Alexander Tvardovsky
I was killed outside Rzhev...

I was killed outside Rzhev
In a foul, nameless marsh.
In a left-flank attack
When the fighting was harsh.

I could hear no explosion.
See no bright flash of light;
As if into a chasm
I just vanished from sight.

And this wide world all over,
Till it comes to its end,
Not a shred of my tunic,
Not a button will be found.

I am where the blind rootlets
Wriggle thirstily down,
Where the rye and the dust cloud
Sway upon the high ground.

Where the cock-crow at morning
Is heard over the dew,
Where the air’s torn asunder
As your lorries roar through.

Where the stream twines the grasses,
One green blade with another,
Where no one pays remembrance,
No, not even a mother...

Tell me, you that are living,
If it’s such a long time
Since the word “Stalingrad”
Was first heard in the line.

Like a weal on the body,
The front endlessly flamed.
I was killed, never knowing —
Was Rzhev ours in the end?

By the Don’s middle reaches
Did our forces stand fast?..
Oh, that month was such anguish,
For the die had been cast.

Can it be that by autumn
Fritz crossed over the Don,
And from there towards the Volga
His divisions rolled on?

No, it can’t be! The Germans
Never made it out there!
Such a thought’s too much, even
For a dead man to bear!

We have one consolation,
Who shall not rise again:
Though we died for our country,
We did not die in vain.

Yes, our eyes have lost lustre
And our hearts have lost fire.
And our names don’t get called out
On parade any more.

Not for us is the medal
Or the battle decoration —
They are meant for the living.
We have one consolation:

Not in vain for our homeland
Did we grapple with the foe;
Though our voices are silent.
That you surely must know.

It was your duty, brothers,
To stand firm as a wall,
For the curses of dead men
Are the direst of all.

Yes, that terrible right
Is our burden forever,
We can never renounce it,
That most terrible right.

In the summer, Forty-Two,
By the earth I was swallowed,
To be cheated by death
Of the fighting that followed;

Of what’s now common knowledge
And quite obvious to you.
We must hope all that happened
Was our dreams coming true.

Maybe you didn’t only
Lose the Don after all.
In the rear, east of Moscow,
Being fated to fall.

Far beyond the great Volga
You dug trenches anew,
Then, still fighting, towards
Asia And its borders withdrew.

We need only the knowledge,
To be doubted no more,
That you held the last inch
On the highroad of war.

The last inch, the last fraction
Where,' when someone’s retreating.
If it’s once been abandoned,
Then there’s simply no footing.

Where the thundering forges
Of the Urals, night and day,
Looming up just behind you.
Shot their flames at the sky.

That you halted the Germans,
Drove them back to the West.
Could it be that Smolensk
Was recaptured at last?

That you’re smashing their armies
Somewhere farther out there.
It may be, you’re already
Nearly at tire frontier!

It may be... Just remember
To be true to your word,
For near Moscow the name
Of Berlin was first heard.

Brothers, you, the destroyers
Of the enemy keep,
If the fallen in battle
Were but able to weep!

If the victory salvoes
Could arouse us again
Who must dwell in Death’s glory,
Death’s eternal domain.

Only then, trusty comrades,
Only then, not before,
Would you taste the full measure
Of real joy in this war.

Of that joy, without question,
Ours was truly a part —
Our belief, hatred, passion
That death quickly cut short.

Yes, our all! In obeying
The harsh dictates of war,
We dead gave till we had
Nothing left any more.

To your names now, forever,
The account’s been transferred.
No reproach in the voices
That you think you have heard!

Of distinctions between us
We were never aware.
For the dead and the living
Were as one in this war.

And not one of the living
Is in debt to the dead.
If he snatched the flag from us
And went forging ahead.

For a cause that was sacred,
For our Soviet power,
Going down seconds later
Not to rise any more.

I was killed outside Rzhev,
But near Moscow he fell.
What’s become of you soldiers
Still alive and still well?

Among vast city millions?
In some quiet country home?
Are you stationed in barracks
In a land not your own?

Whether native or foreign,
Land of flowers or of snow,
I enjoin you to live —
That is all I can do.

This is what I enjoin you:
To be happy on earth,
And to serve with due honour
The fair land of your birth.

If you grieve, then grieve proudly
With your heads held up high,
And rejoice without boasting
On that victory day.

You must cherish your homeland
Where your happiness lies,
For your brother who made
The supreme sacrifice.

Translated by Alex Miller