Anita Staniszewska

on translating Kazimierz Staszewski

For my first proper venture into translation, I decided to tackle the simple yet powerfully evocative lyrics of a classic Polish protest song highlighting the tragedy of the Berlin Wall.

The strictness of English word order, compared to that of Polish, proved to be a challenge; multiple verses in the original song rely on the large freedom in sentence arrangement to create and call attention to rhyme and repetition. In the translation, I had to resort to adding verbs that were absent from the original text (stand, fall, call) as padding to preserve the chant-like cadence through consistent syllable counts and loose rhyme. By forgoing the grammatically appropriate “the” in the final stanzas, I hoped to further the intended harshness and contrast conveyed in the text. Where Polish relays this naturally through sharp sounds, English sounds much softer; thus, this choice adds a jagged edge to the verses, bringing to mind a slowed-down military march rhythm. Additionally, the word “worlds” in the verse “I observe both worlds” literally translates to “sides,” but this direct equivalent does not convey the stark contrast implied by the sharp consonants of the word “strony” as well as the preceding text. So I elected to highlight disparity in a semantic way, with the word “worlds,” to compensate. Similarly, “podzielony” simply means “divided,” but I chose to translate this word as “splintered” to convey the cultural context of the text. In Poland, we grew up listening to our grandparents talk about how different the West is compared to the world behind the Iron Curtain. To us, this divide was very real, its context obvious, as we know its profound impact from countless stories. To the English-speaking world, however, the division is a thing of history books and politics, not of personal struggle or tragedy — by using “splintered” instead of “divided,” I call attention to how blatantly invasive and artificial that divide really is, and how damaging it could be to an individual on a daily basis.