Фашистский режим Муссолини (правивший в Италии), в годы второй мировой войны, послал более трехсот тысяч итальянских солдат, чтобы помочь Гитлеру завоевать Россию. Эти итальянские силы были примерно эквивалентны итальянским войскам, вторгшимся в Абиссинию, но судьба итальянских солдат была иной, потому что большинство из них было уничтожено и погибло в заснеженных степях России, и очень немногие из них смогли выжить, сдавшись в плен.
Mussolini’s fascist regime (ruled in Italy) arrogantly sent more than three hundred thousand Italian soldiers to help Hitler conquer Russia. These Italian forces were approximately equivalent to the Italian forces invading to Abyssinia, but the fate of the Italian soldiers was different, because most of them were destroyed in the snowy steppes of Russia, and very few of them were able to survive surrendering prisoner. These Italian armies really disappeared.
Стихотворение Михаила Светлова (1903-1964) «Итальянец» на русском языке и в трех переводах на английский язык.
Итальянец
Черный крест на груди итальянца,
Ни резьбы, ни узора, ни глянца, —
Небогатым семейством хранимый
И единственным сыном носимый…
Молодой уроженец Неаполя!
Что оставил в России ты на поле?
Почему ты не мог быть счастливым
Над родным знаменитым заливом?
Я, убивший тебя под Моздоком,
Так мечтал о вулкане далеком!
Как я грезил на волжском приволье
Хоть разок прокатиться в гондоле!
Но ведь я не пришел с пистолетом
Отнимать итальянское лето,
Но ведь пули мои не свистели
Над священной землей Рафаэля!
Здесь я выстрелил! Здесь, где родился,
Где собой и друзьями гордился,
Где былины о наших народах
Никогда не звучат в переводах.
Разве среднего Дона излучина
Иностранным ученым изучена?
Нашу землю — Россию, Расею —
Разве ты распахал и засеял?
Нет! Тебя привезли в эшелоне
Для захвата далеких колоний,
Чтобы крест из ларца из фамильного
Вырастал до размеров могильного…
Я не дам свою родину вывезти
За простор чужеземных морей!
Я стреляю — и нет справедливости
Справедливее пули моей!
Никогда ты здесь не жил и не был!..
Но разбросано в снежных полях
Итальянское синее небо,
Застекленное в мертвых глазах…
1943 г
Михаил Светлов
The Italian
There was a black cross on the Italian’s breast,
A plain, unpatterned thing,
As befits a modest family
And worn by its only son…
Young Neapolitan, what did you
Leave on this Russian battlefield!?
Why could you not be happy with
Your own famed bay of Naples?
I, who killed you near Mozdok,
Have often thought of that far volcano!
In these wide-open Volga spaces, how
I dreamt of taking a gondola!
But, then, I did not come with a pistol
To steal your Italian summer.
And my bullets did not whistle
Over the sacred land of Raphael!
It was here I fought. Here, my birthplace,
Where I took a pride in myself and my friends,
Where the homely tales of our peoples
Have never been translated into foreign tongues.
Was the winding course of the middle Don
Ever studied by a foreign scholar?
Our land-Russia, Mother Russia
Have you plowed there, have you sowed?
No! They brought you here in a troop train
To usurp these distant lands,
So your family cross might be planted
And grow to the size of a grave…
I shall not let my country
Be taken over foreign seas!
I fire my gun-there’s no justice
Juster than my bullet!
You never lived here or visited us!…
But thrown upon snowy fields,
In your dead eyes is glazed
The blue skies of Italy.
1943 Mikhail Svetlov
Translated by Daniel Weissbort
The Italian
Black cross on the Italian’s bosom,
With no chasing, or pattern, or gloss on,
By poor family handed down,
Heirloom worn by the only son.
Young and carefree native of Napoli,
Why come here to die so unhappily?
What strange restlessness drove you away
From the shores of that famous bay?
I, who killed you out here on the plain, oh
How I dreamed of a distant volcano!
How I yearned, by the banks of the Volga,
For one trip on the bay in a gondola!
I didn’t come to rob with violence,
Steal their sky away from the Italians!
No lead flew from the gun in my hand
Over Raphael’s holy land!
I fired here, on my own home ground,
Justly proud of myself and my friends!
Here, where legends about our nation
Are not handed down in translation.
Did some foreigner, man of learning,
Map the Don with its twistings and turnings?
What did you plough and what did you sow
Here in Russia-“Non sono Ruso!”
No! You came in a railway carriage,
Sent to colonise, plunder and pillage,
That the cross your family prized
Might grow up to gravestone size…
I’m not having my country, my own land,
Shipped to somebody else’s homeland!
So I shoot-and no justice is higher
Than the pistol bullet I fire!
No, you never lived here by right!
But all over the steppe so white —
Glazed the blue of Italian skies
In the stare of those dead men’s eyes…
Mikhail Svetlov
Translated by Alex Miller
The Italian Cross
There was a black cross on his chest
No engraving, no design, no patina:
A treasured heirloom charm
Bequeathed to this alien Italian.
My Neapolitan boy what will be left
Of you here on the Russian fields?
Were you not happy enough
On that magnificent bay?
I shot you dead near Mozdok
As you dreamt of distant Vesuvius!
As I dreamed of the Volga flowing free!
Perhaps we could have shared a gondola!
Mind you, I did not come with a gun
To ruin an Italian Summer:
My bullets didn’t whine
Above the sacred land of Raphael.
Here I killed you! But we were both born
Where there is friendship and pride
Where there are epics and sagas
That defy translation. But I ask you:
Are the meanders of the River Don
Much studied by overseas geographers?
Has our ancient homeland Russia
Been ploughed and sown by outsiders?
No! But you were armed and marshalled
To seize and dispossess distant lands —
That cross of yours from your ancestral home
Destined to overshadow your grave.
I will not let you take my country
And enslave it from foreign shores!
I’ll shoot — it is not a matter of justice
Ultimately just a matter of bullets.
You have never had the right to be here!
But glistening in these snowy fields
Your eyes tell of Italy’s blue skies
As they glaze and their light fades.
Mikhail Svetlov
Translated by Keith Johnson
