O Thou, in universe so boundless,
Alive in planets as they swarm
Within eternal flow, yet timeless
Unseen, you reign in triune form!
Embracing all, Thy single Spirit
Knows no abode, no cause to stir it,
Nor paths that Reason ever trod,
Who fills, incarnate, all that’s living,
Embracing, keeping and fulfilling,
To Whom we give the name of GOD!1
AFTER ITS PUBLICATION in 1784, Derzhavin’s God (Bog), initial stanza of which is quoted here in lieu of a proem to his works below, became the first Russian poem to gain worldwide acclaim. This ode has been recognized over the last two centuries as one of the greatest works of Russian literature. Even major literary protagonists (for instance, Dmitrii in Brothers Karamazov) are fond of quoting from it, and—just to feel the expanse of the poem’s universal reach—let us quote four additional stanzas:
To put the ocean depths to measure,
To sum the sands, the planet’s rays,
A lofty mind might want at leisure—
But knows no rule for Thee, nor scales!
Nor can the spirits brought to seeing,
Born from Thy light into their being,
Trace the enigmas of Thy ways:
Our thought, with daring, space traverses,
Approaching Thee, in Thee disperses,—
A blink in the Abyss—no trace.
Thou didst call forth great Chaos’ presence
From out the timeless, formless deep,
And then didst found Eternal essence,
Before the Ages born in Thee:
Within Thyself didst Thou engender
Thy selfsame radiance’s splendor,
Thou art that Light whence flows light’s beam.
Thine ageless Word from the beginning
Unfolded all, for aye conceiving,
Thou wast, Thou art, and Thou shalt be!
The chain of Being Thou comprisest,
And dost sustain it, give it breath;
End and Beginning Thou combinest,
Dost Life bestow in Thee through death.
As sparks disperse, surge upward, flying,
So suns are born from Thee, undying;
As on those cold, clear winter’s days
When specks of hoarfrost glisten, shimmer
Gyrate and whirl—from chasms’ glimmer
So Stars cast at Thy feet bright rays.
Those billions of lumens flaming
Flow through the measureless expanse,
They govern laws, enforce Thy bidding,
They pour forth life in gleaming dance.
Yet all those lampions thus blazing,
Those scarlet heaps with crystal glazing,
Or rolling mounds of golden waves,
All ethers in their conflagration,
Each world aflame in its own station—
To Thee—they are as night to day.
What has not been recognized so widely is that the poem is not only a magnificent celebratory ode, clearly displaying the poet’s penchant for the fantastic in his resplendent visions and images, but the presentation of an entire philosophical system. Going well beyond mere praise of the Deity, the poet imbues man’s relationship to God with a multidimensional, spherical character, as exemplified in the words, “Thou formest in me Thine own likeness, as in a drop Sol finds its trace…” (7th stanza). It must be said that Derzhavin was the last poet in Russia in whose fantasy worlds God’s omnipotence is not questioned. Yet, however successful in representing a seamless progress from the crevices of the poet’s inner persona to the outer reaches of Universe, touching the very fabric of “God,” when probing further about the meaning of the Maker’s creation Derzhavin wisely refused to provide banal answers as to the purpose of either the divine plan or our own afterlife. His vast contemplative poetry shows instead that the paradoxes with which Life endlessly confronts us are manifested not so much in the decoding of their meaning, as in seizing those rare flashes of time when we feel whole and attuned to its pulse. If “this world’s but dreams” and “the Dreamer—God,” as he ends his Magic Lantern (1803), presented as our first full selection below, then it is surely futile for a man to do the dreaming himself. For this reason, the famous question “to be or not to be,” posed by Hamlet and repeated ad nauseum in the cultural histories of mankind to this day, would have been a priori devoid of meaning to Derzhavin, since man cannot create his own being. A better question from his viewpoint would have been how to be? Holistic images of a well-lived life encoded in the vast canvas of his poetry vibrantly pierce the fabric of time and provide the modern reader with hope that there is eternal value to what God giveth to be appreciated not only at the time when He taketh away.
Derzhavin overcomes death’s seeming omnipotence by capturing life as it fantastically manifests itself in varied colors, smells, sounds and moods. He covets life and easily assures us of its continuance in his art. Such is, for instance, the transformative tally of Nature’s wealth as he experienced on his country estate, Zvanka:
I see there, from the barns and hives, the cotes and ponds,
Rich gold in butter and in honeycombs on tree limbs,
In berries—royal purple, on mushrooms—velvet down,
And silver, in the bream atremble;
All phenomena of life were possible subjects for transformation in his poetry. He was one of the first Russian poets to sing of feasts, and the objects of his mature poetic vision are as richly vibrant as the most accomplished 17th-century Dutch still-lifes: their specificity is attained not only by descriptions of their visual and tactile texture, but by their origin as well. Hence his fish is from the river Sheksna or from Astrakhan, his beer Russian or English, his ham Westphalian, his seltzer water drunk from Viennese crystal glasses, his coffee sipped from Chinese faience. In depicting such native foods as borscht or pirogi, as tastier to his persona than the foods of French origin, Derzhavin raises Russian cuisine to the status of a self-sustained, rich tradition worthy of respect in world culture:
The crimson ham, green sorrel soup with yolks of gold,
The rose-gold pie, the cheese that’s white, the crayfish scarlet,
The caviar, deep amber, black, the pike’s stripes bold,
Its feather blue—delight the eyesight.
Delight the eye, and joy to every sense impart;
Though not with glut, or spices brought from foreign harbors,
But with their pure and wholesome Russian heart:
Provisions native, fresh and healthful.
When downing good Crimean or Don-region wine,
Or linden mead, blond beer from hops, or black beer spuming,
Our crimson brows a little fuddlement avow,
The talk is merry through the pudding.
Derzhavin’s poetic celebrations of life on his estate anticipated the views that Tolstoy was to voice in prose much later, and his art—just as Tolstoy’s—found true admirers in Europe. For instance, John Bowring, contemplating Russia’s advances in his anthology of Russian poetry of 1821, and certain that in this land “the foundation is now laid, on which the proud edifice of civilization will be raised,” found the following words to characterize the poet:
But of all the poets of Russia, Derzhavin is in my opinion entitled to the very first place. His compositions breathe a high and sublime spirit; they are full of inspiration. His versification is sonorous, original, characteristic; his subjects generally such as allowed him to give full scope to his ardent imagination and lofty conceptions.2
In order to continue echoes of Shakespeare’s voice in Dezhavin’s fantasy space we quote—in lieu of an epigraph to The Magic Lantern—some celebrated lines from The Tempest. Across the space of a further two centuries both works speak to us as well, embodying one of the dominant threads uniting the writings chosen for this volume. There are other threads to be sure, yet rarely so eloquently expressed and so visually endowed. For this reason, it would be futile to interweave here the remaining threads in any kind of expository prose. In The Magic Lantern, with the cinematic richness of its visual montage, Derzhavin anticipates modernity in a way that very few poets of the period can rival. The poem briefly describes a traveling magic-lantern show as preface to eight tableaux—to continue the prescient cinematic metaphor, eight clips—each of which depicts a scene of earthly vitality or happiness, and each of which ends abruptly as disaster is about to strike. The poem concludes with a meditation on the absurd unreality of the “insubstantial pageant” of existence. Derzhavin makes no reference to immortality in the Christian sense, and the all-powerful Mage who orchestrates the universe appears to be a capricious and indifferent deity, a fact, which the poet accepts stoically. The abrupt alternation of longer and shorter iambic lines admirably conveys the changing of the lantern’s slides and the sudden darkness that follows each tableau, demonstrating that the ultimate mage in the text is the poet himself.
The second work chosen to represent Derzhavin’s reach into the fantastic realm is Zlogor, Volkhv of Novgorod (1813). In the late 18th and early 19th centuries a vogue for literary works in the folkloric style and on folkloric subjects swept Europe, Russia included. The Romantics turned to the native cultures somehow forgotten by Neo-classicim as a powerful source of creative inspiration. In Russia as elsewhere men of letters trolled dusty archives for gems of their people’s earliest literature and, following the example of Germany’s Grimm brothers, traveled about recording remnants of oral tradition as dictated to them by a bemused peasantry. Derzhavin had no need to travel far afield in search of such material. Indeed, his own estate, his beloved Zvanka, provided a rich source of such ancient lore, as is evidenced by Zlogor. According to legend, Zlogor was a vokhv—a sorcerer or pagan shaman—who held sway in the Novgorod region in the early Middle Ages, and a kurgan said to be his tomb was in fact located at Zvanka. For economy’s sake, we have adapted this entry in such a way that it omits the repeated chorus lines and presents individual stanzas in paragraphs of rhythmic prose which can be scanned as an iambic pentameter.
[In lieu of an epigraph, A.L.]
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d tow’rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded
Leave not a wrack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on …
The thunder of an organ’s pipes
Cuts through the peace of darkened field:
A luminous, enchanting lamp
Paints on the wall a brilliant orb,
And motley shadows move therein.
The wise and wonder-working mage,
With gestures of his staff, his eyes,
Creates—and then destroys them all.
Apace the townsmen gather round
To see these marvels at his hands.
Appear!
And there came forth …
The wild cave’s monstrous denizen,
Emerging from its horrid shade
A Lion comes.
He stands and with his paw he grooms
His gleaming mane. His tail he lashes
And his roar,
His gaze, like gales from murky depths,
Or like a livid lightning bolt
That flashes through the forest, rumbles.
He roots and pounces, seeking prey,
And, through the trees,
He spies a peaceful grazing Lamb:
His leap is made—his jaws agape …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
Along the smooth and glassy main,
The hour when dawn flings over all
Her rosy light,
Bewhiskered monarch of the seas,
The silver Sturgeon, eyes aglow,
Comes forth,
Emerging from the water’s depths.
His wing-like fins around him ripple,
He sports about the ocean’s portals.
But up from the abyss there glides
A hideous Beast.
Which, spouting, pipes forth rushing streams
And gapes his horrid, toothy jaws …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
Serene and verdant lie the dales
O’er which at noon a white Swan soars.
Beneath the clouds
He lets resound his cheering song.
The far-off vale, the glade, the hill,
The rushing stream
Give back a hundred-fold reply.
But then, as swift as thunderbolt,
Upon his silvery pinions gliding,
The Eagle with his grasping claws
Stoops for his prey.
He rends and tears and beats his wings,
And snow-white swans-down falls to Earth …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
The sun has set, the evening dark
Reveals a host of burning stars
In heaven’s arc.
And fiery, fleeting meteors
Hurl downwards, in a glistening clew,
From realms
On high: they cheer the watcher’s gaze
Like warm and welcome firelight:
One falls upon a darkened house,
Borne thither by the wind: it catches—
The town’s ablaze!
A smoky, soot-black column rears,
And flames, like scarlet waves, pour forth …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
Beset by cares and lust for gold,
The merchant at his tally beads
Makes up his sums:
He grudges all his partners’ gain
As he apportions out the wares,
And sleepless sits,
As hour by hour the voyage charts
He cons: surveys with greedy gaze
The ocean and its billowing waves,
Descrying there his distant ship.
Through tears of joy he spies
Her sails and flags, her cannon’s flare:
But near the wharf—a hidden shoal …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
The worthy ploughman in his fields
Fears God and waits on Nature’s will,
Spares not his sweat;
In summer’s heat the plough he follows,
Then supples well and stores the traces,
And bides the season,
Awaiting increase from the seeds
That he with his own hand has sown.
The golden ears of wheat are full,
They bend and sway like ocean waves,
And heaven’s shade
Gives blessing to his honest toil;
A cloud then spills both hail and ruin …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
Young man and maiden, newly wed,
All golden, shining, shadowless,
Their nuptial chains—
In Love’s pure blessedness they drown;
A conqueror and suer both,
The worthy groom
Now melts in ecstasy of love,
And to her charms surrenders all,
Forgetting there his former cares,
Salutes his lover’s lips, her hands,
And, through the veil,
His hand, outstretched, has grasped the prize;
Dame Death rears up with gleaming scythe …
No more! No more.
Appear!
And there came forth …
The Son of Fortune, proud and bold
In spirit fully arrogant
And adamant,
Has scattered all opposing banners
And round his brow has gathered,
Encircled,
Green laurels culled from many lands,
And, kingly rights annihilating,
Now drunk with heady fumes of power,
In every tribe the people’s sway
Usurps;
He harks not to good subjects’ groans,
But reaches out to claim the crown …
No more! No more.
Is not this world a magic play,
Wherein the lantern shadows change,
Enchanting and deceiving men?
Does not some lord or sorcerer
Or mighty mage divert himself
Thereby, his prowess vaunting,
As he with idle finger sets
The planets’ course? Does he not call
All earthly creatures to behold
His dreams—and they but dreams themselves?
Why, Man, so arrogant though mortal,
So ignorant for all your lore,
Now soaring in your reason’s pride,
Now crawling, bug-like, in the dust,
Why chase thus after fortune’s phantoms
Which flicker into sight and, passing,
Entice us to the fatal feast?
Were it not best to scorn their gleam,
And laud instead the Master’s hand
That made this world so fair of sight?
We may be—nay, we shall be—then,
Unmoved observers of His works
Whose will directs obedient Fate.
Let other eyes admire our course,
And let His hand direct our way
Who sets the suns and stars aspin:
He knows their end as He knows ours!
He orders it—and I ascend;
He speaks—and I descend once more.
This world’s but dreams: the Dreamer—God.
(1803) Translated by A.L. & M. K.
Chorus
Boyán’s disciple, grey-haired skald!
Arise o’er Vólkhov’s sombrous river,
And let your harpstrings newly quiver
With ancient lays and lore recalled—
Freed from the dust of past resplendence—
Bemuse with wonders your descendants;
Bring on your harp old deeds to sight,
From darkness strike them with new light!
Skald
Hearken! From his dwelling in the southlands came Odin to the land of midnight sun. With him came Véles, and Zlogór the shaman, whose funeral libations flowed so free they formed a river, ever since hight Vólkhov; this river’s currents lap his funeral mound, they writhe and twist like snake with scales of silver, they circle, like the raven or the owl.
Thus he, once spewed from out the bowels of Tophet, a creature fashioned of demonic guile, yet scion of the Slavic tribe, and mage within its fortress, by his arts did blind the people’s eyes with conjurings and visions; from time to time would he transform himself, appear as thunder, lightning, wind or rainstorm. A crocodile—their volkhv, their prince, their priest.
By force and fear of him did he inspirit the ignorant to bow to black-horned god—to vile Perún—instead of unto Heaven, and with their prayers bring sacrifice in blood; but such as would refuse to make their off’rings he and his offspring, lurking ‘neath the streams of swift Nevá, Ilmén’ and deepest Mshága, Shelón or Ládoga, would drown, and thus destroy.
To shrive Zlogór’s black soul came hell-born demons, but still so fearsome was his powers’ fame, that when he died, good people of the northlands made sure to lay him face-down on his bier, and hide him there as well as they were able. So that the tyrant might not harm them more, they drove down through his heart a stake of aspen, then piled atop his grave a ponderous mound.
Yet even when his earthly life was ended, Zlogor did not cease making mischief here—as to this day you may hear tales related by goodwives and by aged crones alike. Deceits he wove, cabals he brewed and discord, and was the pet of many a worthy dame; full well he knew their cellars and their turrets, as birdlike he went flitting through the house.
Kikímora herself could never spy him; he took his ease curled up upon the stove, and oft would he the meal set by for evening devour, with great gnashing of his teeth. Or in the night, much to the master’s wonder, he’d force a nag to gallop league on league; he’d weave and plait his favorite horse’s forelock and bind its waving tail into a club.
Vadim and all the people were incited ‘gainst Gostomysel by Zlogor himself, and thus between the Slav and the Varangian was strife ignited, in despite of sense; he also was it that forbade Dobrynia to baptize all the folk of Novgorod, to raise up holy altars on the hilltops, and then to drown their idols in the streams.
Next would he Yaroslav the Wise have hindered from setting forth the Code of Russian Law, then bade the folk to draw in heavy oxcart unto the veche, in good Marfa’s stead, that spiteful crone Yagá, the crafty Bába—that evil witch—with iron pestle swift. And at Khutinsky Abbey he attempted to burn Iván the Dread with flames from hell.
So to this day he plays his pranks at Zvanka, weaves fantasies of shadows in the night: he creeps down to the Volkhov with the moonrise, in golden moonbeams paints there hills and trees; his visage, bending down, is limned in brightness with trailing dreadlocks, and with snow-white beard, he flickers in the current—or, reposing in darkness ‘neath his mound, like thunder snores.
(1813) Translated by A.L. & M. K.