Evgeny Vinokurov. Adam. Translated by Dmitri Manin

Also in Translations:

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch
"The Garden of Earthly Delights" by Hieronymus Bosch (fragment) [Public domain]
Evgeny Vinokurov. Adam. Translated by Dmitri Manin

 
On his first day he glanced around the glade

Where supple grass grew by the crystal creek,

He lay down lazily in the fig tree shade

And fell asleep, his hand under his cheek.
 

Beneath the azure peace of Eden’s heavens

Sweetly he slept, nothing disturbing him.

And in his dream he saw the Auschwitz ovens

And trenches filled with bodies to the brim…
 

He saw his children… In the languid air

Of paradise he smiled in his primeval

Innocent dream, blissfully unaware

Of what it meant, not knowing good from evil.
 
 
The Original
 
АДАМ
 
Ленивым взглядом обозрев округу,

Он в самый первый день траву примял,

И лег в тени смоковницы, и руку

Заведши за голову, задремал.
 

Он сладко спал, он спал невозмутимо

Под тишиной Эдемской синевы.

Во сне он видел печи Освенцима

И трупами наполненные рвы…
 

Своих детей он видел… В неге Рая

Была улыбка на лице светла.

Дремал он, ничего не понимая,

Не знающий еще добра и зла.
 

About the Author:

Винокуров_Евгений_БСП
Yevgeny Vinokurov
Briansk/ Moscow, Russia

Yevgeny Mikhailovich Vinokurov (October 22, 1925, Bryansk – January 23, 1993, Moscow) was a Russian Soviet poet, translator and teacher. His first poems were published in 1948 in the magazine “Smena” with a foreword by Ilya Ehrenburg. In 1951, he graduated from the Gorky Literary Institute, and his first book “Poems about Duty” came out the same year. His second book of poems, titled “Sineva.” came out in 1956 and earned the approval of Boris Pasternak. “Sergei from Malaya Bronnaya,” a poem about Moscow boys who did not return from the front and about their mothers, fading away in empty apartments, became one of the most popular Soviet post-war songs. (it was put to music in 1958 by Andrei Eshpai.)

About the Translator:

manin_2021 (1)
Dmitri Manin
California, USA

Dmitri Manin is a physicist, programmer, and translator of poetry. His translations from English and French into Russian have appeared in several book collections. His latest work is a complete translation of Ted Hughes’ “Crow” (Jaromír Hladík Press, 2020) and Allen Ginsberg’s “The Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems” (Podpisnie Izdaniya, 2021). Dmitri’s Russian-to-English translations have been published in journals (Cardinal Points, Delos, The Café Review, Metamorphoses, etc) and in Maria Stepanova’s “The Voice Over” (CUP, 2021). In 2017, his translation of Stepanova’s poem won the Compass Award competition. “Columns,” his new book of translations of Nikolai Zabolotsky’s poems, was published by Arc Publications in 2023 (https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/books/nikolai-zabolotsky-columns-poems).

Евгений Винокуров Evgeny Vinokurov
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