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Тютчев Федор Иванович — The Complete Poems of Tyutchev In An English Translation by F.Jude

DEDICATION



I dedicate this book to Dr. R. Lane of the University of Durham for
sharing with me his great expertise and for his encouragement, to my wife,
Viv, and stepsons, Richard and Matthew, for being so patient, to a warm and
good person, Julian Marko, who died on February 28th. 1994, for his genuine
friendship, and to my father, Hugh, for many reasons.





Imperturbable form is the outward sign
of nature's utter consonance.
Only our spectral liberty
imparts a sense of dissonance.

Whence this disharmony? How did it arise?
In the general chorus, why this solo refrain?
Why do our souls not sing like the sea
and why must the thinking reed complain?
(The sea is harmony. F. Tyutchev)



..... the great figures in imaginative literature are perpetually
contemporary... they never become History. Ancient or modern, they live in
the perpetual present of mankind, crowding it with an accumulation of life
and a living variety of human experience.
(Essays in Literature and Society. E. Muir)






THE AUTHOR

A freelance teacher in the north east of England, having taught myself
Russian I graduated from the University of Durham in 1972 with first class
honours, following this with doctoral research in the work of Tyutchev,
supervised by R. Lane. The research was never completed and I returned to it
some four years ago, one result being this book.
Early editions of selections of the poems appeared under the surname
"Murtagh", the name I was born with and which I have discarded for personal
reasons.

THE ILLUSTRATOR

Shaheen Razvi is a freelance artist living in Scotland. She has done
portraits, illustrated an Urdu text book and a multi-cultural collection of
nursery rhymes. She has also contributed a series of oil paintings on an
anti-racist theme to a major exhibition.



The poet Fyodor Tyutchev is known and appreciated by too few people
outside of Russia, and yet his position as second to Pushkin (arguably only
with the exception of Lermontov) has been acknowledged by generations of
Russian/Soviet writers and critics. The reading public had always cherished
his lyrics, although they did not always have sufficient access to them.
Tyutchev can teach much of value about both how to savour the beauty of
fleeting moments and how to face life's adversities with spirit.
It is precisely these qualities which have, I believe, been caught
admirably in Frank Murtagh's translations. They transmit faithfully the
feelings and the tone of the originals, sometimes with remarkable success. I
believe that he has tackled sensibly the dilemma of the equation facing all
translators of poetry - to what extent to reproduce the originals. It seems
inevitable that some of the rhymes and the other formal features must be
sacrificed to the need to reproduce the "feel" of Tyutchev's often amazing
lyrics. Frank Murtagh has trod this tightrope with great sureness and
Tyutchev's distinctive style remains largely unsacrificed. Because he has
known and loved the Master for so long, his translations have become
consonant with the original poems. In this way they fill a real lacuna. For
this collection is the first accurate translation in bulk by a British
author. Its only forerunner was Charles Tomlinson's slim volume of 1960.
This contained poems of great distinction by an eminent poet, but there was
more of Tomlinson in them than Tyutchev. What is more, Frank Murtagh has
translated more poems than any other author, several for the first time into
English, including some of the much neglected political pieces.
This book has been interestingly illustrated by Shaheen Razvi. Certain
of the illustrations do not present the poems in the way in which some
people might have visualised them, but they are nevertheless a bold break
with the pretty-pretty presentation of anthological pieces hitherto
dominant.
All in all, I believe that Frank Murtagh's book is essential reading
for students and other readers of Russian poetry and is to be warmly
recommended.

R. Lane
University of Durham, England
February, 1983



Since R. Lane wrote his Foreword in 1983, only one edition of "quality"
translations of Tyutchev has appeared till now, Anatoly Liberman's versions
of 181 of the poems published in 1991. In calling them "quality"
translations, I make a deliberate value judgement, for his is not the only
edition of selected poems to have appeared.
There are too many gaps in published Tyutchev scholarship for any one
researcher to deal with. The present book is intended to be the first of
several of various lengths and formats which I wish to produce as time
allows and whose overall aim is to fill some of these gaps. I shall also
continue to work at the translations of the poems. I am all too aware of the
defects of several of my versions, although I hope they are at least
accurately rendered, even if they do little justice to Tyutchev. Very little
has been published in English about his personal letters. There has been no
serious attempt to translate them in bulk, possibly because the task would
be monumental. A satisfactory Russian version of all the poems has yet to
appear. Russian editors still tend to favour splitting up the poems
according to relative quality, a very subjective business, to say the least.
A study of Tyutchev in the letters and memoirs of others would prove
illuminating. His family, in particular two of his daughters, Anna and
Ekaterina, deserve attention in their own right.
Studies carried out by Russian scholars during the late nineteenth
century and the Soviet period, culminating in Pigaryov's Lirika edition and
his book on the poet's life and work, Gregg's study of the life and poetry,
and Lane's extensive research, represented by numerous articles, some of his
contributions published in Literaturnoe nasledstvo (1988-89), now, it seems
to me, need drawing together with the many other smaller contributions of
the past twenty or thirty years into a single, new book in English on the
writer, a thorough, critical re-appraisal of his work. Such a task will be
for a new Tyutchev scholar of energy.

Frank Jude
Durham, England
January, 2000







Foreword by R.C. Lane to the 1983 edition vi
Foreword to this edition vii
Contents 8
Preface 26
Note on transliteration 34
Acknowledgements 35
Introduction 36
The Poems 53
Notes 237
Selective Bibliography



The title/first line of a known translation and the author's name are
given after the English title/first line. Some titles are in French or
Latin. Where the first line is given in French, the poem was written in
French. Italics are used for the first line of each untitled poem. Where the
title is a proper name identical in the languages in question, it is given
once only (e.g. Sakontala).

Title/first line Page

1. Lyubeznomu papen'ke 53
Dear Dad!
2. Na novyi 1816 god 53
New Year 1816
3. Dvum druz'yam 54
To Two Friends
4. Puskai ot zavisti serdtsa zoilov noyut 55
Let envy gnaw Zoilus's heart
5. Poslanie Goratsiya k Metsenatu, v kotorom priglashaet ego k 55
sel'skomu obedu
A Letter from Horace to Mecenatus Inviting him to Dinner in the
Country
Tyrrhena progenies, tibi (Horace)
6. Vsesilen ya i vmeste rab 57
Omnipotent am I while weak
7. Uraniya 57
Urania
8. Nevernye preodolev puchiny 61
Inconstant, watery gulfs finally behind him
9. K ode Pushkina na Vol'nost' 61
On Pushkin's Ode to Freedom
10. Kharon i Kachenovsky 62
Charon and Kachenovsky
11. Odinochestvo 62
Solitude
L'Isolement (Lamartine)
12. Vesna (Posvyashchaetsya druz'yam) 63
Spring (Dedicated to my Friends)
13. A.N.M. 64
14. Gektor i Andromakha 64
Hector and Andromache
Hektor und Andromacha (Schiller)
15. Na kamen' zhizni rokovoi 65
Along the fateful shore of life
16. "Ne dai nam dukhu prazdnoslov'ya!" 65
"Do not endow us with the spirit of idle gossip!"
17. Protivnikam vina 66
(Yako i vino veselit serdtse cheloveka)
To Wine's Detractors
(For wine, indeed, brings joy to man's heart)
18. Poslanie k A.V. Sheremetevu 67
An Epistle to A.V. Sheremetev
19. Pesn' Radosti 67
Song of Joy
An die Freude (Schiller)
20. Slyozy 70
Tears
21. S chuzhoi storony 70
From a Foreign Land
Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam
22. Drug, otkroisya predo mnoyu 71
Be open with me, my love
Libeste, sollst mir heute sagen (Heine)
23. Druz'yam pri posylke Pesni Radosti - iz Shillera 71
To My Friends (On Sending them Schiller's "Song of Joy")
24. K N. 72
To N.
25. K Nise 72
To Nisa.
26.s
Lines written in an Album at Malta (Byron)
29. Sakontala (Kalidasa/Goethe) 74
30. 14-oe dekabrya 1825 75
December 14th. 1825
31. Zakralas' v serdtse grust', - i smutno 75 Sadness stole into my heart and I vaguely
Das Herz ist mir bedruckt, und sehnlich (Heine)
32. Voprosy 75
Questions
33. Korablekrushenie 76
The Shipwrecked Man
Der Schiffbruchige (Heine)
34. Kak poroyu svetlyi mesyats 77
As the bright moon sometimes
Wie der Mond sich leuchtend dranget (Heine)
35. Privetstvie dukha 77
The Spirit's Greeting
Geistesgruss (Goethe)
36. i Kto s khlebom slyoz svoikh ne el 78
He who has not eaten tears with his bread
Wer nie sein Brot mit Tranen a?
ii Kto khochet miru chuzhdym byt'
He who would be a stranger in the world
Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergiebt (Goethe)
37. Zapad, Nord i Yug v krushen'e 78
Hegira
Hegire (Goethe)
38. Vesennyaya groza 80
A Spring Storm
39. Mogila Napoleona 80
Napoleon's Tomb
40. Cache-Cache 80
Hide and Seek
41. Letnii vecher 81
A Summer Evening
42. Olegov shchit 81
Oleg's Shield
43. Videnie 82
A Vision
44. Bairon 82
Byron
Totenkranze (Zedlitz)
45. Sredstvo i tsel' 86
The Means and the End
46. Imperatoru Nikolayu I 86
To the Emperor Nicholas I
Nicolaus das ist der Volksbesieger (Ludwig I of Bavaria)
47. Bessonnitsa 87
Insomnia
48. Utro v gorakh 88
Morning in the Mountains
49. Snezhnye gory 88
Snowy Mountains
50. Poslednii kataklizm 88
The Final Cataclysm
51. K N.N. 88
To N.N.
52. Eshchyo shumel vesyolyi den' 89
The happy day was loud
53. Vecher 89
Evening
54. Polden' 90
Midday
55. Lebed' 90
The Swan
56. "Prekrasnyi budet den", - skazal tovarischch 90
"It's going to be a nice day", my friend said
Reisebilder (Heine)
57. Ty zrel ego v krugu bol'shogo sveta 92
You saw him in polite company
58. V tolpe lyudei, v neskromnom shume dnya 92
Among society's gossips
59. i Zvuchit, kak drevle, pred toboyu 92
As in days gone by, before you is heard
Die Sonne tont nach alter Weise
ii Kto zval menya? - O strashnyi vid! -
"Who called me? - "Oh, horrible sight!"
Wer ruft mir? - Schreckliches Gesicht!
iii Chego vy ot menya khotite?
What do you want of me
Was sucht ihr, machtig und gelind
iv Zachem gubit' v unynii pustom
Why destroy in empty depression
Doch la? uns dieser Stunde schones Gut
v Zavetnyi kubok
The Cherished Cup
Es war ein Konig in Thule
vi Derzhavnyi dukh! Ty dal mne, dal mne vsyo
Almighty spirit, you have given me everything, everything
Erhabner Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles (Goethe)
60.herished Cup
Es war ein Konig in Thule
vi Derzhavnyi dukh! Ty dal mne, dal mne vsyo
Almighty spirit, you have given me everything, everything
Erhabner Geist, du gabst mir, gabst mir alles (Goethe)
60. Vysokogo predchuvstviya 96
Lofty presentiment's
Il cinque maggio (Manzoni)
61. Edva my vyshli iz tresenskikh vrat 97
We had just left the gates of Trezene
A peine nous sortions des portes de Trezene (Racine)
62. Nochnye mysli 99
Night Thoughts
Nachtgedanken (Goethe)
63. i lyubovniki, bezumtsy i poety 99
Lovers, madmen and poets
ii Zarevel golodnyi lev
The hungry lion has begun to roar (Shakespeare)
64. Kak okean ob''emlet shar zemnoi 100
Just as the ocean curls around earth's shores
65. Velikii Karl, prosti! - Velikii, nezabvennyi! 100
Forgive me, Great Charles! Great, unforgotten!
Hernani (Hugo) HeHH
66. Kon' morskoi 102
The Sea Horse
67. Pevets 102
The Singer
Der Sanger (Goethe)
68. Zdes', gde tak vyalo svod nebesnyi 103
Here the sky stares inert
69. Uspokoenie (Groza proshla - eshchyo kuryas', lezhal) 104
Peace (The storm has passed)
70. Dvum syostram 104
To Two Sisters
71. Sei den', ya pomnyu 104
I recall that day
72. Tsitseron 104
Cicero
73. Osennii vecher 105
An Autumn Evening
74. List'ya 105
Leaves
75. Cherez livonskie ya proezzhal polya 106
Crossing Livonian fields
76. Pesok sypuchii po koleni 106
Sand gives softly. Hooves sink.
77. Strannik 106
The Wanderer
78. Bezumie 107
Madness
79. Al'py 107
The Alps
80. Mal'aria 108
Infected Air
81. Za nashim vekom my idyom 108
We walk behind our age
82. Vesennie vody 108
Vernal Waters
83. Silentium! 108
Stay Silent!
84. Kak nad goryacheyu zoloi 109
As a piece of paper
85. K*** (Usta s ulybkoyu privetnoi) 109
To... (Lips with a smile of greeting)
86. Kak doch' rodnuyu na zaklan'e 110
Just as Agamenon brought his daughter
87. Vsyo beshenei burya, vsyo zlee i zlei 110
The storm howls more evilly, screaming its spite
88. Vesennee uspokoenie 111
Peace in Springtime
Fruhlingsruhe (Uhland)
89. Na dreve chelovechestva vysokom 111
You were the best leaf
90. Dva demona emu sluzhili 111
Two demons served him
91. Probleme 112
A Problem
92. Son na more 112
A Dream at Sea
93. Prishlosya konchit' zhizn' v ovrage 113
I'm ending my days in a ditch
94. Arfa skal'da 114
The Skald's Harp
95. Ya lyuteran lyublyu bogosluzhen'e 114
I like the service of the Lutherans
96. V kotoruyu iz dvukh lyubit'sya 114
With which of the two has fate decreed
In welche soll ich mich verlieben (Heine)
97. Iz kraya v krai, iz grada v grad 115
From land to land, from town to town
Es treibt dich fort von Ort zu Ort (Heine)
98. Ya pomnyu vremya zolotoe 115
I remember a golden time
99. Dusha moya - elisium tenei 116
My soul, you're an Elysium of shades
100. Kak sladko dremlet sad temnozelyonyi 116
How sweetly sleep lies on the green garden
101. Net, moego k tebe pristrast'ya 117
No, Mother-Earth, my tenderness for you
102. V dushnom vozdukha molchan'e 117
Silent air enwrapping
103. Chto ty klonish' nad vodami 118
Willow, why do you lower
104. Vecher mglistyi i nenastnyi 118
Foul night, misty night
105. I grob opushchen uzh v mogilu 118
Into the grave the coffin's lowered
106. Vostok belel. Lad'ya katilas' 118
The east whitened.
107. Teni sizye smesilis' 119
Blue-grey mingling
108. S polyany korshun podnyalsya 119
The kite lifts from the field
109. Kakoe dikoe ushchel'e 120
What a wild ravine!
110. Kak ptichka, ranneyu zaryoi 120
The whole world starts as sunlight streams
111. Tam, gde gory, ubegaya 120
Far into the shining distance
112. Nad vinogradnymi kholmami 121
Across vine-covered hillsides
113. O chyom ty voesh', vetr nochnoi? 122
Why do you howl, night wind?
114. Potok sgustilsya i tuskneet 122
The stream has frozen and dulled
115. Sizhu zadumchiv i odin 122
I sit deep in thought and alone
116. Eshchyo zemli pechalen vid 123
Earth's face is still a melancholy thing
117. Zima nedarom zlitsya 123
Winter's spite is vain
118. Yarkii sneg siyal v doline 124
Brilliant snow shone in the valley
119. Fontan 124
The Fountain
120. Dusha khotela b byt' zvezdoi 124
My soul would like to be a star
121. Ne to, chto mnite vy priroda 125
Nature is not what you think it is
122. I chuvstva net v tvoikh ochakh 125
There's not a spark of feeling in your eyes
123. Lyublyu glaza tvoi, moi drug 125
I love your eyes, dear
124. Vchera, v mechtakh obvorozhyonnykh 126
Last night in enchanted dreams
125. 29-oe yanvarya 1837 126
January 29th. 1837
126. 1-oe dekabrya 1837 127
December 1st. 1837
127. Ital'yanskaya villa 127
The Italian Villa
128. Davno l', davno l', o Yug blazhennyi 128
Is it so long, blessed, blissful South
129. S kakoyu negoyu, s kakoi toskoi vlyublyonnoi 128
What gentle, tender joy, what enamoured pangs
130. Nous avons pu, tous deux, fatigues du voyage 129
Tired by travel, we made
131. Smotri, kak zapad razgorelsya 129
Watch the West flaming up
132. Vesna (Kak ni gnetyot ruka sud'biny) 129
Spring (No matter how oppressive the hand of fate)
133. Den' i noch' 130
Day and Night
134. Ne ver', ne ver' poetu, deva 130
Don't believe the poet, girl!
135. Zhivym sochuvstviem priveta 131
With a lively, sympathetic greeting
136. K Ganke 132
To Hanka
137. Znamya i Slovo 133
The Banner and the Word
138. Ot russkogo, po prochtenii otryvkov lektsii g-na 133
139. Mitskevicha
From a Russian, Having Read Extracts from Mr.
Mickiewicz's Lectures
139. Que l'homme est peu reel, qu'aisement il s'efface! 134
Unreal man's so simple to efface
140. Glyadel ya, stoya nad Nevoi 134
I stood by the Neva, my gaze
141. Kolumb 134
Columbus
142. Un Reve 135
A Reverie
143. More i Utyos 136
The Sea and the Cliff
144. Un ciel lourd que la nuit bien avant l'heure assiege 136
A heavy sky which night has prematurely assailed
145. Eshchyo tomlyus' toskoi zhelanii 137
Longing, desires still ravage
146. Ne znaesh', chto lestnei dlya mudrosti lyudskoi 137
By which can human wisdom more surely be enhanced
147. Kak dymnyi stolp svetleet v vyshine 137
A cloud bank, bright and high
148. Russkoi zhenshchine 137
To Russian Woman
149. Russkaya Geografiya 137
A Russian Geography
150. Svyataya noch' na nebosklon vzoshla 138
Holy night has climbed across the sky
151. Neokhotno i nesmelo 138
Timidly, unwillingly
152. Itak, opyat' uvidelsya ya s vami 138
So once again we meet
153. Tikhoi noch'yu, pozdnim letom 139
Quiet evening, late in summer
154. Kogda v krugu ubiistvennykh zabot 139
When clinging, murderous cares
155. Slyozy lyudskie, o slyozy lyudskie 139
Tears of people, tears of people
156. Pochtenneishemu imeninniku Filippu Filippovichu Vigelyu 140
To the Most Honourable Filipp Filippovich Vigel
157. Po ravnine vod lazurnoi 140
Across an azure plain of water
158. Rassvet 140
Daybreak
159. Vnov' tvoi ya vizhu ochi 141
Once again I see your eyes
160. Kak on lyubil rodnye eli 141
How he loved the native firs
161. Lamartine (La lyre d'Apollon, cet oracle des dieux) 142
Lamartine (Apollo's lyre, oracle of the gods)
162. Napoleon 142
163. Comme en aimant le coeur devient pusillanime 143
The heart in love cowers
164. Poeziya 143
Poetry
165. Rim noch'yu 143
Rome at night
166. Venetsiya 143
Venice
167. Konchen pir, umolkli khory 144
Feating finished, choirs quiet
168. Prorochestvo 144
A Prophecy
169. Uzh tretii god besnuyutsya yazyki 145
For the third year now, the tribes have run amok
170. Net, karlik moi! trus besprimernyi 145
Your cowardice can't be measured, you dwarf!
171. Poshli, Gospod', svoyu otradu 146
Lord, send your comfort
172. Na Neve 146
On the Neva
173. Kak ni dyshit polden' znoinyi 147
Midday breathes its hottest
174. Ne rassuzhdai, ne khlopochi! 147
Forget all cares, don't reason deep
175. Pod dykhan'em nepogody 147
Swelling, darkening waters
176. Vous dont on voit briller, dans les nuits azurees 148
Unsullied gods of light
177. Obveyan veshcheyu dremotoi 148
Prophetic sleep enfolds
178. Grafine E.P. Rostopchinoi (V otvet na eyo pis'mo) 148
To Countess E.P. Rostopchina (In Reply to her Letter)
179. Dva golosa 149
Two Voices
180. Togda lish' v polnom torzhestve 149
The desired structure
181. Pominki 150
The Wake
182. Smotri, kak na rechnom prostore 153
Across the river's broad expanse you see
183. O, kak ubiistvenno my lyubim! 154
How we murder while we love!
184. Des premiers ans de votre vie 155
How I love to find again the source
185. Ne znayu ya, kosnyotsya l' blagodat' 155
I don't know whether grace will touch
186. Pervyi list 155
The First Leaf
187. Ne raz ty slyshala priznan'e 156
You've often heard the admission
188. Nash vek 156
Our Age
189. Volna i duma 156
The Wave and the Thought
190. Ne ostyvshaya ot znoyu 156
Heat has not congealed
191. V razluke est' vysokoe znachen'e 157
Separation has this lofty meaning
192. Ty znaesh' krai, gde mirt i lavr rastyot 157
Do you know the land where the myrtle and laurel bloom
Kennst du das land, wo die Zitronen bluhn (Goethe) 157
193. Den' vechereet, noch' blizka 157
Day turns to evening. Night approaches.
194. Kak vesel grokhot letnikh bur' 158
Summer thunder's a happy ogre
195. S ozera veet prokhlada i nega 158
Coolness and comfort waft up from the lake
Es lachelt der See, er ladet zum Bade
196. Nedarom miloserdym Bogom 158
Not in vain has the gracious God
197. Predopredelenie 159
Predestination
198. Ne govori: menya on, kak i prezhde, lyubit 159
Don't say he loves me as he used to
199. O, ne trevozh' menya ukoroi spravedlivoi 160
200. Chemu molilas' ty s lyubov'yu 160
What you guarded in your heart
201. Ya ochi znal - o eti ochi! 161
I knew a pair of eyes. Oh, what a sight!
202. Bliznetsy 161
The Twins
203. Ty, volna moya morskaya 161
Ocean-waves
204. Pamyati V.A. Zhukovskogo 162
To the Memory of V.A. Zhukovsky
205. Siyaet solntse, vody bleshchut 163
The sun is shining, waters glisten
206. Charodeikoyu zimoyu 163
The forest is entranced
207. Poslednyaya lyubov' 163
Last Love HonhHd
208. Neman 164
The Nieman
209. Spiriticheskoe predskazanie 165
A Spiritualistic Prediction
210. A.S. Dolgorukoi 165
To A.S. Dolgorukaya
211. Leto 1854 165
Summer 1854
212. Uvy, chto nashego neznan'ya 165
What is more impotent and sad
213. Teper' tebe ne do stikhov 165
You're not in the mood for verses
214. De son crayon inimitable 166
To merit one word, one comma, one full stop
215. Po sluchayu priezda avstriiskogo ertsgertsoga na 166
Pokhorony imperatora Nikolaya
On the Occasion of the Arrival of the Austrian Archduke
at the Funeral of the Emperor Nicholas.
216. Plamya rdeet, plamya pyshet 166
Redness. Flaring.
217. Tak, v zhizni est' mgnoven'ya 167
In life there are moments you cannot convey
218. Eti bednye selen'ya 167
These poor villages, this sorry nature!
219. Vot ot morya i do morya 167
From sea to sea the wire goes
220. Grafine Rostopchinoi (O, v eti dni - dni rokovye) 168
To Countess Rostopchina (Oh, in these days, these
fateful days)
221. 1856 (Stoim my slepo pred sud'boyu) 168
1856 (Blindly we face fate)
222. O veshchaya dusha moya! 168
Oh, my prophetic soul!
223. Molchi, proshu, ne smei menya budit' 169
Be quiet, please! Don't dare wake me!
224. Oui, le sommeil m'est doux! plus doux de n'etre pas! 169
Yes, sleep is sweet, but it's sweeter not to have been!
225. Ne Bogu ty sluzhil i ne Rossii 169
To serve God and Russia was never your intention
226. Tomu, kto s veroi i lyubov'yu 169
For him who served his native land
227. Vsyo, chto sberech' mne udalos' 169
What I've managed to keep alive
228. Il faut qu'une porte 170
A door should be open or closed
229. N.F. Shcherbine 170
To N.F. Shcherbina
230. S vremenshchikom Fortuna v spore 170
Fortune had an argument with a favourite
Das Gluck und die Weisheit (Schiller)
231. Prekrasnyi den' ego na Zapade ischez 170
His fine day has disappeared in the West
232. Nad etoi tyomnoyu tolpoi 170
Above this ignorant crowd
233. Est' v oseni pervonachal'noi 171
There is a fleeting, wondrous moment
234. Smotri, kak roshcha zeleneet 171
Look at the coppice!
235. Kogda os'mnadtsat' let tvoi 172
When your eighteen years
236. E.N. Annenkovoi (D'une fille du nord, chetive et 172
languissante)
To E.N. Annenkova (Are you trying to borrow the
features)
237. V chasy, kogda byvaet 172
At times when there is
238. Ona sidela na polu 173
She was sitting on the floor
239. Uspoloenie (Kogda, chto zvali my svoim) 173
Peace (When what we called our own)
240. Osennei pozdneyu poroyu 174
Late in autumn
241. Na vozvratnom puti 174
On the Journey Home
242. Est mnogo melkikh, bezymyannykh 175
There are many tiny, unnamed
243. Pour sa Majeste l'Imperatrice 176
For her Imperial Majesty
244. Pour Madame la Grande Duchesse Helene 176
For Grand Duchess Helen
245. Dekabr'skoe utro 176
A December Morning
246. E.N. Annenkovoi (I v nashei zhizni povsdnevnoi) 176
To E.N. Annenkova (Into daily life)
247. Iz Yakoba Byome 177
From Jacob Bohme
248. Kuda somnitelen mne tvoi 177
"Sceptical" sums up the way I feel
249. Prokhodya svoi put' po svodu 177
Tracing its path across the sky
250. De ces frimas, de ces deserts 177
From these empty lands, from this wintry weather
251. Memento! 177
Remember!
252. Khot' ya i svil gnezdo v doline 178
I have built my nest in a valley
253. La vieille Hecube, helas, trop longtemps eprouvee 178
Old Hecuba, alas, so long so sorely tried
254. Na yubilei knyazya Petra Andreevicha Vyazemskogo 179
On the Occasion of Prince Pyotr Andreevich Vyazemsky's
Jubilee
255. Kogda-to ya byla maiorom 180
Once I was a major, many years ago
256. Aleksandru II 180
To Alexander II
257. Ya znal eyo eshchyo togda 180
I knew her even then
258. Nedarom russkie ty s detstva pomnil zvuki 181
Not for nothing have your remembered the sounds
259. Knyazyu P.A. Vyazemskomu (Teper' ne to, chto za 181
polgoda)
To Prince P.A. Vyazemsky (It's not the same now as it
was six months back)
260. Igrai, pokuda nad toboi 181
Play while above you
261. Pri posylke Novogo Zaveta 182
On Sending the New Testament
262. Oboim Nikolayam 182
To Both Nicholases
263. On prezhde mirnyi byl kazak 182
He used to be a gentle cossack
264. A.A. Fetu 182
To A.A. Fet
265. Inym dostalsya ot prirody 183
Nature has endowed some with a sense
266. Svyatye gory 183
The Sacred Mountains
267. Zateyu etogo rasskaza 184
For itself this story speaks
268. Uzhasnyi son otyagotel nad nami 184
We've been burdened by a horrible dream
269. Ego svetlosti A.A. Suvorovu 184
To his Grace Prince A.A. Suvorov
270. Kak letnei inogda poroyu 185
Just as now and then during summer
271. N.I. Krolyu 186
To N.I. Krol'
272. 19-oe fevralya 1864 (i tikhimi poslednimi shagami) 186
February 19th. 1864 (With his last quiet steps)
273. Ne vsyo dushe boleznennoe snitsya 187
Not always does the soul have sickly dreams
274. Utikhla biza.... Legche dyshit 187
the breeze has dropped and lighter is the breath
275. Ves' den' ona lezhala v zabyt'I 187
All day she lay oblivious
276. Kak nerazgadannaya taina 187
Like an unresolved mystery
277. O, etot Yug, o, eta Nitstsa! 188
Oh, this south, oh, this Nice!
278. Kto b ni byl ty, no vstretyas' s nei 188
No matter who you are, just meeting her
279. Encyclica 188
An Encyclical
280. Knyazyu Gorchakovu (vam vypalo prizvan'e rokovoe) 188
To Prince Gorchakov (Yours has been a fateful calling)
281. Kak khorosho ty, o more nochnoe 189
Ocean-billows, night-surging
282. Kogda na to net Bozh'ego soglas'ya 189
When god has deferred assent
283. Otvet na adres 189
In Reply to an Address
284. Est' i v moyom stradal'cheskom zastoe 190
In the martyrdom of my stagnation
285. On, umiraya, somnevalsya 190
Dying, he doubted
286. Syn tsarskii umiraet v Nitstse 191
In Nice the tsar's son is dying
287. 12-oe aprelya 1865 191
April 12th. 1865
288. Kak verno zdravyi smysl naroda 192
How truly has the common sense of folk
289. Pevuchest' est' v morskikh volnakh 192
The sea is harmony
290. Drugu moemu Ya. P. Polonskomu 193
To my Friend, Ya. P. Polonsky
291. Veleli vy - khot', mozhet byt', i v shutku 193
You commanded, though, perhaps, in jest
292. Knyazyu Vyazemskomu (Est' telegraf za neimen'em nog) 193
To Prince Vyazemsky (There's the telegraph if you've go
no legs)
293. Bednyi Lazar', Ir ubogoi 193
Poor Lazarus, wretched Iros
294. Segodnya, drug, pyatnadtsat' let minulo 193
It's fifteen years today, my friend
295. Molchit somnitel'no Vostok 194
The East is doubtful, silent
296. Nakanune godovshchiny 4-ogo avgusta 1864 g. 194
On the Eve of the Anniversary of August 4th. 1864
297. Kak neozhidanno i yarko 194
Unexpectedly and brightly
298. Nochnoe nebo tak ugryumo 195
Sad night creeps
299. Net dnya, chtoby dusha ne nyla 195
Not a day relievs the soul of pain
300. Kak ni besilosya zlorech'e 195
Let foul slander rage
301. Grafine A.D. Bludovoi 196
To Countess A.D. Bludova
302. Tak! On spasyon! Inache byt' ne mozhet 196
So he's saved! Could it turn out otherwise?
303. Kogda sochuvstvenno na nashe slovo 196
When what we have said is echoed far and wide
304. Knyazyu Suvorovu (Dva raznorodnye stremlen'ya) 196
To Prince Suvorov (Two disparate tendencies)
305. I v Bozh'em mire to zh byvaet 197
In God's world it can happen
306. Kogda rasstroennyi kredit 197
When our disordered exchequer
307. Tikho v ozere struitsya 197
Lake's still currents
308. Na grobovoi ego pokrov 197
On his funeral pall
309. Kogda dryakhleyushchie sily 197
When our decrepit energies turn traitor
310. Nebo blednogoluboe 198
The pale-blue sky
311. Umom Rossiyu ne ponyat' 199
Russia is a thing of which
312. Na yubilei N.M. Karamzin 199
On the Jubilee of N.M. Karamzin
313. Ty l'dolgo budesh' za tumanom 200
Russian star, will you always seek
314. V Rime 200
In Rome
315. Khotya b ona soshla s litsa zemnogo 201
Although it has slipped from the face of the earth
316. Ne v pervyi raz volnuetsya Vostok 201
It's not the first time the East has been in turmoil.
317. Nad Rossiei rasprostyortoi 201
318. Kak etogo posmertnogo al'boma 201
How I love the cherished pages
319. I dym otechestva i sladok i priyaten 202
The smoke of the fatherland is sweet to smell!
320. Dym 202
Smoke
321. Slavyanam (Privet vam zadushevnyi, brat'ya) 203
To the Slavs (A heartfelt greeting to you, brethren)
322. Slavyanam (Oni krichat, oni grozyatsya) 204
To the Slavs (They shout, they threaten)
323. Pripiska 205
Postscript to the Poem Entitled To Hanka
324. Naprasnyi trud - net, ikh ne vrazumish' 206
It's a waste of time. You'll not make them see sense
325. Na yubilei knyazya A.N. Gorchakova 206
On the Jubilee of Prince A.N. Gorchakov
326. Lorsqu'un noble prince en ces jours de demence 206
In these days of madness, if a noble prince sinks
327. Kak ni tyazhyol poslednii chas 206
However burdensome the end
328. Svershaetsya zasluzhennaya kara 207
A righteous punishment is being meted out
329. Po prochtenii depesh imperatorskogo kabineta, 207
napechatannykh v "Journal de St. Petersbourg"
On Reading the Imperial Despatches, Printed in the
Journal de St. Petersbourg
330. Opyat, stoyu ya nad Nevoi 207
Once more by the Neva I stand
331. Pozhary 208
Fires
332. V nebe tayut oblaka 208
Clouds melt in the sky
333. Mikhailu Petrovichu Pogodinu 209
To Mikhail Petrovich Pogodin
334. Pamyati E.P. Kovalevskogo 209
In Memory of E.P. Kovalevsky
335. Pechati russkoi dobrokhoty 209
The well-wishers of the Russian Press
336. Motiv Geine 210
A Heine Motif
Der Tod, das ist die kuhle Nacht (Heine)
337. Vy ne rodilus' polyakom 210
You weren't born a Pole
338. "Net, ne mogu ya videt vas...." 210
339. Velikii den' Kirillovoi konchiny 211
With which heartfelt, simple greeting
340. Nam ne dano predugadat' 211
It's not given us to foretell
341. Dve sily est' - dve rokovye sily 211
There are two powers, two fateful powers
342. 11-oe maya 1869 (Nas vsekh, sobravshikhsya na obshchii 212
prazdnik snova)
May 11th. 1869 (The word of the Gospel has now taugh
us all)
343. Kak nasazhdeniya Petrova 212
Just as the trees
344. O.I. Orlovoi-Davydovoi 213
To O.I. Orlova-Davydova
345. Andreyu Nikolaevichu Murav'yovu (Tam, gde na vysote 213
obryva)
To Andrei Nikolaevich Murav'yov (There, on the summit
of an overhang)
346. V derevne 213
In the Country
347. Priroda - sfinks. I tem ona vernei 213
Nature is a sphinx.
348. Chekham ot moskovskikh slavyan 215
To the Czechs from the Moscow Slavs
349. Kak nas ni ugnetai razluka 216
No matter how we're crushed by separation
350. Sovremennoe 216
Today's News
351. A.F. Gil'ferdingu 218
To A.F. Hilferding
352. Yu. F. Abaze 219
To Yu F. Abaza
353. Krasnorechivuyu, zhivuyu 219
I read my rebuke
354. Tak providenie sudilo 219
Thus has providence judged
355. Radost' i gore v zhivom upoen'e 219
Joy and grief in living ecstasy
Freudvoll (Goethe)
356. Gus na kostre 220
Hus at the Stake
357. Nad russkoi Vil'noi starodavnoi 221
Over ancient, Russian Vilnius
358. K.B. 221
359. Doekhal ispravno, ustalyi i tselyi 222
Tired and in one piece, I got here on time
360. Dva edinstva 222
Two Unities
361. Velen'yu vyshemy pokorny 222
Submissive to a high command
362. Chemu by zhizn' nas ni uchila 222
Whatever life might have taught us
363. Da, vy derzhali vashe slovo 223
Yes, you have kept your word
364. Ah, quelle meprise 224
I'm bewildered and let me say
365. Brat, stol'ko let soputsvovavshii mne 224
Brother, you have been with me so long
366. S novym godom, s novym schast'em 224
Happy New Year, all the best
367. Davno izvestnaya vsem dura 224
A fool we've known for ages
368. Vprosonkakh slyshu ya - i ne mogu 224
I'm half asleep and I can't
369. Chyornoe more 224
The Black Sea
370. Vatikanskaya godovshchina 226
The Vatican's Anniversary
371. Ot zhizni toi, chto bushevala zdes' 226
Of the life that raged here
372. Vrag otritsatel'nosti uzkoi 227
Enemy of narrow negativity
373. Pamyati M.K. Politkovskoi 227
To the Memory of M.K. Politkovskii
374. Den' pravoslavnogo Vostoka 228
On this day of the Orthodox East
375. Mir i soglas'e mezhdu nas 229
There's peace and harmony between us
376. Kak bestolkovy chisla eti 229
These dates are so illogical!
377. Tut tselyi mir, zhivoi, raznoobraznyi 229
Here's a whole world, living, varied
378. Chertog tvoi, spasitel', ya vizhu ukrashen 229
Saviour, I see your mansion decked out
379. Khotel by ya, chtoby v svoei mogile 229
In my grave I'd love to lie
380. Napoleon III 229
381. Tebe, bolyashchaya v dalyokoi storone 230
To you, ill in a distant land
382. Britanskii leopard 231
The British Leopard
383. Konechno, vredno pol'zam gosudarstva 232
Of course, it is harmful to the wellbeing of the state
384. Vo dni napastei i bedy 232
In days of misfortune and trouble
385. Vsyo otnyal ot menya kaznyashchii Bog 232
In punishment, God's taken everything away
386. Ital'yanskaya vesna 233
Spring in Italy
387. My solntsu yuga ustupaem vas 233
We surrender you to the sun of the south.
388. Vot svezhie tebe svety 233
Here are some fresh blooms for you
389. April 17th. 1818 233
390. Imperatoru Aleksandru II 234
To his Imperial Majesty Alexander II
391. Bessonnitsa (nochnoi moment) 235
Insomnia (A Moment at Night)
392. Khot' rodom on byl ne Slavyanin 235
Although he wasn't born a Slav
393. Byvaet rokovye dni 235
Fate Sends Days







This book has two principal objectives: (a) to provide, for the first
time in English, an annotated version of all of Tyutchev's surviving poems,
including his translations of other writers, which will be of use to the
student of Russian, the Tyutchev researcher and anyone involved in the field
of literary translation; (b) to serve as the first ever attempt to introduce
Tyutchev the poet in full to the reader of literature who knows no Russian.
Most of the annotations deal with history, literary and political. I
have incorporated almost all the notes from Pigaryov's edition, (A:33ii) (1)
which are a summary of many people's findings, references to Aksakov's
biography and extracts from Tyutchev's letters, as well as including
comments by many researchers and myself.
The full version and my translation of every identifiable surviving
foreign work Tyutchev translated permits readers to consider why he may have
chosen particular material for translation in the first place and why he
retained its sense or altered it as he did. My versions and, indeed, any
translations necessarily afford only an approximate idea of this. The way he
dealt with the work of others is in itself a fascinating feature of any
research into the poet, for Tyutchev was not always a faithful translator.
While certain of these works are very good renditions indeed, others do not
pretend to adhere to the sense of the source poem. It is difficult to regard
Pesn' skandinavskikh voinov/The Song of the Norse Warriors as a translation
of Herder's Morgengesang im Kriege/Morning Song in War Time, written in a
folk or pseudo-folk vein, for it doubles the German piece in length and
introduces material utterly foreign to the spirit and movement of Herder's
work, though the new material does owe a little to Russian folklore. On the
other hand, parts of Tyutchev's work are a direct translation or close copy
of the German. Tyutchev sticks closely to the original when he chooses to,
as in his translation of two short pieces from Shakespeare's A Midsummer's
Night's Dream, which he probably translated from a good German version, and
Hippolytus's death scene from Racine's Phedre. These are skilful renditions,
as are a number of shorter works from Heine and Goethe and sections of the
latter's Faust (Part 1). But where do we stand with the extract from Hugo's
Hernani? It is significantly and deliberately altered in some ways yet
retains very large sections of the original. Do we consider the lyric
entitled Sakontala to be a translation? It resembles only superficially the
originating scene from Kalidasa'splay and is not much like the Goethe
version often said to be its inspiration. Classical Sanskrit literature
being so popular in the nineteenth century through the work of such as A.
Schlegel (1767-1845), Tyutchev's Sakontala should probably be seen as one
more of many poems written on one of its themes. The question of what
motivated him to alter other works in the subtle ways he did remains, and is
beyond the scope of this book.
Because it can be so difficult to know exactly where to draw the line
between Tyutchev's original lyrics and his
translations/adaptations/paraphrases, I have considered each of his works as
part of the one evolving body of poetry without attempting to classify into
"lyric", "political" and "occasional", fully aware that I go against
standard practice in adopting this approach, although Liberman has recently
adopted the chronological manner of grouping the lyrics. (A:19) It has been
too common in the past to present the reader with the bulk of what all would
agree is his best lyric poetry, leaving other types of verse, for example
the political pieces, in what has sometimes amounted to an appendix.
A number of Tyutchev's "lyric" poems, if we follow Pigaryov's
categories, are mediocre and some of his political and, indeed, a handful of
the so-called "occasional" verses, including a few written in French, are
far from inferior. Five of his French poems are good and two are among this
reader's personal favourites. To present an undiluted diet of lyric poetry
written over roughly fifty years is to give an erroneous impression of
Tyutchev. It would be equally misleading to produce a book of solely
political verse. It is likely that Tyutchev wrote in these categories more
or less simultaneously and we are probably on safe ground in asserting that
there is no period of his creative life when he was not producing nature
lyrics, political verse, love poetry, superficial occasional lines,
philosophical statements and taking limerick-like swipes at people he did
not like. Whatever spurred him to write a remarkable description of sunset
(Letnii vecher/A Summer Evening [41]), occurred at the same time as the
Russo-Turkish war (see Olegov shchit/Oleg's Shield [42]) and coincided with
an alluring young female turning his head to anything but poetry, as in the
erotic, possibly adulterous K N.N./To N. N. [51]. Since poems of all
categories were certainly fermenting at any one time, it seems logical to
deduce that they all represent in some way the poet as he was at that time.
The chronological approach does need to be reinforced. To this end I present
Tyutchev's work as I do.
While the exact chronology of the poems before 1847 will probably never
be established, I have adhered to the best chronological sequence I can come
up with at present. Works clearly showing someone else's influence appear
beside those considered truly original. Of course, while a large number of
his early nature poems could be said to trace their genesis to German
romanticism, a point made early this century by Tynyanov, and Tyutchev being
very much a poet who saw the world through literary eyes, the best of them,
while sharing imagery and themes with German lyrics, are uniquely
characteristic of Tyutchev and often considerably more innovative than many
of the works which may have inspired them.
It has often been said that there are cycles in Tyutchev. Poems written
to his mistress, Elena Deniseva, are said to make up the so-called Deniseva
Cycle. These were produced over several years and in no way constitute a
cycle, let alone a "novel in verse". (See A:20, vol.1/58) His relationship
with Elena did not cramp his style when it came to writing to and about
other women, including his first and second wives and Amalia Krudner, whose
name and presence crop up at various stages of his life in letters and
poems. Whether poems to women are in question, nature descriptions or lyrics
with all the imagery of chaos so beloved of Tyutchev, he simply was not the
poet to produce a cycle on any theme, being so unforgivably careless when it
came to looking after his work once the interest of immediate inspiration
had evaporated. Nodal themes and commonly recurring groups of images, such
as the so-called "Holy Night", do not suggest cycles any more than the
lyrics addressed to his mistress. Heine's Nordsee/North Sea, parts of which
Tyutchev translated, is a cycle. The lyrics take a theme and present it from
different angles and with different nuances, but however much each poem
might differ from another, they are deliberately, artistically linked by the
sea/abandonment theme, or whatever one might wish to call it.
It is not even useful to consider that he wrote lyrics loosely
connected, as did Lamartine in his group of Meditations Poetiques/Poetic
Meditations, number 1 of which Tyutchev translated, for all too often in
Tyutchev spontaneity is of the first importance in the writing of his best
works and spontaneity and cycles tend not to go hand in hand. The same
applies, from a literary-historical point of view, to periods. Continuity
is, as Liberman notes, a most important feature of Tyutchev's style, so much
so that "it is hardly possible to detect 'periods' in his creative life",
differences, when they do emerge, being "unrelated to the juxtaposition of
romanticism and realism". (A:19) Ultimately Tyutchev is unique in being a
brilliant and great poet who, it could be argued, had absolutely no desire
to be any kind of poet at all.
"It is possible that nothing leads us closer to contemplation of the
essence of literature than working at the translation of poetry, or at least
thoughtfully appraising such work." (D:11/147) Translation can enjoy certain
advantages over exegesis. Translators become acquainted with "their" authors
in a way not always permitted by the kind of interpretation which requires
neutral objectivity, ever respectfully acknowledging the work of others, be
that good, bad or indifferent. There are countless trenchant statements by
countless clever translators concerning the problems inherent in the process
of literary translation. Does the translator bring the author to the reader,
the "domesticating method", as one writer puts it, "an ethnocentric
reduction of the foreign text to target-language cultural values, bringing
the author back home, or does he adopt the "foreignizing method .... an
ethnodeviant pressure on those values to register the linguistic and
cultural differences of the foreign text, sending the reader abroad".
(D:25/20) Perhaps neither of these methods is applicable to Tyutchev, who,
it could be said, was Russian by nationality only and possessed to no
significant degree Russian cultural values. To translate one so
cosmopolitan, even rootless, perhaps the domesticating and foreignizing
methods are irrelevant.
Imitation, for all the following caveat, may be the best means of
dealing with the source languages, the imitator having "not the slightest
intention of bringing the two together - the writer of the original and the
reader of the imitation - because he does not believe that an immediate
relationship between them is possible; he only wants to give the latter an
impression similar to that which the contemporaries of the original received
from it". (D:19/41) In my own translations I often strive to give such an
impression, so perhaps I join Schleiermacher's ranks of imitators, though
while I accept that it is "foolish to argue for the exact reconstruction of
a poem in another language when the building blocks at one's disposal bear
no resemblance to those of the original", (D:27/107) I do feel that a more
than adequate reconstruction is not beyond the grasp of the capable
translator.
Concerning the reproduction of those formal aspects of a poem which set
it apart from any other piece of writing, Jacquin allows the translator
pretty well free play: "If rhymed verse becomes blank or free verse in
translation (something which is sometimes prose in disguise ...) the poet is
betrayed and the reader led astray; for the translation deflects from their
functions forms inscribed in tradition. But to preserve rhymes is to
restrict one's choice of terms, hindered moreover by lexical and grammatical
restraints, to risk sacrificing the other values of the piece to the
ornament of sound and thus to destroy its cohesive power". (D:6/52-53)
I do not attempt to produce a lyric which reminds an English reader of
what he likes in English poetry. Nor is my aim to achieve a general romantic
or nineteenth-century "feel", whatever that may be. I do not consider an
adherence to formal characteristics to be of the first importance any more
than I ignore them, for if they are present in a poem they are important,
and if the translator chooses to sacrifice them, something else must take
their place in order that the result be poetry and not prose. What is
necessary, and it is the only thing that will work, is a juggling act, an
ability to read between the lines, keeping one eye on the foreignness of the
source and another on what is probably a desire on the reader's part to be
presented with something with which he feels comfortable. This idea of
"comfortableness" might be considered subjective, even vague, but it is
important and can generally be achieved provided the translator can say,
with a degree of confidence, "I am acquainted with the person who is that
writer".
It is certainly likely that in translating lyric poetry, "the
translator will have chosen the poem himself, and even more likely that the
task will be undertaken with empathy and a degree of personal commitment".
(D:20/631) This personal choice, this commitment on the translator's part is
of the first importance. The task might be likened to explaining to an
outsider what a close relative or friend who has lost his voice is trying to
say. Most emphatically, I am not a poet of any description. My target is
simply to introduce the reader directly to Tyutchev.
Aware of the many well-researched conclusions reached by theorists in
the field of translation studies, I believe three things are essential in
the attainment of this target. The first and most obvious is a good
knowledge of the target and source languages; the second, occasionally more
controversial, is a degree of expertise in the manipulation of language, a
most important willingness and ability to take risks at the expense of
structural fidelity, even at the apparent expense of faithfulness to major
images and poetic formulae; the third, not readily appreciated by all
translators, is an acceptance of the importance of the writer's life, not
only his creative life, for on its own this is a thing in a vacuum, but his
personal motivations, his social milieux and his political/historical
environment. A close acquaintance with the writer can allow us to clear, at
least in part, the hurdles posed by the untranslated words. While words
cannot always be translated perfectly (2), once the various possible
meanings and their nuances, taking into account the age in which they were
written, have been listed, the emotions and thoughts which produced them can
be coped with to some extent for, whether we be English or Russian, what
makes us feel, think, believe the way we do is universal and, therefore,
capable of being translated. The reproduction of the word is not, it
follows, my ultimate aim, for the words lead us into the thing the writer is
expressing. From the melting pot of my priorities emerges, it is hoped, a
new creation which is an accurate statement about Tyutchev in a given lyric
at a given time.
My translation methods correspond broadly with two of Nabokov's three
modes of translation, the "paraphrastic" and the "literal" (D:2, vol.
1/viii). From his early, relatively free translations, Nabokov became more
and more dogmatic, even obsessive, scathingly attacking anything other than
the purely literal (and by implication his own early, excellent renditions
of Tyutchev), once claiming that his ideal translation would be a book of
annotations with the corresponding line of verse every few pages: "I want
translations in copious footnotes, footnotes reaching up like skyscrapers to
the top of this or that page, so as to leave only the gleam of one textual
line between commentary and eternity." (D:12/512) However tongue-in-cheek
this comment may be, Nabokov began to work according to it, but such a
method of translation is (surely) an extreme business unless translation is
to be a purely scholarly exercise enjoyed by the few. Such is not the role
of art. Concerning the art of translation, Nabokov wrote, "the person who
desires to turn a literary masterpiece into another language, has only one
duty to perform, and this is to produce with absolute exactitude the whole
text, and nothing but the text. The term "literal" translation is
tautological since anything but that is not truly translation but an
imitation, an adaptation or a parody" (D:13/496-512) (3). Such an approach
automatically distances the vast majority of readers from precisely what
makes great literature enjoyable. Literalists all too often miss the point.
I join those translators who are ready, where appropriate to sacrifice rhyme
and assonance "to the silent counterpoint of poetic meaning". (D:22/v)
While annotated literalness creates a gap between reader and writer,
its structural cousin, the search for a different kind of literalness
through the minefield of any attempt to adhere to formal characteristics
such as rhyme, is an equally dangerous business and retention of a poem's
formal aspects should be considered only provided the sense and "feel" of
the poem remain intact. In producing a work accurate from the point of view
of rhyme and metre, the translator will inevitably be stretching the target
language, all too often in a contrived fashion, producing an unnatural
effect not present in the source work. While the result might be clever,
often very good, it cannot be denied that frequently too much will have been
lost. Aiming at contextual literalness produces a "story line" bereft of the
music. By making formal fidelity one's aim, one can easily lose sight of
meaning in the search for shape. Sensitive, informed paraphrastic
translation, it seems to me, is the only way forward.
My renderings are literally faithful where appropriate. This is the
case with Tyutchev's versions of other poets and with many of the political
pieces. There is no point in treating 11-oe maya 1869/May 11th. 1869 [342]
in any other than a rigidly literal manner. They are sometimes loosely
"poetic", as in Sovremennoe/Today's Event [350], a political item ending in
a more "poetic" structure which Tyutchev uses more than once in his best
work. I favour a form of rhythmic prose in poems such as [128], where there
is a certain narrative feel. A number of poems are as they are because I am
happy with them, others, I have to admit, leave me far from satisfied. In
the translation of poetry, there is never a final word. There remain those
versions which, were Nabokov still with us, would be savaged ruthlessly,
works which, from the standpoint of imagery and/or structure I have offered
in a deliberate, considered mistranslation, though if there results "a
slightly wrong meaning", there remains hopefully "a completely right
feeling". (D:24/12) Such a work is [200], my original imagery giving the
best effect of which I was capable at the time, the priority being to
reproduce the sense of seething, impotent anger and genuine sadness which
motivated the poet to write it.
The celebrated Formalist, V. Shklovsky, rightly rejects
"authomatisation", for it "eats things, clothing, furniture, your wife and
fear of war". (D:12/11-12) Shklovsky believed that the artist is called upon
to counteract routine by dealing with objects out of their habitual context,
by getting rid of verbal cliches and their stock responses. I am in full
agreement with Shklovsky on this matter. I would not at this stage undertake
a serious translation of poems by Blok, Baudelaire or Holderlin, even
enjoying these writers in their own languages, and certainly being able to
translate the words and sentences which make up the elements of their works,
for I could not approach them with the confidence with which I know a
Tyutchev lyric. Given the often scanty information at hand and the abyss of
time between us, I feel I have come to know him to some extent, his milieux,
his family, the way he felt and thought and passed the time, whether
observing his dog chasing ducks or wishing, on a boat trip, his friend was
there with a gun for the shooting of fowl, moaning to all and sundry about
his gout and rheumatism, complaining to the heavens that he is bored and
lonely, irrespective of the heartache to which he subjects those close to
him, pulling Schelling to pieces, cursing the British, the French, the Turks
and the Vatican, irritating Pogodin with his intellectual arrogance,
vilifying the tsar and his ministers for their crass ineptitude, or angry at
his daughter for marrying a sailor who - sin of sins - spoke Russian in
preference to French. Such proximity is essential in the production of a
good translation, for it allows the translator to pull apart convention and
rewrite the poet with confidence.
Shklovsky's "making strange", making form difficult, "seeing" (videnie)
as opposed to "recognising" (uznavanie) (ibid.) should be born in mind as
the reader approaches many of my translations. The much-anthologised good
poem can lose one of its greatest qualities, that of newness, by being
anthologised, whether in a book or in a particular, accepted format in the
hands of translators, by being there, by looking more or less the same all
the time. I believe that the translator must make the reader sit up and pay
attention. He must not be the critic who, in Steiner's words, "when he looks
back ... sees a eunuch's shadow" (D:7/21). The translator of any literature
worth translating must attempt to be, in subtly different yet similar ways,
as creative as the writer he is grappling with. From what I have said above,
perhaps it follows that great literature needs retranslating every so often
in order to make sense to different generations.
While the possessiveness of the committed translator who has "chosen"
his poet can allow an illuminating insight into the workings of the writer's
mind, it can, of course, work the other way and the good translator needs to
ensure that he is producing the writer and not himself playing at being a
poet. It is also very easy to become blase about one's knowledge of a
foreign language, for unless one is genuinely bilingual, as, indeed, Nabokov
was, the brain, albeit translating quickly, nonetheless pauses to translate,
and this pause indicates an inability, at times not very significant, to
translate instinctively. This pause can also be a useful thing. I have often
found, on rendering a poem into English, that an image in the Russian has
struck forcefully home for the first time, despite having read the work in
question many times. Students of foreign literature could do worse than
attempt occasional translation if for no other reason than to satisfy
themselves that they have indeed understood what the poet's words actually
mean, let alone what might be implied. They should certainly never be put
off. If a translator can be so bold as to render Khlebnikov's entertaining
Zaklyatie smekhom/Incantation by Laughter into Scots, there is most
assuredly hope for the youngest novice (D:4/89).
Where I have taken considerable liberties, there will, it goes without
saying, be those who point out that I have altered the structure of the poem
and, therefore, its meaning. Whatever the case may be, my target has
remained throughout the accurate communication of what I believe Tyutchev
was feeling, thinking then saying. I hope that more than a handful of
educated Russian speakers now feel that they can enjoy the complete poems of
this major writer as a result of my approach, despite it being "as wise to
cast a violet into a crucible that you might discover the formal principle
of its colour and odour, as seek to transfuse from one language into another
the creations of a poet". (D:1/).
The reader unfamiliar with this author will find a story and a life
unfolding from the earliest extant poem written on his father's birthday,
through truly wondrous nature lyrics, sharp, often hurtful love poems,
occasional verse, chauvinistic political pronouncements on Pan-Slavism,
philosophical and religious lines, to tormented protests in which an
embittered, frightened poet of alienation faces inner turmoil, illness and
encroaching death. In the Romantic age of Pushkin and Lermontov we find a
seriously "modern" poet; in the realistic age of Dostoevskian and Tolstoyan
prose, a poet who would not be disowned by later existentialist writers will
be discovered at a time when the reading public is less enthralled by poetry
than by Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov.
My former supervisor, Dr. R.C. Lane, is a leading authority in the
field of Tyutchev studies. Discussions with him have always proved
invaluable. He has read the first section of my manuscript and the endnotes
and I am grateful to him for his suggestions, encouragement and general
assistance, as well as for kindly writing a foreword to the 1983 edition. I
have chosen to retain this, for it says what I wish to have said about my
approach and, I feel, could not be improved. His doctoral thesis and many
subsequent publications represent, in my view, the fullest, most
comprehensive study of the poet in English. He has produced articles and
reports on various aspects of Tyutchev's life, poetry and diplomatic work
and on some of the philosophical influences in the lyrics in addition to a
complete catalogue of works by and about the poet up to 1985. Since he first
looked at the manuscript, I have amended certain sections. Any defects in
the later or, indeed, earlier material are my responsibility alone.
R. Gregg's book is a solid introduction offering interesting studies of
the poems if often somewhat biased towards psychoanalysis. K. Pigaryov's
study and I. Aksakov's biography are essential preliminary reading for the
specialist, as are many Soviet contributions. The latter contain essential
background information. Some deal intuitively with the inspiration behind
the greatest poems and cleverly with their structure, notably Tynyanov's
famous article on the short lyric as a "fragment" of the neo-classical ode.
The point Tynyanov makes is that Tyutchev, wanting to retain the "monumental
forms" of the "dogmatic poem" and of the "philosophical epistle", realising
that these had more or less disappeared since Derzhavin's time, found his
outlet in the artistic form of the "fragment", the latter, he goes on to
claim, realised in the west by the Romantics and canonised by Heine.
Inevitably Soviet scholarship has suffered from a requirement to give
prominence to approved themes. The so-called Tyutchev-Pushkin question is a
case in point. On various somewhat spurious bases (e.g. Pushkin once
ridiculed Raich, Tyutchev's friend and tutor), an enmity between the two
poets was created. Apart from the fact that such a matter is remarkably
irrelevant, it is highly unlikely that there is a great deal of truth in it,
if any. More important is the fact that since Tyutchev was never part of the
mainstream literary scene in his country and famously made no effort to have
his best work read by the public before 1836 (he may have deliberately
destroyed some of it), such "professional" hostility would probably never
have existed. I have avoided any further reference to this matter or to any
concerning a comparison of his talents with those of other writers.
Tyutchev has had several translators. Each one worthy of mention has
tackled only a very small number of the better known lyrics, with the
notable exception of Anatoly Liberman who has taken on the bulk of
Tyutchev's best work, sticking rigorously to the formal features, including
rhymes. He is the first to have published such a large number of worthy
translations of Tyutchev's lyrics, preceded by an excellent introduction. He
and I have different attitudes towards poetic translation. He informed me in
one of many communications that when I decide not to reproduce Tyutchev's
rhyme schemes, the "general aura that okutyvaet" ("enwraps") my renderings
tends to make up for this. I am more than happy with this judgement.
Work in Europe and the USA, a relatively slow trickle of research, has
laid the as yet extremely narrow foundations of the West's understanding of
Tyutchev. Considering the importance of his position in Russian literature,
it is astonishing just how many students of western European literature have
never even heard of this amazing writer. A lot of building remains. I hope
this book will fill one of the gaps in the edifice.




1. References to the Bibliography go as follows:
"A" is a main section, the following number is the item in the section,
a Roman numeral is used where an author has more than one contribution, and
page numbers come after solidus.
2. Certain commonly occurring words in Tyutchev make this point:
(1) dusha (= "soul", "spirit", "darling", "person", "serf");
(2) blago (= "blessing", "boon", "the good");
(3) nega ("sweetness", "bliss", "comfort", "languor");
(4) blagodat' (= "paradise1", "grace", "abundance3").
3. It is worth quoting in full the relevant section of Nabokov's famous
(and infamous) translator's preface to his version of Pushkin's Evgenii
Onegin. Nabokov writes, "Attempts to render a poem in another language fall
into three categories:
(i) Paraphrastic: offering a free version of the original with
omissions and additions prompted by the exigencies of form, the conventions
attributed to the consumer, and the translator's ignorance. Some paraphrases
may possess the charm of stylish diction and idiomatic conciseness but no
scholar should succumb to stylishness and no reader be fooled by it.
(ii) Lexical (or constructional): rendering the basic meaning of words
(and their order). This a machine can do under the direction of an
intelligent bilinguist.
(iii) Literal: rendering as closely as possible as the associative and
syntactical capacities of the language allow, the exact contextual meaning
of the original. Only this is true translation". (D:2, vol. 1/vii-viii)



In Russian the commonest "e" sound is more or less the "ye" of "yet".
However, due to the role played by stressed and unstressed syllables, the
full "ye" is not always heard. I transliterate both this and the second
Russian "e" simply as "e". Foreign names beginning with "H" tend to start
with "G" in Russian. I retain the "H". I stick to general convention in the
cases of certain names (e.g. Tolstoy, Alexander, Ernestine). I reproduce the
soft and hard signs by ' and '' respectively and represent the letter i
kratkoe by "i". I also tend to omit patronymic names. Where appropriate, the
acute accent indicates the stressed syllable. This produces the occasional
unfamiliar sound, such as "Sevastopol", and not the "Sevastopol" English
speakers are used to.



I am indebted to the following for their assistance:

1. Dr. P. J. Fitzpatrick (Department of Philosophy, University of
Durham) for his translations of two of Horace's Carmina and part of a poem
by Ausonius.
2. Professor A. Liberman (University of Minneapolis) for his
encouragement through several e-mails and for reading and commenting on a
small selection of my work.
3. Mr. J. Norton (Director of the Centre for Turkish Studies,
University of Durham) for assisting me with information on Mehmed Fuad
Pasha.
4. Thanks are due to my former teachers at Durham. Professor W.
Harrison showed me that History is important, as well as interesting and
entertaining, and he, Mr. L.S.K. le Fleming and Mrs. S. le Fleming, together
with Dr. R. Lane, helped a self-taught student with a somewhat chaotic mind
to channel his energies and occasionally write something which made sense.
5. Should the anonymous translator of Manzoni's Il cinque maggio ever
recognise his/her work, I shall gladly acknowledge this in any future
edition.
6. Mr. A. Stansfield (ITS Consultant, University of Durham) explained
to me the essentials of web page design. Thanks to him I now have a web site
on which parts of this book appear.
7. The manuscript, untidy and very faded in parts, was ably typed up by
Miss Julie Bell of the Physics Department.

My book is very much a product of happy years as a student at St.
Cuthbert's Society in the University of Durham, a centre of learning with
which I have never cut the ties and, hopefully, never shall.





The Tyutchev family tradition, in line with general practice among
Russian noble families which liked to link their genealogy with foreign
immigrants, had it that a Venetian trader called Dudgi accompanied Marco
Polo on his travels to China and, on the way home, settled in Russia. It
would be surprising if Tyutchev had not at some time made a flippant quip at
the Italian's expense. When d'Anthes was exiled from Russia in perpetuity
for slaying Pushkin in a duel, Tyutchev, who never liked living in Russia,
remarked, "Well, I'm off to kill Zhukovsky", the latter being the veteran
poet and highly esteemed translator (1783-1852) (A:5). From the Niconian
chronicle comes the equally attractive tale, impossible to link directly
with Tyutchev's family, of the shrewd Zakhary Tyutchev sent by Dmitrii
Donskoi as ambassador to the Golden Horde on the eve of the crucial
fourteenth-century Battle of Kulikovo. It is said that on receiving a demand
for increased tribute to the Horde, the diplomat, on the way home, tore up
the Mongol missive and sent the pieces back to the khan. After a great
Russian victory, news reached the right quarters and Zakhary became the hero
of the tale, Pro Mamaya bezbozhnogo/Concerning Mamai the Godless.
The second son of land-owning parents, (1) Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev
was born on November 23rd. 1803 (2) in the village of Ovstug, about thirty
kilometres north of Bryansk in what was then the Orlov province (C:15). The
village of Ovstug was partly in the possession of the Tyutchevs and lies on
the river Desna in a densely wooded part of south west Russia. The family
would spend winters in Moscow. In August 1812 they moved temporarily to
Yaroslavl on the eve of Napoleon's taking of the capital. The boy was raised
in a household where French was spoken almost exclusively, although serfs,
servants, nannies and the local clergy used Russian. This made him
effectively bilingual. Throughout his life he spoke French. His letters are
overwhelmingly in French, as are his articles and a handful of verses.
In 1812 his education was entrusted to Semyon Raich, a conscientious
and gifted student of Classical and Italian literature, enthusiastic poet
and translator. Tyutchev went up to Moscow University in 1819, graduated and
in 1822 entered government service in the Office of Foreign Affairs in St.
Petersburg. In the stimulating atmosphere of the capital many would-be-poets
made small contributions to Russian letters and played their part in the
rapidly developing cultural life of the city. German writers and
philosophers were being popularised, particularly Schelling, who referred to
Tyutchev as "an excellent and most cultivated man with whom it is always a
pleasure to converse" (A:5, vol. 3/492). Tyutchev had a less flattering
opinion of the German, as a famous conversation between the two men
indicates A:1/319).
In attempting to reconcile Christian mystery with empirical
investigation, Schelling fell foul of Tyutchev's sharp mind, probably more
than once. Karl Pfeffel (the brother of Tyutchev's second wife) reports the
two having several conversations "in the field of metaphysical speculation"
(ibid.). Tyutchev felt an instinctive impatience for any scientific system
(a distrust which never altered throughout his life) and for anyone who
attempted to explain man's presence in the universe as no more than a
gradual process of self-cognition. In Tyutchev's view, what Nature allowed
to happen simply happened, in her extreme indifference to man. The argument
highlights Tyutchev's insistence on blind faith in the scheme of things,
despite being a less than devout person himself, but, of course,
intellectual conviction can go hand in hand with daily practice which
appears to contradict it. After all, Kant the philosopher was the sharpest
critic of the Protestantism to which, in practice, he adhered passionately.
Tyutchev's celebrated objection went along the following lines: "You're
attempting an impossible task ... A philosophy which rejects the
supernatural and wants to prove everything by reason must inevitably be
diverted towards materialism in order to drown in atheism. The only
philosophy compatible with Christianity is contained in its entirety in the
catechism. You must believe what St. Paul believed, kneel before the Madness
of the Cross or deny everything. The supernatural is fundamental to that
which is most natural to man. It has roots in human consciousness which are
far superior to what we call reason, this poor reason which allows only what
it understands, in other words nothing". (ibid.)
The section ending at "the Madness of the Cross" (La Folie de la Croix)
is as much as most commentators choose to quote. The lines following it,
however, might be seen to indicate a nod in the direction of a more general
sense of man being but a mote in God's eye. The word "nothing" returns us,
perhaps, to the formlessness Schelling was striving from but which
Christianity as well needed to escape by producing its own system. That
Tyutchev actually adhered to his belief, at least publicly, is born out
throughout his life in poetry, conversation and letters. Some of what he
thought appears to have been passed on to his clever, influential daughter
Ekaterina ("Kitty"). Writing to the great statesman and proponent of
conservative nationalism, K. Pobedonostsev (1827-1907), who considered
Tyutchev's daughter to be his closest friend, Ekaterina, around whom a
significant literary circle often met in her aunt Darya's house, complained
of The Brothers Karamazov that Dostoevsky had ignored the fact that "there
are deep streams which cannot, should not be touched by the word of man"
(B:11iii, vol. 15/495). This comment concerned worries expressed in her
circle that Ivan Karamazov's rebellion would be taken more seriously by more
people than Zosima's teaching. The comment certainly smacks of the public
Tyutchev.
While Tyutchev studied at Moscow, a number of his friends
enthusiastically experimented with the relatively untried medium of literary
Russian, some as members of Merzlyakov's "little academy". During much of
the eighteenth century Russian had tended to be an unwieldy tool for a
generally tedious and imitative literature. At the turn of the century such
writers as Derzhavin (1743-1816), Karamzin (1766-1826) and Lermontov
(1814-41) and Batyushkov (1787-1855) were laying the groundwork of the new
literature. Their efforts were crowned by the prolific genius of Pushkin
(1799-1826), whose compositions secured Russian literature its rightful
place in Europe.
In the year he obtained his first appointment, Tyutchev was offered a
post in the Russian legation in Munich, thanks to the efforts of an uncle.
Shortly after his return on leave to Russia in 1825, the Decembrists staged
their revolt. After it the police arrested scores of young revolutionaries
and idealists who had been no more than spiritual sympathisers with the
instigators of the uprising. The ringleaders' original sentence, quartering,
was commuted to hanging (Russia had not seen the death penalty used for
fifty years) and many others wasted their lives in the army in skirmishes
with southern tribes or in exile in Siberia. The generally unrebellious
Tyutchev produced an interesting work entitled 14-oe dekabrya 1825/December
14th. 1825 [30], in which the comparison between autocracy and a glacier is
tempting for those seeking a revolutionary beneath a conservative veneer. He
refers to the insurgents as misguided people. His sadness at their fate is
real. The most accurate gauge of Tyutchev's feelings about the Decembrists,
if not of his intellectual conclusions, is the poem itself. As a polemical
piece directed against would-be revolutionaries it is weak. As an early
example of his better poetic imagery it is fairly effective; the glacier
image hardly flatters the regime of Nicholas I. The poem is an indication of
a growing, very public conservatism and nationalism which lasted all his
life, as well as of his day-to-day view of Russia as a cold, undesirable
place, both literally and figuratively. Tyutchev's concern about the dangers
of revolution, especially close to Russia's borders, became a passion
lasting until his death. He would interpret various western European
policies as a series of efforts to deny Russia her geographical heritage to
the advantage of the Turks. Tyutchev was obsessed by the Eastern Question.
Returning to Munich in 1826, he married Eleonore Peterson (nee von
Bothmer), a twenty-six year old widow with three children. She had three
more by him (3). Both were impractical people and experienced financial
hardship. Little is documented about Darya, but Anna and Ekaterina are
revealed in the memories of various people as intelligent, energetic and
creative women in different ways. Indeed, Tolstoy himself showed more than a
passing affection for Ekaterina. A selection of his comments from 1857 to
1858 gives some idea of the degree of interest he had in her:
"Tyutcheva is nice".
"I'm beginning to like Tyutcheva in a quiet way".
"Tyutcheva. She occupies me persistently. It's even a nuisance,
especially since it's not love; it doesn't have love's charm".
"Went to Tyutchev's prepared to love her. She's cold, petty,
aristocratic".
"Alas, I was cold towards Tyutcheva".
"I'd almost be prepared to marry her impassively, without love, but she
received me with studied coldness". (B:39)
There are girlish hints in the sisters' letters to each other about the
possibility of marriage between the daughter of a celebrated poet and one of
Russia's greatest novelists, but Kitty once said she was so discriminating
that the opposite sex would just have to put up with her never marrying. She
never did. She did buy the Varvarino estate in 1873 and began the building
of a clinic and a school, also writing children's books and doing a
children's version of the Bible. Anna was Tyutchev's favourite and wrote a
fascinating diary of her life as lady-in-waiting to the empress (C:19). She
married Ivan Aksakov, a major publicist, public figure in the field of
Slavophilism, and the poet's first biographer.
Tyutchev travelled through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, visited Paris
and, his duties being far from onerous, enjoyed a full social life,
returning for a short while to Russia in 1830. A number of poems written
during these early years in Europe show the increasing importance of the
beauties of west European nature in his life, while there is a tendency to
employ images of bleakness when depicting the east European countryside.
Coming back from a diplomatic mission to Greece in 1833, he decided to tidy
up his desk. In 1836 he wrote to his friend, Gagarin: "What I have sent you
is but the tiniest handful of the pile that time has amassed but which fate
or some act of incomprehensible providence has dealt with. Having set about
sorting my papers in the twilight, I consigned to the abyss the major part
of my nocturnal, poetic imaginings, and did not notice this till much later.
At first I was somewhat vexed, but soon consoled myself with the thought
that the library at Alexandria had also burned. Incidentally, the
translation of the entire first act of Part 2 of Faust was there. It's
possible that was better than all the rest".
Only one hundred and fifty two lines of his translations of Goethe
remain while one hundred and fifteen from Part 2 were lost. For whatever
reason Tyutchev did throw out his work, we are facing a significant literary
loss, though it seems to have bothered him little, for there will have been
poems of the quality of the best ones still in our possession among the pile
of papers he destroyed, and Act 1 of the second part of Faust contains the
kind of description Tyutchev would have done superbly. While he was capable
of getting rid of his work on purpose, we simply have no proof. What we do
know is that his poetic eye was very much fixed on the universe around him
and not on the scraps of paper for which he had the scantest respect. It is
possible that, as Barabtarlo has pointed out [A:2/425], Tyutchev was in the
habit of destroying rough drafts and, since his fair copies tend to look
like his rough drafts, a genuine mistake must be considered. The flippant
tone of this section of the letter is characteristic of his dismissive
attitude towards his best work. He describes the lyrics in question as mere
elucubrations poetiques/poetic imaginings (almost "ravings"). Such an
attitude resulted in his being known as a poet of worth among only a handful
of close friends and partly explains why he played no direct part in the
Golden Age of Russian poetry.
The situation changed slightly in 1836 when, after constant cajoling,
Gagarin finally persuaded his friend to send him some lyrics. Gagarin showed
them to Zhukovsky, then to Pushkin, and in the same year sixteen Poems Sent
from Germany appeared in Pushkin's journal Sovremennik/The Contemporary,
over the initials "F.T.". More appeared later, but for a variety of reasons
sparked off little interest in Russia. Tyutchev was not at this time a
conspicuous member of the literary scene in his homeland; he was careless
when it came to preserving his own lyrics and indifferent to their
publication; and the age of realistic prose was on the way in. Tyutchev was
"discovered" in the 1890's by such poets as Bryusov, at a time when the idea
of pure art, or Art for Art's Sake, was becoming popular. The late thirties
and middle years of the century were the age of Belinsky and Dobrolyubov,
for whom art had to be socially relevant. Belinsky was also the leading
light in the westernising movement which was fundamentally opposed to
Slavophilism, the latter to become of increasing importance to Tyutchev as
he grew older and settled in Russia. Considering Belinsky's great influence
and the rise of the Russian novel, it is hardly surprising that Tyutchev's
poetry initially raised little interest.
In May 1838 fire swept the steamer Nicholas I on which Tyutchev's wife
and family were travelling to Germany. On board was the young novelist Ivan
Turgenev (1818-83). He has given a frank account of the incident in Un
Incendie en Mer/A Fire at Sea, describing the panic which swept the vessel
and his own terror (B:40ii, vol. 14/186). It seems that Eleonore ("Nelly")
Tyutcheva, encumbered by three small children and a nanny, showed great
courage and was one of the last to leave the ship. The highly-strung woman
who had attempted suicide (probably more of the call-for-help kind) in 1836,
did not survive the ordeal and died in August of that year, household
tensions having exacerbated her condition. Extreme grief did not prevent
Tyutchev from flinging himself into the fast social whirl of Lake Como, at
the time being visited by members of the Russian imperial family, and where
he met and became friends with Zhukovsky.
In 1839 he married Ernestine von Dornberg. They had been lovers for six
years and she was already having his child. Having been allowed to marry but
refused leave of absence, he locked up the legation and left, losing secret
documents in the process (A:18v). The couple settled in Munich. Tyutchev's
decision to take leave of his post despite his superior's refusal of
permission had left him jobless. Ernestine possessed a rather calmer
personality, not to mention more personal capital, than Eleonore. In his
memoirs, Meshchersky, editor of the Grazhdanin/The Citizen, wrote the
following of the couple as he observed them in later years in the family
seat of Ovstug: "The soul and heart of this family was Ernestine Fyodorovna
... a poetic and sublime woman in whom the intelligence, the heart and the
charm of a woman fused into one harmonious and graceful whole ... Fyodor
Ivanovich himself was some kind of visitor in spirit to this household ...
Life's prose did not exist for him. He divided his life between poetic and
political impressions." (C:15/65)
In the early 1840s the poet wrote a number of nationalistic poems and
published his first political letter, the Lettre a M. le Docteur Gustave
Kolb/Letter to Doctor Gustav Kolb (A:33i), attacking the German press which
saw Russia as a threat to German unification. In it he also attempted to
explain Russia's role in relation to what he saw as the revolutionary West.
This idea was to evolve into the later theme of the legitimacy of humble,
peasant, Orthodox Russia opposed to the fundamentally illegitimate,
anti-Christian Europe and recurred in two further articles written during
the years 1848-50 (ibid.) and some political poems, the latter produced from
1844 to 1873, nearly half his surviving output in terms of lines written. At
their worst they are tendentious, biased and turgid though, despite what
some commentators have always thought, rarely anything less than sharply
thought out and often cleverly expressed. At their best they possess a
highly eloquent quality of indignation and frustration. The political verse
was the only part of his poetical output he made any effort to publish. He
was known to have taken such work along to an editor personally while he
could scribble lyrics of worth on scraps of paper for others to find,
dictate them, send them in letters, and generally not appear to care whether
they ever saw the light of day. Gagarin's insistence that he be allowed to
get his friend's poems published might well have been the kind of trigger
annoying Tyutchev enough to make him throw them out in a fit of pique.
As a writer destined for a place in the history books, the odds were
stacked against Tyutchev. Obviously when impelled as a poet to write, his
interest lasted as long as his inspiration and afterwards he felt no need to
take any trouble over the physical manifestations as the emotions in which
they took their source had been replaced by others. His political writings
answered a different need and were calculatedly produced to make influential
people see things from his point of view, not to mention ultimately persuade
his former employers to look favourably on him once more and, after his
marriage, give him a job. This worked, and after Tyutchev settled in Russia
in 1844, it was as an increasingly respected government official.
Although he and his family visited the West several times over the
following years, Russia had become his permanent home. Several poems written
from this point express longing for the blue skies, warmth and light of
Western Europe, and on many occasions he refers to Russia in such
unflattering terms it is difficult at first to understand his constantly
passionate defence of that country. And, despite adoring nature, he spent
most of his time in towns. Indeed, "this champion of Russia and its
peculiarly eastern way of life was seldom happier than when he was leaving
for the West; while Russia's greatest nature poet was throughout his Russian
years at least, a confirmed city-dweller". (A:14/17)
In 1846 he met Elena Deniseva, over twenty years his junior. The
ensuing love affair scandalised polite society and caused the partners
intense emotional suffering and bitterness. Elena's mother was Principal of
the Smolny Institute, a girls' school where Darya and Ekaterina were pupils.
Elena more than cared passionately for him. She was neurotically convinced
that she and she alone was the real Mrs. Tyutcheva and that only external
circumstances prevented their marrying. She was known for irrational
behaviour and tantrums, at least once throwing an object at her lover. He
could not endure life without her. She bore them three children. Fully aware
of all this, Ernestine remained stoically faithful, although once did
suggest they separate for a while. As the affair became a major talking
point, society shunned Elena, though Tyutchev remained in as much demand as
ever in the salons of the capital. It caused displeasure at court level and
resulted, peripherally, in old Mrs. Deniseva being forced to leave her post.
The love affair produced a small body of lyrics rightly considered to
be among the finest love poems in Russian. Short, sometimes employing a
dialogue technique in which the lyric-hero appears to be conversing with his
lover, sometimes taking the form of monologues, and frequently characterised
by a cogent, highly lyrical and profound sense of his own inadequacy and
selfishness, the Deniseva poems bare the love affair like an open wound. In
these and other works about love and his relationships with people close to
him, there is often a quality of anger and open contempt for the opinions of
a narrow-minded public ever ready to cast the first stone. Tyutchev's
deserved reputation as a great nature poet should never be allowed to
eclipse his standing as portrayer of the love-hate relationship which
accompanies an illicit love affair. He is a ruthless analyst of the anguish
tormenting an individual in his blackest moments.
While he never ceased writing entirely, there is a hiatus from 1838 to
1847. In 1847 he began composing once more in quantity. He was reinstated in
government service in 1845 and in 1848 became Senior Censor in the Russian
Foreign Office and ultimately a fairly liberal Chairman of the Committee of
Foreign Censorship. During 1848 he wrote La Russie et la Revolution/Russia
and Revolution (A:33/i), an article dealing with the role of Orthodox
Christians as saviours of their brother Slavs in the west. A third article,
La Papaute et la Question Romaine/The Papacy and the Roman Question (ibid.),
attacked the Catholic Church for the secularism which had, in Tyutchev's
mind, inevitably infected it since its break with Orthodoxy. From this
point, these themes are frequently reinforced in the poetry.
Tyutchev remained till his death obsessively anxious about Russia's
historical destiny, characteristically never pulling his punches, certainly
in his letters and often by hint and image in the lyrics, when it came to
expressing disapproval of official Russian policy. He experienced genuine
anger and grief at the Crimean debacle and never lost his capacity for
berating the West, the Vatican and the waning Turkish empire. He maintained
a steady, often impassioned interest in foreign affairs generally. His
statements about politics, oral or written, are clever, frequently
sarcastic, and constantly nationalistic, although, despite not trusting it
politically, his love of the west never deserted him. His shock at the
Russian defeat in the Crimea was repeated, if not so publicly, at France's
rout in the Franco-Prussian War.
His personal happiness was marred by several blows. Elena's death of
tuberculosis in 1864 shattered him. Family bereavement followed. Two of
Elena's children by him died, as well as his eldest son Dmitrii, his
daughter Maria, and his brother. With that dark humour which never left him,
Tyutchev compared his existence, rapidly emptying of those close to him, to
the game of patience in which one by one cards vanish from the pack. All the
same, till the end he was unable to resist the charms of a young, pretty
woman, as a jocular album contribution tells us in 1872 [376]. It expresses
doubt at what his senses tell him, in other words that a fine day (the
woman) has arrived in November (his old age).
Increasing ill health and anguished thoughts of his own death tormented
him during the final years, although a certain amount of probably harmless
womanising was still possible. The widow Elena Bogdanova was his last fling
and, while nothing is thought to have come of it, it showed the aged
Tyutchev still capable of that selfishness which could all too easily be
interpreted as lack of concern for his own family. Such difficulties and
grief accompanied at this late stage a growing reputation as a poet. While
the poetic output of the last half dozen years of his life is often
considered mediocre, he composed several masterpieces during this period.
They cover the common themes of personal suffering and ageing [284, 309],
man's relationship as an individual to Nature [289], nature description,
sometimes with a clever political subtext [295, 297, 298], superbly
indignant attacks on narrow-minded people [300] and the Vatican [370],
epigrammatic profundities [311, 347, 385], and an astonishing, elegiac
description of the gardens of Tsarskoe Selo [307]. Despite composing lyrics
of genius, Tyutchev remained totally uninterested in his work.
In January 1873 the first of several strokes partly paralysed him and
on July 15th. he died.



Pantheism is a synthetic view of the universe, an outlook bringing
together all facets of creation, making of all things one and not permitting
any categorisation of existence into "nature", "man", "God" or "gods".
Tyutchev certainly appears to be a pantheist. Whether there is ultimately a
consensus of opinion about the question of his poetic attitude to nature,
suffice it to say that many of his lyrics are so replete with sensation in
the face of its beauties that "pantheistic" is one of several labels which
will endure over the years.
In short, often aphoristic lyrics written in simple, lucid Russian -
despite a number of archaisms, which remain quite easy to cope with - he
depicts nature as an ordered, palpable entity with which man is often at
one. Equally there are lyrics expressing his sense of being cut off from
nature, in which he is aware of currents of disorder. Tyutchev's poetry -
and Tyutchev the man, in many ways - are bipolar. Tyutchev's poetic images
for this order and disorder are "cosmos" and "chaos", and he employs a wide
range of vocabulary to describe them. Chaos is frequently seen to be a
result of man's drawing back from the whole in order to observe existence,
split it into separate phenomena and compartmentalise these. When Tyutchev
writes of that aspect of existence we commonly refer to as "nature", he
indulges in no trite pathetic fallacies; his apostrophes to nature are
deeply experienced statements of wonder and empathy. There is no vapid
philosophising, drawing of predictable moral conclusions nor attempt to
construct scientific or philosophical structures to explain things; his
scenes represent his sense of man's physical and mental oneness with the
universe, the universe not only of space, but of time. "In Tyutchev's
poetry, the temporal epochs of human life, its past and its present
fluctuate and vacillate in equal measure. The unstoppable current of time
erodes the outline of the present." (A:20/487)
In sensing man's position in the universe, Tyutchev produces in his
best lyrics a feeling of genuine awe. The reader feels the movements of the
air and the sea, the heat of the sun on peaks, warm rain from a spring sky,
and such nature phenomena are there for their own sakes. When he describes
mountain summits as bozhestva rodnye/gods who are our cousins [49], he does
more than simply transplant classical deities into a given landscape after
the fashion of the eighteenth century mimicking its Roman mentors. He is,
indeed, behaving more like many classical authors themselves, for whom
nature was literally peopled by gods.
Dealing with a world Tyutchev felt was teeming with its own kind of
life leaves the reader with the impression that man, while observing nature,
is himself one of its creations. In the best poems, the immediately
accessible visual-audial-tactile level, the "feel" of the poem, is more than
merely a set of references to Hebe, Zeus, Pan or Atlas, "titanising" nature,
as Gregg puts it (A:14/78). In Tyutchev, mythologisation is a powerful
poetic technique and involves an ability to animate a scene in such a way as
to recall to us a common, ancient sense of belonging and oneness. To claim
that simple "titanising" is taking place is to demean this writer, whose
poetic statements bear some resemblance to Vico's. The latter's "new
science" castigated "our civilised natures" because by them "we ... cannot
at all imagine and can understand only by great toil the poetic nature of
these first men" (B:43/22). Tyutchev resurrects an ancestry scientific man
had apparently forgotten. Natural objects and phenomena in his nature poems
are portrayed in a manner strikingly innovative for the age, precisely
because of this skilfully manipulated awareness that man is literally part
of nature and not apart from it. "Myth" in Tyutchev is neither toy nor
pretty poetic game. Myth is a kind of truth every bit as valid as the
scientific "truth" he attacked in the early poem addressed to A. Muravyov,
A.N.M. [13]. Myth is seen as ancient man's way of explaining the universe
and, years after Newton and Descartes, it remained as valid as ever to
Tyutchev, despite, or perhaps because of being "unscientific". In this sense
Tyutchev fits into the broad Romantic mould of Lamartine and Hugo, who
represented a revolt against the rationalism of the pre-Revolutionary years
in France.
As for the difference in feel between the earlier "European" nature
poetry and the later "Russian" lyrics, while his attitudes and emotions were
subject to different ageing and environmental influences, I feel it is glib
to consider that "the image of nature, which had been largely mythocentric
in the early Munich years and anthropocentric in the following decade, is
now very largely its own excuse for being." (A:14/193) Tyutchev's attitude
towards nature never changed. He was a floating particle in it, unable to
comprehend it, unlike Pascal who believed he could understand it through
reason, and whether we have in mind the lush, warm, bustling quality of the
Munich years (Kozhinov rightly mentions the mnogolyud'e/populousness of the
early years (A:17/352-353)), or the desertedness of the Russian works, the
same awareness of being subservient to nature is evident. The changes
affecting Tyutchev the man, the poet, the diplomat, the errant husband did
not alter the sense of awe with which he dealt with the natural world around
him.
Tyutchev produces some amazing results. Sometimes it is as if a mystery
is about to unfold over the earth, as when nocturnal lightning-flashes tease
the clouds, Kak demony glukhonemye/Vedut besedu mezh soboi/like deaf-mute
ghouls/debating heatedly [298]. In Son na more/A Dream at Sea [92], and Kak
okean ob''emlet shar zemnoi/Just as the ocean curls around Earth's shores
[64], the boundary between two kinds of reality, that of dream/hallucination
and diurnal, observable existence is hazy. Man is often described as being
abandoned and frighteningly alone in an incomprehensible, boundless
universe, and when this is not stated it is implied. Behind the cosmos, the
chaotic elements of the thing that is Tyutchev-in-nature are ever-present,
part of an essential, inescapable reality, a Pascalian duality evident from
the earliest poems, in his letters and refusing to leave him in peace even
in his final years.
At first glance the western-nature lyrics are his most attractive
works. They are certainly the most numerous and, even permanently settled
back in Russia, he often wrote poems of reminiscence in which some of the
magic of the European days raises its head. They are descriptions of
sun-soaked lands, vernal and aestival days, warm nights by the Mediterranean
beneath clear, star-filled skies. They are also, as a rule, skilfully
anthropomorphic. When it comes to concreteness, incredible accuracy of
detail and photographic precision in placing objects in a landscape, those
poems describing Russia's countryside are far superior and earn Tyutchev a
special place in Russian letters as a poet who, despite his dislike of his
native land, has produced among the finest verses possible about the bleaker
aspects of that country, so much so that one questions the traditional
approach whereby he is seen as a poet of the West who also wrote about
Russia. The sharp-limned landscapes of the "Russian" poems are almost
entirely lacking in the "European" ones, whose unbelievable landscapes are
deceptive, for they are frequently vague. In them the reader feels heat but
does not always see a great deal to suggest it to the eye. In the greatest
Russian poems, things are generally "seen".
In Russia it is not often the case that laughing, benign nature
distracts him, makes him feel contented. He observes the harsh reality of
his surroundings for what it is and depicts it with unerring sureness of
touch. His Russian nature poems are not indicators of any sense of
well-being. Many of them are "cold" and it is in them that we discover some
of the most wondrous visual effects of his entire oeuvre. In Na vozvratnom
puti/On the Journey Home [241], ponderous clouds and stagnant pools make a
feeble hearkening back to western blueness (11.14-16, pt.2) mediocre by
comparison. The perfectly placed strand of spider-web across a furrow in
Est' v oseni pervonachal'noi/There is a fleeting, wondrous moment [233], is
evidence of the poet's huge talent in describing scenes, here implying, as
Tolstoy noted, restfulness after hard work by the peasants in the fields by
the careful positioning of a single, aptly chosen object. In these and
others, heady mythologisations are supplanted by sad, bleak external
reality. But the resulting poetry is astonishing.
This is not to say that there are no "warm" poems describing the
Russian countryside. The movement of Tikhoi noch'yu, pozdnim letom/Quiet
evening late in summer [153], eight lines produced as if in a single
exhalation, not even constituting a sentence, is not exceptional. In
Neokhotno i nesmelo/Timidly, unwillingly [151], simple images culminate in a
charming image of the sun shyly peaking down at a land "crumpled"
(smyatennaya) by a warm shower. There are others. While as descriptions they
are better, there is, nonetheless, something missing, and it is something in
the poet himself: quite simply, while geographically at home, in spirit he
is not. This ability to create superb poetry about locations he does not
enjoy living in is further evidence, if it were needed, of his gift.
When Tyutchev is at his best in those early years (1822-44) when he
lived and worked in Western Europe, he is truly great. In one of his
masterpieces, Letnii vecher/A Summer Evening [41], the almost magical sense
of peace is achieved by transforming the earth into a giantess from whose
head the setting sun rolls heavily, while stars become creatures physically
hoisting up the sky and a nature-goddess sensually splashes her feet with
cold water after a day of oppressive heat. There is in such works a sense of
excitement and sensual delight, occasionally a hint of apprehension, in the
presence of natural beauty which cumulatively produces skilful landscapes,
remaining at once superb natural descriptions and indicators of the poet's
state of mind. The picture is wonderful, unparalleled in that era, and it is
doubtful if any purely concrete treatment could improve upon it. In Snezhnye
gory/Snowy Mountains [49], the earth is an enormous female expiring in the
sun while youthful mountain peaks play games with the sky. By stark contrast
one of the very few early Russian nature poems, Zdes', gde tak vyalo svod
nebesnyi/Here the sky stares inert [68], contains sparsely sprouting bushes
and lichens, ugly creatures of nightmare, inmates of some fevered dream even
before Tyutchev uses that smile (Kak likhoradochnye gryozy/like fevered
dreams).
Tyutchev will always be best known for his nature poetry which has,
perhaps, been anthologised at the expense of other kinds. His nature lyrics
are extremely simple to read, relying on short, uncomplicated verses and
generic language (in Tyutchev there are few birches, oaks or elms; there are
many "trees"). As in the lyrics of Pasternak, it is often as if we are
surveying a scene for the first time, objects and their surrounding
phenomena appearing as they were "on the first day of creation". (See
[100].) Such poems as those described are, in addition, much more than a
series of nature descriptions of genius.
His poems contain images so nodal that they become the lynchpins of
whole poetic scenarios. Son translates both "sleep" and "dream". Tyutchev is
a master at playing with this word. Dreams become part of diurnal life,
linking man with his inner life. Nature sleeps and dreams change into young
deities playing around woods and mountains. Sleep can be the erotic state of
half-slumber or the nightmarish version of hell blazing from the night sky.
In the form of half-sleep, or dozing, it forms part of daily life and we all
readily daydream (his words for this kind of dreaming being gryozy and
mechty). Dream, attained through sleep, may be a harking back to ancient
memory, individual or collective. Son zheleznyi/iron sleep represents the
atrophied intellects and hearts of the Russia of Nicholas I. Sleep can be
the romantic escape route from daily reality into fantasy. From the very
beginning, in such an early work as an adaption of Heine's Ein Fichtenbaum
steht einsam/A spruce tree stands alone [21], he is mesmerised by the
quality of dream, for "it... (Heine's poem - FJ) is a dream-poem. Its melody
soothes asleep the Argus-eye of common sense ... And again, it is a poem
about a dream; about the bitter sweetness of all passionate yearning for
things so remote that only in dream can they be ours". (C:23) Sleep/dream is
tantalisingly multi-purpose. What is more, it does not develop through a
series of stages as a poetic image. Rather, as part and parcel of life at
any one moment, it is present from the start.
"Night", "Time", "Space" - these and others are concepts of the first
importance to Tyutchev. His expression of what lies behind the facade of the
universe and those dark elements within man's inner being owes more than a
little to Pascal, one of whose Pensees goes, "The eternal silence of these
infinite spaces frightens me" (B:31/233). Tyutchev once remarked in a letter
to Ernestine (1858), "I don't think anyone can ever have felt themselves as
empty as I do faced by these two oppressors and tyrants of humanity: time
and space". Night in Tyutchev is the poetic image often covering
economically and simply the vast notions of time and space as they affect
man in his struggle through life. A given scene in Tyutchev has little to do
with any Schellingian idea of some primordial blackness out of which we
gradually move. Such an "evolution" does not exist in Tyutchev. He is
preoccupied with eternal night forever threatening man while ever aware of
fullness, of man being part of a living nature, a result of its creative
impulse. However he expresses his feelings about his universe of cosmos and
chaos, whether Tyutchev/man is central or peripheral, Nature does not
change.
There are too many strands to Tyutchev's talent as a poet of nature to
deal with in such a short introduction. There is lyrical position, the
up-down movement of so many of his pieces, be it someone looking down at a
river along which a steamer chugs [111], or as if flying and gazing down
into a valley [48], staring up into the sky at star-deities looking down at
him [167,176], or experiencing the sickly, hallucinogenic sensation of
floating above a nightmare storm [92]. The use of a sudden flash from or
into a different time, sometimes almost a different universe, is common, its
earliest manifestation being Problesk/The Gleam [27]. Weaving natural
phenomena into the very body of a woman, as in the raindrops image of
[102,106] and the sky-woman picture of [257], is one of his most effective
techniques, and the sense of some sound being almost out of earshot [100],
are but a few of the different and powerful techniques Tyutchev brought to
Russian poetry.
Tyutchev was renowned for the attentions he paid to women; not to an
ideal, to some poetic notion of femininity, but to flesh-and-blood women.
"Tyutchev knew the woman (zhenshchinu - FJ) (for depth of passion, no-one
has yet matched him), but Femininity (Zhenstvennoe - FJ) was the field of
Lermontov, Fet, Vladimir Solovyov, Blok" (C:20, vol.1/217). There are many
poems to many women and matching up verse and female can be an amusing
guessing game. His lines vary from K Nise/To Nisa [25], apparently written
in a fit of pique - he clearly did not always get his own way, sexual or
otherwise - to K N. N./To N. N., a poetic masterpiece of lust [51], through
the playfully lightweight Cache-cache/Hide and Seek [40], the mysterious,
languorous Ital'yanskaya villa/An Italian Villa [127], dealing with his
affair with Ernestine, the poems to Elena which show lovers' arguments and
recriminations, to his final old man's reminiscences about past glories.
Tyutchev the love poet does not allow of anything other than a woman's full
commitment to him, shows his irritation at Elena's demands to be the one
woman in his life, and treats of his awareness of his lifelong selfishness.
There is a dramatic quality to some of these poems, even those with no other
protagonist (for Tyutchev's lyrics can be monologues, the audience before
him and another character just off stage, listening). Equally, the love
poems give space to the genuine and soft aspect of the emotion and to
Ernestine's strength.
Love in the lyrics is a mixture of deep, genuine, tender feeling and
lust, fired, especially in the Deniseva years, by a sense of conflict. His
love affair with Elena produced gems of poetic anger, as in Chemu molilas'
ty s lyubov'yu/What you guarded in your heart [200]:
Akh, esli by zhivye kryl'ya


Dushi, paryashchei nad tolpoi,
Eyo spasali ot nasil'ya
Bessmertnoi poshlosti lyudskoi.
***
God, if your soul had wings to leave your body,
to lift you by the nape
from the crudeness of the crowd,
to keep you safe
from man's eternal rape!
Equally he can address himself with unconcealed cruelty, almost
contempt:
I, zhalkii charodei, pered volshebnym mirom,
Mnoi sozdannym samim, bez very ya stoyu -
I samogo sebya, krasneya, soznayu
Zhivoi dushi tvoei bezzhiznennym kumirom
***
a weak magician in a little magic role
created by myself, and faithlessly I face it,
blushingly aware of my part,
the lifeless idol of your living soul [199].
In Ital'yanskaya villa/An Italian Villa [127], having taken the reader
through a soothing description of the villa, its cypresses and babbling
fountain, Tyutchev, there with his mistress, Baroness von Dornberg, while
his family was in St. Petersburg, makes those very natural items voice the
lustful sensations undoubtedly running through the lovers:
Vdrug vsyo smutilos': sudorozhnyi trepet
Po vetvyam kiparisnym probezhal, -
Fontan zamolk - i nekii chudnyi lepet,
Kak by skvoz' son, nevnyatno prosheptal
***
Suddenly - turmoil:
A spasm quivered through the branches.
The fountain fell silent,
yet from it some wondrous sound,
muffled, as if in sleep, shivered.
Admittedly the poem concludes as the poet openly wonders whether he and
his mistress have crossed a "forbidden threshold", suggesting that the life
they are living right then is "wicked", that their love is "turbulently
hot", but until that final stanza, love is in the hands of the nature
surrounding them.
Spurred on by the possible marriage of Gorchakov to his niece and by
the attendant gossip, Tyutchev attacked the scandal-mongers in an indignant
work in which Nadezhda Akinfeva's soul is "cloudless", its "azure"
untroubled by wagging tongues. He concludes with a typical piece of
cleverness:
K nei i pylinka ne pristala
Ot glupykh spletnei, zlykh rechei;
I dazhe kleveta ne smyala
Vozdushnyi shyolk eyo kudrei.
***
Not a speck of dusk adheres
when those nauseating churls
sow their stupid calumny
which cannot even crumple
the airy silk of her curls [300].
The physical attributes of the woman, dealt with in terms of the sky
and the air around her (the speck of dust floating in it), become as
important in this poem as the direct effect exerted on her by what society
had to say about the affair. The superb music of Vostok belel. Lad'ya
katilas'/The east whitened [106], with its liquid repetitions running
through each stanza, bears a long with it a concrete, possibly sexual
situation which is inseparable from the verbal expression of the coming of
dawn.
There is a great deal of self-centredness in Tyutchev's depiction of
love. In a remarkable work on Elena's final days [275], he produces one of
his most characteristic types of poem, one in which nature and woman are
somehow interlinked, nature remaining, as always, indifferent to human
suffering:
Ves' den' ona lezhala v zabyt'i,
I vsyu eyo uzh teni pokryvali.
Lil tyoplyi letnii dozhd' - ego strui
Po list'yam veselo zvuchali
***
All day she lay oblivious.
To lie across her body shadows came.
Outside the tepid rain of summer streamed,
splashing through the trees in happy games
As warm, summer rain falls through branches, gaily and loudly
splashing, the dying woman comes to and mutters how much she had loved it
all. Shadows, literally and figuratively, gather over her, yet Tyutchev
saves his burst of anguish for the realisation that he will have to
"survive" her death. This is not the only example of a lyric in which he
complains that he must survive someone else's agony.
The image of love as the one thing Tyutchev could forever hold on to,
despite the vicissitudes of a fate he so often reviled, stayed with him till
his death. The very last word he wrote was "love":
Voskresnet zhizn', krov' zastruitsya vnov,
I verit serdtse v pravdu i lyubov'
***
Life lives again, again blood flows
and my heart believes in truth and love. [393]
It remains to look at the political poems. They have never been
seriously studied as poetry. Not all are tasteless. Some are even good. A
few, perhaps, may be better than a small number of his non-political lyrics.
In the quality of their indignation and the unswervingly accurate, clever
sniping backed up by witty rhymes and memorable metres, they will have
caused more than one pompous figure to wriggle uncomfortably. Some, of
course, are dreadful, but Tyutchev was fully aware of this. Conscious all
the time of his every line being the subject of scrutiny of the censors of
whom he was, in later life, an influential member, he knew precisely what to
say, to whom, when and how, although he did occasionally get it wrong and
found his own works the target of the editing pencil. (See [39, 132, 370].)
Gregg (A:14/146) appears to see a flaw in Tyutchev's personality which
produces such apparent ravings as those lines from Russkaya Geografiya/A
Russian Geography [149], in which the poet describes the Nile and the Ganges
as elements of the Russian empire. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Tyutchev was an exceptionally intelligent and cunning writer and chose his
themes and times carefully. It should not be forgotten that from the time he
began writing till the year he died, Russia was embroiled in one ajor
foreign-policy adventure or war after another, among them the Napoleonic
invasion of 1812, the Russo-Turkish war (1828-9), three Polish uprisings
(1830, 1846, 1863), the Crimean catastrophe (1853-6) and the Khivan campaign
of 1873. Nationalism is a heady force, especially at times of war and
depression, and, bearing in mind Russia's eternal paranoia about invasion,
borders and ice-free ports, Tyutchev's nationalistic outpourings can easily
be understood. It is inaccurate and misleading in the extreme to attribute
these political works to some psychological aberration. To claim that the
ideology of the political verse is "expounded with the repetitive rigidity
of a child's catechism, their realia .. the kings, swords, flags and altars
of a boy's adventure book ... enunciating with obsessive regularity the
themes of betrayal of Russia, punishment and the necessary submission to
authority" (A:14/146) is to misunderstand verse which, while taking the
message seriously, in his heart of hearts Tyutchev must have cringed at. To
continue by saying that if "ultra-nationalism is taken to represent an
adult's refusal to accept maturity, then it becomes (as in Tiutchev's case)
an infantile disorder" (ibid.) is to make of relatively straightforward
matters something complex and employ a totally inappropriate vocabulary to
make the point. When it came to politics, Tyutchev always knew precisely
what he was saying.
Frequently a mediocre political pronouncement starts or finishes
powerfully, the poetic mediocrities reserved for the central "message" part
of the work. In [268] he begins thus:
Uzhasnyi son otyagotel nad nami,
Uzhasnyi, bezobraznyi son:
V krovi do pyat, my b'yomsya s mertvetsami,
Voskresshimi dlya novykh pokhoron.
***
We've been burdened by a horrible dream,
a horrible, ugly dream:
up to our ankles in blood, we're fighting corpses
resurrected for fresh funerals.
The poem then develops quickly along overtly nationalistic, largely
non-lyrical lines, culminating in a call to Russia to stand firm when faced
with foreign hostility. There is a warm start and a gently eerie finish to
[357]:
Nad russkoi Vil'noi starodavnoi
Rodnye teplyatsya kresty -
I zvonom medi pravoslavnoi
Vse oglasilis' vysoty.
..........
..........
V tot chas, kak s neba mesyats skhodit,
V kholodnei, rannei polumgle,
Eshchyo kakoi-to prizrak brodit
Po ozhivayushchei zemle.
***
Over ancient, Russian Vilnius
kindred crosses glimmer.
Orthodoxy's pealing bronze
makes all the heavens shudder.
..........
..........
and as the moon's about to leave the sky,
in that early morning chill,
across the land just waking up
a spectral visitor wanders still
The opening of Gus na kostre/Hus at the Stake [356] parallels the lyric
poem Pozhary/Fires [331]. The political piece begins:
Kostyor sooruzhyon, i r