Re: Russian

vkarla...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
The Black Monk wrote:
vkarlamov@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
The Black Monk wrote:

...cut...

Your judgment of Shevchenko is hardly objective.


That has nothing to do with it. I love manysongs in the Ukrianian
language. They sound extremely romantic to me.

Shevchenko didn't even have much rhyme, rythm or elenance to his
poems. Read his famous Gajdamaki.

Whose words "vse ide, vse mynaye, krayu nemaye" express a universal
truth.

Shevchneko's words have the quality of Ukrainian folk songs, quaint and
in the case of works such as Hamaliya turbulent and violent.


But “folk” doesn’t mean simplistic and without rhyme. Take, for
example, the man that you yourlself are much more familiar with than
with Shevchenko: Vladimir Semenovich Vysotsky. He took folk speech and
turned it into symphony. Here is one such amazing masterpiece of his.
I am not sure if there is too much folklore and colloquilasism for
foreigners to appreciate the linguistic and poetic magnificence of this
song:

http://vysotsky.russian.ru/readroom/song.php?s_id=77011

«Про речку Вачу и попутчицу Валю» (1977)



Под собою ног не чую —
И качается земля...
Третий месяц я бичую,
Так как списан подчистую
С китобоя-корабля.



His
poetry is more serious but it belongs in the same category as Gogol's
early Ukrainian works such as Taras Bulba.

His poetry spread like through word of mouth (most pesants were
illiterate) wildfire through Ukrainian villages, and the same people
who sing and created the songs you claim to love adopted his poems as a
sort of "folk culture", some of his expressions have become common
phrases. In NYC recently I saw "Chomu Ya Ne Soil, chomu ne litayu" on
a bumper sticker, placed on some guy's car.

...cut...

Tell me, Cernyj Monah, do you yourself revere and greatly enjoy
Shevchenko's poetry?

I was born in the USA, so in general poetry has had less an influence
on me than for those who are from the USSR (thanks to my wife though my
grade school kid can recite Pushkin, Yesenin, etc. as well as
Shevchenko's Zapovit and Duny Moyi). But I do like his works. Your
problem with him seems to be one of personal taste.

Have you at least managed to read much of it? It
really has no appeal to modern reades, unlike Pushkin or Gogol.

The British historian Norman Davies places Pushkin in the same class as
Goethe and Mickiewicz. Do you think he was a greater poet than those
guys, too?


It is impossible to compare great poets from totally different
languages like Russian and German. And I haven’t read enough Adam to
judge him (moreover it would have been in translation). I can say
though that Goethe’s Faust in Pasternak translation is one of the
best long poems in the Russian literature. Like the immortal 4-liner:


.

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