Poems of Pushkin in Sinhala

Professor Sunanda Mahendra

POETRY: Though the Great Russian writer Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is known to the Sinhala reader as a novelist and a short story writer, his poems have never been compiled, perhaps methodically, by any translator.

The translator of quite a number of poems from many lands especially from Afro Asian countries is W.A. Abeysinghe, who has taken the task of compiling one volume of Pushkin’s poems (Ahikuntikayo Saha Venat Kavi, Sarada 2006) this contains one full length dramatic poem or a tale told in verse form and a number of small poems.

On reading the long poem I felt it is touching narrative of the gypsy life as observed by Pushkin on his roamings in the distant places of Russia. In a note added to the translation the translator Abeysinghe states that this narrative poem had been written in 1824 and that it had created a certain degree of stir and turmoil when it was distributed among a few readers in an unusual form of publication.

The poet, through this work, makes an attempt to show the state of the human dignity in love and romance despite social differences. The central experience revolves round an old gypsy man, a very young woman who comes with a stranger and experiences the lifestyle of a wandering pattern, but culminates in a tragedy, where the normal pattern is disturbed to the point that there will never be any calmed behaviour pattern.

The work is constructed in a folk play cum ballad type of an alternative narrative form where the reader finds gradually the pages filled with moment to moment suspense tinged with human interest.

Creative process

The rest of the translations are mostly mini poems where the subjects range from personal observations on nature with its beauty and changes in climatic conditions to thematic expressions on aspects of human love relations and conditions of isolation and reminiscences of the past with an under layer of pathos.

Abeysinghe, as the translator, adds colour to each of these pieces via a small supplementary note indicating the creative process which presumably guides the reader to know more about the works of Pushkin. In this mini poems one observes that much more than complex experiences there is an over-pervading sense of lyrical beauty akin to the folk nuances.

Through the poems one sees the man and the nature as one inseparable entity. Take for example a poem like ‘Ratriya’[The Night], where the persona of the poem is an isolated one with lovelorn feelings and a lighted candle gradually burning down and he recreates with sensitivity how the night passes by undisturbed.

Similarly a visit to a prison cell is recalled in the poem titled Sirakaraya [The Prisoner]. Here the poet tries to creep himself into the sufferings of others, as if he is experiencing the same.

One of the most sensitive and meaningful poems in this collection is titled ‘Antiyar’ a poisoned tree about which the poet recalls a legend encircled, where one man sends a slave to go in search of this poisonous tree.

The finder of the tree having exposed to the tree kills himself but brings alone with him a branch with its gum. The poisonous tree is symbolic of the poisonous beings that could bring disaster.

The two poems: the one addressed to his maid servant [Mage Ayamma], and the other addressed to his future wife (Premayachanaya) though simple in expression bear a serious level of human relationship anticipated in family circles.

The collection of poems is illustrated by Vijayasiri Amaratunga which adds a bit of colour to the publication.

Literary discussions

Undoubtedly these poems, if discussed seriously at various levels of literary discussion, will help the student of literature know more about aspects of productive creative communication. Pushkin is regarded as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of Russian literature.

He spent his adult life in exile or under police surveillance mainly due to his outspokenness on state politics.

But Pushkin, it is said, was bold and honest in his manners of expressions on social matters anticipating a better state of living for human and in this direction he made use of his creative expressions as a weapon exposing himself to the human narrative forms deriving influence from folk culture of the people.

This was just one side of Pushkin, who came from a poor but noble family. He was also a creator influenced by the classics especially from France and a scholar in such works of Anacreon Parny and Voltaire and later Byron was his main source of inspiration.

According to Russian sources, his first poetic work had appeared when he was fifteen years old. He was twice exiled for his views once in 1820, and again in 1824. Fortunately however, he was freed by Nicholas I, from the ordinary censorship to be a censor himself.

He was killed in a duel with a French nobleman whom he suspected of being the lover of his wife. Prior to some of these events of his actual life, Pushkin is said to have had the faintest doubt about most things that will befall him and they are mostly recorded in his collection of tales, titled as tales from Ivan Belkin.

Some of these stories are translated into Sinhala from time to time, but they are not methodically collected by any publisher, and it is high time the translator Abeysinghe take this task seriously followed by the present contribution.

Apart from the mission of Abeysinhge in the attempt to compile for the first time a collection of poems by Pushkin, the credit should also go to three Sinhala translators of Pushkin in the past; they are Ven. Udukandavala Saranakra Thera for his pioneer translation of The Captain’s Daughter (written by the author in 1836), Dr. K.G. Karunatilaka for his translation of the well-known long short story titled The Queen of Spades (1834) and Cyril C. Perera for the translation of the same in another collection of short stories.

With the advent of the scholars of Russian language, once more the well-known work, The Captain’s Daughter was translated from Russian to Sinhala by Dadigama Rodrigo. The scholar journalist Regi Siriwardhana also undertook to translate some of Pushkin’s poetry from Russian to English.

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