The Same Night Awaits Us All
Page 26
p. 36
Du lieber Augustin: From the song “Ach du lieber Augustin,” whose lyrics “Everything is gone!” tell of the desperation of the Austrian people in the late seventeenth-century, as they feared they would be besieged by the Turks.
p. 49
Vor! Vor! Pomogite!: From the Russian, “Вор! Вор! Помогите” meaning “Thief! Thief! Help!”
p. 50
Molodets!: From the Russian, “Молодец!” meaning “Brave man!”
p. 51
Lalyo Marinov: Real name of the Bulgarian poet and writer who went by the pseudonym Lamar. He became close to Geo Milev, and published his own magazine Novis, but unlike Milev or Sheytanov did not succumb to the government and lived until 1974.
p. 52
La Ruche: An experimental school founded in Rambouillet in 1904 by teacher and anarchist Sébastien Faure. At certain times, the school would have up to forty children from low-income families, as well as orphans. La Ruche’s mission had been to develop libertarian and independent principles within children, to eradicate the feeling of class division: all children were treated equally. This educational experiment ended in the winter of 1917, however, when the school was shut down due to its inability to sustain itself economically.
p. 53
Peter Kropotkin: Russian philosopher, writer, and prominent anarchist advocating against capitalism, feudalism, and what he argued were the inefficiencies of a central government.
p. 55
It snowed from New Year’s until after Christmas: Until the 1950s, Bulgaria used the Russian Orthodox calendar, and Christmas fell on January 7th.
p. 62
Atanas Damyanov: Damyanov (1876–1953) held the biggest printing monopoly in Bulgaria—United Printers for Publishing and Graphic Arts. He was the sole and enduring shareholder of the controlling interest of the company and the newspapers under its umbrella: Utro (Morning), Zarya (Fireworks), Dnevnik (Journal), and Ilustrovana Sedmitsa (Illustrated Week), Nedelno Utro (Sunday Morning) and Kukurigu (Cock-a-doodle-do).
p. 67
The Third Rome: The story of the “Third Rome” (“the second Constantinople”) started in fourteenth century Bulgaria, under the reign of Tsar Ivan Alexander. He aimed to raise the prestige of his land and capital, introducing the name Tsarevgrad Tarnov (in comparison to the Slavic name of Constantinople—Tsarigrad), which was later supported by the words of Patriarch Callistus I of Constantinople in that “Trnovo is the capital of the Bulgarians and second both in words and deeds after Constantinople.”
p. 68
Karl Radek: It is said that Radek was keen on telling political anecdotes and double entendres. One such went as follows: “They told Stalin that Radek was telling jokes about him. Stalin became furious and called for him in the Kremlin. Radek walks in and says, ‘My, what nice living quarters you have, Comrade Stalin!’ Stalin responds: ‘Soon, every Soviet man and woman will be living in something just like this!’ Radek responds, ‘Let’s get something straight, Comrade Stalin, I’m the one who tells the jokes!’”
p. 70
Jukums Vācietis: Vācietis (1873–1938) was a lieutenant in the Russian Imperial Army, who quickly rose up the ranks of the Russian armed forces following the October Revolution. During the war, he was heavily wounded near Warsaw, but in January 1918, he squashed the uprising led by the Polish Corps of General Józef Dowbor-Muśnicki. By April 1918, he was already commanding the Latvian Riflemen. This same regiment is responsible for chasing away the anarchists, and in July he drowned the Socialist Revolutionaries, the SRs, in blood and mutiny.
p. 74
Alexander Blok: Blok (1880–1921) wrote “A Girl Sang in the Church Choir” (1905) to commemorate the mass shootings of the Saint Petersburg workers during their peaceful march toward the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II. (This happened in January of 1905 and is known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre.) According to another interpretation, the poem is a sad commemoration of the Battle of Tsushima (May 1905), and the Russian squadron that fell to Japan in the war.
p. 95
Hristo Botev: Hristo Botev (1848-1876) was a brilliant Bulgarian poet and revolutionary, widely considered a national hero. He was killed having not yet reached 30 years of age, as a vaivode of 200 rebels fighting to liberate Bulgaria from Ottoman Rule. Two years after his death, Bulgaria was finally freed from 500 years of enslavement. His words, “He who falls in battle for freedom lives forever,” are eternally engraved in the Bulgarian consciousness like a battle cry.
p. 124
Geo Milev, “September,” 1924; Translated from the Bulgarian by Peter Tempest, 1961
p. 138
Dimcho Debelyanov: Debelyanov (1887-1916) was a beloved Bulgarian poet and author whose premature death in the First World War cut off a promising literary career.
SEPTEMBER
by Geo Milev
1
From the dead womb of night
The age-old spite of the slave is born:
His passionate hate
Is great.
Where veils of mist are drawn.
From valleys in darkness
Before the dawn,
From all hills round,
From barren scrub,
From hungry ground,
From homes of mud,
From village,
Town,
Secluded courtyard,
Cot and cottage,
Siding, store,
Barn,
Farm,
Flourmill,
Loom,
Lathe:
By road and lane,
Past high
Scree, ravine, and boulder,
By ridge
And shoulder,
Through humming coppice
And autumn yellow-leaf forest,
Through stones
And water,
Swollen stream,
Meadow,
Orchard,
Vineyard,
Field,
Sheepfold,
Brambles,
Stubble burnt black,
Thorns
And sodden marshland track:
Ragged,
Muddy,
Hungry,
Haggard,
Toughened by toil untold,
Roughened by heat and cold,
Blunted,
Stunted,
Covered in grime,
Long-haired,
Feet bared,
Scarred,
Untutored,
Untamed,
Angry,
To madness
inflamed
—Bearing no roses,
No songs,
No music, no gongs,
No clarinet, sidedrum and drone,
No trumpet and horn, no trombone:
Shouldering bundles in tatters,
Gripping—not glittering sabres,
But common sticks,
Peasants with stakes,
Cudgels,
Goads,
Axes,
Choppers,
Pitchforks,
Hoes,
Scythes
And sunflowers
—Young and old—
Down from every direction behold
They came
—A blind herd
Of beasts let loose,
Numberless
Thundering bulls—
Calling,
Bawling
(Behind them a stoneblack sky)
Without order
Forward
They flew
Irrepressible,
Terrible,
Great:
THE PEOPLE!
2
Night dispersed as the hills
Glistened.
The sunf1owers
Turned to the Sun!
Slumbering dawn
Awoke
To the clatter of guns:
From the distant
Slopes
In leaden line
Mad
Bullets
Flew
With deadly whine.
The elephant jaws
Of cannon
Roared . . .
Fear it you must.
The sunflower stumbled in dust.
3
“The people’s voice
Is the voice of God.”
The people,
Pricked
By a thousand knives,
Dulled,
Degraded,
Poorer than beggars,
Deprived
Of brain
And nerve,
Arose
From the darkness and fear
Of their lives
—And wrote with their blood
FREEDOM!
Chapter One:
September.
—The people’s voice—
—The voice of God—
O God!
Grant strength to the sacred task
Of hands grown hard and dark from toil:
Infuse great courage in hearts, we ask,
In such turmoil:
For Thou wouldst wish no man a slave
And now — we vow by our own grave
That it is we shall resurrect
Man free on Earth
—So with a will
We face our death.
For beyond:
The Land of Canaan blooms,
The Land of Truth
Promised
To us—
Spring everlasting of living dreams . . .
We believe it! We know it! We wish it!
God be with us!
4
September! September!
O month of blood!
Of rising
And rout!
Muglizh was the first,
Chirpán,
Lorn,
Ferdinand,
Berkóvitsa,
Sarámbey,
Médkovets
(With Andrei the Priest)
—Villages, towns
From West to East.
5
The people arose
—Hand
On hammer,
Covered in soot, sparks and ashes
—Hand on sickle,
Numbed by the cold and humid soil,
Sons and daughters of toil,
Silently bearing it—
(Not geniuses.
Bright boys,
Zealots,
Debaters,
Demagogues,
Businessmen,
Aviators,
Pedants,
Authors,
Generals,
Proprietors
Of cafes and bars,
Bandsmen
And men of the Black Guards)
But
Peasants,
Workers,
Commonfolk,
Landless,
Illiterate,
Boors,
Hooligans,
Boars
—A rabble like cattle:
Thousands,
Masses,
The people:
Thousands of faiths
—One faith in the people’s cause,
Thousands of wills
—One will to obtain better laws,
Thousands of turbulent hearts
—In each heart a raging fire,
Thousands of toil-blackened hands
—In the reddening range of expanse
Eagerly raising on high
Red
Banners
Which spread
Far
And wide
Over a land in the grip o! alarm and revolt,
Ferocious fruit of the storm:
Thousands—
Masses—
The people.
6
Over the homely hills,
Their navels turned
To the sky
And eternal Sun,
Lightning
Flashed
—Thunder
Smote
Straight to the heart
The giant
Hundred-year
Oak.
Hill upon hill
Reflected the echo
Afar
Over peak and crest
To steep valleys,
In stone crannies
Where adders asleep
In coils rest
On hot couches,
To serpents’ caves
And dragon lairs
And witches’ hollow-tree haunts
—The echoes mixed
With the distant echo:
Echoes and rumble
Of waterfalls,
Torrents,
Gushing rivers,
Rushing,
Tumbling,
Thundering madly
To the abyss.
7
The tragedy begins!—
8
Those at the head
Fell in blood.
A barrage of lead
Met the rebel flood.
The flags fluttered
In shreds.
The mountain boomed . . .
There on high
The near and distant horizon
Darkened with lines
Of men
—In black rows
Growing:
The paid, trained soldiers
And snarling police—
Each one of them knowing:
“The Fatherland
Summons its sons!”
Exquisite:
But—what land is it?—
The ferocious bark
Of the guns . . .
Those at the head
Fell in blood.
Beyond the faraway
Hills
Artillery pealed.
Towns
And villages
Reeled.
Slopes,
Hollows,
Roads
Were strewn
With blood-soaked corpses.
Guards drew swords
And rode in pursuit
Of routed peasants
—Finished them, shot them
With shrapnel and mortar,
Fleeing in terror in every direction,
Hounded into their homes
And there, where the eaves hang low,
Felled to the ground at a blow
From blood-wet knives
To the shrieks
Of horrified mothers,
Children and wives . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
9
The army advanced.
Under the menacing clatter of shrapnel
Even the boldest
Flinched:
In despair
Bare hands were raised in the air.
Fear without glory
Froze on each face—
Eyes beyond suffering.
“Every man
Fend for himself!”
Now by all routes
Regiment follows on regiment
—Infantry,
Cavalry,
Cannon.
Drums
Beat the attack.
Panic
Soars higher
Over the torn
Red banners,
Wielding its whiplash of fire.
There
As dismay increased
Alone
Andrei
The Priest
To epic boldness
Inspired
Fired
Round after round
From the famous cannon—
At last:
With the shout of
“Death to Satan,”
In fury magnificent
Turned about
His cannon:
Dispatched
The final shot
Straight
—at the House of God
,
Where many a psalm he had rendered . . .
And then he surrendered,
“Hang the Red Priest on the spot!
“No cross! No grave! Let him rot!”
He was dragged to a telegraph pole.
Close by stood the hangman
And captain.
The rope
On the ground.
Under the bitter
Chill sky
The Balkans
Frowned.
The priest stood full height,
Massive figure of man,
All
Calm as granite—
No regret,
No remembrances—
Christ’s cross on his chest
And eyes fixed on the crest
Of the distant hills,
On the future . . .
“Butchers!
“You lower your cowardly eyes
“In the hour a man dies!
“But—one death—
“What does it mean?
“Amen!”
Tight-lipped
He spat.
Then rapidly slipped
Himself
The noose on his neck
And
Not glancing heavenward
—Hung—
With teeth gripping
Tongue:
Majestic.
Magnificent,
Matchless!
10
Autumn
Flew by
In wild havoc
Of wailing and gales and deep night.
The storm clouds seethed
On darkening hills
—Gloom and glitter
And crows’ croaking flight—
The Earth’s back
Sweated blood.
Every hovel and home
Shuddered in cowering fear.
Death rode here!
Loud as thunder
The din
Split the heavens asunder.
11
Then came
The worst horror.
Smitten in fury
The alarum bell struck at their hearts
—Struck, smote, rang . . .
Darkness dropped to the ground,
Cast a dense, dread blockade
All round.
Death
—The bloodthirsty witch
Lurking in eddies of mist—
Shrieked
As she reached
Out through the night: