Translation of Poem by Lidia Chukovskaya, Лидия Чуковская, "Как странно, есть ещё живые," THE WAY THINGS FEEL WHEN WAR HAS COME

 

Лидия Чуковская
(1907-1996)

Как странно, есть ещё живые.
Руками машут, говорят.
Большие, шумные такие,
И не лежат, и не молчат.
Цел мостик, речка вольно плещет,
Туман, где хочет, там плывёт.
И не от ужаса трепещет —
От ветра! — тополь у ворот.

1941

d

                                               Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 

                                                 The Way Things Feel When War Has Come

How strange, the living still exist.
They’re waving their arms, conversing.
Big loud folks who won’t desist,
Not lying down, not quietly dispersing.
 
The bridge still stands,
the stream still splashes,
the fog goes floating wherever it wishes.
And the poplar,
quaking by the gate,
still flashes
its foliage;
but the wind, not horror,
is to blame for its swishes!

Translation of Poem by Lidia Chukovskaya, Лидия Чуковская, "Маленькая, немощная лира," A TINY LITTLE, FEEBLE LITTLE, PUNY LITTLE LYRE

 

Лидия Чуковская
(1907-1996)

Маленькая, немощная лира.
Вроде блюдца или скалки, что ли.
И на ней сыграть печали мира!
Голосом её кричать от боли.
Неприметный голос, неказистый,
Еле слышный, сброшенный со счёта.
Ну и что же! Был бы только чистый.
Остальное не моя забота.

1968

d

                                           Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
A tiny little, feeble little, puny little lyre.
Something like a rolling pin, a saucer, candy cane.
And you play on it—imagine that!—the world’s stark anguish dire.
In its scant voice you wail and shriek the whole of all your pain.
 
A voice that’s not remarkable, a voice unprepossessing,
Barely audible it be, a nocount voice,
Of no use nary, nowhere.
Well yeah, so what! As long as it’s
Still pure in tone
And ever effervescing.
The rest is none of my bloody affair.

Translation of Poem by Lidia Chukovskaya, Лидия Чуковская, "Куда они бросили тело твоё?" QUESTIONS FOR A LOVED ONE DEMISED

 

Лидия Чуковская
(1907-1996)

Куда они бросили тело твоё? В люк?
Где расстреливали? В подвале?
Слышал ли ты звук
Выстрела? Нет, едва ли.
Выстрел в затылок милосерд:
Вдребезги память.
Вспомнил ли ты тот рассвет? Нет.
Торопился падать.

 1956

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

                                                 Questions for a Loved One Demised

Where did they throw your body?

In some ditch?

Where did they shoot you?

In some basement niche?

 

Did you hear the sound of the shot?

No, hardly, unlikely enough.

A shot in the occiput is merciful,

Shatters your brainwaves to flinders and fluff.

 

Did you recall the dawn of that day?

No. You had pressing things to deal with:

Like Hurry up, fall,

Like passing away.

 

Translator’s Note

 

Matvei Bronshtein (1906-1938), an eminent physicist and Lidia Chukovskaya’s husband, was arrested in 1937, executed (shot) in 1938. The usual way of executing people in the years of Stalin’s Terror involved none of the niceties associated with this business in Western countries. No last meal. No last walk down the corridors of Death Row, priest at your elbow, bidding farewell to your fellow inmates. No final words to the world at large before they pulled the plug.

 

You were led out of your cell as if on the way to another session of interrogation. You had no idea that you were about to be shot. Your jailer, who walked, as usual, behind you, quietly took out a pistol and shot you in the back of the head. No one bothered to notify relatives, either that the execution was imminent, or afterward, when the deed had been done. The body was disposed of, most often in some common grave with other prisoners. Lidia Chukovskaya found out that her husband had been shot only in 1939. She was lucky. Many relatives of executed “enemies of the people” found out their fate only ten years after the fact, or even twenty.

 

Matvei Bronshtein