Translation of Poem by Olga Tabachnikova, Ольга Табачникова, "Навеки достоевская страна," WHERE DOSTOEVSKY REIGNS

Ольга Табачникова

Olga Tabachnikova
(born 1967)

 

Навеки достоевская страна.
Закованные в лёд слепые реки,
Как до поры опущенные веки.
И безрассудством пьяная весна.

 

Здесь возвращают Господу билет,
Здесь бьются лбом в безумьи и в поклоне.
Здесь Бог и сатана в одном флаконе.
И испокон  – семь бед, один ответ.

 Апрель 2013

[from the poetry collection titled Половинка яблока (Apple Sliced in Half)]

 

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Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

                                                              Where Dostoevsky Reigns
 
Our country—Dostoevsky’s realm—
now and evermore.
Ice-bound rivers’ blind
and swaddled plea, 
the drooping eyelids
of the ogre Viy,
and spring dead drunk
on insolence
and cheek galore.
 
Here you give your entry ticket
back to God.
Here you bow and bang your forehead
hard on flagstone floors.
Here the Devil and the Lord
wear the same ripped drawers.
 
And from time immemorial,
time out of mind,
the same song’s sung
by the same poor sod:
 
“Bad luck’s a given; why try to fight it?
Your elbow’s near, but you can’t bite it.”  

 

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Biographical Information

(from the website for University of Central Lancashire)

Dr. Olga Tabachnikova teaches Slavonic Studies, which runs an extensive programme of academic and cultural activities. Olga’s main area of expertise is Russian literature and cultural history from the 19th century to the present. She is a prolific researcher, collaborating in numerous international projects, and an award-winning poet, with two books of poetry (in Russian). She is also the lead for ‘Representations of Migration, Diaspora and Exile in Media, Literature and Art’ (MIDEX Centre, UCLan).

Olga has published widely in the field of Russian Studies, including Literature, Philosophy and Film Studies, as well as Identity and Gender Studies. She edited and co-edited collective volumes on Russian Irrationalism, the Russian Jewish Diaspora, and Russian literature and philosophy. Her latest monograph with Bloomsbury Academic, published both as hardcover (2015) and paperback (2016) editions, is dedicated to Russian irrationalism in a historical perspective. Olga has organised and co-organised numerous international conferences, including that on Russian cultural continuity, in 2016, and on Russian-British Intercultural Dialogue in the framework of the Russian-British Year of Music 2019. Her activities as the Director of the Vladimir Vysotsky Centre for Slavonic Studies involved hosting a large number of distinguished visitors, including Belorussian nuns from the St Elisabeth convent near Minsk, who gave a Russian Orthodox painting workshop in 2018. You can see a brief TV coverage of the event here. Being an expert on Russia Abroad, Olga is also the Lead for the ‘Representations of Migration, Diaspora and Exile in Media, Literature and Art’ research strand within the UCLan Research Centre for Migration, Diaspora and Exile (MIDEX).