Translation of Poem by Olga Tabachnikova, "Notes of a Translator," Записки переводчика

 

Olga Tabachnikova
(born 1967)

 

                               Записки переводчика
                                                                                                           
"Язык мой - враг мой..."
 
Язык мой - друг мой!  - выведи на свет
Из полумрака языка чужого,
Откуда я загадочное слово
Перевожу через десятки лет,
Через миры, над пропастью с шестом,
Шестыми чувствами нащупывая место,
Куда ступить. Так незнакомую невесту
С опаскою заводят в отчий дом.
В саду чужом, под чуждый птичий гам
Вдруг расцветает пришлое растенье,
Дает плоды и тень. И в этой тени
Душа чужая внятней станет нам.
 
                                             Август 2019
 
[from the poetry collection titled Половинка яблока (Apple Sliced in Half)]
 

 
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Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
                               

                               Notes of a Translator

“My language, my foe”
 
My tongue, my friend!
Lick language out into the light
from the obscurity of an alien tongue.
Wherefrom do I get this mysterious word,
do I transfer it over through dozens of years,
through eons of worlds, tight-roping along
with a pole in my hands, over a gorge,
girding all six of my senses, groping with toes
for the next spot to step . . .
 
Just so do they lead a new bride,
all timidity and blush,
into the groom’s house
to meet with the patriarch.
 
In an alien garden,
under the twitters of alien birds,
suddenly burgeons an outsider, 
an invasive species of plant;
that plant produces fruit and shade.
 
And in the shade
an alien soul stands peering at us,
bathed in the light
of pure clarity.
 

Translation of Poem by Olga Tabachnikova, Ольга Табачникова, "Когда кончается болезненная нега," "The bliss and morbid torpor evanesce"

Natan Altman

 

Ольга Табачникова

Olga Tabachnikova
(born 1967)
 
Когда кончается болезненная нега,
мечту сменяет долгая печаль.
На подоконнике при виде снега
цветок задумался и медленно зачах.
 
Река замёрзла, и рука застыла
на спинке стула, как на кромке льда,
безжизненная... Что однажды было,
то медленная память унесла.
Затихла рыба, понимая ясно: 
всесилен лёд – его не проломить...
 
Но странному движению подвластно,
что не сбылось – не прекращает быть,
не убывает, не теряет в силе,
замкнувшись внутрь от горя и потерь...
 
Так наша страсть запискою в бутыли
качается на вечности теперь.
                                                    
Март 2013
 
[from the poetry collection titled Половинка яблока (Apple Sliced in Half)]
 
           d
 
                                     Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
 
 
The bliss and morbid torpor evanesce,
and dreams give way to lengthy bouts of anguish.
When snowflakes touch a window, coalesce, 
the house plant sees, and knows it’s time to languish. 
 
The river’s frozen; one hand immobilized
on chairback halts, as if at edge of ice,
anticipatory . . . What once had life is fossilized,
to memory’s slow workings a grim sacrifice.
Time to come to terms with ice, the fish decides,
knowing fins can’t swim in chilled nonbeing . . .  
 
But subject to the strange in-outs of tides, 
the thing that could not be retains some being,
does not diminish, does not lose its force,
while hunkered in its shell of loss dismaying . . .
 
So now our passion—
a note in a bottle,
writ in rue and remorse—
on Sea of Evermore
goes bobbing, swaying. 

 

Translation of Poem by Olga Tabachnikova, Ольга Табачникова, "Полночный город прошивают молнии," GOLDEN THREADS

 

Ольга Табачникова
 
Olga Tabachnikova
(born 1967)
 
Полночный город прошивают молнии.
Грохочет тьма.
Внезапною слезою переполнены,
Дрожат дома.
 
А небо переполнено открытьями
С нездешней высоты.
Всё чёрное, но с золотыми нитями.
Как жизнь моя. Как ты.
 
Май 2016

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

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                                       Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

                                    

                                   Golden Threads
 
Lightning flares sew up in stiches the city’s wee hours.
Darkness juddering rumbles.
Caught up in a flurry of tears as the midnight sky glowers,
Are buildings shuddering, humbled.
 
The heavens are teeming with marvels profound and abstruse,
Sent to us from on high.
All is black, but laced through with threads gold and profuse,
Like the lives that we live, you and I.
 

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).