Malika Kadyrova
on translating Sergei Yesenin
I tried to keep the tone if not light then at least uncomplicated. This was tricky for me; I must confess to a fondness for fluffy words. Russian grammar allows for relatively easy rhyming; I chose to forgo an attempt at Yesenin’s rhyming stanzas in favour of a more free structure that would hopefully convey the casual air of Yesenin’s language. Yesenin’s diction often takes on a colloquial character, and his imagery is bright and occasionally jarring. An example of this is the woman in “You Don’t Love Me,” who is flirty and untouchable and for whom he uses a phrase that has more echoes of a wolf baring its teeth than anything a human could do with their mouth. Despite the overall gentle tone of the poem, the narrator’s bitterness shows through his reserve, and for this reason I decided to leave the animalistic imagery.
about the author
Sergei Yesenin (Сергей А. Есенин, 1895–1925) was a Russian Imagist. Yesenin’s reputation as a “peasant prophet” stemmed from his rural upbringing and the fact that he was most inspired by village lifestyle and lore, later accentuated in his poetry by post-revolutionary melancholy. In the words of literary critic Yuri Prokushev, Yesenin’s imagery was “not obscured by religious symbols or vocabulary,” which made him endearing to a huge readership.
about the translator
Malika Kadyrova graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 with a major in comparative literature and minors in French and classical studies. She’s currently at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, wandering along the postgrad brick road in the direction of a career in simultaneous interpretation.
