Russian Language Blog

Today is a special day. «Вы знаете, что случилось в этот день в далёком 1799-ом году?» [Do you know what happened on this day in the distant year of 1799?]  If you Google this date in Russian – «6 июня 1799 года» – the top result is the birth of «Александр Сергеевич Пушкин» [Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin].

Pushkin is the Zeus of Russian poetic Olympus. He’s Russian Dante. No, Russian Shakespeare! He is admittedly «величайший русский поэт» [the greatest Russian poet], solely responsible for creating «современный литературный русский язык» [the contemporary Russian literary language]. But don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself in this Wiki page about Pushkin.

Russians start listening to Pushkin’s poetry «с младых ногтей» [from early childhood]. Remember the mythical «Лукоморье»? Pushkin not only defined it in the opening verses of «Руслан и Людмила» [Ruslan and Lyudmila], but wrote many of the now-classic fairy tales, including «Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке» [The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish] and «Сказка о царе Салтане» [The Tale of Tsar Saltan].

To say that Pushkin wrote a lot would be an understatement. In addition to poems he wrote no-less brilliant and famous «романы» [novels], «рассказы» [short stories], «афоризмы» [maxims], and «эпиграммы» [quips]. Russians quote his «бессмертные строки» [immortal lines] in everyday speech, sometimes without knowing the author.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Few Russians can «декламировать» [recite] any of Pushkin’s poems «от начала до конца» [from start to finish]. But if you were to ask to recite «что-нибудь из Пушкина» [some of Pushkin’s works], they will recall at least a line or two. Most popular in my unofficial survey seem to be:

«Я помню чудное мгновенье, передо мной явилась ты» [I remember the magic moment when you appeared to me]

«Мороз и солнце – день чудесный!» [Frost and sunshine: day of wonder!]

«У Лукоморья дуб зелёный» [A green oak grows in Lookomorie]

«Я к вам пишу, чего же боле? Что я могу ещё сказать?» [I write to you - no more confession is needed, nothing’s left to tell]

As for the «крылатые фразы» [popular quotations], the ones I hear or say most often include:

«А счастье было так возможно, так близко!» [And happiness was so possible, so near!]

«И сердце вновь горит и любит» [And the heart once again is ablaze and in love]

«К беде неопытность ведёт» [Inexperience leads to misfortune]

«Ещё одно последнее сказанье» [Just one last tale]

«Кто раз любил, тот не полюбит вновь» [Who loved once shall never love again]

«Любви все возрасты покорны» [To love all ages surrender]

«Я сам обманываться рад!» [I am glad to be made a fool!]

«Быть можно дельным человеком и думать о красе ногтей» [One can be both a sensible person and care about one’s nails]

«Жизнь, зачем ты мне дана» [Life, why were you given me?]

Pushkin has become ubiquitous in Russian life – streets, squares and theaters named after him, children committing his works to memory all through high school, references to Pushkin’s work throughout contemporary Russian literature, etc. So it’s no surprise that when one is expected to do something and doesn’t, he might be asked «а делать кто будет? Пушкин?» [Do you think Pushkin is going to do this?]:

«Коля, кто за тебя будет домашнюю работу делать, Пушкин что-ли?» [Kolya, do you think Pushkin is going to do your homework for you?]

«Сломать-то ты сломал, а чинить кто будет? Пушкин?» [Of course, you broke it, but who’s going to fix it? Pushkin?]

And now I have questions for you:

1. What is one phrase that springs to mind when you hear the name Pushkin?
2. Which American movie features General Pushkin (hint: General Gogol is also in it)?

«Дорогие друзья» [Dear friends], I did something very bad this Tuesday: «я пропустила занятие по русскому языку» [I skipped Russian class]. I really did not want to, I assure you. «Но мне было надо написать письменную работу» [But I had to finish my essay (literally "written work")]. But luckily, this does not mean I have run out of ideas for posts on this blog. This is the second post in a series, so please read the first part if you have not already, otherwise this will not make much sense. In the photo: the woman who wrote the poem below, «Анна Ахматова» [Anna Akhmatova].

As promised, here is the second half of the poem.

И замертво спят сотни тысяч шагов
Врагов и друзей, друзей и врагов.

А шествию теней не видно конца
От вазы гранитной до двери дворца.

Там шепчутся белые ночи мои
О чьей-то высокой и тайной любви.

И всё перламутром и яшмой горит,
Но света источник таинственно скрыт.

Translation:

And through frozen sleep one hundred thousand footsteps
Of enemies and friends, friends and enemies.

You cannot see the end of the procession
From the vase of granite to the doors of the palace.

There my white nights are whispering
About someone’s lofty and secret love.

And everything burns with mother-of-pearl and jasper,
But the source of the light is mysteriously hidden.

Obviously it is better «в подлиннике» [in the original] and I know I am «плохая переводчица» [a bad translator] of poetry.

One of my favorite things about this poem is the longing present in it. «Ахматова тосковала по родине» [Akhmatova longed for her homeland] but after the revolution in 1917, that homeland did not exist anymore. I think she used St. Petersburg as a metaphor for the Russia of her youth because she was not born in St. Petersburg. «Санкт-Петербург был столицей бывшего Российской империи» [St. Petersburg was the capital of the former Russian empire].

If you have any interpretations about the poem, please leave them in the comments! After all, I am not «литературовед» [a literature expert], so I’m sure some of you know way more about this than I do.

Do you like «зима» [winter]? I don’t! When my American friends hear me complain about yet another cold snap, they inevitably ask “But aren’t you from Russia, the country infamous for its long and harsh winters?”

I blame Russian literature for this question (although Russian artists added to the myth with beautiful paintings such as this one by Nikifor Krilov, called “Russian Winter“). It’s done so much to romanticize winter, more so than any other «время года» [season]. Wake up a Russian in the middle of the night and ask him to quote you some wintry poetry and I bet you’ll hear

«Зима! Крестьянин, торжествуя,

На дровнях обновляет путь.

Его лошадка, снег почуя,

Плетётся рысью как-нибудь.»

[Winter!... The countryman, enchanted,

 breaks a new passage with his sleigh;

 his nag has smelt the snow, and planted

 a shambling hoof along the way;]

They might not know the author or remember the name of the poem or anything that follows, but these four lines are «знакомы с детства» [familiar since childhood]. (BTW, it’s from Eugene Onegin by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and you can find the full translation here.)

Or you might hear something like

«Мороз и солнце; день чудесный!»

[Cold frost and sunshine: day of wonder!] (this is the opening line of another of the Pushkin’s poems, Winter Morning)

You see what I’m talking about here, don’t you? Winter is presented as the time of joy, celebration, cleansing and renewal. Even in Nekrasov’s somber «Мороз, Красный Нос» [Father Frost, the Red Nose] the snow-covered landscape «в алмазах блестит» [sparkles like diamond].

Stop with the myth already! Winter is the time for «пурга» [snow blizzard], «метель» [snowstorm], «гололедица» [black ice], «гололёд» [icy rain], and frostbite-inducing «мороз» [frost]. Oh, and did I mention all of these might be happening at once? «Какой уж тут «день чудесный»!» [Some kind of “day of wonder” that would be!]

Do I sound «раздражённая» [cranky]? I told you, «я не люблю зиму» [I don’t like winter]. Sure, «морозное утро» [a crispy cold morning] with a blanket of fresh snow over everything is fine every now and then. And so is walking over «наст» [snow crust] and hearing its satisfying «хруст» [crunch]. Plus what can be more cheerful than hearing «кап-кап» [drip-drip] of «таящие сосульки» [melting icicles] during a brief «оттепель» [thaw].

But in between all this fun I want «тёплая солнечная погода» [warm sunny weather] when «травка зеленеет, солнышко блестит» [the grass is greening and the sun is shining] (do you know the rest of this poem?)

Unfortunately, there are at least two more months until that happens. In the mean time, I check weather updates for various Russian cities, including «мой любимый Волгоград» [Volgograd, my favorite city].

In case you want to check the weather in your favorite city (in Russia or around the world) on GISMETEO, here’s a little cheat-sheet of the terms you’re likely to see:

• «прогноз» – forecast
• «атмосферное явление» – atmospheric phenomena, what English sites describe as “clear skies”, “partly cloudy”, “rain”, etc.
• «температура воздуха» – atmospheric temperature, in degrees Centigrade
• «температура воды» – water temperature, in degrees Centigrade
• «атмосферное давление» – atmospheric pressure
• «ветер» – wind, particularly, its speed in meters per second and direction («С» – northerly, «Ю» – southerly, «В» – easterly, «З» – westerly plus various combinations of these, such as «ЮЗ» – south-westerly)
• «влажность воздуха» – humidity
• «комфорт» – a relatively new addition to the Russian weather forecasts, this refers to the wind-chill factor in winter and to heat-humidity factor in summer. For example, tonight in Volgograd it is expected to be «пасмурно, небольшой снег» [cloudy, light snow] with «комфорт» [wind-chill] indicator at a balmy -7 degrees, up from -14 degrees in the morning.  

And while the site lacks fancy Doppler radar images or videos of the latest snow-related traffic accidents, it does have «региональные карты погоды» [regional weather maps], «геомагнитый прогноз» [geomagnetic forecast], local times for sunrise and sunset, and links to non-weather-related articles. So if you’re tired of Weather.com’s raw footage of students in South Carolina having a snowball fight, you should totally check it out.

What’s the weather like in your area? Let me know in the comments here or on our Facebook page. Oh, and if you can think of any other deceptively cheerful Russian poems about winter, please-please tell me about them!