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With audio, Russian translation
Next Wednesday four years ago the Andijan massacre took place in Uzbekistan, where, by some accounts, hundreds of innocent people were killed during the anti-government uprising. Many independent journalists and authors, who wrote or expressed their opinions over the massacre, were persecuted or exiled. Here we bring the poetry of one of them, Kudrat Bobojon, who now lives in Western Europe.
KUDRAT BOBOJON
Old Urgench
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I’d seen this dream before
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I remember it was unpleasant to interpret:
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As though I was gоing into emptiness
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As though Terror was persecuting me,
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On and on day after day,
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On and on day after day…
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Then in dark panic
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An evil woman begins to dance,
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Her eyeballs were bulging out of her eyes
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And Terror was like the crowd.
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I was as though the whole of Turan was in chains,
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All the earth had drifted away
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And slavery clatters
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With rusty chains.
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It was as though I was looking in the face,
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In the eyes of this slavery,
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As though slavery is clattering
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As it held its creaking chains,
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Under its feet
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360 graves are silent.
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It was as though these great graves were empty.
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The links of the chains rock.
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360 links
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And not links but people,
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And 360 saints are silent,
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A silent tear runs in my eyes,
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I don’t know oр haven’t grasped
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Why these people are silent.
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I don’t wander over these lands,
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Then I stayed alone in my room,
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Remembering. I remembered everything.
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I had already seen this dream.
Listen to Old Urgench in Uzbek here
Russin translation is bellow.
Kudrat Bobojon was born in 1995 in Urgench, Uzbekistan. In 1989 he graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Tashkent State University. He was formerly the editor-in-chief of the independent company TV ALC in Urgench. He worked for Radio Liberty and as a regional correspondent for the BBC. He also covered Andijan massacre in 1995 for the British Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Presently he lives in Sweden and edits the Uzbek version of www.uznews.net, which is blocked in Uzbekistan.
- КУДРAТ БАБАДЖАН
- Старый Ургенч
- Я видел этот сон уже,
- Я помню его неприятное истолкование:
- Будто бы я иду в пустоту,
- И будто бы преследует меня Страх.
- Идет и идет день за днемИдет и идет день за днем...
- Потом в темной тревогеНачинает плясать злодейка.
- Глазные яблоки пучатся из глаз,
- И Страх похож на толпу.
- Будто бы весь Туран оцеплен.
- Вся земля усыплена,
- И заржавевшими цепями
- Скрежещет рабство.
- Будто бы я смотрю прямо в лицо,
- В глаза я смотрю этому рабству,
- Будто бы скрежещет рабство,
- Неся свои скрипящие цепи.
- Под его стопамиМолчат триста шестьдесят могил.
- Будто бы пусты эти великие могилы.
- Качаются звенья цепей.
- Триста шестьдесят звеньев,
- И не звеньев, а народов.
- И молчат триста шестьдесят святых,
- На глаза мои набегает молчаливая слеза,
- Я не знаю или же не понял,
- Почему молчат эти народы.
- Я не стал бродить по этим землям,
- Потом остался в своей комнате один,
- Вспоминая. Все вспомнил.
- И видел этот сон уже.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Old Urgench appeared in Recital of Liberty, a poetry book in three languages with accompanying CD in London by Open Society Institute-Soros Foundation in 2007. Translations from Uzbek are by Abdulkhamid Ismail and Richard McKane.
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