Читать книгу Catastroika - Charles Rammelkamp - Страница 14

The Decembrists

It was seventy years before I was even born,

but my uncle told me,

when I was a boy in Kiev,

about the aristocratic officers

who rebelled on Senate Square

in St. Petersburg, in December, 1825,

advocating for a constitution,

the end of serfdom, basic liberties.

The Tsar, Nicholas I, shut it down so fast

it was like dousing a candle in a pail of water.

The leaders were either exiled to Siberia

or executed as traitors,

but they became martyrs

for all future revolutionaries

dreaming of radical change.

As the poet, Prince Alexander Odoevsky, wrote:

Iz iskry vozgoritsa plamya –

“The spark will kindle a flame.”

Lenin’s magazine, iskra – spark –

took its name from the verse.

“Not that it did us much good,”

Uncle Lev added, meaning the Jews,

“but even a little less pressure

of the boot on our necks

is always welcome.”