7000.- NIKOLA VAPSAROV

Nikola Vaptsarov  (Bansko, Bulgaria, 1909-1942)

Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov nació el 7 de diciembre de 1909 en la ciudad de Bansko. Es uno de los poetas más populares de Bulgaria. Sus ideas humanistas, modernas y comprensivas a la vez, transmiten valores universales. Es admirado y respetado también por sus actividades en la resistencia antifascista que le valieron ser encarcelado, juzgado y ejecutado en 1942. Su libro de poemas más famoso se titula « Motor songs» (Cantos de Motor). Los poemas de Vaptsarov fueron traducidos a más de 40 idiomas. En 1952, diez años después de su muerte, se le concedió el Premio Internacional de la Paz a título póstumo.

En prisión, el aguerrido poeta de Cantos de motor, traducido a más de 40 idiomas, que había dedicado un ciclo al heroísmo de la República española, antes de ser ejecutado por sus ideas revolucionarias y antifascistas, escribió estos dos poemas finales:

POEMA DE ADIÓS

a mi esposa

Quizás sin avisar, invitado lejano

al que ya nadie espera, te visite en un sueño.

No me dejes afuera a la intemperie.

No asegures del todo nuestra puerta.

Entraré con sigilo. Me sentaré despacio,

tratando de observarte en la penumbra.

Sólo cuando los ojos se sacien de mirar,

te besaré, y partiré para siempre.

La lucha es implacable y cruel.

La lucha es, como suele decirse, épica.

Yo moriré. Otro ocupará mi lugar… y así siempre.

¿Acaso importa aquí la suerte de uno mismo?

Un disparo, y después- sólo gusanos.

Esto es algo tan simple como lógico.

¡Pero en la tempestad de nuevo estaremos juntos,

oh pueblo mío, porque nos hemos amado!

(14.00 h. 23-VII-1942)

Traducidos por Juan Antonio Bernier

Factory

Nikola Vaptsarov 1909-1942

A factory, Clouds of smoke above.

The people – simple,

The life – hard, boring.

Life with the mask and grease-paint off

Is a savage dog snarling.

You must tirelessly fight,

Must be tough and persist,

To extract from the teeth

Of the angry,

                bristling beast

A crust.

Slapping belts in the shed,

Screeching shafts overhead,

And the air is so stale

You can’t easily

Deeply

Inhale.

Not far off the spring breeze

Rocks the fields, the sun calls...

Leaning skyward

                        the trees

Shade

The factory walls.

How unwanted,

                forgotten

And strange

        are the fields !

They

        have thrown in the dustbin

The sky and its dreams.

For to stray for a second

Or soften your heart,

Is to lose to no purpose

Your strong

        worker’s

                arm.

You must shout in the clatter

And din of machines

For your words

                to pass over

The spaces between.

I shouted for years –

An eternity ...

I gathered the others too shouted in chorus –

The factory,

                the machinery

And the man

                in the farthest,

                                darkest corner.

This shout forged an alloy of steel

And we armoured our life with its plate.

Just try putting

                a spoke in the wheel –

It’s your own hand you’ll break.

You, factory,

Still seek to blind us

With smoke and soot,

Layer on layer.

In vain! For you teach us to struggle.

We’ll bring

The sun

Down to us here.

So many

                toil-blackened

                                faces

Under your tyranny smart.

But one heart within you tirelessly

Beats with a thousand hearts.

History

History, will you mention us

In your faded scroll?

We worked in factories, offices –

Our names were not well known.

We worked in fields, smelled strongly

Of onion and sour bread.

Through thick moustaches angrily

We cursed the life we led.

Will you at least be grateful

We fattened you with news

And slaked your thirst so richly

With the blood of slaughtered crowds?

You’ll lose the human focus

To view the panorama,

And no one will remember

The simple human drama.

The poets will be distracted

With pamphlets, progress rates;

Our unrecorded suffering

Will roam alone in space.

Was it a life worth noting,

A life worth digging up?

Unearthed, it reeks of poison,

Tastes bitter in the cup.

We were born along the hedgerows,

In the shelter of stray thorns

Our mothers lay perspiring,

Their dry lips tightly drawn.

We died like flies in autumn.

The women mourned the dead,

Turned their lament to singing –

But only the wild grass heard.

We who survived our brothers,

Sweated from every pore,

Took any job that offered,

Toiled as the oxen do.

At home our fathers taught us:

‘So shall it always be.’

But we scowled back and spat on

Their fool’s philosophy.

We quit the table curtly,

Ran out of doors, and there

In the open felt the stirring

Of something bright and fair.

How anxiously we waited

In crowded-out cafés,

And turned in late at night

With the last communiqués!

How we were soothed by hoping! ...

But leaden skies pressed lower,

The scorching wind hissed viciously ...

Till we could stand no more!

Yet in your endless volumes

Beneath each letter and line

Out pain will leer forbiddingly

And raise a bitter cry.

For life, showing no mercy,

With heavy brutish paw

Battered our hungry faces.

That’s why our tongue is raw.

That’s why the poems I’m writing

In hours I steal from sleep

Have not the grace of perfume,

But brief and scowling beat.

For the hardship and affliction

We do not seek rewards,

Nor do we want our pictures

In the calendar of years.

Just tell our story simply

To those we shall not see,

Tell those who will replace us –

We fought courageously.

Botev

A breathless, perspiring

Workingman

Came to see me

And said:

‘Write a poem about Botev.’

‘A poem about Botev?’

I sat down.

‘All right,

Come back about seven

On Saturday night.’

Saturday’s long gone by – but I

Grimly persist

And heave a sigh.

The rooftops rattle

As engines battle

With moisture of spring

In the world

And the mist.

My mind is a blank,

My brain just repeating

The same old cant.

My heart beats in panic.

I put down the pen,

Scrap the paper,

Sigh deeply

And then

Say: ‘I can’t.’

I undress,

Lie in bed,

Fall asleep.

But here comes

The grimfaced worker

And asks:

‘Have you written the poem about Botev?’

                ‘The poem about Botev?

                Just listen ...

Stars gleam

In the moonswept sky,

Through rocky ravine

Grey wolves go by,

Their eyes in the darkness glisten ...’

The worker looks puzzled

And asks:

‘Is that Botev?

‘Write of the reapers braving the sun,

Of the tyrant toil,

Of the blood that runs

To blacken the soil,

Of the slaves who sing

To ease their pain

Slow songs which the wind

Bears over the plain.

‘Would Botev be seen

In a rocky ravine?

Even wild beasts of prey

Never go there today.

Can’t you see? Botev kindles

The light in our eyes.

Yes, Botev is here – with the people.

‘If you stumble, he says:

‘Up, and carry the flag!’

So I give you my hand

To help you stand,

And bolder we march along

Shoulder to shoulder.

‘That’s really Botev!

But you’ve used a lot of

Old junk. Cut it out!

Look at life! Move about!

And then you shall know him.

There, that is your poem!’

On Parting

To my wife

Sometimes I’ll come when you’re asleep,

An unexpected visitor.

Don’t leave me outside in the street,

Don’t bar the door!

I’ll enter quietly, softly sit

And gaze upon you in the dark.

Then, when my eyes have gazed their fill,

I’ll kiss you and depart.

The fight is hard and pitiless.

The fight is epic, as they say.

I fell. Another takes my place –

Why single out a name?

After the firing squad – the worms.

Thus does the simple logic go.

But in the storm, we’ll be with you,

My people, for we loved you so.

2 p.m. – 23 July, 1942