On Pushkin (1936)

It's difficult to say anything about Pushkin to someone who doesn't know anything about him. Pushkin is a great poet. Napoleon is less great than Pushkin.

 

And Bismarck is nothing in comparison with Pushkin. And Alexander I and II and III are just bubbles compared with Pushkin. And everybody is just a bubble compared to Pushkin, except that in comparison to Gogol, Pushkin himself is a bubble.

 

And so instead of writing about Pushkin, I would do better to write to you about Gogol. Though Gogol is so great that it is impossible to write anything about him, so I had better write about Pushkin after all.

 

But after Gogol it's somehow shameful to write about Pushkin. But it's impossible to write about Gogol. Therefore it's better that I not write about anyone at all.

 

--Daniil Kharms (1905-1942). To see a selection of Kharms's stories in English, go here. I hope to make more of my own translations of him available here in the future. 

 

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Трудно  сказать что-нибудь о Пушкине тому, кто ничего о нем не знает. Пушкин  великий поэт. Наполеон менее велик, чем  Пушкин.

 

И  Бисмарк по сравнению с Пушкиным ничто.  И Александр  I  и  II,  и III просто пузыри по сравнению с Пушкиным. Да и все люди по сравнению с Пушкиным пузыри, только по сравнению с Гоголем Пушкин сам пузырь.

 

А потому вместо того, чтобы писать о Пушкине, я лучше напишу вам о Гоголе. Хотя Гоголь так велик, что о нем  и  писать-то ничего нельзя,  поэтому  я буду все-таки писать о Пушкине.

 

Но после Гоголя писать о Пушкине  как-то обидно. А о Гоголе  писать нельзя. Поэтому я уж лучше ни о ком ничего не напишу.

 

(Thursday Translations #16)

Comments

[B]

Bulgakov and Harms (his name being a pun on the English "harms" and "charms," it's weird to see it spelled with a k) are the only two really great Russian writers of the 20th century. Maybe there's Babel, but probably not. Unfortunately, it seems to be impossible to translate them well into English-the translations always come out affected and contrived.

[Justin Smith]

I've read that Kharms's pseudonym is inspired by 'Holmes', as in 'Sherlock Holmes'. In any case my transliteration of it here just follows the convention for his name in particular, as well as following the Library of Congress transliteration system for Russian words in general.

I chose this one out of several dozen of his short pieces that I've attempted to translate, because my sense was that it came out fairly authentic-sounding, and avoided the problem of affectation that you mention. It is a serious problem.

[B]

Your translation seems good to me. A cultural problem remains-without the context of spending years being beaten over the head with Pushkin and Gogol, it's hard to get how funny this really is.