Kobzar by Taras Shevchenko

Author:Taras Shevchenko
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Glagoslav Publications
Published: 2013-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Had you studied as you should,

Your wisdom would be yours.

Instead you reach for heaven:

“We are not we, and I not I,

I’ve seen it all, I know it all,

There’s neither hell, nor Paradise,

There is no God, just I!

And the short and clumsy German,

Nothing more!” — “Okay, brother,

Who are you?”

“Let the

German say. We don’t know.”

That is how you study in a foreign land!

The German 247 says, “You’re Mongols.”

“Mongols! Mongols!”

Naked grandkids

Of the golden Tamerlane. 248

The German says, “You’re Slavs.”

“Slavs! Slavs!”

The worthless great-grandchildren

Of glorious great-grandfathers.

You’ve read with all your might Kollar, 249

Hanka 250 and Safarik, 251

And you’re keen

To join the Slavophiles… 252

All languages of Slavic peoples —

All of them you know. And your own,

No way… We too someday will

Speak our language,

If the German shows us how,

On top of which he will relate

Our history as well, —

That’s when we’ll get into it!..

You’ve gotten into it

Through German guidance

And spoken in a way

The German, a great teacher,

Does not fathom,

To say nothing of the simple folk.

So much uproar! So much shouting!

“It 253 has harmony, and power,

It’s music, say no more.

And history!.. it’s the poem

Of a people and their liberty!

What of those needy Romans!

What the hell — not Brutuses!

We have our Brutuses! 254 And Cocleses! 255

Glorious, not forgotten!

Freedom grew in our dear land,

It was bathed by Dnipro waters,

Its head rested on the mountains,

And its blanket was the steppe!”

It was bathed in blood,

It slept on piles,

On the corpses of free Kozaks,

Corpses that were robbed!

Just look closer,

Read the glory once again.

Read word for word,

Change not a title,

So much less a comma.

Comprehend it all… then ask yourselves:

What are we?..

Whose sons? Whose parents?

By whom? Why the shackles?..

And then you’ll see your glorious Brutuses

For who they really are:

Slaves, footstools, Moscow’s mud,

And Warsaw’s trash — your lords,

Your most illustrious hetmans.

Why should you be boasting, you!

Sons of poor Ukraine!

That with a yoke you walk so well,

Even better than your parents walked.

Don’t boast, they’re whipping you,

And from them, at times, they boiled tallow.

Perhaps, you boast, the brotherhood

Preserved the faith.

That it boiled dumplings

In Trapezond and Sinope. 256

True!.. It’s true they ate their fill.

And now you’re indisposed.

And on the Sich the canny German 257

Plants potatoes

That you buy from him.

You eat them in good health

And give praise to Zaporizhia.

But whose blood was used

To water soil that those

Potatoes grow in —

You’re indifferent. Just so they’re

Good for one’s own garden!

And you boast

That we once toppled Poland!..

You’re right: Poland fell,

And crushed you too! 258

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