Russian Silver Age poetry translations, 37/?
Polixena (or Poliksena) Solovyova (1867-1924) had the misfortune to be born sister to the much more famous poet, philosopher and theologian Vladimir Solovyov, one of the central founders of 20th-century Russian Christian philosophy. Thus, the younger Symbolists venerated her poetry more because they saw her as her brother’s spiritual sister than for its own merit. She herself apparently saw at least her early publications, in the 1880s, as weak, and was much more prominent as an artist and illustrator. Review of her poetry were compassionate and its technical weaknesses, claims Wikipedia, were not much pointed out. The exception was Alexander Blok, who disliked her poetry and refused to review it.
From 1905 to 1912 she was editor of a children’s magazine and children’s publishing house with her lesbian lover, the children’s author Natalia Manaseina (ironically, Blok’s mother volunteered as proofreader for it). There she published her translation of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” one of the earliest translations into Russian (I have not yet read it). After the Revolution, for several years she worked as a librarian and translator in Koktebel in the Crimea. She remained with Manaseina until the end of her life.
This poem is addressed to Zinaida Gippius, whom we have already encountered in this series. I can see that the criticism of Solovyova’s general technical weaknesses would apply to its over-repetition in the original of the words “passion” (three times) and “death” (also three times; I replaced one of them with “mortal”). I still find it an interesting poem as another example of women’s poetry in the Silver Age. I unfortunately have not yet found out what Solovyova’s relationship was to Gippius in order to contextualize this poem further.
Unbreakably
To Zinaida Gippius
The closer death breathes through its icy teeth,
The hotter scarlet kisses glow,
And in the graveside requiem, passion’s moans grow.
In earthly waters hardness gleams beneath.
And spring bloom would not draw such passioned breath
So sweetly, if that mortal stinging
Were not a threat to fruits autumn was bringing:
No passion without shade of death.
Polixena Solovyova, 1914; translation by Tamara Vardomskaya,
September 2016.
Tamara Vardomskaya 