I have never lived in Russia, so I never got a decent feel for it as a spoken language. Keele University, where I studied Mathematics and Physics in 1961-5, required you to take two subsidiary subjects: I chose Psychology and Russian. The latter was becoming important to know for a physicist: the space-race was well underway – the USSR had just sent the first human being, Yuri Gagarin, into space in Vostok 1 – and it was becoming clear that, whatever the USA might think, Russian was going to be the international language of space travel, just as English is the international language of seafaring. My third novel pays homage to that anticipation.
I spent two weeks in Russia in 1968 attending an international mathematical conference in Moscow. That’s the only time I’ve been there. But I got the all-too-brief opportunity to acquaint myself first-hand with Russian cultural achievements, notably poetry and fine art, for which I had the profoundest admiration – and still do. To me, the Tretyakov Gallery is unsurpassed in all my globe-trotting experience.
For someone who was only meant to learn enough Russian to translate a scientific paper, developing a taste for Russian verse was something of a diversion. All that stuck may have been a smattering of the most famous poetry, of which Lermontov’s The Angel made the deepest impression on me. Perhaps it was for the least romantic of reasons: Russian doesn’t exactly lend itself to formal scansion, and most of the Russian verse I came across seemed to my British ears to stumble along. Yet here was Lermontov writing rhyming couplets in strict metre. When I attempted to translate The Angel for myself, I felt the least I could do was show some respect for his scansion and rhyme. But I have failed to rise to his stratospheric standards.
“The Angel” in question is unarguably the archangel Gabriel, although Lermontov doesn’t actually say so. I do only because it suits the metre. By a tradition that predates Christianity, Gabriel is the Angel of the Moon (each classical planet had its own angel), and of childbirth. It is no coincidence that Luke the Evangelist has God send Gabriel to Mary to announce that she is to bear the Messiah.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lermontov …
In 1831 Lermontov’s poetry (“The Reed”, “Mermaid”, “The Wish”) started to get less confessional, more ballad-like. The young author, having found taste for plots and structures, was trying consciously to rein in his emotional urge and master the art of storytelling. Critic and literature historian D.S. Mirsky regards “The Angel” (1831) as the first of Lermontov’s truly great poems, calling it “arguably the finest Romantic verse ever written in Russian.”
Ангел / The Angel
M. Iu. Lermontov, 1831
(With an exact word-for-word transcription, verse-by-verse)
По небу полуночи ангел летел,
И тихую песню он пел,
И месяц, и звезды, и тучи толпой
Внимали той песне святой.
Through [the] sky of-midnight [the] angel flew,
And [a] quiet song he sang,
And [the] moon, and stars, and of-clouds [a] crowd
Attended to-that song blessed.
Он пел о блаженстве безгрешных духов
Под кущами райских садов,
О Боге великом он пел, и хвала
Его непритворна была.
He sang of [the] bliss of-sinless souls
Beneath [the] foliage of-sublime gardens,
Of God the-Great he sang, and [his] praise
Of-Him free-from-insincerity was.
Он душу младую в объятиях нес
Для мира печали и слез;
И звук его песни в душе молодой
Остался – без слов, но живой.
He [a] soul young in [an] embrace bore
For [the] world of-sorrows and tears;
And [the] sound of-his song to [the] soul young
Persisted – without words, but alive.
И долго на свете томилась она,
Желанием чудным полна,
И звуков небес заменить не могли
Ей скучные песни земли.
And long in [the] world languished she,
With-wondrous desires full,
And [the] sounds of-heaven to-displace not were-able
For-her [the] boring songs of-earth.
Rendering the rhyme and metre:
At midnight the Angel flew over the sky,
and his singing was quiet yet strong,
and the moon, and the stars, and the gathering clouds
paid heed to that glorious song.
He sang of the joy of the purified souls
in the groves of the gardens of bliss.
Of God the Almighty he sang, and his praise
fell unstrained and unfeigned from his lips.
In his émbrace he bore a new soul, to be born
on this planet of sorrows and strife;
and the sound of his song filled the spirit so young
to the brim – not with words, but with life.
Many years in the world has it languished, that soul,
yet an echo of wonder remains –
for the dull songs of earth never quite swept away
Angel Gabriel’s heavenly strains.
Tr. Ian Clark, writing as Clark Nida, November 2017.
For a more polished treatment, see the blog entry of 1/7/25.
Compare with: https://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/mdenner/Demo/texts/angel.html
Whitby Writers Group 