I’m not ready for freedom yet.
Am I the one to blame?
You see, there was no likelihood
of freedom in my time.
My great-great-grandad, my great grandad,
my own grandad never
dared to dream of
‘Freedom now!’
None of them saw it: ever.
What’s this thing that they call freedom?
Does it bring satisfaction?
Or is it helping others first
and putting oneself last?
An overwhelming happiness,
pride and envy expelled,
throwing open one’s own soul,
not prying in anyone else’s.
Here are oceans composed of sweat,
Himalayas of toil!
Freedom’s a lot harder than
unfreedom to enjoy.
For years I, too, awaited freedom,
waited till I trembled,
waited till I ached – yet I’m
unready, now it’s come.
by Владимир Николаевич Корнилов (Vladimir Nikolayevich Kornilov)
(1986)
translated by Katherine E. Young
Fun facts: Here is my rough effort to translate the Russian language Wikipedia article page on him as there is no English page available and most of the results for his name will lead you to information about the historical naval figure.
Vladimir Nikolaevich Kornilov ( June 29, 1928 , Dnepropetrovsk – January 8, 2002 , Moscow ) was a Soviet Russian poet, writer, and literary critic. He was heavily censored throughout the Soviet era for his, to the Soviet authorities, ideologically troubling works.
He was born into a family of civil engineers. When the Great Patriotic War began (i.e. World War II), he was evacuated to Novokuznetsk ( Siberia ), then moved to Moscow . In 1945 – 1950 he studied at the Gorky Literary Institute (i.e. the LitInstitute mentioned in this poem) , which he was he was expelled from three times for absenteeism and “ideologically vicious verses”.
Kornilov’s first poems were published in 1953 . However, his works were rarely published, and even then only after ‘corrections’ had been made by censors. In 1957, his collection of poems “Agenda from the military registration and enlistment office” was rejected. Only in 1964 his first book of poems, The Pier, was published by the Soviet Writer Publishing House, and in 1965, on the recommendation of Anna Akhmatova , Kornilov was successfully admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR.
A hard time awaited the prose works of Kornilov. His first and second novels – “Without arms, without legs”, completed in 1965 , and “Girls and ladies”, written in October 1968 he tried to get published for a long time unsuccessfully in the Soviet Union . The former was not printed and although the latter was accepted for publication in December 1971 but immediately thereafter rejected or banned.
By his third and largest prose work – the novel “Demobilization” – Kornilov no longer even tried to be publish in his homeland and instead sent his works to the west, where, from 1974 onwards, they were in print.
[he has two books in English I could find after a very brief search: Girls to the Front (1984) and Building a Prison (1985) so it’s possible the others were in German and other languages or have different titles in other languages. By all means comment on this post if you find others available in English.]
Being published in samizdat and in foreign Russian-language publications, as well as Kornilov’s speeches in support of Julius Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky ( 1966 ), displeased the Soviet authorities.
In 1975 he was made a member of the Soviet section of Amnesty International and on the recommendation of G. Böll, he was accepted also into the French Pen Club.
Kornilov signed a letter to “heads of state and government” with a request to protect academician Andrei Sakharov , and in March 1977 he was expelled from the Union of Writers of the USSR (he was initially accepted in 1965, and while expelled his membership was eventually restored in 1988 ). His books were removed from their libraries and sold in 1979. He began to publish his works again in the USSR from 1986 onwards.
Kornilov died from a bone tumor on January 8, 2002 .
… hopefully that is helpful to anyone wanting a little information about the poet.
Original Russian cyrillic version of the poem:
Не готов я к свободе –
По своей ли вине?
Ведь свободы в заводе
Не бывало при мне.
Никакой мой прапрадед
И ни прадед, ни дед
Не молил Христа ради:
«Дай, подай!» Видел: нет.
Что такое свобода?
Это кладезь утех?
Или это забота
О себе после всех?
Неподъёмное счастье,
Сбросив зависть и спесь,
Распахнуть душу настежь,
А в чужую не лезть.
Океаны тут пота,
Гималаи труда!
Да она ж несвободы
Тяжелее куда.
Я ведь ждал её тоже
Столько долгих годов,
Ждал до боли, до дрожи,
А пришла – не готов.
Rambling At The Bridge Head 