Four Poems by Vsevolod Nekrasov translated by Anatoly Kudryavitsky

The following translations were first published in

A Night in the Nabokov Hotel.
20 Contemporary Poets from Russia












Dedalus Press, Ireland, 2006 (http://www.dedaluspress.com)


The other Russian poets from this anthology here


© Anatoly Kudryavitsky 2006

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means
without the prior permission of the copyright holder.




Четыре стихотворения Всеволода Некрасова

«Молчу…» / Untitled-1
«надо же…» / Untitled-2
«Стой…» / Pride
«вот кто…» / Who is to Blame?

* * *

Молчу
Молчи

Молчу
Молчи

Чутьем
Чутьем

Течем
Течем

Я думал
Мы о чем молчим

А мы молчали
Вот о чем

Untitled-1

I am silent
Keep silence

I am silent
Keep silence

By guess-work
By touch

We move on
We move further
But not much

I thought
We hushed something up

But we
Hushed up
Even our chirruping

* * *

надо же
и тишина между нами
мальчиками и девочками

кусты
столбы и луны
луны луны ну
не было войны

скажи ты

будто бы

а пусто было

не было
пусто

Untitled-2

picture this:
hushed silence dwells between us
between boys and girls

bushes
telegraph poles – and moons
many moons – as if
there were
no war

one could say

as though
there was
only void

there wasn’t

* * *

Стой

Чувствуй

Гордись

куда денешься

вот теперь и гордись

столица

и столица гордится

вечным памятником
великим нашим
начальникам

как они стучали
на нас

каким большим большим
Кулаком

Pride

Stop

Feel

Be proud

you have no place to hide

so be proud now

capital city –

our capital is proud too

of the eternal monument
to our great leaders

how they banged
on their tables talking to us

banged on their tables with their big
BIG
Fists

* * *

вот кто
виноваты

разговоры разговоры
интеллигенты интеллигенты
чемберлены чемберлены
разгильдяи разгильдяи
инциденты инциденты
эпизоды эпизоды
экземпляры экземпляры
элементы элементы
симулянты
спекулянты
белофинны
контрабандисты
конкуренты конкуренты
интуристы интуристы
менделисты морганисты
формалисты
космополиты
мейерхольды мейерхольды
мандельштамы мандельштамы
буратины буратины
чебурашки чебурашки
интервенты интервенты
антиподы
оппоненты
супостаты
басурманы
виноваты
фантомасы
виноваты масоны

Who is to Blame?

They are
to blame:

talks, talks
eggheads, eggheads
Bohemians, Bohemians
incidents, incidents
episodes, episodes
specimens, specimens
elements, elements
simulators
speculators
Chamberlains, Chamberlains
White Guard
White Finns
smugglers, smugglers
rivals, rivals
foreign tourists
geneticists
formalists
cosmopolites
Meyerholds, Meyerholds
Mandelstams, Mandelstams
Fantomases, Fantomases
Pinocchi, Pinocchi
interventionists
invaders
antipodes
opponents
tyrants
infidels
all are to blame
freemasons
to blame

Translated from the Russian by Anatoly Kudryavitsky

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Vsevolod Nekrasov was born 1934 in Moscow where he still lives. He used to be a member of the now famous Lianosovo group of poets and painters. Under the Communists, he was a samizdat poet, without permission to publish his work openly. His poems appeared in unofficial Russian magazines, including 37. Since 1989 three collections of his poetry, much appreciated, were published in Moscow. These books entitled Poems from a Magazine (1989), Inquiry (1991) and Fair and Less than Fair (1996), were followed by the Novosibirsk publication of his Selected Poems (2002). Ein Deutsche Buch, a book of his essays translated into German, appeared in Bochum in the same 2002. His poems have been translated into several European languages.




Vsevolod Nekrasov in Russian Wikipedia



Nekrasov on the Unofficial Russian Poetry site: http://www.rvb.ru/np/publication/01text/05/05nekrasov.htm


Website of the translator (Anatoly Kudryavitsky): in Russian and in English