All Russia Is a Bonfire

All Russia is a bonfire. An unquenchable flame
From border to border, from age to age
Hums, roars... And the stone cracks.
And every torch is a man.
Have we not ourselves, like our forefathers,
Set the grass fire? And the hurricane
Has fanned it, and in acrid smoke are drowning
The forests and villages of the hearth-folk.
Neither Sergiev, nor Optina, nor Sarov
Will calm the people's bonfire:
They will depart, escaping from the conflagrations,
To the bottom of the silver lakes.
So holy Kievan Rus', given over to the Tatars
to be plundered,
Left the earth, covering itself with Svetloyar...
But I will not renounce the fire!
I am myself fire. Rebellion is in my nature,
But it needs a chain and a boundary.
Not for the first time, dreaming of freedom,
We are building a new prison.
Yes, outside Moscow, outside our stifling flesh,
Outside the will of the bronze Peter,
There are no roads for us; we are led astray in the marsh
By the demonic play of will-o'-the-wisps.
Holy Rus' is covered over by sinful Rus',
And there is no way to that city,
To which calls the summoning, otherworldly
Underwater peal of the churches' bells.

Literal translation

Maximilian Voloshin, "Kitezh", 1919.

Illustration: Ivan Bilibin, The Invisible City of Kitezh