{"id":4576,"date":"2022-04-12T10:05:58","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T17:05:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/?p=4576"},"modified":"2025-03-06T21:17:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T05:17:57","slug":"pushkins-plea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/pastis\/pushkins-plea\/","title":{"rendered":"Pushkin’s Plea"},"content":{"rendered":"
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After Alexander Pushkin’s\u00a0<\/strong>\u041d\u0435 \u0434\u0430\u0439 \u043c\u043d\u0435 \u0431\u043e\u0433 \u0441\u043e\u0439\u0442\u0438 \u0441 \u0443\u043c\u0430. T<\/em>hanks to E.K. for the gloss.<\/em><\/p>\n

O God, don\u2019t let\u00a0me go nuts,
\nbetter to beg in mud and ruts,
\nbetter hunger, endless movement.
\nNot that I like my brain,
\nnot that I would disdain
\na change therein or improvement.<\/p>\n

If ever they set me loose
\nI would become a recluse
\nin a forest shadows cloak,
\nthere, inflamed, to sing or scream
\nand let each strange daydream
\ngo up in whorls like smoke,<\/p>\n

listen to a crashing wave,
\ngaze up at empty heaven\u2019s nave,
\nrapt where I stood.
\nI would howl, strong and free,
\nblow like gusts that rake debris,
\nwinds that break down wood.<\/p>\n

What misfortune, to go mad,
\nclapped in a cell, by irons clad.
\nAnd then they come to plague you.
\nOnce they chain and lock you, Fool,
\nsome beast in bars to ridicule,
\nthey come to taunt and egg you.<\/p>\n

Nights you would no longer hear
\nbirds\u2019 bright songs, nor lend an ear
\nas a tree in the cold crackles.
\nSo cry out, my comrades in chains.
\nwake the night-shift with hurricanes
\nof shrieks!\u00a0 Shake your shackles!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

*<\/em><\/p>\n

Perhaps not the best moment to front a work of the Russian poet and national hero. Yet maybe it is.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I know only a few words of Russian. I have been able to glimpse what Russian poets have done with words solely because a Russian librarian friend shared her love of them with me, Mandelstam, Gumilev, Akhmatova and … Pushkin. She glossed them word by word and afterwards tested me on their senses and worked through the range of connotations.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

it should not go unsaid that, by American one-drop standards, the author of Eugene Onegin was black. His maternal great-grandfather was Major-General Abram Petrovich Gannibal<\/a>, born near the shores of Lake Chad and\u00a0 <\/span>kidnapped to Constantinople, whence he was traded as a page-slave to Peter the Great’s court (https:\/\/en.m.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abram_Petrovich_Gannibal<\/a>)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Just saying.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Alexander Pushkin’s\u00a0\u041d\u0435 \u0434\u0430\u0439 \u043c\u043d\u0435 \u0431\u043e\u0433 \u0441\u043e\u0439\u0442\u0438 \u0441 \u0443\u043c\u0430. Thanks to E.K. for the gloss. O God, don\u2019t let\u00a0me go nuts, better to beg in mud and ruts, better hunger, endless movement. Not that I like my brain, not that I would disdain a change therein or improvement. If ever they set me loose I … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Pushkin’s Plea”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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