How Russian-language poets and their translators have responded to the war in Ukraine

This article centres on discussions with various translators who have been working on an English anthology of poetry written by poets writing in Russian in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

It discusses the various techniques used by the poets to draw attention to the senselessness of war, from the invocation of children's rhymes and lullabies to amplify the sorrow of death, to the use of exaggeration and distortion to draw attention to the absurdity of Russian state propaganda.

An example of a lullaby-based poem is Vanechka’s “Sleep, My Boy,” translated by Richard Coombes:

Sleep, my boy, my little laddie,
Splendidly and sound.
Rifle stock and old kit baggie,
Piled up on the ground.

Safety helmet, flakkie jacket
Booties, left and right,
Sweetly listen to fairy stories
In mother earth tonight.

The poem concludes:

Boyish head to boyish head,
Packed in by the score.
Nightingales all lying dead –
And there’ll be plenty more.

Rounded earth in woodland, marking
The places where you fall.
Sleep you tight, my little darling.
Don’t wake up at all.

And here is an excerpt from a poem by Yulia Fridman, translated by Maria Bloshteyn:

When we had liberated Ukraine from the Nazis,
Poland from Martians, Finland from dog-headed men,
the Earth sprouted fragrant cocaine-smelling blossoms,
and our tankmen got high on their magical scent.
Lithuania became a hotbed for galactic snails
from Epsilon of Andromeda, that cold crimson star;
they hid among salad greens and other plants,
we bombed it flat – no choice but go that far.