Лишив меня морей, разбега и разлета… (By Denying Me The Seas…) by Osip Mandelstam

By denying me the seas, the right to run and fly,
By holding my foot firm on the constrained earth,
What have you achieved? A splendid calculation,
But you couldn’t seize my muttering lips thereby.

by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам
(Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam)
(His surname is commonly Latinised as Mandelstam)
(May 1935)
Voronezh
translated by Bernard Meares

Лишив меня морей, разбега и разлета…

Лишив меня морей, разбега и разлета
И дав стопе упор насильственной земли,
Чего добились вы? Блестящего расчета:
Губ шевелящихся отнять вы не могли.

Ночь темна… (The Night Is Dark) by Yury Galanskov

The night is dark.
There is a moon.
She is, of course, not alone,
And I am absolutely not lonely,
And just now – the bell rings.
I hear a prearranged knock on the door,
jump up, grasp the handshake,
put on a raincoat,
and we go out
almost
in a downpour of rain.
We go out,
and, it is to be supposed,
we are going to overthrow someone.

by Yury Galanskov
1955 (?)
translated by Albert C. Todd

Ночь темна

Ночь темна.
Луна.
Она, конечно, не одна.
И я совсем не одинок,
вот-вот — и прозвенит звонок.
Услышу в дверь условный стук,
вскочу, схвачу пожатье рук,
надену плащ,
и мы уйдем
почти
под проливным дождем.
Уйдем,
и надо полагать —
идем кого-то низвергать.

Additional information: Ю́рий Тимофе́евич Галанско́в (Yuri Timofeyevich Galanskov); 19 June 1939 – 4 November 1972) was a Russian poet, historian, human rights activist and dissident. For his political activities, such as founding and editing samizdat almanac Phoenix, he was incarcerated in prisons, camps and forced treatment psychiatric hospitals (Psikhushkas). He died in a labor camp.

Galanskov’s father was a common worker. He studied briefly at Moscow University but was expelled in his second semester for “the independence of his views.” In 1961, as one of the first human rights activists, he helped found the underground journal Feniks (Phoenix), where, in the first number, his own poetry first appeared. The second number, Feniks 66, he published on his own. He was arrested in 1967 and sentenced with Aleksandr Ginzburg to seven years in a severe-regimen camp for assisting in the production of the White Book about the trial of Andrey Sinyavsky and Yuly Daniel. Beginning in 1969 he was in and out of prison hospitals for treatment of ulcers. He died tragically at the martyr’s age of thrity-three from a blood infection following an ulcer operation.

Galanskov was an unusually courageous, uncompromising enemy of the violence, vulgarity, and hypocrisy of the Soviet system; none of his poetry or essays was ever published in the official Soviet press during his lifetime.

Biographical information about Galanskov, p.954, ‘Twentieth Century Russian Poetry’ (1993), compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (ed. Albert C. Todd and Max Hayward) , published by Fourth Estate Limited by arrangement with Doubleday of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. (transcribed as found in the original text).

Равнодушие (Indifference) by Dmitry Bobyshev

Indifference –
A house
Packed with ice,
Full of snow.
Indifference –
A house
For freezing,
Not for living.
A vault. A plush crypt.
Indifference. A house.
Moldy bread and boxes.
Peels, dead birds, combings, scrapings.
Peer closely – here are also people,
Two-humped people – freaks!
And they kick off from boredom.
And people!
O people are camels!
And virgins are whores.
Peer closely.
But try to enter in,
Only try!
I am like a physician,
I tear out an eye, knock out teeth,
But I will give back!
Indifference.
The coffin. Dead flesh.
House of the dead. Bird feathers.
Broken claws.
Indifference. A house. Indifference.

by Дмитрий Васильевич Бобышев
(Dmitry Vasilyevich Bobyshev)
translated by Albert C. Todd

Равнодушие

Равнодушие —
Набитый льдом,
Наполненный снегом дом.
Равнодушие —
Не для жилья,
Для замораживанья дом.
Погреб. Плюшевый склеп.
Равнодушие. Дом.
Пыльный хлеб и коробки.
Корки, мертвые птицы, очески, поскребыши.
Загляни — здесь и люди,
Двугорбые люди — уроды!
И подохнут со скуки.
И люди!
О люди — верблюды!
И девки — о потаскухи.
Загляни.
Но попробуй зайди —
Лишь попробуй!
Я уподоблюсь врачу.
Вырву глаз, выбью зубы,
А возвращу!
Равнодушие.
Гроб. Мертвечина.
Муравьи и мышиный помет на полу.
Мертвечина.
Мертвый дом. Птичьи перья. Разбитые клешни.
Равнодушие. Дом. Равнодушие.

Additional information: Dmitry Vasilyevich Bobyshev (Дми́трий Васи́льевич Бо́бышев), born 11 April 1936, Mariupol, is a Soviet poet, translator and literary critic.

Bobyshev grew up in Leningrad, where his father died during the blockade in World War II. In 1959 he completed studies at the Leningrad Technological Institute as a chemical engineer and worked in the fiend of chemical weapons. At the end of the 1960s he began working as an editor in the technical division of Leningrad television.

Bobyshev began to write poetry in the 1950s and was first published in the samizdat journal Sintaksis (Syntax) in 1959 and 1960 and then later briefly in Iunost’ (Youth) and Leningrad almanacs. His first collection, Ziianiia (Hiatus), appeared in Paris in 1979, the year he succeeded in immigrating to the United States. His resolution to be a poet was significantly affected by his meeting with Anna Akhmatova, who dedicated the poem “Piataia roza” (The Fifth Rose) to him, though he considers the poetry of Rilke to be his literary wellspring.

Biographical information about Bobyshev, p.862, ‘Twentieth Century Russian Poetry’ (1993), compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (ed. Albert C. Todd and Max Hayward) , published by Fourth Estate Limited by arrangement with Doubleday of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. (transcribed as found in the original text).

Я остаюсь (I Remain) by Nina Berberova

I remain with what was not fully said,
With what was not fully sung, not played out,
Not written to the end, in a secret society,
In the quiet fellowship of the unsuccessful,
Who lived in rustling pages
And now talk in whispers.
They even forewarned us in youth,
but we didn’t want another fate,
And, in general, it wasn’t so bad;
And it even happens – those who didn’t finish
Laughing, didn’t finish dancing take us on trust.

We didn’t succeed, as many didn’t succeed,
For example – all world history
And, as I’ve heard, the universe itself.
But how we cackled, carried in the wind!
About what? And is that important?
They stole the baggage in the station long ago
(So they told us), and burned the books
(So they taught us), the river became shallow,
The forest was cut down and the house burned up,
And the burial mound is grown over
With thistle (So they wrote us),
And the old watchman long ago is not on the job.

Don’t tear form from content
And allow me yet to say in farewell,
That we’ve made peace with our fate,
And you just keep on in a cheerful march
Striding in platoons, showing off to elders.

by Нина Николаевна Берберова
(Nina Nikolayevna Berberova)
(1959)
translated by Albert C. Todd

Я остаюсь

Я остаюсь с недосказавшими,
С недопевшими, недоигравшими,
С недописавшими. В тайном обществе,
В тихом сообществе недоуспевших,
Которые жили в листах шелестевших
И шепотом нынче говорят.
Хоть в юности нас и предупреждали,
Но мы другой судьбы не хотели,
И, в общем, не так уж было скверно;
И даже бывает — нам верят на слово
Дохохотавшие, доплясавшие.

Мы не удались, как не удалось многое,
Например — вся мировая история
И, как я слышала, сама вселенная.
Но как мы шуршали, носясь по ветру!
О чем? Да разве это существенно?
Багаж давно украли на станции
(Так нам сказали), и книги сожгли
(Так нас учили), река обмелела,
Вырублен лес, и дом сгорел,
И затянулся чертополохом
Могильный холм (так нам писали),
А старый сторож давно не у дел.

Не отрывайте формы от содержания,
И позвольте еще сказать на прощание,
Что мы примирились с нашей судьбой.
А вы продолжайте бодрым маршем
Шагать повзводно, козыряя старшим.

Berberova’s father was an Armenian who worked in the Tsar’s Ministry of Finance; her mother came from the landed gentry. In the early 1920s Berberova’s poetry was noted in the literary salons of Petrograd. In 1922, along with her husband, Vladislav Khodasevich, she received permission to leave Russia. At first they lived with Maksim Gorky in Italy and Berlin and then settled in Paris, where they were divorced in 1932. For fifteen years Berberova worked for the Paris Russian newspaper Posledniye novosti and published several novels, the most successful of which was Tchaikovsky (1936). In 1950 she moved to the United States, where she taught at Princeton University until her retirement.

Fame came to her at the age of seventy-two when she published her autobiography, Kursiv moi (The Italics Are Mine). Caustic and unsparing , the book provoked a mixed reaction in émigré circles, but in the USSR it became a coveted item on the literary black market. In 1988 Berberova made a triumphant visit to the Soviet Union; where she discovered that she had become famous in her homeland.

Biographical information about Berberova, p.413, ‘Twentieth Century Russian Poetry’ (1993), compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (ed. Albert C. Todd and Max Hayward) , published by Fourth Estate Limited by arrangement with Doubleday of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. (transcribed as found in the original text).

Когда человек умирает… When A Man Dies… by Anna Akhmatova

When a man dies,
His portraits change.
His eyes gaze out differently, and his lips
Smile with a different smile.
I noticed that when I returned
From the funeral of a certain poet.
And since then I have tested it often
And my suspicions have been confirmed.

by Анна Андреевна Ахматова (Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova)
a.k.a. Анна Андреевна Горенко (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko)
(1940)
translated by Daniel Weissbort

Когда человек умирает…

Когда человек умирает,
Изменяются его портреты.
По-другому глаза глядят, и губы
Улыбаются другой улыбкой.
Я заметила это, вернувшись
С похорон одного поэта.
И с тех пор проверяла часто,
И моя догадка подтвердилась.

The poem read by А. Демидова (A. Demidova).

Akhmatova, whose real surname was Gorenko, is on of the two greatest women poets in the history of Russian poetry. The daughter of a merchant marine engineer, she spent much of her childhood in Tsarkoye Selo, the village outside St Petersburg where the Tsar’s summer palace was located. The regal nature of her work is perhaps in part attributed to this royal environment. Her first books of poetry, Vecher (Evening) (1912) and Chotki (Rosary) (1913; reissued eleven times), brought her critical acclaim. From 1910 to 1918 she was married to Nikolai Gumilyov.

Akhmatova’s poetry, with a few exceptions, is distinguished from that of Russia’s other preeminent woman poet, Marina Tsvetayeva, by its polished form, classical transparency, and thematic intimacy. She wrote comparatively few poems of a “civic” character and, unlike almost any other poet, little or nothing that could be called mediocre. Her poetry, has stood well the test of time, as evidenced by such works as “Mne golos byl…” (I heard a voice…), which repudiates immigration; the patriotic “Muzhestvo” (Courage), which appeared during/World War II; the remarkable “Rekviem” (Requiem); and others.

It is revealing that, despite the personal tragedy of her son’s arrest and persecution during Stalin’s worst purges in 1937-1938, she did not grow bitter but bore her pain with dignity and endurance. In 1946 Akhmatova, along with Mikhail Zoshchenko, fell prey to harsh and unjust criticism in a party resolution “About the Journals Zvezda and Leningrad” in a repressive persecution of the arts led by Andrey Zhdanov. She was not rehabilitated fully until the 1960s. In 1964 she was awarded the Italian Taormina Prize and in 1965 she received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. At the time of her death Akhmatova was highly acclaimed both at home and abroad. Her funeral was a farewell to an entire literary epoch (more than half a century) of which she herself was the queen with a very heavy crown.

Biographical information about Akhmatova, p.170, ‘Twentieth Century Russian Poetry’ (1993), compiled by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (ed. Albert C. Todd and Max Hayward) , published by Fourth Estate Limited by arrangement with Doubleday of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. (transcribed as found in the original text).