After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin: 1911-2003

By Yvonne Green

After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin was named Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation (Winter 2011)

Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin (1911-2003) is now recognised as a leading literary figure in Russia, though he is still relatively unknown in the west. In his own country, he was for many years known primarily as a translator, with only close friends able to read his poems. These friends included the great poet Anna Akhmatova, who acknowledged and supported his genius. It was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union that the general reading public was allowed to become fully aware of the scope and depth of Semyon Lipkin's own poetry.

His work is concerned with history and philosophical exploration, but above all shows a keen sense of people's diverse destinies. His poems are rich with references to his Jewish heritage and to the Bible, and they draw on a first-hand awareness of the tragedies of World War II.

Yvonne Green has worked for eight years, making and working from literal translations to create 'versions' – poems 'after Lipkin' that bring to English some of this fascinating writer's most characteristic verse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Poetry Business
• Release date: Sep 17, 2021
• ISBN: 9781912196975

Yvonne Green

Yvonne Green who lives in Hendon and Herzilia was born in London in 1957. Her first collection, "Boukhara", won a Poetry Business Pamphlet award in 2007. Her second collection, "The Assay", won translation funds from Lord Gavron and Celia Atkin and was published in Hebrew by Am Oved as "Hanisu Yi". Her third collection, "After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin", was the Poetry Book Society's Translation Choice for Winter in 2011. Her poem, 'Welcome To Britain', was commended in the Buxton Poetry Competition 2012. She has reviewed for the London Magazine, interviewed for PN Review, contributed to the 2015 "Penguin Book of Russian Poetry" and broadcast on Radio 4.

Book preview

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After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin

Acknowledgments

Some of the translations have been published in The Assay (2010), Cardinal Points, The Manchester Review and Poetry Review.

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Published 2011 by

Smith|Doorstop Books

The Poetry Business

Campo House

54 Campo Lane

Sheffield S1 2EG

www.poetrybusiness.co.uk

Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin's Russian poems and Memoirs Copyright © Inna Lisnianskaya 2011. English versions of Lipkin’s poems, Introduction, Notes and Chronology Copyright © 2011 by Yvonne Green. English translation of Lipkin's Memoirs Copyright © 2011 by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler. Extract and Notes from Vasily Grossman's The Road Copyright © 2010 by Robert Chandler.

ISBN 978-1-912196-97-5

The moral right of Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin and Robert Chandler to be identified as the authors of their work included herein is hereby asserted.

The translators assert their moral right to be identified as the translators of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Utter

Cover design by Utter

Converted to ePub/Kindle by Inpress

Smith|Doorstop Books is a member of Inpress,

www.inpressbooks.co.uk. Distributed by NBN International, Airport Business Centre, 10 Thornbury Road Plymouth PL 6 7PP.

The Poetry Business gratefully acknowledges the help of Arts Council England.

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Contents

Introduction by Yvonne Green

Chronology of historical events during Lipkin’s life

Literal Translations by:

Poems After Semyon Izrailevich Lipkin

Charred

To Inna

Anthem

Moses

Mikhael

The Cossack Wife

Stopped

Moldavian is a Language

On a Blue Vase

Path

Nest

Handwriting on the Eastern Book

Dead Friend of My Own Age

Moses Speaks About Torah

Verlaine

Souls Naked of Flesh

The Covenant

Road

Ye of Little Faith

Bliss

In Limbo

The Descent

Neither War nor its Sentries Relented

Winter Sunset at the Diner

Funeral

The Silent

The Rose of Yerevan

The Cossack Mother

The Kalmyk Steppe

In the Tian Shan

Reflections in Sarajevo

When I was Putting Letters Together into Words

By the Sea

Appendix

Translation from Lipkin's Journals by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler

Extract from Robert Chandler's Introduction to Vasily Grossman's The Road (2010 Maclehose Press) in which Robert Chandler details the part Lipkin played in preserving Grossman's Life and Fate for publication.

Bibliography of Lipkin’s Work

Notes

To Inna, Lena and Sergei

Introduction by Yvonne Green

I read Inna Lisnianskaya’s poetry in the translation Far From Sodom (Daniel Weissbort, Arc Publications, 2005) and loved its perception, in particular the glimpses of her late husband, Semyon Lipkin's, insight.

Only a handful of Lipkin’s poems had been translated, so by audio taping Russian friends reading them, and using literal translations obtained word by word, line by line and by examining the evident patchwork of rhyme visible on the page and with the help of a phonetic copy of the Cyrillic alphabet I began my search to understand Lipkin’s poems, and bring them to an English reader.

The project has taken six years. I’m indebted to many people along the road. I’d like to start by thanking Fiona Sampson, editor of Poetry Review, for publishing my first efforts, which proved a great encouragement.

Lipkin’s work was informed by three sources, his personal experience of war (he served at Leningrad), his friend Vasily Grossman’s reports of Treblinka, and his encyclopedic knowledge of the languages and history of Central Asia. He translated from Buriat, Dagestani, Farsi, Kalmyk, Kabardian, Kirghiz, Tatar, Tadjik and Uzbek.

Lipkin preserved cultures that Sovietisation undermined by translating their poetry into Russian. These included versions of the Kalmyk epic Dzhangar (1940), the Kirghiz epic Manas (1941), the Kabardian epic Narty (1951),