Федор Тютчев (and Anna Tyutchev)
Святые горы
Тихо, мягко, над Украйной
Обаятельною тайной
Ночь июльская лежит —
Небо так ушло глубоко,
Звезды светят так высоко,
И Донец во тьме блестит.
Сладкий час успокоенья!
Звон, литии, псалмопенья
Святогорские молчат —
Под обительской стеною,
Озаренные луною,
Богомольцы мирно спят.
И громадою отвесной,
В белизне своей чудесной,
Над Донцом утес стоит,
К небу крест свой возвышая…
И, как стража вековая,
Богомольцев сторожит.
Говорят, в его утробе,
Затворившись, как во гробе,
Чудный инок обитал,
Много лет в искусе строгом
Сколько слез он перед Богом,
Сколько веры расточал!..
Оттого ночной порою
Силой и поднесь живою
Над Донцом утес стоит —
И молитв его святыней,
Благодатной и доныне,
Спящий мир животворит.
1862
d
Literal Translation
The Holy Mountains
Silently, softly over Ukraine
With a secret enchantment
Lies the July night.
The sky has departed into the depths,
The stars are shining so high,
And the Donets [River] gleams in the dark.
Sweet hour of tranquility!
Peal [of bells], liturgy for the dead, singing of psalms,
The residents of Sviatogorsk are silent.
Beneath the walls of the monastery,
Lit by the moon,
The pilgrims are sleeping peacefully.
And a mass of sheer cliff
In its wondrous whiteness,
Over the Donets a crag hangs,
Raising its cross toward the sky…
And like an eternal nightwatchman,
It keeps watch over the pilgrims.
They say that in its depths,
Shutting himself away as in a coffin,
A marvelous anchorite once dwelt,
For many years in strictest asceticism,
So many tears he shed before God,
So much faith he dissipated!
Consequently, in time of night,
To this very day powerful and alive
Above the Donets the crag still hangs.
And the prayers of this sacred place,
Still grace-giving as ever today,
Give new life to the sleeping world.
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Literary
Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
The Holy Mountains
Rapt in some enchanted dream,
Soft and silent o’er Ukraine
Lies July in night’s dim gleam.
Swathed in murky depths the sky,
Stars are glistening far on high,
Spangled Donets feels no pain.
Tranquil time, sheer quietude,
Bell-peals, psalms sung, threnodies,
Sviatogorsk is still, subdued.
Neath the walls of monastery,
Bathed by lunar luminary,
Pilgrims sleep and dream at ease.
And a massive precipice,
Alabaster, heaven-blessed,
Looms o’er Donets that sheer cliff,
Raising high its cross toward sky,
Aged caretaker, keen of eye,
Vigil keeps as pilgrims rest.
Deep within its caves, they say,
Once there dwelt an anchorite,
Coffin-bound sequestered lay.
There he kept the strictest fast,
Supplications, tears amassed,
Was steadfast in his faith, contrite.
Still puissant to this day, in splendor,
O’er Donets that white crag looms;
Yet steeped in grace, the monk’s prayers
render
Solacement to souls at sleep,
To folk who perforce breathe war’s fumes,
Grant hope renewed to those who weep.
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Translator’s
Notes
This poem is a joint effort. It
was composed by Tyutchev’s eldest daughter, Anna Fyodorovna Tyutchev, in May,
1862. She sent it to her father, who promptly revised it to his own exacting
standards. Apparently Anna had visited the region of the Holy Mountains and the
monastery there, which was/is located in Eastern Ukraine, on the right bank of
the Northern Donets River. The town nearby is Sviatogorsk (Holy Mount)—now
spelled Sviatohirsk by Ukrainians. The city of Sloviansk is 30 km. away, and
the largest city in the region, Kharkiv, is located to the NW of the Holy
Mountains.
In a letter to her sister
Ekaterina, A.F. Tyutchev writes, “I’m sending you some new verses, which I
wrote about the Holy Mountains and which papa revised in his own way. His poem,
naturally, is incomparably better than mine, but he did not exactly capture my
idea, the way I understood it” [original of the letter is in French]. Here is
Anna’s poem:
СВЯТЫЕ ГОРЫ
Тихо, мягко, ночь Украйны,
Полна
прелести и тайны,
Над
дубравою лежит.
Темно небо
так глубоко,
Звезды
светят так высоко,
И во тьме
Донец блестит.
За
обительской стеной
Псалмопенье,
звон святой
До заутрени
молчат;
Под оградою
толпой,
Освещенные
луной,
Богомольцы
мирно спят.
И с крестом
там на челе
Белым
призраком во тьме
Над Донцом
утес стоит.
И, как дух
минувших дней,
Он молитвою
своей
Богомольцев
сторожит.
Во скале
той священной
Искони
чернец смиренный
Подвиг веры
совершал
И в
духовном созерцанье
Сколько
слез и воздыханий
Перед Богом
изливал.
Оттого, как
дух блаженный,
Величавый и
смиренный
Над Донцом
утес стоит,
И в тиши
порой ночной
Он молитвой
вековой
Спящий мир
животворит.
[see Collection of Tyutchev’s
poetry in two volumes (Moscow: Nauka Publishers, 1965), Vol. 2, p. 260-61, p.
426-27]
d
The
Holy Mountains Monastery (Lavra) of the Dormition of the Mother of God
(from
Wikipedia)
First written mention of the
monastery dates from the seventeenth century, although it is likely that monks
settled in the region as early as the 14th or 15th
century. In 1679 the monastery was seized and plundered by Crimean Tatars. In
1787 Catherine the Great had the monastery closed. She secularized its lands
and donated them to one of her favorites, the famous Prince Gregory Potemkin. Beginning
in 1844, an heir of his, Aleksandr Potemkin, together with his wife Tatiana, returned
the lands and financed a reestablishment of the monastery—supported by Tsar
Nicholas I.
During the Russian Revolution
the Bolsheviks plundered and desecrated the monastery, beating and killing many
of the monks; in 1922 they closed it down altogether and established on the
grounds a resort/sanitorium for the workers of the Donbas. In 1991, after the
fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became independent, and the monastery was
restored. In 2004 it was granted the status of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church
Lavra (lavra being at the highest level in the hierarchy of monasteries).
Recently, in the turmoil of the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, people evacuated from war zones in Eastern
Ukraine took refuge at the monastery. On March 12, 2022, Russian aircraft
attacked the bridge linking the right and left banks of the Northern Donets
River, the Lavra and the city of Sviatogorsk. A bomb exploded, knocking out
windows in buildings of the monastery and wounding several refugees. At the time
of this posting (April 12, 2022), the city of Izyum, on the Donets River, just
to the north of the Holy Mountains, had been seized by Russian forces; their
next objective, apparently, was the nearby city of Sloviansk.
The attached photographs show
the bridge over the Donets, along with the chalk-white precipice that attracted
Anna Tyutchev’s attention in 1862. The crosses behind the precipice are those of the
St. Nicholas Church. Like the most famous Lavra in Ukraine, the Kiev-Cave
Monastery, the Holy Mountains Lavra has caves in which ascetic monks dwell,
practicing fasting, perpetual prayer, and mortification of the flesh. The caves
are located within the chalk-white precipice.
Here too is where the legendary monk/anchorite once dwelled, the one mentioned
in the poem.
YouTube video: Russian Orthodox Bells at the Holy Mount Monastery:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuuMgL8POKM
NY Times article, from June 6, 2022:
