Three Poems by Igor Chinnov in English Translation "Жил да был Иван Иваныч," "Не кажется ли тебе," "Сердце сожмется -- испуганный ежик"

Igor Chinnov

(1909-1996)

Жил да был Иван Иваныч:
Иногда крестился на ночь,
Вдаль рассеянно глядел.
Жил на свете, как умел.
Жил на свете как попало.
Много в жизни было дел.

Сердце слабое устало,
Сердце биться перестало.
В небе дождь вздыхал, шумел,
Будто мертвого жалел:
Влаги пролилось немало –

Видно, смерть сама рыдала,
Близко к сердцу принимала
Человеческий удел.

Published originally in the early collection titled Linii (1960), this poem was republished in Pastorali (Rifma Publishers, Paris, 1976), p. 79.

Autograph in front matter of Pastorali. Translation: "In memory of the poetry reading in Oxford. To Professor Bowie, with friendly regards. Igor Chinnov." The poetry reading by Chinnov at Miami Universtiy, Oxford, Ohio, took place in April, 1978.

There walked this earth one Clyde B. Wright,

He sometimes crossed himself at night.

Bemused he gazed at vale and wood,

He lived on earth as best he could.

He lived and worked, away time flew,

Life gave him many things to do.

His ticker started getting weak,

His tick-tocks finally ceased to beat.

The rain celestial keened and sighed,

As if it pitied poor dead Clyde.

The waters flowed, the moisture pined, 

And Death herself was sobbing, wailing,

Condoling with the unavailing

Hangdog lot of humankind. 

Не кажется ли тебе,

что после смерти

мы будем жить

где-то на окраине Альдебарана

или в столице

Страны Семи Измерений?

Истлеет Вселенная,

а мы будем жить

где-то недалеко от Вселенной,

гуляя, как ни в чем не бывало,

по светлому берегу Вечности.

И когда Смерть

в платье из розовой антиматерии,

скучая от безделья,

подойдет к нам опять,

мы скажем: –Прелестное платье!

Где вы купили его?

This poem was published in Kompozitsija: Pjataja kniga stikhov (Paris: Rifma Publishers, 1972), p. 54. It was translated into English by Prof. John Glad in Russian Literature Triquarterly, No. 11, p. 308. My translation here below differs somewhat from Glad's.

Don’t you feel

That after death

We’ll live

Somewhere in the environs of Aldebaran,

Or in the capital city of

The Land of Seven Dimensions?

The Universe will rot,

But we’ll live on

Somewhere not far from the Universe,

Strolling, as if nothing had happened,

Along the shimmering shore of Eternity.

And when Death,

In her pinafore of rose-pink antimatter,

Bored in her idleness,

Sidles up to us once more,

We’ll say: “What a lovely dress!

Wherever did you buy it?”

                                             

Biographical Note

Igor Vladimirovich Chinnov was born into a Russian family in Riga, Latvia, in 1909. The family was evacuated to Russia during WW I, living in Ryazan, Kharkov, Rostov-on-the-Don and Stavropol, and returning to Latvia in 1921. Chinnov was educated as a lawyer in Riga; after graduating in 1939, he worked as a legal consultant. In 1933 he published his first verses in the journal “Chisla (Numbers).”

Caught up in the turmoil of the Second World War, Chinnov became an émigré and lived most of his life in emigration. In 1944 the Germans sent him to do forced labor in Germany. Liberated by American armed forces, he joined the American army and stayed with it until demobilization in 1946. At that time he settled in France and became part of the Russian literary emigrant community.

Having published his first book of poetry in 1950, he moved to Munich in 1953, where he worked for the Russian-language radio station “Liberation” (Radio Liberty, later called Radio Free Europe). In 1962 he emigrated to the U.S.A., where he taught Russian literature at three different universities: the University of Kansas, Pittsburg University, and Vanderbilt University. He retired from Vanderbilt in 1977 and moved to Florida, where he died in Daytona Beach, May, 1996. His remains are buried in Vagankov Cemetery, Moscow. He published six books of poetry in his lifetime.

In a recent article about Kafka in The Atlantic (Sept., 2018), the author mentions Kafka's "stubborn homelessness and non-belonging," calling these experiences "archetypally modern." He goes on to say that "In the 20th century the condition of being cut off from tradition, manipulated by unfriendly institutions, and subjected to sudden violence became almost universal." Who better understood this than Igor Chinnov, who, unlike Kafka, did not stubbornly seek for the status of alien, but whom Fate buffeted practically his whole life, sending him from one country to another, insuring his homelessness, his being a Lifelong Emigre? 

Сердце сожмётся – испуганный ёжик –
В жарких ладонях невидимых Божьих.

Ниточка жизни – лесной паутинкой,
Летней росинкой, слезинкой, потинкой.

Листья в прожилках, как тёмные руки.
Время грибное, начало разлуки.

Лично известный и лесу, и Богу,
Листик летит воробьём на дорогу.

Вот и припал, как порой говорится,
К лону родному, к родимой землице.

Крыша, гнездо. И стоит, будто аист,
Время твоё, улететь собираясь.

Скоро в ладонях невидимых Божьих
Сердце сожмётся – испуганный ёжик.

From the collection Пасторали (Pastorals: Sixth Book of Verses), Paris: Rifma Publishers, 1976, p. 10

Our hearts will cower, frightened hedgehogs,

In the hot sweaty palms of the otiose gods.

Thin thread of life, in a drenched cobweb’s wet,

In a dewdrop of summer, or a teardrop or sweat.

At the mushroomy time when departures are planned,

The leaves bulge with veins, like a dark human hand.

A personal friend of the woods, and the gods, 

A sparrow-like leaf flies out over the sod,

Then softly drifts down in a sweep of pure mirth

To the lap of the land, to his dear native earth.

A rooftop, a nest, and Our Time stands aloft,

Like a stork with a plan before long to fly off.

All too soon in the palms of the otiose gods

Our hearts will cower—frightened hedgehogs.

                                      Translations from the Russian by U.R. Bowie

                           Monument to Ivan Krylov, Summer Gardens, St. Petersburg, Russia