http://www.suite101.com/content/vasily-grossman-a-biographical-sketch-a307571

One of the many works on display at the After the Fall exhibit.

For anyone in the New York area, there is a fantastic exhibit of post-Socialist Eastern European art going on at the Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art in Peekskill. Check out my article on it at:

http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2010/12/Arts+%26+Culture/After-the-Fall-at-the-Hudson-Valley-Center-for-Contemporary-Art

A while ago I decided to gather some of grad school, mainly undergraduate essays together in a slim volume so I’d have a convenient way to have a record of the. Along the way I figured that perhaps some of you, my dedicated readers, (despite my rather long gaps in updating) may be interested in them too so I’m making them available on Lulu.com:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/voina-a-collection-of-undergraduate-articles-on-the-great-patri/6447404?showPreview

I hope you all enjoy them.

Also, as my semester winds down, I hope to get back the business that this blog was set up to do, provide well translated Russian poetry for all of you.

-Andrew

http://wysotsky.com/

Check it out, it’s pretty nifty.

niahglobal.wordpress.com

The First Death

You know,
        There is in our soldierly fate,
That first death, Of a classmate, or a friend…
We waited for the patrol to return, in the muggy hut, 
 We were silent,
       Passing around a lone cigarette butt.
Potatoes roasted in a cast iron pot.
I rolled a cigarette,
       And handed it to my neighbor.
You know,
       We have a rule in the war:
To wait for the patrol’s return,
       And eat dinner together.
“Well, how are the guys doing out there?… 
      “Will they make it back?…”
Each one of us repeated the phrase.
He entered.
        Handed a machine gun off to the sergeant.
                 “Serezha is dead…
                              In the head…
                                         Instantly…”
And if you ever, 
        Had friends at the front,
You will understand this truth:
                            I expected him to return,
The way, 
        He did in the forests outside Moscow,
Wrapped in machine gun rounds. 
        
I waited for him in the morning.
       A snowstorm noisily raged.
                  He has to come.
                                I made breakfast.

But somewhere,
        In the deep,
                   Smolensk snowdrifts,
Lies the frozen body,
        Of my brother-in-arms.
You know,
        There is in our soldierly fate, 
That first death…
        We went around in a circle,
Talking about only one thing,
        Not a word about ourselves,
                 Only about avenging,
                               About avenging, Our friend.

1942 -Semen Gudzenko (Translated by me)

So it’s finally feels like spring is here to stay.