Russian Poetry 1917-1955, selected ed. Jack Lindsay

[p031] Russian Poetry 1917-1955. Selected, Translated and with an Introduction by Jack Lindsay (London: The Bodley Head, 15s.) JACK LINDSAY as anthologist adopts the pell-mell method, customary in Soviet Russia since the dissolution of literary movements, whereby major poets are represented cheek-by-jowl with song-lyric writers, mediocre popular versifiers and makers of rhymes for children (the latter often very nice). As a means of giving a cross-section of Soviet Russian verse output the method is defensible, though not for the whole period 1917- 1955 but only for its shadowed later half, beginning roughly with Mayakovsky’s suicide in 1930. To apply it, by hindsight as it were, to the twenties is historically wrong and results in such absurdities as the inclusion of the prosy Demyan Bedny and the strident Pyotr Oreshin coupled with the omission of Ossip Mandelshtam, whose greatness both as a poet in his own right and as an influence on others, notably on Boris Pasternak, cannot be dimmed by temporary disfavour; Eduard Bagritsky, a lovely poet whose progress from extreme indivi- dualism and experimentation to a positive acceptance of re- volutionary unity resembles Mayakovsky’s on a smaller scale; and Pavel Antokolsky, less brilliant, more plodding than these two, but a poet of importance for all that. In any case, do we want an anthology which is merely a

[p032] cross-section, even if it were a fair one? Is it not-rather the compiler’s responsibility, especially as this is the first work of its scope to appear in Britain, to apply values beyond those of popular and official approval in the country of origin? The newspapers can tell us what street likes to read. An anthology should acquaint us with the best of what Russia’s admirable and courageous body of poets has produced under conditions ranging from the difficult to the asphyxiating. Why, if space is precious, waste it on the facile verse journalism of a Simonov and a Surkov when only five of Pasternak’s poems are chosen (and not very sympathetically chosen at that), only three of Anna Akhmatova’s (surely Zhdanov’s murderous attack on her .in 1947, if nothing else, should have aroused the compiler’s curiosity), none of Mar- garita Aliger’s, none of Zabolotsky’s? Nikolay Tikhonov, the one-time Chairman of the Board of the Union of Soviet Writers, is by all accounts a very decent man indeed. Original poems of Jack Lindsay’s in the past testify to the affection and esteem he has for Tikhonov; and the ‘Ballad of Nails’, rous- ingly translated here, is by now a classic. But to single him out for generous representation in all four sections of the book, thus indirectly suggesting that he is the only Soviet poet with a consistent record of development since the twenties, betrays a faulty critical sense. I wish, too, that Jack Lindsay had made the scope of his intentions clear by inserting the word ‘Soviet’ in the title. This is not hair-splitting as it may at first appear; the fact is that very interesting Russian poetry was produced in exile, parti- cularly in the twenties. Soviet editors are beginning to recog- nize this. An important anthology called ‘Dyen Poeta’ (‘The Poet’s Davy’), published in Moscow in 1956, contains some posthumous poems by Marina Tsvetayeva, who left Russia in 1922, wrote the bulk of her extraordinarily vivid and exciting work in Paris, returned to Russia in the late thirties and com- mitted suicide as the Germans drew near Moscow in 1941. She had, beyond doubt, the richest talent of any Russian poetess at any time; a book called ‘Russian Poetry 1917-1955’ ought at least to mention her in passing. This omission, like the others, suggests that though Jack Lindsay sees 1955 as the end of an era, he cannot yet free himself from the values— false ones as I believe—which governed Soviet literary cri- ticism in its latter part. And yet, when all is said and done, this is a book to be grateful for. English translations of Soviet verse have been few and far between and poor in quality. Back in 1933 George Reavey and Marc Slonim did bring out a book called ‘Soviet Literature’ which contained a short poetry section; the ren- derings were not very good but on the whole they conveyed more urgency and fervour than Jack Lindsay’s. Still, that was long ago, and since then we have had all too little to go on with. Here at last a serious poet brings his skill and experience to bear on the difficult task. In some instances the result is really good (e.g., Esenin’s ‘Not vain in the winds’ and Svetlov’s touching, melodious “Grenada’). As an editor Jack Lindsay is pretty’ slapdash; he consist- ently mis-spells the name of Stepan Shchipachev (though for my money this tepid lyricist might just as well have been left out altogether), makes two people out of Vsevolod Ivanov, and doesn’t even get Simonov’s surname quite right. But never mind. What I do resent is that he does not, either by his selec- tion or in his cautious foreword, help his English readers to distinguish between those who conformed to the pattern and those who did not. Here is how Mayakovsky. shortly before his death, summed up the conditions under which Soviet poets had to write: , Manifold is our nature: Thunder for battle, for bed a whisper. Today for love and battle alike , the strains of marches: To martial music me you're invited to: shuffle to bed. Whatever the political rights and wrongs, our interest and admiration must go to those Soviet poets who produced some- thing other than ‘strains of marches’ of one kind or another. The ‘Dyen Poeta’ anthology which I have already men- tioned is full of hopeful signs. Leonid Martynov, who first began to publish in the forties. writes on a high level of poetic thought. Robert Rozhdestvensky. another young poet, poems the Soviet man in the bo nee is original and inventive. And there are several others. Though the official traffic lights have not yet turned to green, the manifoldness of the poet's nature is beginning to assert itself again. ANNA BOSTOCK Workers’ Culture