Stalin Epigram
The Stalin epigram, also known as The Kremlin Highlander (Template:Lang-ru) is a satirical poem by the Russian Acmeist poet Osip Mandelstam, dated as being written in November 1933. Only 16 lines in length, the poem was in large part responsible for Mandelstam's arrest, imprisonment and ultimate death; it is both a suicide note and a searing indictment of leader Joseph Stalin and his entourage. The Kremlin Highlander, of course, is Stalin, referring to his Caucasus Mountains origin. The last words in the poem about "Ossetian torso" refer to a rumor that Stalin was born from a person of Ossetian ethnicity rather than from his official father, Besarion Jughashvili, who was a Georgian. The poem describes the climate of fear in Soviet Russia [1]:
We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay, More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say. But if people would talk on occasion, They should mention the Kremlin Caucasian. His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits, And his accurate words are as heavy as weights. Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming, And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming. But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen, And he plays with the services of these half-men. Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing, He’s alone booming, poking and whiffing. He is forging his rules and decrees like horseshoes – Into groins, into foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows. Every killing for him is delight, And Ossetian torso is wide. |
| Russian: Мы живем, под собою не чуя страны... |
References
- ^ Translation by Dmitri Smirnov, can be reproduced if non-commercial
