First published in 1926, today’s Translation Tuesday features an excerpt from the long poem “Galileo,” first collected in Ukrainian poet Yevhen Pluzhnyk’s debut collection. Oscillating between the epic ambition of its length—running to more than twenty pages in its original publication—and the persona’s declaration of his own smallness (“I am quiet as grass, even quieter still”), this poem reads like an inverse of the Whitmanian celebration of the self even as it maintains its own brand of fierce solitude. Hear translator Oksana Rosenblum contextualise this poem that was written almost a century ago now: on Pluzhnyk’s proto-Existentialist spirit and the strange parallel journey the writer took when compared to his titular figure.
“Yevhen Pluzhnyk’s poem ‘Galileo’ was published in 1926 as part of his poetry collection Dni (Days). The debut collection of the 28-year-old Ukrainian poet made a strong impression on Ukrainian literary circles. Pluzhnyk became instantly recognized as one of the most original poets of Ukrainian literature in the 1920s–30s, for the laconism and emotional strength of his poetry. The narrator assumes the persona of a fragile, traumatized person who went through the horrors of the Civil War—hunger, everyday survival, joblessness, and more broadly, a sense of not being understood or welcomed in a society ruled by the values of the NEP (New Economic Policy) adopted by the Soviet Union in 1921. In a way, he is that person, since he witnessed all of it: the upheaval of the Revolution, the trauma of the Civil War, life-long struggle with tuberculosis, and poverty. Even though the poem was written in 1926, before the appearance of Existentialism as a philosophical movement, there is an overwhelming sense of the narrator’s involvement with the kind of questions that an existentialist writer would ask: is there any meaning to life beyond what we assign to it? Why do some people always come to the top of the hierarchy, why do others suffer unspeakable pain and hardships?
Yevhen Pluzhnyk, a poet whose life was filled with personal and social hardships and was eventually cut short by the terror and purges of the 1930s, somewhat enigmatically entitled his poem Galileo. The title remains a mystery. We know that Galileo Galilei was forced to recant his views in front of the Inquisition. Pluzhnyk never addresses this fact in his poem; moreover, he mentions Galileo only in the very last stanza. Tragically, Pluzhnyk’s fate ran in parallel to Galileo’s: in 1935, he will have to recant his own views when accused of Ukrainian nationalism and terrorism. He would die of tuberculosis on Solovetsky Islands, thousands of miles away from his beloved Ukraine.”
—Oksana Rosenblum
Galileo
Dedicated to Marusia Yurkova
Limitless spaces, familiar orbits
Still do not exhaust Earth’s purpose.
It rains again, and I struggle with doubts;
It’s autumn.
As I walk by coffee shops, in my worn-out boots—
By the warm lights, people and daily affairs,
Suddenly, I feel so quiet inside:
Life or death, who cares?
Oh, autumn!
It always wears me out,
My heart is like a small tired stone . . .
Those days, wasted in a grey typhoid barrack,
And the black spots, ravens, and I am alone.
Listen up, you, competent people!
You,
Whose jaws look like big ugly claws!
I am quiet as grass, even quieter still,
I am so easily unnoticed.
Those who have strong nerves, they
Do not need to listen to my nonsense.
But for me, someone who starves every day,
Now’s my only chance to be open.
Maybe I am a Philistine, saddened
by the absence of a warm winter coat.
Or perhaps I come from a land,
Where people die over and over.
Can I share one thought with you?
Being honest is not easy.
Under morbid rain, every day and night
I stand on the corner and howl.
Like a ravenous wolf, a feral dog,
I bay at the moon.
Don’t you cease,
Don’t you cease,
Don’t you cease,
My memories’ voice!
[. . .]
Hey!
I really am so quiet
But I wail like a stray dog.
Bored Kievites, shaking in the piercing wind,
Rush by, hiding necks in warm collars.
I am so utterly miserable,
Poor, in spirit and body . . .
Who is left? Tychyna, Ryls’kyi, and Oles’ . . .
And no one else.
Who will hear me out, a story of early pain
And my trust in it?
While the ultimate dream these days is to have
Eight Sundays a week?
We don’t need any extra words:
One billion and ninety-four useless speeches!
The main thing is to earn a living and eat,
As long as you have your health!
Why, for Satan’s sake, in a frayed coat,
Collar covering my fragile neck,
Would I proclaim to crowds in cars old and new,
A meaningless message?
Let there be your will,
My epoch,
On this tired planet!
I am a tiny worthless fly
In its indifferent hand.
[. . .]
Dances . . . misery . . . jewels . . . perfumes . . .
Purses . . .
Purses . . .
More purses . . .
How timely that the pious old men
Sing their ballads about great losses!
Philistines invade churches and restaurants,
Gorge, sell their bodies, spit
Into dirty, useless wounds—
They live!
Hey, street!
You, sweaty beast,
Limitless, endless river!
Above you—just two words from Taras,
And a poster, soaked in rain.
Who possibly needs this today?
Stupid are those who think they are poets.
Yesterday, sultry couplets were in fashion,
Today—excerpts from old shows.
You don’t say!
Various night affairs,
So incredible!
Oh my epoch!
At least you blush!
[ . . .]
I’ve grown dark from pain—I am blind.
My remaining joy is gone.
Can’t you hear me cry—
Sob . . .
Spare some change
For a piece of bread . . .
Mommies, pity me,
Daddies, teach me
How I in this world
Should live . . .
Although, no!
Don’t throw dirty kopecks!
Give me a bite of sincerity!
If only my heart could grow
To touch the silence,
Endless like pain!
They pass by in silence,
Isolated from one another . . .
The humid evening has grown moldy,
Only pharmacies are awake . . .
Only my heart’s lonely beat . . .
Wet fog covers
A deserted square,
A cobblestoned street . . .
The sound
Of every
Step
Is dead,
As if centuries
Went by—
Black chasm of streets . . .
A familiar loneliness
Envelops my tired body.
Let’s go home—
This will be over!
But why does every street
Feels foreign and new at night,
And unknown words
Lean against my heart?
Hey you, villages! Forgotten fields!
In the bosom of your hours
Ever seen a lily bloom
In painful happiness?
What do I know? Nothing!
I know nothing at all . . .
I only expire,
In misery . . .
I only wish for—
Silence!
Sob . . .
Mental masturbation, all of it!
At least if I could invent a new form,
But always, always
These boring words!
My friend in a business cooperative
(Grey suit, gloves, straw hat),
Used to tell me:
You are twenty-seven,
And still rotten!
Don’t you get it? These days
Only those who love cooperatives
Or own a car
Justify their existence.
Capisce?
Fog floats over the city . . .
Earth still orbits . . .
Leafless chestnut trees
Quietly rustle . . .
[. . .]
Oh night!
Whose fault is it
That the gruel we chose over eternity,
A dime is our next dream?
Nothing to say?
Why not throw thunder
Over our heads,
So that
Scales blend,
Topsy-turvy
Everything!
Let this day bring
Shrieks! Crying streams!
Maybe human beings will remember
They have a heart!
You see—on the corner,
Still,
A footless cripple
Is rotting?
This is where all roads
Lead to the marvelous distant place!
Why, for what reason
The stump of a man stretches his arm,
Short of grabbing someone’s pants—
So comical!
Spit all around . . .
Dirt all over the place . . .
Surely, not an easy
Bread
He earns!
Oh!
Exactly!
How’s this for a screenplay?
What household tricks
Can this armless man
Conjure up?
With eyes full of pain,
He howls right into the broads’ made-up faces,
“Cigarettes Gostabfab!”
Christ!
[. . .]
Hey, my heart! Stay calm
And keep on with a certain number of beats.
Everyone gets what he can own, by law—
Joy and pain, exhaustion and cheer.
I glide into the unknown,
Following the Earth’s orbit, day after day!
Above the planet,
under it,
beyond it—
silence . . .
silence . . .
silence.
I live on the sixth floor, you know,
Surviving day after day.
I live very simply, without a purpose,
Just to exist.
Once a week I leave my shameful place,
Dressed in a red, worn out coat.
I drag myself past shop windows, tired,
Heeding my empty stomach.
Show up at the unemployment office . . .
And back to my miserable corner.
Sleepless, lying on a hard mattress,
I think about my life, over and over.
When I come close to the window, so familiar
From my sleepless and restless nights,
Pain engulfs me, and I drown in the power
Of silence at the bottom of my eyes.
[. . .]
Cold, hard floor under my feet . . .
Grey morning is bored by its own fate.
I pray—not to the devil or god!
To the eyes of my own tired days.
My sad and beautiful eyes,
Despite suffering, fatigue and blood,
Will finally encounter a real,
Eternal and enduring love.
I don’t need anything any longer . . .
Like a tuft of grass, I am so quiet and calm.
Distant epochs, strict and trusting,
Will smile at me one by one.
Up above me, far away, even further,
Unattainable and out of sight,
Wrapped by centuries of silence, floats
GALILEO.
Hey!
Heroes!
Cripples!
Office workers!
Merchants!
Lame poets!
Live as you wish!
Because—hear me?
Still,
It MOVES!
Translated from the Ukrainian by Oksana Rosenblum
Yevhen Pluzhnyk [Євген Плужник] (1898, Voronezh guberniya, Russian Empire–1936, Solovets Islands, USSR) was one of the most powerful lyrical voices in Ukrainian poetry of the 1920s. In 1923–8 he belonged to the Kyiv writers’ groups Aspys, Lanka, and MARS and contributed poetry to several Soviet Ukrainian journals. During his lifetime he published only two poetry collections, Dni (Days) in 1926 and Rannia osin’ (Early Autumn) in 1927; a third, Rivnovaha (Equilibrium), appeared posthumously in an émigré edition in Augsburg in 1948. Pluzhnyk’s work was criticized by the Soviet literary establishment for its contemplative, laconic, and frequently gloomy lyricism and depiction of revolutionary atrocities of the Civil War (1918–21), famine, and economic inequality of the early Soviet reality. In March 1935, he was sentenced by a military tribunal to death by firing squad. The verdict was commuted to ten years’ imprisonment in the Solovets Islands in the White Sea, where he soon died of tuberculosis. The existential questions that frequently appear in Yevhen Pluzhnyk’s poetry are as relevant today as they were in the 1920s.
Oksana Rosenblum is an art history researcher and translator based in New York City. She was born and raised in Ukraine but has called NYC her home since 2003. Her poetry translations from Ukrainian, essays, and book reviews appeared in National Translation Month, Versopolis, and Ukrainian Weekly. She co-edited a bilingual volume of the early poetry of Mykola Bazhan, an important and prolific Ukrainian poet of the twentieth century (Academic Studies Press, 2020).
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