During the early part of the nineteenth century, Russia was occupied
with the conquest of the Mohammedan mountaineers of the Caucasus who
defended themselves long and ably especially during the time when
Shamyl was in charge of their resistance. Pushkin glorified the Russian
victories. Lermontov and Count Leo Tolstoy took a personal part in the
conquest in behalf of the civilizing mission of Russia among the wild
and untutored mountaineers.
Count Yakov de Balmen, a friend of Shevchenko at this time, had entered
the Russian army and had been killed in the fighting in the Caucasus.
His death deeply affected Shevchenko and the latter wrote this poem
in which he expresses his sympathy with the mountaineers who were
struggling for their liberty and caustically comments on the blessings
of civilization which they could receive from Russia. The hitherto free
peoples would become as Ukraine, they would become ruined serfs, and
they would see only a travesty of the Christian religion and not its
essence.
The poem expresses again Shevchenko’s friendship with the foes of
Russian tyranny and his sincere admiration for all peoples who are
struggling for a real liberty. The loss of this, the loss of human
dignity, cannot be counterbalanced by the extension of the vices of
civilization and the creation of a sterile advanced culture.
+The Caucasus+
_Dedicated to my Yakov de Balmen_
_Oh that my head were tears, and mine eyes a fountain of waters,
that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my
People!_
--Jeremiah, 9, 1
High mountains on mountains with clouds e’er surrounded,
Illumined by sorrow, with blood ever watered.
On Prometheus an eagle
Feasts throughout the ages.
Every day it’s tearing, rending
Both his heart and body,
Rending but it ne’er drains fully
All his living blood,
For again he is revived
And again he’s smiling.
And our human spirit dies not
And our freedom dies not;
And the greedy man ploughs never
Fields beneath the ocean,
Does not bind the human spirit
And the living word,
Does not carry off the glory
Of Almighty God.
’Tis not for us to quarrel with Thee,
’Tis not for us to judge Thy deeds.
It is for us to keep on weeping
And mix each day our daily bread
With bloody sweat and bitter tears.
The hangmen jest and mock about us
And truth sleeps on in drunken sleep!
When will it awake to action?
When will God be weary
And lie down to slumber peaceful,
Give us leave to live?
We believe Thy strength and power
And Thy living spirit,--
Truth will rise! And so will freedom!
And to Thee, Almighty,
Every tongue will pray unceasing
Ever and for ever!
And meanwhile the streams are flowing,
Streams of blood are flowing.
High mountains on mountains, with clouds e’er surrounded
Illumined by sorrow, with blood ever watered.
From there we in our Mercy boundless
Have drawn our heartfelt liberty,
Unfed and naked as it was,
And tracked it down. It lies ’mid bones
Of men once mustered in the army.
And tears? And blood? Enough is shed
To give their fill to all the rulers,
And drown them with their sons and scions
In widow’s tears.... And those of maidens
Shed secretly the whole night long!
The hot and blazing tears of mothers.
The aged bloody tears of fathers!
Not rivers--seas have poured apace!
A sea of fire! Glory! Glory!
To dogs and hunters and to trainers
And to the tsars, our dearest fathers!
Glory!
Glory be to you, blue mountains,
Girded with your ice,
And to you, ye aged heroes
By God not forgotten!
Struggle on--and you will conquer!
God is helping you!
On your side is truth and glory
And the sacred freedom!
“The bread and hut--they are your own.
They were not begged, they were not given;
No one has seized them as their own,
No one has led you off in chains!
And we! But we are trained to write
And we can read the word of God,
But from the prison’s lowest cell
Unto the highest throne above
We’re all in gold--but naked too.
And knowledge! We all learn too well
The cost of bread, the price of salt.
And we are Christians,--churches, schools,
All good there is and God are ours!
But yet your hut allures our eyes!
Why does it stand in your domain
Without our sanction? Why do we
Not throw to you, if we so please,
Your bread as to a dog? You owe
To us the price for your clear sun!
And only that! We are not pagans,
But we are really Christians true--
We’re satisfied with little.... So,
If you would really be our friends,
You could learn much of many things!
We have a world and what is more--
Siberia that none can leave.
And prisons? People? Without end!
From the Moldavian to Finn
On every tongue there is a seal.
For--there is happiness!... With us
The holy monk the Bible reads
And teaches us to realize,
A tsar who once did pasture swine
And took another’s wife to him
And killed a friend--is now in heaven!
And so you see, what people we
Regard in heaven! You are dull
And not enlightened with the cross!
So learn from us!... Come join us now,
Pay us and so
To heaven go,
E’en though your family is destroyed!
Join us! What is there we don’t know!
We count the stars, we sow buckwheat,
We curse the French, and we can sell
Or lose at will, when we play cards,
Real people--they’re not negroes--no,
They’re Christians too--but ‘simple men.’
We are not Spaniards--Keep us, God,
From buying any stolen goods,
As do the Jews! We live ‘by law!’”
By the law of the apostle
Do you love your brothers?
Hypocrites and idle talkers,
Cursed by the Lord!
For you love your brother’s carcase,
Care not for his spirit!
And you rob him “by the law,”
For a coat for daughter,
For a dowry for a bastard,
For a wife’s new footwear,
For yourselves for many reasons
Wife and children know not.
For whom wast Thou crucified,
Christ, the Son of God?
For us good folk or the word
Of the truth? Perhaps ’tis so,
That we mock at Thee, forever?
Is that why it happened?
The churches, chapels, and the ikons,
The candles and the incense smoke,
The endless, ever endless bowings
Before Thy image in the church
For stealing, for a war, for blood--
They pray to shed a brother’s blood.
And then they bring Thee as a gift
A shirt they’ve stolen in the fire!
We’re enlightened. So we’re seeking
Others to enlighten.
To reveal the sun of justice
To the blinded children!
We will show all! Only let us
Take you in our power!
How to build and fill the prisons,
How to forge the fetters.
How to wear them, how to fashion
Narrow, useful lashes,--
We’ll teach all! But give us only
Your own high blue mountains.
That is all--the rest we’ve taken,
All the land and ocean!
* * * * *
They banished you cruelly, friend so beloved,
My Yakov so dear! But not for Ukraina
But for its harsh hangmen you had to pour out
Good blood, not the bad, and they forced you to drink
The poison of Moscow from Muscovite cup.
O friend, my good friend, whom I’ll never forget,
Come with your live soul to my dear Ukraina;
Fly with the brave Kozaks above its broad banks
And see on the steppe the old ruins of tombs,
And weep with the Kozaks their salt, bitter tears,
And look with me out on the steppes from a prison.
Meanwhile I will sow to aid you
All my verse and sorrow.
Let them grow until that moment
And speak with the breezes;
And the quiet wind from Ukraine
Will bear with the dewdrops
All my verses, bring them to you!
With a brother’s sorrow
You, my friend, will meet and greet them,
You will read them softly,
And the tombs and steppes and blue sea,
Yes, and me remember.