Птицы смерти в зените стоят.
Кто идет выручать Ленинград?
Не шумите вокруг - он дышит,
Он живой еще, он все слышит:
Как на влажном балтийском дне
Сыновья его стонут во сне,
Как из недр его вопли: "Хлеба!"
До седьмого доходят неба...
Но безжалостна эта твердь.
И глядит из всех окон - смерть.
28 сентября 1941 Самолет
Kuoleman linnut ovat taivaan laella.
Kuka menisi nyt Leningradin avuksi?
Älkää häliskö; katsokaa, se hengittää,
se elää yhä, kuulee yhä kaiken:
miten Itämeren kosteassa pohjassa
sen omat pojat vaikeroivat unissaan,
miten sen uumenista huuto: "Leipää!"
kiirii ylimmäisiin taivaisiin ....
Mutta kaikki on niin armottoman kovaa
ja joka ikkunasta katsoo kuolema.
Lentokoneessa 28.9.1941
© Neuvostolyriikkaa 3. Ed. by Natalia Baschmakoff, Pekka Pesonen, Raija Rymin. Helsinki: Tammi, 1978
Die Vögel des Tods im Zenit.
Dödens fåglar i zenit.
Vem bistår Leningrad?
Stoja inte - den andas,
den lever, den kan höra
sina söner stöna i sömnen
nere på Östersjöns botten
och skriet "bröd!" stiga
ur jordens inre mot himlarna...
Men himlen är skoningslös.
Genom alla fönster stirrar döden.
September 1941
Anna Akhmatova is considered one of the most important Russian poets of the twentieth century. Her significance is also based on her role as the poet who experienced the fate and history of Saint-Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad as it unfolded during the twentieth century in all its tragedy and all its glory. Even during the harshest years of Soviet history when publication of her work was banned, she retained her reputation as a master stylist and a truly original poetic voice.
Akhmatova’s verse has been translated into all European languages. The poet she most admired was Pushkin. Her oeuvre encompasses the tradition of the Russian (and St.Petersburg) poetry of the twentieth century (the Golden Age), to which she added new imagery and unsurpassed new depth, earning her the reputation of queen of the so-called Silver Age.
She also absorbed currents from French poetry of the first two decades of the twentieth century and introduced them to Russia between the wars. The impact of her person and oeuvre during these decades is illustrated by the emergence of a whole group of young female poets who were called “podakhmatovkis”, e.g. those trying to compose verse like Anna the Great. Being a beautiful woman she enthralled the many talented men of her time, among them Amedeo Modigliani and Isaiah Berlin. Having spent the greater part of her life in the “Fountain House” in the center of Leningrad, she has become its legend and a symbol of the spirit of freedom that refused to bow before the horrors of the Stalinist age. Though many of her loved ones were sent to prisons and labor camps she refused to consider emigrating to the West. In the 1960s Akhmatova was granted the title of the Honorary Doctor by Oxford University and was given permission to go to England for the ceremony.
Polina Lisovskaya
Language | Year | Translator |
English | 1997 | Judith Hemschemeyer |
Finnish | 1978 | Pentti Saaritsa |
German | 1967 | Rainer Kirsch |
Swedish | 1978 | Hans Björkegren |