Нежность (Gentleness) by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

This can’t go on:
is after all injustice of its kind.
How in what year did this come into fashion?
Deliberate indifference to the living,
deliberate cultivation of the dead.
Their shoulders slump and they get drunk sometimes
and one by one they quit;
orators at the crematorium
speak words of gentleness to history.
What was it took his life from Mayakovsky?
What was it put the gun between his fingers?
If with that voice of his, with that appearance,
if ever they had offered him in life
some crumbs of gentleness.
Men live. Men are trouble-makers.
Gentleness is a posthumous honour.

by Евгений Александрович Евтушенко
(Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko)
(1960)
translation by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi

Нежность

Разве же можно,
чтоб все это длилось?
Это какая-то несправедливость…
Где и когда это сделалось модным:
«Живым — равнодушье,
внимание — мертвым?»
Люди сутулятся,
выпивают.
Люди один за другим
выбывают,
и произносятся
для истории
нежные речи о них —
в крематории…
Что Маяковского жизни лишило?
Что револьвер ему в руки вложило?
Ему бы —
при всем его голосе,
внешности —
дать бы при жизни
хоть чуточку нежности.
Люди живые —
они утруждают.
Нежностью
только за смерть награждают.

Additional information: This poem’s subject is the suicide of Vladimir Mayakovsky which, for a long time, was speculated to be a government sanctioned assassination though Mayakovsky was prone to suicidal ideation.

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Exhausted from depression… by Ilya Krichevsky

Exhausted from depression,
to the gravestone I went,
and beyond the gravestone
I saw not peace,
but an eternal battle
which we only dreamed of in life.

Without hesitation I leaped
into the gulf of greedy fire,
but here I begged the Lord:
“Give back to me, Lord, peace,
why eternal battle for me,
take me, I am yours, I am yours.”

…

All my life I’ve rushed,
between hell and heaven,
today the devil, and tomorrow God,
today exhausted, and tomorrow empowered,
today proud, and tomorrow I burn…
Stop.

By Илья Маратович Кричевский
(Ilya Maratovich Krichevsky)
(3 February 1963 – 21 August 1991)
translated by Albert C. Todd

Additional information: I believe this is a fragment or shortened version but I was unable to find a copy of the original Russian version online to check against. If anyone knows where to find it please leave a link in the comments or, if you feel like it, copy/paste it. Many thanks.

Беженцы (Refugees) by Ilya Krichevsky

On and on we go over steppes,
forests, swamps, and grasslands,
still yet a long, long way to go,
still yet many who will lie in ditches.
…
Fate is harsh: you there will go to the end,
you will not,
you will tell grandchildren all of it,
you will die as the dawn barely breaks,
blinded by a pistol’s fire.
But ours is to go on, and on, tearing calluses,
not eating, not sleeping, not drinking,
through forests, hills, and deaths –
in an open field!
To live is what we want, we want to live!

By Илья Маратович Кричевский
(Ilya Maratovich Krichevsky)
(3 February 1963 – 21 August 1991)
(1981)
translated by Albert C. Todd

Беженцы

 (фрагменты)
.
Мы идем и идем по степи,
По лесам, по болотам и травам.
Еще долго и много идти,
Еще многим лежать по канавам.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
Рок суров: кто дойдет, а кто нет,
И расскажешь ты внукам об этом,
Ты умрешь, как забрезжит рассвет,
Ослепленный огнем пистолета.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
Но идем мы, идем, раздирая мозоли,
Нам не есть, нам не спать, нам не пить,
Смерть везде, смерть в лесу, за холмом, в чистом поле…
Как смертельно нам хочется, хочется жить!
. . . .

.

Additional information: I was only able to find a fragmented version of the poem in Russian but it matches the English translation I had as reference. It is possible it was always intended to be in that form but any help on clarifying the matter would be appreciated as there is so little information on him in English.

His only collection of poetry Красные бесы (Red Devils) was published in Kyiv during 1992.

Krichevsky died on 21 August 1991, during the Soviet coup d’état attempt.

On 24 August 1991, by the decree of the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev, “for courage and civic valour shown in the defence of democracy and the constitutional order of the USSR“, Krichevsky was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal (No. 11659).

Gorbechev also decreed that the  families of the three defenders Dmitry Komar, Ilya Krichevsky and Vladimir Usov would receive a one-time award of 250 rubles each and a Zhiguli car from VAZ. Later, by decree of Boris Yeltsin, Krichevksy was posthumously awarded  the second ever “Defender of Free Russia” medal.

He was a Jewish Russian and there is an interesting story regarding his funeral. It was held on the sabbath, when no work or activities outside the home should be done, but Yeltsin insisted. It is speculated this was in order to publicly show the country needed to break away from the previous era’s Soviet symbols, values and practises. His grave has a memorial statue beside it.

Krichevsky is one of the three killed on the Sadovoye Koltso road during the August 1991 putsch that attempted to overthrow the government of Mikhail Gorbachev. For some time he had been bringing his work to the seminar in poetry conducted at the journal Iunost’, and the discussion of his poetry had been scheduled for the fall of 1991.

Biographical information about Krichevsky, p.1058, ‘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).

Хотят ли русские войны? (Do the Russians want war?) by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Do Russian people stand for war?
Go, ask the calm on plain and shore
The wide expanse of field and lea,
The birches and poplar tree.

The soldiers who once fought abreast,
And near the birches lie at rest,
Their sons will answer by the score,
Ask them if Russians are,
Ask them if Russians are,
Ask them if Russians are for war.

Not only for their country’s life
Did soldiers perish in their strife –
But that all human creatures might
Sleep always peacefully at night.

Ask those that fearful battles knew,
Who on the Elbe joined with you,
We keep these memories evermore –
And ask if Russians are,
And ask if Russians are,
And ask if Russians are for war.

Yes, We know how to fight,
But we don’t want again
For soldiers to fall
On their bitter land.

Ask the mothers,
Ask my wife,
And then you should understand
If the Russians,
If the Russians,
If the Russians want war.

The working people of each land
Will come, for sure, to understand
Throughout the world on sea and shore –
If Russian people are,
If Russian people are,
If Russian people are for war.

by Евгений Александрович Евтушенко
(Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko)
(1962)
English lyrics translation by Ольга Моисеенко (Olga Moisseyenko)

Sung by Mark Naumovich Bernes who was a Soviet actor and singer of Jewish ancestry, who performed some of the most poignant songs to come out of World War II including “Dark Night” and “Cranes”.

Хотят ли русские войны?

Хотят ли русские войны?
Спросите вы у тишины
Над ширью пашен и полей,
И у берез, и тополей.

Спросите вы у тех солдат,
Что под березами лежат,
И вам ответят их сыны:
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские войны?

Не только за свою страну
Солдаты гибли в ту войну,
А чтобы люди всей земли
Спокойно ночью спать могли.

Спросите тех, кто воевал,
Кто нас на Эльбе обнимал.
Мы этой памяти верны,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские войны?

Да, мы умеем воевать,
Но не хотим, чтобы опять
Солдаты падали в бою
На землю горькую свою.

Спросите вы у матерей,
Спросите у жены моей,
И вы тогда понять должны,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские войны?

Performed by Ансамбль Александрова (the Alexandrov Ensemble) using the 1970s (?) translated lyrics of Ольга Моисеенко (Olga Moisseyenko). Although she titles it ‘Do the Russian people stand for war’ a translation along the lines of ‘Do the Russian want war?’ is more common.

Additional information: Хотят ли русские войны? (Do the Russians Want War?) is a 1961 anti-war song lyric written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and set to music by Eduard Kolmanovski.

Yevtushenko later said he wrote the song in response to conversations he had with foreigners while travelling in western Europe and the United States. The lyrics evoke the peaceful Russian countryside, the memory of the millions of lives lost in the Second World War, and the friendly meeting of U.S. and Soviet soldiers on Elbe Day.

The poem was cited by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his address to the Russian people immediately prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the 2021-2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis.

On Thursday 24 February 2022 Russian citizens were heard singing the song at protests held in St Petersburg and Moscow. After these protests were broken up, by authorities in riot gear, it was apparently remarked by civilians “в России запрещено говорить, что русские не хотят войны…” (“In Russia it is forbidden to say Russians do not want war…”)

No civilians anywhere want war.

Осень (Autumn) by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Within me is an autumn season.

There is transparency and coolness

Sadness, but not desolation,

And I am humble, full of goodness.

.

And if sometimes I storm aloud

Then I storm, to shed my leaves:

And the thought comes, simply, sadly,

That to storm is not what is needed.

.

The main thing is to learn to see

Myself and the world of toil and torment

In autumnal nakedness

When you and the world become transparent.

.

Insight is the child of silence.

No matter if we make no tumult:

We must calmly shed all noise

In the name of the new leaves.

.

Something, certainly, has happened:

Only on silence I rely

Where the leaves, piling on each other,

Are silently becoming soil.

.

And you see all, as from some height,

When you dare cast your leaves in time

And inner autumn, without passion,

Touches your brow with airy fingers.

.

.

by Евгений Александрович Евтушенко

Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko

(1965)

translation by J R Rowland

Alexei Simonov, the son of the poet Konstantin Simonov, recites the poem.

Beneath is the original version the poem in Cyrillic.

.

Осень

Внутри меня осенняя пора.

Внутри меня прозрачно прохладно,

и мне печально и, но не безотрадно,

и полон я смиренья и добра.

.

А если я бушую иногда.

то это я бушую, облетая,

и мысль приходит, грустная, простая,

что бушевать – не главная нужда.

.

А главная нужда – чтоб удалось

себя и мир борьбы и потрясений

увидеть в обнаженности осенней,

когда и ты и мир видны насквозь.

.

Прозренья – это дети тишины.

Не страшно, если шумно не бушуем.

Спокойно сбросить все, что было шумом,

во имя новых листьев мы должны.

.

Случилось что-то, видимо, со мной,

и лишь на тишину я полагаюсь,

где листья, друг на друга налагаясь,

неслышимо становятся землей.

.

И видишь все, как с некой высоты,

когда сумеешь к сроку листья сбросить,

когда бесстрастно внутренняя осень

кладет на лоб воздушные персты.