Ah,
we lost a giant on Saturday. Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko died—in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
where he had been lecturing at the university—aged 84. He was my first example
of a celebrity poet-activist.
Back
in the day, Yevtushenko walked a careful path, writing poems about the world
around him, painting pictures that were not apparatchik-approved, yet still hobnobbing
with the Politburo. It was his ability to schmooze with Soviet rulers that
gained him a measure of freedom—travel to the outside world, rock-star
adulation at home, and shining poetic light on things the regime pretended didn’t
exist—even in the era of anti-modernism of the 1960s.
So,
without being an official “dissident”, Yevtushenko was a persistent voice for
resistance from the mid-50s until the collapse of the Soviet Union. If some of
the power faded in later years, I think he lived up to a goal he once stated, “I
shall be happy if just one of my lines helps someone of later generations.”
This is the essence of resistance; it’s about the end-game, no matter how long
it takes to bring about.
A
few years ago I gave you his “Babi
Yar”, which was the poem that introduced me to him. It is harrowing,
searing nightmare images into your cortex from beginning to end. Today I’ll
share a couple more, “The Heirs of Stalin” and “The Torments of Conscience.”
I
particularly like “The Heirs of Stalin”, because Yevtushenko uses the image of taking
extraordinary measures to ensure that Uncle Joe stays well and truly bolted
down in death—extra guards, double weights over the casket. While I personally
think it might be entirely possible that Stalin might rise from the grave (I’d
have cremated him, myself), it’s what the Soviet Tsar stood for that the poet
wants securely buried forever.
Along
with all his henchmen, who stand ready to take over the family business—they lament
the empty prison camps and the audiences for poets instead of propaganda.
And
as Yevtushenko knew, those heirs can wait a few generations, and franchise that
business out to other locales.
“The
Heirs of Stalin”
Mute
was the marble. Mutely glimmered the glass.
Mute
stood the sentries, bronzed by the breeze.
Thin
wisps of smoke curled over the coffin.
And
breath seeped through the chinks
as
they bore him out the mausoleum doors.
Slowly
the coffin floated, grazing the fixed bayonets.
He
also was mute- his embalmed fists,
just
pretending to be dead, he watched from inside.
He
wished to fix each pallbearer in his memory:
young
recruits from Ryazan and Kursk,
so
that later he might collect enough strength for a sortie,
rise
from the grave, and reach these unreflecting youths.
He
was scheming. Had merely dozed off.
And
I, appealing to our government, petition them
to
double, and treble, the sentries guarding this slab,
and
stop Stalin from ever rising again
and,
with Stalin, the past.
I
refer not to the past, so holy and glorious,
of
Turksib, and Magnitka, and the flag raised over Berlin.
By
the past, in this case, I mean the neglect
of
the people’s good, false charges, the jailing of innocent men.
We
sowed our crops honestly.
Honestly
we smelted metal,
and
honestly we marched, joining the ranks.
But
he feared us. Believing in the great goal,
he
judged all means justified to that great end.
He
was far-sighted. Adept in the art of political warfare,
he
left many heirs behind on this globe.
I
fancy there’s a telephone in that coffin:
Stalin
instructs Enver Hoxha.
From
that coffin where else does the cable go!
No,
Stalin has not given up. He thinks he can cheat death.
We
carried him from the mausoleum.
But
how remove Stalin’s heirs from Stalin!
Some
of his heirs tend roses in retirement,
thinking
in secret their enforced leisure will not last.
Others,
from platforms, even heap abuse on Stalin
but,
at night, yearn for the good old days.
No
wonder Stalin’s heirs seem to suffer
these
days from heart trouble. They, the former henchmen,
hate
this era of emptied prison camps
and
auditoriums full of people listening to poets.
The
Party discourages me from being smug.
'Why
care? ' some say, but I can’t remain inactive.
While
Stalin’s heirs walk this earth,
Stalin,
I fancy, still lurks in the mausoleum.
As
for “Torments of Conscience”—well, it rather gives me hope. “Dying is not our
business”, he says, and conscience stands guard in our behalf at every
crossroad. It’s not exactly the Red Army, but conscience darts in to even the
most corrupt beings.
It
may well be conscience that keeps Stalin buried. I hope so.
“Torments
of Conscience”
We
live, dying is not our business,
shame
is another lost episode,
but
like an unseen madonna, conscience
is
standing at every crossroad.
And
her children and her grandchildren,
the
torments of conscience-strange torments-
with
vagrant’s crutch and bag are wandering
a
world which is everywhere dishonest.
From
one gate once more to the next gate,
once
again from doorstep to doorstep,
chanting
like old Russian beggars,
they
travel with God for their heart’s help.
Surely
it was they who always haunted
the
serfs, tapping with one finger
secretly
on their windows, and who pounded
with
their fists in the palaces of the Tsars?
Surely
they hurried off dead Pushkin
on a
sledge in the snow from a black sky,
it
was they who drove Dostoievsky to prison,
it
was they who whispered to Tolstoy: 'Fly! '
The
executioners understood it thus:
'He
who torments himself is a troublemaker.
Torments
of conscience-this is dangerous!
Conscience
itself must be liquidated! '
But
like the clanging of an alarm bell
rattling
their houses at night time,
torments
of conscience-terrible-
frightened
the executioners with their crimes.
For
even the guardians of injustice,
who
abandoned all honor long ago,
may
no longer know the meaning of conscience,
but
the torments of conscience they do know.
And
if in this wide world where no one,
no
one is guiltless, someone has heard
within
himself the cry 'What have I done? '
then
something can be done with this world.
I do
not believe in the prophets construing
the
coming of the Second or the Thousandth Rome,
I
believe in the words 'What are you doing? '
in
'What are we doing? ' bitterly spoken.
And
on the slippery edge of lost faith
I am
kissing your dark hands,
for
you alone are my last faith,
torments
of conscience-fierce torments!
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