The Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House holds collections of verse with pasted-over pages
The Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House holds collections of verse with pasted-over pages. It is reported that Akhmatova herself pasted these pages shut. What is beneath? Akhmatova's poems about Stalin. It is believed that Anna Andreyevna was compelled to write them in order to help her son. The poems themselves follow:
21 December 1949
Let the world remember this day for ever,
Let this hour be bequeathed to eternity.
The legend tells of a wise man
Who saved each one of us from a terrible death.
The whole country rejoices in the rays of the amber dawn,
And there is no barrier to the purest joy,
Both ancient Samarkand and Arctic Murmansk,
And Leningrad, twice saved by Stalin
On the birthday of the teacher and friend
They sing a song of bright gratitude,
Though a blizzard may rage all around
Or mountain violets may bloom.
And the cities of the Soviet Union are echoed
By the cities of all the friendly republics
And by those toilers whom fetters strangle,
But whose speech is free and whose soul is proud.
And freely their thoughts fly to the capital of glory,
To the lofty Kremlin, fighter for eternal light,
From where at midnight a majestic anthem rings out
And sounds across the whole world like help and greeting.
21.12.1949
Literal translation
Volga – Don
In the menacing howl of steppe hurricanes,
Cleaving the breast of the earth,
Past ancient Scythian burial mounds
The Volga makes its way to the Don.
If the sky is wrapped in mist,
The searchlight's beam is bright and straight,
The excavator, a living giant,
Strides across the boundless steppes.
What was Peter's dream
Has become reality in our wise age.
Here man will triple his efforts
To achieve everything.
And stronger than Izhevsk steel
(That is to say, stronger than anything)
Is the word that Stalin spoke to us,
Our glory and our triumph.
02.1951
Literal translation
***
And the Leader with eagle eyes
Saw from the height of the Kremlin
How splendidly flooded with rays
The transfigured earth is.
And from the very middle of the century
To which he gave his name,
He sees the heart of man,
Which has become bright as crystal.
Of his labours, of his deeds
He sees the ripe fruits,
The mass of majestic buildings,
Bridges, factories and gardens.
He breathed his spirit into this city,
He turned misfortune away from us,
That is why the invincible spirit of Moscow
Is so firm and young.
And the Leader hears the voice
Of the grateful people:
“We have come
To say that where Stalin is, there is freedom,
Peace and the greatness of the earth!”
12.1949
Literal translation
A little later, around 1962, this poem also appeared:
To the Defenders of Stalin
These are those who shouted: “Release Barabbas
To us for the feast”, those
Who ordered Socrates to drink poison
In the deaf confinement of prison.
They should be made to pour this same drink
Into their innocently slandering mouths,
These dear lovers of torture,
Experts in the production of orphans.
Literal translation
