Volodymyr Svidzinsky
1885–1941
Svidzinsky, Volodymyr [Svidzins’kyj] (Svidzynsky), b 9 October 1885 in Maianiv, Vinnytsia county, Podilia gubernia, d 18 October 1941. (Photo: Volodymyr Svidzinsky.) Poet and translator. His first collection, Lirychni poeziï (Lyrical Poetry), was published in 1922; it was followed by Veresen’ (September 1927) and Poeziï (Poems, ed Yurii Yanovsky, 1940). His poems, written in 1927–36 and printed in Ukraine in the years 1937–40, were collected by Oleksa Veretenchenko and published in Munich in 1975 in the collection Medobir (Honey Wood). Poeziï (Poems, 1986) was a more recent edition of his work published in Ukraine. His collected poems and translations in two volumes were published in Kyiv in 2004. In his early collections Svidzynsky leaned toward symbolism, but in the two last collections there are elements of surrealism combined with classical forms. An important part of Svidzinsky's work is stories with folk or exotic motifs; there are also translations from the classics (Hesiod, Aesop, Ovid, Aristophanes) and from French, German, Polish, and Russian poetry. Svidzinsky died while under arrest, during the evacuation of Kharkiv in the fall of 1941. (According to eyewitness accounts, he was burned alive together with other prisoners in Saltiv, near Kharkiv. According to Soviet records, he was killed by a German bomb.)
The Lustre of Surfaces
The lustre of surfaces dies into the shadow And antique silence sleeps, Like water decanted into a bowl. Only my hands live, Strange and separate, Their movements Compel me to meditate, Like the whisper of a leaf. I go to the window, A broken post stands by the verandah, Mould grows in the guttering Where snowflakes gather in winter, Where birds alight in the morning. I press my forehead against the glass And gaze for a while. I don’t love the advent of night It seems guilty, a dark linen, The blurred green edges of vegetation. A huge pool of silence accumulates. Where have the birds gone? The lustrous surface of things dies, The curtains hang motionless As if carved in stone. In my defined circle of silence I become more insensitive, and sad, As a forgotten, Chinese lantern caught On a branch in some old orchard.
From "Treachery"
In the western fields at dusk The ash doesn’t whisper The jasmine is not fragrant As at first light. How gently You come over the horizon To the violet in the glade. You step towards her The earth crackling With autumn ice underfoot, And look beyond the path To see grassy mounds Squat like bazaar stallholders Some solitary and others in pairs And the jasmine fades In the yellow hands of buckthorn. Come We will embrace you in auburn waters Swathe you in tangled grass Give you a maiden Green of shoulder, smooth of belly Lustrous eyed, the marsh’s beauty…” The violet smiles At how easily you are lured. The silence is morose suddenly A maiden straight and tall You stretch out your hand, She is the night you call.
Where wild chicory covered the street
Where wild chicory covered the street In a familiar circle Where I would not place my feet The doors were open But only the night entered Limping clumsily And wearing no pale blue hat With a zig-zag of grey silk. I embraced her before I spoke “Sweetheart how long I waited By your window, when day came It was not I troubling the branches Of mountain ash and cherry trees.” The night leaves at dawn With her friend the moon They will sit together On the shaking cart of sunlight When the orchids flutter And I’ll look from my verandah. Do not look at me or mock the night With its deformed feet.
I walk alongside the stream
I walk alongside the stream A bird’s wings flash in the dusk Darkness thatches its shadow On crag and alder. I walk alone… Tense my forgotten hands Will I hear the fairy-tale whisper Of someone’s love. But all around are familiar shapes, Darkness lisps mockingly That I walk home Through no fabled landscapes No stories come.
It is already evening, a soft breeze
It is already evening, a soft breeze Behind the leafless tree in the orchard (As if these two trees are not kindred) The willow branches blossom With a candle’s yellow flame Lit for spring, its juvenile roar. Why does it burn? It is evening with a soft breeze, Do you see black horses to the east Dressed as for some antique funeral Emerging from the dusk? They will bear you back quietly As the yellow flame is severed From the willow branch To limp after them, In dishevelled smoke will come To the locked hollowness and bow Where the north is blank as stone. It is already evening with a soft breeze Sky torn between light and dark. Let the willow’s yellow flame tremble On the dark horses robed For my funeral. When the stars come Let them not fall upon my candle But break into flame On the willow branch So it can bloom.