Victor P. Sklyarov, an Inspired Russian Translator and Poet

Here is a heart warming story that came upon us from one of our new friends in Russia.

Victor P. Sklyarov is a 50 year old Russian freelance translator who submitted his very first attempt of "English versification...an impossibly exact translation of a 19th century Fyodor Tyutchev Russian verse without heading, retaining sense, number of syllables, accentuation and rhyming".

Victor had "been vainly trying to translate it for over ten years and was in shock" when he finally made it.

Since we could not accept the translation for our VoicesNet Anthology poetry contest, we notified Victor and encouraged him to keep submitting his own work.

Well, it turns out that Victor had not written his own poetry in English ever and had last written poetry in Russian in 1971.

Well, it appears that we have triggered something in Victor, because he has started writing his very own personal collection of poetry in English and has provided us with many of these new writings and we would like to share some of them with you.

We also want you to read about Victor's background in Russia, once part of the former Soviet Union, and see how he traversed his life to get to where he is now.

I think that you will find Victor to be a very intelligent and interesting writer and his verse will stimulate your imagination and intellect. Victor is the kind of writer who makes you feel smarter after you read his work because you are actually able to gain something from it.

Victor writes:

The English language was my love since school. I was fascinated by the diversity of meanings that may be implied in one phrase. I discovered it reading Translator's Notebooks - a brilliant Russian periodical with poetry and prose translations criticism. School was quite a chore to me and instead of making lessons, I read books only slightly related to subjects studied: Dostoyevskiy, Shakespeare (in Russian translation - it was next to impossible to find his works in English at that time), books on the theory of relativity, history, etc. And, of course, I wrote poems in Russian. Later I burnt them all. Once I rhymed my composition. It was then that I made my first translation - Hamlet's soliloquy. The text was published in Translator's Notebooks alongside with several translations and comments. It was extremely instructive practice and motivating too. There I also read the article entitled "Shakespeare's un-translated sonnet" with at least three variants of translation, all commented as inadequate ("My mistress eyes…").

Then I entered Krasnodar University. There were no boring subjects there. Even CPSU history was interesting. The lecturers urged us to read initial documents and not the textbook, though incomplete and sometimes corrected, the documents revealed party history as a ceaseless chain of treacheries. Marxist philosophy was just negative polemics with opponents and I concentrated on the latter. Here in province it was possible to discuss anything, to express any doubts even at seminars and exams. All forbidden literature circulated easily. Books published abroad started to appear in second hand bookstores somewhere in mid 1970 and a great number of pre-revolution editions appeared. I could afford buying new books almost every day on my student's maintenance allowance. Frankly speaking, we couldn't understand dissidents - why shout what everybody knows?

Every year we were sent to the collective farm to gather grapes for about a month. This inevitable gavel work annoyed me most of all in our socialism. Same as senseless meetings, but these were happy days. I read books on theory of information and principles of self-organization and I experimented in yoga and telepathy. It was then that I understood why most experiments in telepathy failed. They bear no information and information is essential for the receiver. This is a condition precedent. If it is not essential - it is not perceived. The same is true with poetry and prose perception. There must not be a unison, but an enhancing.

If you enjoy a poem you wish to share it with other people and you start to translate. Here lies the problem: you must preserve the same rhythm, the same number of syllables, not loose any of ideas and images, and above all preserve natural language. In English to Russian translations the worst enemy is the length of words. They are much shorter in English. You either have to change the number of syllables but the melody would differ then, you could omit or add some images but this changes the impact. The secret of the poem's perception lies in the integrity of the rhythm, melody, images and that which may by called the sub-drive (feeling enhancer). This is a heartening of feeling and then - a kind of stepping aside. Then the thing that resonates inside is released and enhanced by some outer harmony.

"I have loved you. Perhaps the love's still hiding

Within the corners of my heart and soul

But do not think it would be disobliging,

Afflicting on my side you'll never know.

I have loved you, so silently, despairingly

Timidity and jealousy perused

I have loved you so tenderly, sincerely

As God bless you be loved by man you choose."

I translated these Pushkin's lines only recently when I suddenly remembered Byron's line that was an epigraph to one of Puskin's verses (And I have loved thee ocean..). At that time, I thought it was impossible to translate adequately from Russian.

After I graduated and escaped from schoolteacher work in Kalmykia (where pupils asked why I didn't beat them for their behavior) I learned what joblessness is. My work record card showed higher education and I was unable to become a worker - nobody wished to hire me. I was unable to become a specialist - I did not have permission from the Ministry of education. I moved to Novorossiysk and half year later I managed to become a customs officer. Every three years I changed jobs circulating between customs and higher marine school. My best 3 years were spent in a small self-supporting group headed by my father in law (ex-commercial director of a shipping company, now deceased). We were preparing weeklies and monthly reports for Russian major oil steamship companies. Often the material was at our own choice. I made digests of Admiralty law cases, translated charter-parties, etc. We were granted permission to read foreign newspapers and magazines such as Lloyd's List, Fairplay, Lloyd's Law Reports. That was the time when Brezhnev died. Then I made several translations: My mistress eyes…, Kipling's Pict Song, some small poems of Ogden Nash.

There were no computers, no internet, we could only dream about Encyclopedia Britannica and free access to foreign books (though I had pretty big library), but these were the only things we were missing. I got acquainted with the beauty of the English law, its irresistible logics and fairness. Those who live in its jurisdiction are unable to notice it. Grand things are visible at a distance. Our work was needful but financing was cut-off. Then the third Russian revolution occurred. Communist leaders divided national property between themselves, some remained communists, some proclaimed themselves anticommunists, few became presidents, but each had a share of property. The mimicry was called democracy. But can the leopard change his spots? Those who, like me, were not party members or did not belong to party hierarchy gained nothing.

Down with democracy

That's just autocracy

Of the chrysocracy

Of self-chosen peers…

Cheers!

The time for swindlers came to Russia. My knowledge and experience was required, but I didn't profit from it. I created several maritime and forwarding agencies for those with initial capital together with my wife. Later, we divorced retaining good relations. My wife now has her own shipping agency where she works with my daughter. I secluded myself from society doing any work that people brought to me at my home. I wrote test papers, projects and diploma papers in a number of disciplines, made translations for private persons and for companies. About a year ago I had telephone installed and obtained an Internet connection. I have Britannica and Encarta now …

Soleness is what we seek when we are young.
Loneliness is what we get when we're old.
Most dreams when implemented seem like dung
That's what Ecclesiast for us foretold.

In moments of despair I started to make new translations and even sent them to Jeff Humphrey
Founder, Contest Director, Executive Editor of The Voices Network and he advised me to start writing my own poems in English.

We are not destined to embrace

The way our word percepted is

And understanding, like God's Grace,

Depends on Heaven we're beneath

(F.Tyutchev)

That's it in short.

Selected poetry of Victor P. Sklyarov

Russified Hamlet by Victor Sklyarov

I overlived my time, but was it really mine,
Time stolen from the country less than an age ago?
Oh, brave new world! Big Brother's watching us
Writhing in slime, in hunger and in pains.
We're robbed again and spat in our face.
The cycle's over. End has come to time.
Pigs just like men, Swift's yahooes, Bosch's visions -
All in one place. Their name is Legion.
They torture us. The pressure's reached the crest
I'm wasteable. But what about the rest?

The rest is silence: I'm afraid eternal.

Don Quixote by Victor Sklyarov

I'm looking forward to the greatest of all loves
I do not see it yet, but I feel its approach
Despite my age, my health and previous vows,
A knight without fear and reproach.

I am not new - were many men before
Worthy the title "knight" by deeds and not by birth
My deeds are only words or statements or
Just position in the situations worth

Career only, or money, few times - life
But that's what counts is a readiness to loose
All that you have and risk a dive
Into a stream and not peruse

The chances to survive just as you see the threat
To the insulted and humiliated people.
Injustice stream is turbulent and dread.
It's difficult to swim crosscurrent ripple.

I am exhausted and the scores aren't even
Eternal battle can't be won but I don't care
I don' expect reward I could be given
I have got used to snobbery and sneer.

But what I hope without any reason
Before I'm hanged for some invented treason:
The Lady of my dreams despite all lies
Would glance at me with loving eyes.

Victor Sklyarov© 2004

Voco vivi by Victor Sklyarov

In the vast desert I am calling for alive
Not to instruct, to preach, or to oblige
But just to talk, to see I'm not the last
Of living souls of the past;
To see the reasons those derive
The nation's dumbness. But, alas!
I see just zombies. I can't grasp
Why this is happening. The die is cast.
The current won't turn awry,
Ressentiment won't either. Should I strive
For something vague, or should I die?
My time has ended century ago, but why
I'm sill alive stuck in the loop of Time?

Victor Sklyarov © 2004

In This Issue:

1. Intro Page
   
   
2. Russian Poet Victor Sklyarov
   
   
3. VoicesNet Anthology 6 Winners
   

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