[Glenn Wright]

This is my first experience sharing a translation, so please forgive my ignorance of the protocols and etiquette. I wanted to offer a tribute to the suffering of the Ukrainian people. This attempt translates the opening quatrain and the prose-poem in place of an introduction to Akhmatova’s long poem, “Requiem.” This poem was written between 1935 and 1961. She carried it with her as she moved around the Soviet Union, often on the run from the government. Although born in Odesa and ethnically Ukrainian, she wrote in Russian. In pre-Stalinist Russia, she enjoyed fame and praise, but she was condemned by the Stalinist authorities. Her husband was executed and her son imprisoned and sent to the Gulag. She was unable to publish her work, and this poem, often considered her masterpiece, was not published in Russia until long after her death. Like Alexey Navalny, Akhmatova chose to stay in Russia in spite of her persecution. The scene below in the prose-poem passage describes the seventeen months during which she waited outside at the prison in Leningrad just to get a glimpse of her son, who was detained there.

Requiem
by Anna Akhmatova

No, not under an alien heaven
nor a foreigner’s sheltering wing—

I was then among my people,
there, where my own were suffering.

1961

In Place of a Preface

In the terrifying years of the Great Purge, I spent
seventeen months in the prison waiting line
in Leningrad. One time someone singled me out.

Then a woman standing behind me with ice-blue lips,
who, of course, had never in her life heard my name,
roused herself from the inertia afflicting all of us and
asked with a whisper in my ear
(everyone there spoke in a whisper):
“Can you describe this?”
And I said:
“I can.”
Then something like a smile flickered across
what had once been her face.

April 1, 1957
Leningrad

ORIGINAL

Реквием
Анна Ахматова

Нет, и не под чуждым небосводом,
И не под защитой чуждых крыл,—
Я была тогда с моим народом,
Там где мой народ, к несчастью, был.

1961



Вместо предисловия

В страшные годы ежовщины я провела
семнадцать месяцев в тюремных очередях
в Ленинграде. Как-то раз кто-то <<опознал>> меня.
Тогда стоящая за мной женщина с голубыми губами,
которая, конечно, никогда в жизни не слыхала моего
имени, очнулась от свойственного нам всем
oцепенение и спросила меня на ухо
(там все говорили шепотом):
—А это вы можете описать?
И я сказала:
—Могу.
Тогда что-то вроде улыбки скользнуло по тому,
что некогда было её лицом.

1 апреля 1957
Ленинград

NOTES
небосвод = sky vault
Ежовщина = the time of Nikolai Yezhov, Stalin’s chief of the secret police (the NKVD); the “Yezhov Terror” or “The Great Purge” lasted from 1936-1938. Not to be confused with the Holodomor, the man-made famine engineered by Stalin in 1932-1933 in which millions starved to death in Ukraine and Kazakhstan as punishment for planning a suspected insurrection.

I used the online version of the poem at Пушкинская Карта from Культура РФ (a cultural program sponsored by the Russian Cultural Ministry).

———————-
Edits:
1. Added missing section to Russian original, prose section, lines 5-6:
. . . никогда в жизни не слыхала моего
имени, очнулась от . . .
2. Prose L5-7: who, of course, had never heard our name asked with an almost mute whisper in my ear > who, of course, had never before in her life heard my name, stirred herself from the muteness characteristic of all of us and asked with a whisper in my ear
3. Prose L2: prisoners’ > prison
4. Prose L3: recognized me > singled me out
5. Prose L9: Omit “So”
6. Prose L4: icy-blue > ice-blue
7. Quatrain L2: nor under a stranger’s sheltering wing > nor a foreigner’s sheltering wing
8. Prose L5: who, of course, had never before in her life heard my name > who, of course, had never in her life heard my name
9. Prose L6: stirred herself from the muteness characteristic of all of us and > roused herself from the inertia afflicting all of us and
10. Prose L7-8: . . .ear./(Everyone there spoke in a whisper.) > ear / (everyone there spoke in a whisper):

[Carl Copeland]

Your translation is unexpected and most welcome, Glenn. I wouldn’t worry too much about protocols and etiquette. Translators do usually include a literal, prose translation (crib) for those who don’t know the source language, but except for the quatrain, I don’t suppose your crib would have been much different from your translation.

The first thing to note is the omission of “никогда в жизни не слыхала моего имени, очнулась от” from the original and of “очнулась от свойственного нам всем оцепенения” from the translation (“almost mutely” doesn’t cover it).

Other than that, a few random thoughts:

• You’ve shrunk the quatrain from pentameter to tetrameter, which I think is often justified in translating from Russian to a more compact language like English. You’ve also added a few anapests and improvised a little for the rhyme in the fourth line, but the overall feel and sense of the original are preserved.

• The “prisoners’ waiting line” could be a line of prisoners, so I’d suggest the more literal “prison waiting line.”

• I checked the D. M. Thomas translation, and he made me realize that Akhmatova put “опознал” in scare quotes because it’s not the normal word for “recognized” (узнал). He translates it as “identified” (in quotes).

• To my mind, “blue lips” is more striking and “icy” an unnecessary clarification—although, with today’s lipstick colors, who knows.

• Why “our name” rather than the literal “my name”? (Her son’s name wasn’t Akhmatova, of course.)

• The direct-question punctuation has been lost.

• “So,” implying “So [since you’re a poet], can you describe this?” borders on flippancy for me, and I think I’d leave the Russian conjunction untranslated.

Thanks for this, Glenn. A nice tribute, and Akhmatova has always been close to my heart. I actually met her son briefly, after a Leningrad University lecture he gave on his quirky theories of ethnogenesis. One of the oddest voices I’ve ever heard.

P.S. Don’t be disappointed if you get only a trickle of crits. This forum is the Spherean Siberia, as one of us put it.

[Julie Steiner]

Welcome, Glenn!

Your translation brought me to tears, so you're doing something right.

Carl's concerns about "So" might be alleviated by moving the conjunction-concept to then end:

     "You can describe this, then?"

[Glenn Wright]

Thanks for the welcome, Carl and Julie.
How embarrassing to drop a whole line! Good catch, Carl. It makes much better sense now.
I found all of your comments very helpful and made some revisions.
I decided to keep “ice-blue” lips because голубой specifies a light-blue color and to emphasize the cold. Am I beating the reader over the head with it?
I wondered about the odd punctuation of <<опознал>>. I decided that “singled out” had just enough cloak-and-daggerishness to capture the tone.
I dropped the “so” on your recommendation. I’m not fluent enough to really know the nuances of initiating conversation in Russian with total strangers, but I do realize that in Russian, as in many languages with T-V distinction, there is a complex etiquette.
Truly heartfelt thanks to both of you for your care and encouragement.
Glenn

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Glenn! A few more thoughts:

I wish the quatrain's translation had a little more rhyme and rhythm, so it would contrast more with the second part.

I'm not sure the connotations of "heaven" are helpful here. "Foreigner" might also be a bit more apt than merely "stranger."

For what it's worth, I like "ice-blue."

I think you need to convey the element of celebrity spotting, even if the poet didn't go out of her way to do so, in order for the whispering woman's question to make sense. (I'm reading "who, of course, had never before in her life heard my name" as tongue-in-cheek, describing a society in which people recognized the danger of being thought to have any ties to someone clearly in hot water with the authorities).

[Glenn Wright]

Thanks for the suggestions, Julie. I like “foreigner” because it is a touch more contemptuous than “stranger,” so I will use your edit.

Anna is showing contempt for the many Russian “patriots” who fled to Europe or America at the first sign of hardship. The Russian original uses pentameter in an ABAB rhyme scheme. As Carl noted, I switched it to a more military march in 4/4 tetrameter. I could not find a way to keep both rhymes. I tried to use the simple, direct, monosyllabic English vocabulary that shows the undercurrent of determined anger.

I wanted “alien heaven” to function like an oxymoron, suggesting sarcastically a kind of comfortable, Western, materialistic heaven that would be strange and inappropriate for a true Russian patriot. The word небосвод (which I rendered as “heaven”) literally means “sky vault.” In English, this seemed a bit too fanciful considering the speaker’s understandably self-righteous rage. I’m not sure, but I suspect that небосвод, like the English word “firmament,” might carry some Biblical baggage.

The “of course,” (Russian: конечно) includes an eye roll. I had hoped that this came across in the English, but maybe it needs some signposting. Let me think about how that might be possible. Maybe putting “singled out” in quotes, as Anna did?

Thanks again.
Glenn

[Carl Copeland]

Hi, Glenn. A few more thoughts:

The second line of the quatrain now requires a less-than-obvious stress on “nor” for tetrameter. That may or may not concern you.

Originally Posted by Glenn Wright

I decided to keep “ice-blue” lips because голубой specifies a light-blue color and to emphasize the cold. Am I beating the reader over the head with it?

Not at all. I just like “blue lips,” but Julie has more voting shares than I do.

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

I think you need to convey the element of celebrity spotting, even if the poet didn't go out of her way to do so, in order for the whispering woman's question to make sense. (I'm reading "who, of course, had never before in her life heard my name" as tongue-in-cheek, describing a society in which people recognized the danger of being thought to have any ties to someone clearly in hot water with the authorities.)

I didn’t get the “tongue-in-cheek” and “eye roll” that both of you felt, but it does seem likely, now that you mention it. I still think “never before in her life” is overkill. Maybe drop “before.”

“Celebrity spotting” is part of it, but “опознал” has criminal connotations. It’s the word you’d use when identifying a body or picking someone out of a lineup (though I doubt they bothered with lineups). If “singled out” stays, I don’t think it’s unusual enough to justify scare quotes.

“Оцепенение” does imply muteness, but sound is covered by the whispering. The word more directly means inability to move—and, by extension, I suppose, to think. Thomas uses “trance,” but “stupor,” “torpor,” “numbness,” etc., would also work.

I still think you need different punctuation (closer to the original) for the direct question:

asked with a whisper in my ear
(everyone there spoke in a whisper):
“Can you describe this?”

[Glenn Wright]

Carl, I took your advice on punctuating the direct quote and eliminating the “before.” I chose to render оцепенение as “inertia,” and replaced the clunkiness of “characteristic of all of us” with “afflicting all of us.” Another possibility, somewhat closer to the literal meaning of свойственного нам всем would be “common to all of us.” My edit emphasizes their suffering. The alternative emphasizes their solidarity, which, given their zombie-like state and willingness to finger each other to the authorities, seems minimal.
I also changed “stirred herself” to “roused herself.”
Thanks for your patience and skillful guidance.
Glenn