Wij leven zonder onder onze voeten ons land te voelen,
Onze woorden zijn niet verder dan op tien pas te horen,
Maar waar nog geen half gesprekje plaatsvindt,
Wordt de Kremlin-bewoner uit de bergen vermeld.
Zijn dikke vingers zijn vet als wormen
En zijn woorden zijn onwrikbaar als loden gewichten.
Zijn kakkerlakkensnor lacht
En zijn beenkappen glanzen.
Hij is omgeven door een bende slankhalzige leiders
En hij maakt gebruik van de slavendiensten van halfmensen.
Zij fluiten, miauwen of janken,
Alleen hij oreert en port met zijn vinger.
Hij smeedt series dekreten, als hoefijzers
Die hij mikt op je voorhoofd, je kruis of je oog.
En iedere terechtstelling is een traktatie
Voor de Osseet met de brede borstkas.
Vertaling van het Russische gedicht, voorgedragen in 1933 wat leidde tot verraad en uiteindelijk de dood van de dichter Osip Mandelstam.
Osip Mandelstam, of Mandelsjtam, (1891 – 1938) Joods-Russisch dissident schrijver en dichter, wordt beschouwd als een van de grootste Russische dichters van de twintigste eeuw.
Mandelstam werd in 1934 gearresteerd vanwege het bovenstaande gedicht “de heerser”.
Hij stierf in een transitkamp in Vtoraja Retsjka, in de buurt van Vladivostok, op 27 december 1938. Mandelstam’s own prophecy was fulfilled: “Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?”
Engelse versies van het gedicht.
We live, deaf to the land beneath us,
Ten steps away no one hears our speeches,
All we hear is the Kremlin mountaineer,
The murderer and peasant-slayer.
His fingers are fat as grubs
And the words, final as lead weights, fall from his lips,
His cockroach whiskers leer
And his boot tops gleam.
Around him a rabble of thin-necked leaders –
fawning half-men for him to play with.
The whinny, purr or whine
As he prates and points a finger,
One by one forging his laws, to be flung
Like horseshoes at the head, to the eye or the groin.
And every killing is a treat
For the broad-chested Ossete.
Of Mandelstam’s Stalin Epigram
By Scott Horton
We live, not sensing our own country beneath us,
Ten steps away they dissolve, our speeches,
But where enough meet for half-conversation,
The Kremlin hillbilly is our preoccupation.
They’re like slimy worms, his fat fingers,
His words, as solid as weights of measure.
In his cockroach moustaches there’s a hint
Of laughter, while below his top boots gleam.
Round him a mob of thin-necked henchmen,
He pursues the enslavement of the half-men.
One whimpers, another warbles,
A third miaows, but he alone prods and probes.
He forges decree after decree, like horseshoes –
In groins, foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
Wherever an execution’s happening though –
there’s raspberry, and the Ossetian’s giant torso.
Of Stalin Epigram
by Osip Mandelstam / translation by Darran Anderson
We live, not feeling the earth beneath us
At ten paces our words evaporate.
But when there’s the will to crack open our mouths
our words orbit the Kremlin mountain man.
Murderer, peasant killer.
His fingers plump as grubs.
His words drop like lead weights.
His laughing cockroach whiskers.
The gleam of his boot rims.
Around him a circle of chicken-skinned bosses
sycophantic half-beings for him to toy with.
One whines, another purrs, a third snivels
as he babbles and points.
He forges decrees to be flung
like horseshoes
at the groin, the face, the eyes.
He rolls the liquidations on his tongue like berries
delicacies for the barrel-chested Georgian.
Of
The Stalin Epigram
by Osip Mandelstam
translated by W. S. Merwin
Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.
But whenever there’s a snatch of talk
it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer,
the ten thick worms his fingers,
his words like measures of weight,
the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip,
the glitter of his boot-rims.
Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.
One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he alone goes boom.
He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes,
One for the groin, one the forehead, temple, eye.
He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.
Of A.S. Kline
Stalin Epigram
We live, but we do not feel the land beneath us,
Ten steps away and our words cannot be heard,
And when there are just enough people for half a dialogue,
Then they remember the Kremlin Highlander.
His fat fingers are slimy like slugs,
And his words are absolute, like grocers’ weights.
His cockroach whiskers are laughing,
And his boot tops shine.
And around him the rabble of narrow-necked chiefs-
He plays with the services of half-men.
Who warble, or miaow, or moan.
He alone pushes and prods.
Decree after decree he hammers them out like horseshoes,
In the groin, in the forehead, in the brows, or in the eye.
When he has an execution it’s a special treat,
And the Ossetian chest swells.
Of EPIGRAM AGAINST STALIN
We live without feeling the country beneath our feet,
our words are inaudible from ten steps away.
Any conversation, however brief,
gravitates, gratingly, toward the Kremlin’s mountain man.
His greasy fingers are thick as worms,
his words weighty hammers slamming their target.
His cockroach moustache seems to snicker,
and the shafts of his high-topped boots gleam.
Amid a rabble of scrawny-necked chieftains,
he toys with the favors of such homunculi.
One hisses, the other mewls, one groans, the other weeps;
he prowls thunderously among them, showering them with scorn.
Forging decree after decree, like horseshoes,
he pitches one to the belly, another to the forehead,
a third to the eyebrow, a fourth in the eye.
Every execution is a carnival
that fills his broad Ossetian chest with delight.
—Translated by Esther Allen from José Manuel Prieto’s Spanish version.
Het gedicht getiteld Leningrad uit 1930 van Osip Mandelstam is in het Russisch te lezen op een muur Haagweg nummer 29 te Leiden. Het zijn veertien versregels.
Allart Lakke, 30 mei 2011.