Resistance moon: The slippery edge of lost faith

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!