[Carl Copeland]

Here’s another poem that has always stuck with me. The poet, not among Russia’s best known, is “Nikolay Turoverov (1899-1972), a Don Cossack and career soldier who fought against the Bolsheviks as a staff captain in the Don Army until 1920, when he and some 150,000 White Russians were forced to escape by sea from Crimea. The poem [was] written in 1940—when Turoverov was fighting against the Germans in defense of France, where he spent the last fifty years of his life.” (Boris Dralyuk)

Why did it take me so long to think there must be a song? Here it is in all its raw Cossack power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZS4bDMmt6k.


Crimea

We were sailing from Crimea
after smoke and fire and loss.
I kept aiming, always seeming
to shoot wide and miss my horse.

He was swimming for the deck then,
where he saw me riding high,
not believing, not suspecting
we were parting, he and I.

Many times, in war’s reverses,
we’d have shared a grave, we two …
Now he swam, beyond endurance,
still believing I’d be true.

But my batman’s shot, succeeding,
briefly stained the water red …
The Crimean shore receding
I’ll remember to the end.


Edit
Comma removed from the end of L3 (credit to David Callin)


Crib

Crimea

We were leaving Crimea
amid smoke and fire.
From the stern, always missing,
I was shooting at my horse.

But he swam, exhausted,
after the high stern,
still not believing, still not knowing,
that he and I were parting.

How many times a single grave
we expected [to find] in battle …
The horse kept swimming, losing strength,
believing in my faithfulness.

My batman didn’t miss.
The water reddened a little …
The receding shore of Crimea
I remembered forever.


Original

Крым

Уходили мы из Крыма
Среди дыма и огня.
Я с кормы, всё время мимо,
В своего стрелял коня.

А он плыл, изнемогая,
За высокою кормой,
Все не веря, все не зная,
Что прощается со мной.

Сколько раз одной могилы
Ожидали мы в бою…
Конь все плыл, теряя силы,
Веря в преданность мою.

Мой денщик стрелял не мимо.
Покраснела чуть вода…
Уходящий берег Крыма
Я запомнил навсегда.

[Glenn Wright]

Beautiful job, Carl. This is such a good example of русская душа. It made me think of Raskolnikov’s dream of the horse in Crime and Punishment. Very moving and surprisingly compressed poem that I had not encountered before.

You did a great job of preserving the meter of the original, even to the slant rhyme in the last quatrain. You scorned the easy choice, “I’ll remember till I’m dead” in favor of the hauntingly discordant “red/end” near-rhyme. Fine work.

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks, Glenn. The poem has always haunted me, so I’m glad you felt it. Turoverov could have been inspired by the similar 1930 story “Kunak” by Galina Kuznetsova, who also evacuated in 1920 with her White officer husband. The poem is too vivid, though, to worry much about whether it actually happened that way. It did happen in poetry.

[Matt Q]

Hi Carl,

I like what you've done with this.

In L2, I wonder why "after", which changes the scene quite dramatically, and why not "amid". (Maybe you want lines to be trochaic? But you deviate from an opening trochee in other lines). In the original (well, crib anyway), there's smoke and fire and around them as this is happening. In the translation, that's all in the past.

I'm also not a big fan of "loss" -- a heavy, imageless abstraction, and not in the original. Though I guess it could mean loss of men rather than emotional loss? That conveys a touch more image.

Maybe you could go with something like "amid smoke and fire and worse"? I do see that it's difficult to get a line of tet out of this without adding something, let alone hitting the rhyme.

"reverses"/"endurance" seems a little weak in contrast to the other rhymes. Both words are tri-syallbic, and both amphibrachic words, I guess, but I'm not hearing much more. I guess both have some sibilance at the end of the word. Anyway, while a feminine rhymes are sometimes counted as slant rhymes, just by virtue of both being feminine, I still reckon there might be something a little stronger here. Not that I've got any great ideas. "Many times war might procure us" is the best half-idea I've had. Quarter-idea maybe. And besides, maybe too strong a multi-syllabic rhyme would sound inappropriately comic.

best,

Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Thanks for keeping a sharp eye on Translations, Matt!

Originally Posted by Matt Q

In L2, I wonder why "after", which changes the scene quite dramatically, and why not "amid". … In the original (well, crib anyway), there's smoke and fire and around them as this is happening. In the translation, that's all in the past.

Right. I originally had a picture of them sailing away through smoke and gunfire, but the little history I read told me that hostilities virtually ceased during the evacuation, despite Lenin’s urging to finish the Whites off. Was Turoverov overdramatizing? Then I realized that the verb in the first line—“leaving,” “withdrawing”—could refer to the troops’ retreat on land before they reached the coast. I need “sailing” there because I don’t have “stern” in the third line to place them on ship.

Originally Posted by Matt Q

I'm also not a big fan of "loss" -- a heavy, imageless abstraction, and not in the original. Though I guess it could mean loss of men rather than emotional loss? That conveys a touch more image. Maybe you could go with something like "amid smoke and fire and worse"?

I did mean loss of life. I also considered “and worse,” but it seemed a bit coy to me: What could be worse? Death, I suppose. So why not just come out and say it?

Originally Posted by Matt Q

"reverses"/"endurance" seems a little weak in contrast to the other rhymes. Both words are tri-syallbic, and both amphibrachic words, I guess, but I'm not hearing much more. I guess both have some sibilance at the end of the word.

I wonder how you pronounce “endurance.” I often, though perhaps not always, pronounce it as a near rhyme for “currents.” That is, I hear “reverses” and “endurance” as sharing the er/ur sound in the stressed syllable, following by sibilance. I also feel, as you mention, that slant rhymes can be slantier when they’re feminine. I’ll think about it.

[Matt Q]

"after smoke and fire and loss" does sound to me akin to "smoke and fire and grief", say. That's how I read it, anyway. Whereas I guess I'd expect casualties to be referred to as "losses".

Be great if you could get the crib's "from the stern" in somehow, to me this adds quite a bit to image -- implying that there that they're sailing away from the horse. Something about the gap between following horse and boat widening adds to the pathos for me here.

-Matt

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Matt Q

Be great if you could get the crib's "from the stern" in somehow, to me this adds quite a bit to image -- implying that there that they're sailing away from the horse. Something about the gap between following horse and boat widening adds to the pathos for me here.

To cover two instances of “stern,” all I managed was one “deck.” I agree, that’s a failure of the translation, but I like it better than anything else I’ve considered. I’ll keeping rolling it around, though. Thanks, Matt.

[David Callin]

I enjoyed the song! I enjoyed the poem too.

I don't think "seeming" is helping you in S1 - "always seeming", in commas, seems to take me out of the moment.

Also not a fan of "swimming for the deck", which seems a rather awkward construction, and not very idiomatic.

But the last two verses read well, I think.

Cheers

David

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by David Callin

"always seeming", in commas, seems to take me out of the moment.

I doubt I can do anything about the bits you mention, David. Feminine rhymes are hard to come by in English, and the driving beat of this poem is nearly as important as the words for me. That said, your “in commas” was an eye-opener. I don’t know how “seeming” got a comma in the first place and why I didn’t question it earlier. It’s gone now, and maybe that will help keep you in the moment. Much appreciated, David!

[David Callin]

My pleasure!

Literally.

David