery. But I betrayed no one in revenge and therefore am pure, like every Russian fool. And like all Russian fools, I cannot explain any of it cogently....
Though he published only a single slim volume in his lifetime, the 1940 Witnesses (17 poems), he was influential, much read and admired, including for his translations (from Bashkir, Balkar, Tatar, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belorussian), and published widely in the periodical press. In addition to his civic lyrics from the beginning of WWII presented here, he is perhaps best known for his longer free verse poem), “Zodchie” (“Master Builders,” 1938,) which retells the story of Ivan the Terrible, who had the architects of St. Basil's Cathedral blinded to prevent them from recreating their masterpiece. The poem was widely perceived as a deliberate, conscious, and conscientious attempt to directly address the current tyrant.
Stalin's personal animus casts a long shadow over Kedrin's lack of book publication, and ultimately, over the untimely “cause of his death.”
Dmitry Kedrin died on the night of September 18, 1945 when he was thrown from a train platform, in a second, successful, attempt on his life.
... As daylight broke, wives, mothers, hungry hounds
Made their way towards the same ravines
And, digging up the dirt with their bare hands,
Scuffled for the bones, and kissed dear flesh.
April 26, 1921, Simferopol
... When through the winter gloom the spring curdled
Above this pus-filled pestilence of humanity
And the flame raced with its tongues
The breadth of the fields and the height of the naked
Twigs, its sweet fragrance seemed an affront,
The light of the sun, a mockery, and flowers, sacrilege.
1923
... And their church stood
So beautiful
That it seemed as in a dream.
And its bells rang
As though it were mourning them,
And the forbidden song
Of the terrible mercy of the Tsar
Was sung in the secret places
By gusli players everywhere
Across all of wide Russia.
1938
...They will spit into your soul
and with impunity spill blood.
With the complex weave of theories
finding a cover for your betrayal,
You'll sell everything with a calm:
conscience, and love and life.
So that no one might trouble
the pleasant peace of plenitude --
Moscow's luxuriance, consecrated
by the deception of commodity....
Russian poetry into English myself, the small contribution I can offer
to Hopkins scholarship consists primarily in communicating an
appreciation of what he might have sounded like had he composed in
Russian...
TEAR
Embraces again too snug for comfort,
we’ll hide our faces from each other.
Let’s have no more sighs, words, gazes –
Shedding one tear will be sufficient.
Landscape itself grows dim and blurry,
and then replenished, as it must be –
a denuded bush, the road, a boulder –
Let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
About the past or what’s not yet known?
About the present? In fog, shrouded,
the local precincts, a long time now familiar,
will shed the snow like a coat of sheep’s wool.
But there we’ll meet, a happy occasion;
we’ll hide our faces from each other.
Shedding one tear will be sufficient;
let’s have just one sole tear roll down.
1976
From "Quarter to Paradise"
At so early an age, I was deprived of everything, all at once: the sea, the fruit gardens, the chestnuts and acacias, the alleyways and streets of Odessa. And I found myself in the Kazakh steppe. The wind there was always marauding, never allowing for a cultural layer to form on the barren spot. There was neither spring nor fall there: with the end of the infernal winter began an infernal summer. It is not incidental that Stalin chose precisely this part of the country for his prison camps, where a human being had no time to live, thinking only of how best to survive....
From "The Notes of a Trojan Horse"
Either because I am an idiot, or because I am a Russian, I was persistently betrayed by People and Circumstances, Cities and Years, Novels and Tales, Women and Beasts, Sacco and Vanzetti, Tragedy and Comedy, Problems and Exercises. Betrayed by Life itself. And, moreover: I was abandoned in the fray, my girlfriends were stolen from me, ideas appropriated, warning notices issued, I was dismissed from jobs, given smacks on the nape, had death sentences passed on me, and all through treachery. But I betrayed no one in revenge and therefore am pure, like every Russian fool. And like all Russian fools, I cannot explain any of it cogently....
Though he published only a single slim volume in his lifetime, the 1940 Witnesses (17 poems), he was influential, much read and admired, including for his translations (from Bashkir, Balkar, Tatar, Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Belorussian), and published widely in the periodical press. In addition to his civic lyrics from the beginning of WWII presented here, he is perhaps best known for his longer free verse poem), “Zodchie” (“Master Builders,” 1938,) which retells the story of Ivan the Terrible, who had the architects of St. Basil's Cathedral blinded to prevent them from recreating their masterpiece. The poem was widely perceived as a deliberate, conscious, and conscientious attempt to directly address the current tyrant.
Stalin's personal animus casts a long shadow over Kedrin's lack of book publication, and ultimately, over the untimely “cause of his death.”
Dmitry Kedrin died on the night of September 18, 1945 when he was thrown from a train platform, in a second, successful, attempt on his life.
... As daylight broke, wives, mothers, hungry hounds
Made their way towards the same ravines
And, digging up the dirt with their bare hands,
Scuffled for the bones, and kissed dear flesh.
April 26, 1921, Simferopol
... When through the winter gloom the spring curdled
Above this pus-filled pestilence of humanity
And the flame raced with its tongues
The breadth of the fields and the height of the naked
Twigs, its sweet fragrance seemed an affront,
The light of the sun, a mockery, and flowers, sacrilege.
1923
... And their church stood
So beautiful
That it seemed as in a dream.
And its bells rang
As though it were mourning them,
And the forbidden song
Of the terrible mercy of the Tsar
Was sung in the secret places
By gusli players everywhere
Across all of wide Russia.
1938
...They will spit into your soul
and with impunity spill blood.
With the complex weave of theories
finding a cover for your betrayal,
You'll sell everything with a calm:
conscience, and love and life.
So that no one might trouble
the pleasant peace of plenitude --
Moscow's luxuriance, consecrated
by the deception of commodity....
About the Author
Himmelkumov was searching for an internal idea he could immerse himself in for the span of his entire lifetime. It is pleasant to be concentrated all in one point like a madman. Everywhere and in everything such a person sees his own object. Everything is his great pleasure. Everything bears a direct relationship to his beloved object....
...If you’d like, I will describe for you how I once lived an entire summer at the Lakhtinsky zoological station, in the castle of Count Stenbock-Fermora, living on a diet of life worms and Nestle’s milk powder, in the company of a nearly mad zoologist, spiders, ants, and snakes....
...Khvilischevsky squinted with his right eye and, with a look of mighty distinction, strode out of the reception hall. But still, he had a niggling suspicion that he had heard Tsuckerman snicker.