Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Konstantin Vaginov again. Probably written in the early 1930s in Leningrad. On the embankment, a dawn, Lilac and vague. Balding children are sitting On a magnificent summit. Perhaps it’s a gleam from the windows That‘s lighting their shoulders and chest,…
I didn’t think I’d post today, but Kevin Kinsella excerpts and links to Viktor Yerofeyev’s chat with Caroline McGregor. The subject is pretty esoteric, so read no further unless Russian literature appeals to you. I’m reprinting the comment I left…
Konstantin Vaginov‘s probably best-known poem – see the original. Black is the infinite morning;Like tears, street lights stand.Purple, booming soundsAre heard of a faraway dawn. And the word burns and darkensIn the square before the window,And birds are crowing and…
They say the day before yesterday was Akhmatova’s birthday according to the Gregorian calendar. (Russia was still on Julian style then, in 1889.) Timing is everything, and it seems that it is the dates of birth, and the time and…
D.A. Prigov Water is flowing from the tap– transparent, clean and thick, and o’er a hundred other qualities. What flows from this? It follows thus: you’ve got to live and make sundresses out of chintz, and tell me, isn’t it…
Some of English Poetry’s Ten Dirtiest Secrets are secrets of poetry in any language. Says Aaron, Reputation bloat is directly proportional to the fodder the poet supplies for doctoral theses. “Philosophical” poets are especially prized. My general rule is to…
Translate a poem, word by word, into another language and see if it still makes sense. If it does, that’s a good sign for the original thing; not a necessary or sufficient condition of its goodness, but a sign of…
By December 1991, the USSR was out, and so was its anthem. A year earlier, the Russian Federation adopted its own anthem: a re-orchestrated version of Mikhail Glinka’s sketch, known as The Patriotic Song. Glinka, the author of the first…
Russia’s official anthem is, speaking carefully, eclectic. Its story goes back to the 1940s, when German troops were still controlling Ukraine, Belarus, and big chunks of Russia proper. When the USSR was on the brink of defeat, Stalin turned away…
1. Liam Neeson and Harrison Ford imitate a Russian accent in K-19. Fine. How about that old Viking, Hamlet, doing his hit number, “To Be Or…” with a deep, sore-throat Danish tinge? Or imagine a 2050 Iraqi production, a film…
A literal, but not quite, prosaic translation of a poem by Vladislav Khodasevich (1887, Moscow–1939, Paris) that must have something to do with Leibnitz’s monads. The Soul My soul is like a full moon: It’s cold and clear. On high,…
… on Dec. 11. There wasn’t much response in the Russian press, even less in the Western media. Putin, of course, sent Solzh a congratulatory letter (so tragicomical, so Russian). My feeling is that most Russian public intellectuals don’t want…