Поместье Опальского было верстах в пятнадцати от деревушки Дубровина; часа через полтора он уже ехал лесом, в котором жил Опальский. Дорога была узкая и усеяна кочками и пнями...
...Молю небо, чтобы записки эти попали к такому же ЧЕЛОВЕКУ, как я, кЧЕЛОВЕКУ в том смысле, какой имее..
Выходишь на балкон - и весь поглощаешься мраком и молчанием. Черное небо, черная вода в заливе, черные горы...
... Its only forerunner was Charles Tomlinson's slim volume of 1960. This contained poems of great distinction by an eminent poet, but there was more of Tomlinson in them than Tyutchev. What is more, Frank Murtagh has translated more poems than any other author, several for the first time into English, including some of the much neglected political pieces. This book has been interestingly illustrated by Shaheen Razvi. Certain of the illustrations do not present the poems in the way in which some people might have visualised them, but they are nevertheless a bold break with the pretty-pretty presentation of anthological pieces hitherto dominant. All in all, I believe that Frank Murtagh's book is essential reading for students and other readers of Russian poetry and is to be warmly recommended.
R. Lane University of Durham, England February, 1983
FOREWORD TO THIS EDITION
Since R. Lane wrote his Foreword in 1983, only one edition of "quality" translations of Tyutchev has appeared till now, Anatoly Liberman's versions of 181 of the poems published in 1991. In calling them "quality" translations, I make a deliberate value judgement, for his is not the only edition of selected poems to have appeared. There are too many gaps in published Tyutchev scholarship for any one researcher to deal with. The present book is intended to be the first of several of various lengths and formats which I wish to produce as time allows and whose overall aim is to fill some of these gaps. I shall also continue to work at the translations of the poems. I am all too aware of the defects of several of my versions, although I hope they are at least accurately rendered, even if they do little justice to Tyutchev. Very little has been published in English about his personal letters. There has been no serious attempt to translate them in bulk, possibly because the task would be monumental...
