Russian Poetry
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On the immutability of Russian history, Ivan Golovin, and Mikhail Lermontov’s poem “Farewell, Unwashed Russia” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, the French say, and the expression seems tailor-made for Russian history. Certainly a perusal of any 19th-century text about Russia written by a chronicler at a safe distance from its borders would…
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Poem translated: “The Prophet” by Mikhail Lermontov Keenly aware of his profound alienation from society and the tragic fate allotted to him, the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov had a prophetic sense of his own destiny. His poem “The Prophet” (1841) was a response to, and a continuation of, an identically named poem by Russia’s greatest…
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Poem Translated: “A Memory” by Nikolay Zabolotsky Though Nikolay Zabolotsky was not yet fifty when he wrote “A Memory” in 1952, he was already a broken man. One of the founders of the Oberiu group, Zabolotsky had started as an avant-guard poet before moving in a more classical direction. Although no dissident, by the late…