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Defend yourself! They’re woodcutters,
those whistling axes
moving my tongue.
Watch out!
Sickles of evil winds
biting my soul.
You,
tower of distrust.
You, tower of gold, greed.
Wall up your windows.
Better yet, look.
Men devastated, still,
in the fallen cities.
Ask them.
Better yet, listen.
A sky, green with envy,
overflows from my mouth and sings.
I, a sky…
Neither look nor listen. I…
Wall up your windows.*
*
ЗАВИСТЛИВЫЙ АНГЕЛ
Защищайся! — это дровосеки
свистящими топорами
двигают моим языком.
Берегись!
Это серпы злых ветров
кромсают мою душу.
Ты,
крепость недоверия,
Ты, крепость из золота и жадности.
Зашторь окна.
Или нет, смотри.
Опустошенные, неподвижные люди
в разрушенных городах.
У них спроси.
Или нет, слушай.
Небо, зеленое от зависти,
льётся из моего рта и поет.
Я, небо …
Нет, не слушай и не смотри. Я…
Зашторь окна.**
*
The original
EL ÁNGEL ENVIDIOSO
Leñadoras son, ¡defiéndete!,
esas silbadoras hachas
que mueven mi lengua.
Hoces de los vientos malos,
¡alerta!,
que muerden mi alma.
Torre de desconfianza,
tú.
Tú, torre del oro, avara.
Ciega las ventanas.
O no, mira.
Hombres arrasados, fijos
por las ciudades taladas.
Pregúntales.
O no, escucha.
Un cielo, verde de envidia,
rebosa mi boca y canta.
Yo, un cielo…
Ni escuches ni mires. Yo…
Ciega las ventanas.
*English translation by Jose A. Elgorriaga & Martin Paul from “100 Poems by Rafael Alberti” (San Francisco: Kosmos, 1981)
**Russian translation by Nina Kossman
Rafael Alberti (16 December 1902 – 28 October 1999) was a Spanish poet. He is considered one of the greatest literary figures of the so-called Silver Age of Spanish poetry.
Nina Kossman’s nine books include three books of poems, two books of short stories, an anthology she edited for Oxford University Press, and a novel. Her work has been translated from English into French, Spanish, Greek, Japanese, Hebrew, Persian, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Danish, and Dutch. Her Russian work was published in Russian periodicals in and outside of Russia. She is a recipient of an NEA fellowship, UNESCO/PEN Short Story award, grants from the Onassis Foundation, the Foundation for Hellenic Culture, etc.
A book of poems in Russian by Victor Enyutin (San Francisco, 1983). Victor Enyutin is a Russian writer, poet, and sociologist who emigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in 1975.
This collection of personal essays by a bi-national Russian/U.S. author offers glimpses into many things Soviet and post-Soviet: the sacred, the profane, the mundane, the little-discussed and the often-overlooked. What was a Soviet school dance like? Did communists go to church? Did communists listen to Donna Summer? If you want to find out, read on!
“Cold War Casual” is a collection of transcribed oral testimony and interviews translated from Russian into English and from English into Russian that delve into the effect of the events and the government propaganda of the Cold War era on regular citizens of countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Julia Wiener was born in the USSR a few years before the Second World War; her youth was spent during the “Thaw” period, and her maturity coincided with the years of “Soviet stagnation”, which, in her case, ended with her emigration to Israel in the early 1970s. Her wartime childhood, her Komsomol-student youth, her subsequent disillusionment, her meetings with well-known writers (Andrei Platonov, Victor Nekrasov, etc.) are described in a humorous style and colorful detail. Julia brings to life colorful characters – from her Moscow communal apartment neighbors to a hippie London lord, or an Arab family, headed by a devotee of classical Russian literature. No less diverse are the landscapes against which the events unfold: the steppes of Kazakhstan, the Garden of Gethsemane, New York, Amsterdam, London.
Julia Wiener’s novels focus on those moments when illusory human existence collapses in the face of true life, be it spiritual purity, love, old age, or death.
