S novym godom! S novym gorem! (С новым годом! С новым горем!)

С Новым годом! С новым горем!
Вот он пляшет, озорник,
Над Балтийским дымным морем,
Кривоног, горбат и дик.
И какой он жребий вынул
Тем, кого застенок минул?
Вышли в поле умирать.
Им светите, звезды неба!
Им уже земного хлеба,
Глаз любимых не видать.

 

Январь 1940

Happy New Year, Happy New Fear.
Translated by Alistair Noon

 

Happy New Year, Happy New Fear.

Dancing by the Baltic mists,

that mischievous child is here,

bow-legged, hunchbacked and vicious.

What lot was it was drawn

by those no dungeon called?

They've crossed the field to death.

Shine for them, stars above:

they're blind now to the earth's bread

and the eyes of those they loved.

 

January 1940

Frohes Neues! Jahr des Elends!
Translated by Franziska Zwerg

 

Frohes Neues! Jahr des Elends;

Es kommt näher, rau und wild,

durch den Dunst des Baltenmeeres

Tanzt sein bucklig-schiefes Bild.

Welches Los wird es dem bringen

Der dem Kerker konnt' entrinnen

Um zu sterben auf dem Feld?

Scheint für ihn, ihr hellen Sterne!

Denn das süße Brot der Erde

Sieht er nie mehr, unser Held.

 

Januar 1940

Gott Nytt År! Och nya plågor!
Translated by Hans Björkegren


Gott nytt år! Och nya plågor!

Se, han dansar, skälmsk och krum,

där på Österhavets vågor,

skevbent, över rök och skum!

Vilken ödeslott blev deras

som fick slippa att torteras?

De drog bort till krig och död.

Stjärna, lys till deras ära

som har mistat sina kära

och berövats jordens bröd!


Januari 1940


  • Country in which the text is set
    Russia
  • Featured locations
    Ленинград (Leningrad, Petrograd, Saint Petersburg)

     

  • Impact

    This poem was written in January 1940 during the period in which Akhmatova’s work was banned from publication and clearly refers to the Winter War between the USSR and Finland, which began on 30 November, 1939. The poem evokes the sinister image of the New Year dancing as if crippled over the smoky Baltic Sea and points out that those who were saved from jail and exile are now being sent to die in a war.

    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.

  • Balticness

    Akhmatova lived the major part of her life in Saint Petersburg (Petrograd, Leningrad) and became the city’s poet. However, she spent the last 10 years of her life in a little cottage in the Finnish village of Komarovo (Finnish name Kellomäki) by the shore of the Gulf of Finland. She devoted a great deal of her later lyrical verse to the humble beauty of this landscape. Her Komarovo cottage became something of a literary Mecca, and its visitors included Andrey Voznesensky, Joseph Brodsky and many other young poets, all of them seeking her opinion and approval. Akhmatova is buried in the Komarovo cemetery and the little town remains famous throughout the world because of her association with it.

    Polina Lisovskaya

  • Bibliographic information

    All seven poems are parts of different collections and for the most part were published long after they were written, either posthumously or after the advent of Perestroika.

  • Translations
    Language Year Translator
    Swedish 1979 Hans Björkegren
  • Year of first publication
    1950s–1990s
  • Place of first publication
    Moscow, Leningrad