Evgeny Baratynsky is one of the great poets of the Golden Age of Russian poetry, but he is generally overshadowed by A.S. Pushkin and M. Yu. Lermontov, both of whom are more accessible, in part because of their prose works, and in part because of their easily-digestible content. Baratynsky is a solitary figure compared to those others because of his pessimism, comparable to that of Leopardi in Italy. Where Lermontov might look sadly upon his generation, he nonetheless lived a life of action, of active revolt. Baratynsky often gives the impression he doesn’t think it’s worth even trying. He is bitter, but what makes him interesting is that he is also intellectual in vision, where other poets are more emotional. He is not always easy to read in Russian, but teasing out his meanings is a pleasant exercise. Each reading leaves you feeling you’re a little closer to understanding him.
These translations are only my first attempts at trying to pin down the poet’s soul. I like Baratynsky enough that I can see myself returning to him later, but for now I’ve only prepared these four pieces. After each poem I’ll leave a few words, describing the poem and anything I found interesting about it.
The Poems
Prayer
Lord of Heaven, grant your peace
To a soul ill at ease.
For the errors I've seen
Send oblivion's dark screen;
And to rise to your height,
Give me strength to do right.
This is short and sweet, the kind of prayer that you really can mumble to yourself going to bed. Baratynsky doesn’t seem particularly interested in God – He’s rarely mentioned elsewhere – but I still like this poem. It seems a prayer for our own times, with its sense of anxiety and unease. The divided hopes of the poet – both for strength and for forgetting – reflect his ultimate lack of confidence. An alternative translation for comparison is here .
The unusual anapaestic “- – / – – /”meter and rhyme are the same as are used in the original.
“O thought…”
O thought, your fate’s that of the flower
Which calls the moth with every hour;
Draws in the golden bumblebee;
To whom the loving midge does cling
and whom the dragonfly does sing;
When you have seen your wonders flee
And in your turn have faded grey -
Where then those wings that blessed your day?
Forgotten by the host of flies -
Not one of them has need of you -
Just as your failing body dies
Your seeds bring forth another you.
Baratynsky here shows an interest in the nature of thought. However much an idea may hold interest, that interest often turns out only to be temporary. Ideas come in and out of fashion. But what those who look beneath the surface see is that even a brief contact with an idea can be enough to lead to the creation of a new one from out of the old, so that even apparently forgotten thoughts are never truly in vain.
To a Wise Man
Carefully between our lives’ storms and the cold of the grave, o philosopher,
Hope you to find a safe port - "Calm" is the name that you give it.
We, who are called from the void by the tremulous word of creation
- Our lives are worries alone: life and our worries are one.
He who’s escaped common turmoil will think up a care
For himself: palette or lyre or the words of a pen.
Infants, the world’s newest entrants, its laws as if sensing,
Cry in their cradle the instant they’re born.
This is probably my favourite of Baratynsky’s poems, but of course that doesn’t mean I’ve successfully translated it. The theme is the suffering of existence. We may try to find calm, but ultimately all of us will struggle, whether from our own minds or from the external world. That’s all there is to it, probably. The meter is weird and Classical though, which is cool.
“What use to those enchained…”
What use to those enchained are dreams of being free?
Just look – the river flows, and uncomplainingly,
Within its given banks, according to its course;
The mighty fir is powerless before the force
That binds it where it stands. The stars above are caught
Within the paths an unknown hand believes they ought
To go. The roaming wind’s not free – for it a law
Dictates the lands in which its breath has right to soar.
And to the lot which is our own shall we submit –
Rebellious dreams accept as dreams or else forget.
We, reason’s slaves, must learn obediently to bind
Our deep desires to all those things fate has in mind –
Then happiness and peace shall demarcate our time.
What fools we are! Is it not boundless freedom’s sign
That gives us all our passions? Is it not freedom’s voice
We hear within their torrents? O how hard’s for us the choice
To live while feeling in our beating hearts the fire
That rages in the bounds set by our fate's desire!
Another particular favourite of mine. Baratynsky here does not argue for freedom, as do those rebellious Romantics. Instead, he sees us as failing to follow the subservient example of nature, which happily obeys the limits it has been assigned at birth. But are doomed to suffering precisely because this is something we cannot do. We have passion, which fights against our fate, leading us to our downfalls. This poem is fun because of its form and punctuation and whatnot. Baratynsky shows how enchained nature is by controlling when he begins and ends the sentences, relative to the line.
Conclusion
Anyway, I like Baratynsky, just as I like Leopardi. Both of them went against the grain with their pessimism, but I like it as an antidote to the baseless optimism we sometimes encounter in our own days. There is a kind of glamour in despair that both capture, and though it is dangerous to wallow, there can certainly be some pleasure in spending time in the poets’ company.
Here are two articles providing more information about Baratynsky. This one includes a translation of Baratynsky’s awesome long poem, “Autumn”, which I could not possibly attempt to translate myself. The other, meanwhile, compares two recent book translations and gives some information about Baratynsky’s life.