Stalin Epigram
The "Stalin Epigram", also known as "The Kremlin Highlander" (
Mandelstam read the poem only to a few friends, including Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. The poem played a role in his own arrest and the arrests of Akhmatova's son and husband, Lev Gumilev and Nikolay Punin.[2]
The poem was almost the first case
We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
But if people would talk on occasion,
They should mention the Kremlin Caucasian.
His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits,
And his accurate words are as heavy as weights.
Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming,
And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming.
But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen,
And he plays with the services of these half-men.
Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing,
He’s alone booming, poking and whiffing.
He is forging his rules and decrees like horseshoes –
Into groins, into foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
Every killing for him is delight,
And Ossetian torso is wide.
The phrase "Ossetian torso" in the final line refers to the ethnicity of
References
- ^ Translation by Dmitri Smirnov, can be reproduced if non-commercial.
- ^ Vengeance of Kremlin's Highlander (Russian) Archived 2013-04-19 at the Wayback Machine by Semion Kiperman, publication of Russian Jewish on-line Center.
- ISBN 0 00 262501 6.
- ^ Robert Service, Stalin: A Biography, p. 18.