Translation of Poem by IVAN BUNIN, "The Six-Winged Seraph" "ШЕСТИКРЫЛЫЙ"

           150 ЛЕТ СО ДНЯ РОЖДЕНИЯ ИВАНА АЛЕКСЕЕВИЧА БУНИНА: 1870-2020

                                                    Bunin statue in Grasse, France

Ivan Bunin

(1870-1953)

ШЕСТИКРЫЛЫЙ

Мозаика в Московском соборе

Алел ты в зареве Батыя —
И потемнел твой жуткий взор.
Ты крылья рыже-золотые
В священном трепете простер.

Узрел ты Грозного юрода
Монашеский истертый шлык —
И навсегда в изгибах свода
Застыл твой большеглазый лик.

14.IX.15

d

Literal Translation

The Six-Winged

(Mosaic in a Moscow Cathedral)

You glowed red against the fires of Batu—

And darkened your gruesome gaze.

You spread your rust-red-golden wings

In holy trepidation.

You looked upon the monkish, threadbare

Skufia of [Ivan] the Dread’s holy fool—

And forever frozen in the curves of the arch [vault]

Is your big-eyed visage.

d

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

The Six-Winged Seraph

(Mosaic in a Moscow Cathedral)

Thy face flushed red ‘gainst Batu’s fires,

That gruesome glower in eyes gone dead,

The rust-gold wings where faith respires

In sacred trepidation spread.

Before thy stare in the Time of the Dread

Passed fools in skufia, tattered, worn,

Forevermore midst vaults widespread,

Thy huge eyes brim with spleen and scorn.

September 14, 1915

Translator’s Notes

Batu (or Batyy)—Mongol-Tatar khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, founder of the Golden Horde. In 1236-1240 his forces invaded and conquered all of the Russian lands. After defeating the Hungarians and Poles, he was routed by the Czechs and Austrians. The Mongols retained control over the Russian principalities from 1240 to 1380, when they were defeated by forces led by Dmitry Donskoy. But the Russians still had to pay tribute to them for another hundred years.

The Dread—Ivan Grozny in Russian or Tsar Ivan IV (1530-1584); in English translation Ivan the Dread, in the West usually called Ivan the Terrible.

Skufia (also spelled skoufia or skoufos)—a soft-sided, brimless, slightly pointed cap, worn by Russian monks (see illustration below)

Bunin did not specify in which Moscow cathedral he came across this mosaic in 1915. Possibly, to this very day—if you find the right church—you can contemplate the scornful gaze of the six-winged figure, who put on the same baleful stare for Batu in 1240, for the holy fools of Ivan the Terrible’s time (16^th Century), for Joe Stalin in 1930, and for us tourists who happen past in 2020.

Then again, there may be some artistic license here on Bunin’s part. Few are the Moscow cathedrals that date back as far as 1240, Batu’s heyday. None of the three venerable Kremlin cathedrals are that old. So if you’re looking for the prototype of the mosaic in Bunin’s poem, you have to start with churches, and mosaics in those churches, that—since the thirteenth century—have survived fires, desolation by enemy troops, vandalism by atheist true believers in twentieth-century Communism, and God only knows what other depredations. 

A lot of the images of seraphim that I have found online have rather gentle faces. The big-eyed menacing look of the seraph in Bunin’s poem suggests comparisons with the Icon of the Saviour Made Not By Human Hands (see image below). Bunin may have also seen Mikhail Vrubel’s magnificent painting of a seraph, done in 1904 (below).

The poem was first published in the journal Летопись, [“Annals”], Vol. 2, No. 12, December, 1915. It is a model of stylistic concision: embodying all of Russian history in eight lines. In the first line just five short words conjure up the whole broad spectacle of the Tatar invasions, the hint of a fire reflected off the face of an icon suggesting what else went on in Moscow when the Golden Horde arrived: plunder, rapine, mass murder.

Upon reading the poem in “Annals,” Bunin’s friend, the writer I.S. Shmelyov (1873-1950) wrote him a letter (March 1, 1915): “Marvelous, profound, subtle. I can’t say it better. I have memorized the verses; I carry them inside myself. Marvelous! Everything is there in ‘The Six-Winged,’ all of Russian history, the Russian way of life. It’s a masterpiece, dear friend, and you know that yourself, but I wanted you to know that I feel that way” (I.A. Bunin, Sob. soch. v devjati tomakh [Bunin, Collected Works in Nine Volumes], I, 567).

Seraphim

The heavenly angels with six wings, known as seraphim, show up in both Jewish and Christian texts. “Tradition places the seraphim in the highest rank of Christian angelology and in the fifth rank of ten in the Jewish angelic hierarchy” (Wikipedia).

For Christianity the seminal passage in the Bible comes from the Book of Isaiah, 6:1-8.

[1] In the year that king Uzziah died I [Isaiah] saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.
[2] Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly.
[3] And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.
[4] And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
[5] Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
[6] Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
[7] And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.
[8] Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

                                           
                                 The Icon of the Saviour Made Not By Human Hands

                                           Mikhail Vrubel, "The Six-Winged Seraph," 1904

 Mikhail Vrubel Painting, “The Six-Winged Seraph” (1904)

Огненный венец сияет на голове Шестикрылого Серафима, драгоценным узором переливается оперение могучих крыл. Лик его неподвижен, взгляд широко распахнутых глаз суров. Руки воздеты в молении. В одной из них, обвитой змеей, он держит меч, в другой - кадило с горящими угольями. Во всем его облике торжественное, внеземное величие. Словно напоминанием о небесном мире, откуда он явился, звучит окружающая ангела особенная, звенящая синева.

Атрибуты, с которыми изображен ангел, указывают на литературный источник, к которому восходит сюжет картины - известное стихотворение Александра Пушкина “Пророк”.

В Ветхом завете, в книге пророка Исаии, рассказывается о видении им престола Господа, окруженного Серафимами, занимающими самое высокое место в иерархии ангельских чинов. Один из них взял с жертвенника уголь и, подлетев к Исаии, коснулся его уст со словами: «И беззаконие твое отделено от тебя, и грех твой очищен...». Так Исая был очищен от грехов и подготовлен к пророческому служению.

Монументальность полотна Врубеля, его композиция, сам характер живописи, напоминающий мозаику, говорят о связи с традициями византийско-древнерусского искусства, с которым художник познакомился, реставрируя древние фрески в Киеве. Это искусство оказалось созвучным живописцу, мечтавшему “будить от мелочей будничного величавыми образами”.

В последние годы жизни тема пророчества неоднократно возникала в творчестве Врубеля. Сам мастер считал, что талант художника и его призвание должны быть подобны дару и миссии пророка.

“Шестикрылый Серафим” стал последним большим полотном Врубеля, написанным им в промежутке между приступами тяжелой болезни.

                                                    Russian Monk Wearing Skufia Cap