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Obituary；Sergei Mikhalkov；
訃告；謝爾蓋·米哈爾科夫；
Sergei Mikhalkov, the Kremlin's court poet, died on August 27th, aged 96；
克里姆林宮的宮廷詩人謝爾蓋·米哈爾科夫于8月27日辭世，享年96歲；
Talent without flexibility was a dangerous thing in the Soviet Union, as thousands found to their cost. Sergei Mikhalkov had talent aplenty, as a poet, playwright, children's writer and satirist. But, more important, he was flexible.
光有才能卻不懂變通，這在蘇聯是危險的。成千上萬的人明白這一點時已經付出了代價。謝爾蓋·米哈爾科夫才華橫溢，既是詩人，也是劇作家，還是兒童文學和諷刺文學作家。不過更重要的還是他懂得變通。
Mr Mikhalkov penned the words to two versions of the Soviet national anthem, one glorifying Stalin and one ignoring him. After Russia shrugged off communism he wrote a third version, to the same tune. In between he denounced two of the country's greatest writers, Boris Pasternak and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Every regime he served gave him medals.
米哈爾科夫先生為兩個版本的蘇聯國歌作過詞，其中一個版本贊美斯大林，另一個將其忽略。俄羅斯拋棄共產主義之后，他又寫了第三個版本，還是同一個曲子。在上述這些事情之間的歲月里，他譴責過兩位最偉大的俄國作家――伯里斯·帕斯杰爾納克和亞歷山大·索爾仁尼琴。每一個他為之效力的政權都給他頒發過獎章。
Servility towards power is a ubiquitous phenomenon. An 18th-century English song, “The Vicar of Bray”, tells of a country clergyman who changed his allegiance with the times, Romish under James II, strongly Protestant under the Hanoverians, through every other point of the ecclesiological compass. The chorus runs:
對權力奴顏卑膝是普天下皆有的現象。一首名為“布雷的牧師”的18世紀英國歌曲講述了一個鄉村的神職人員如何隨著時代的變化改換他效忠的對象：在詹姆士二世時他忠于天主教，漢諾威王室統治時他又成了堅定的新教教徒，直到他前后效忠了基督教里所有的教派。合唱部分是這樣唱的：
And this is Law I will maintain
這就是我要保守的規條
Until my Dying Day, Sir.
直到我咽氣的那日，大人。
That whatsoever King may reign,
不管哪樣的國王當道
I will be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!
我都將是布雷的牧師，大人！
Mr Mikhalkov offered a Soviet version of the theme.
米哈爾科夫先生為這個主題提供了一個蘇聯版本。
He was born in the Russian empire to a noble family, with admirals and princes among his forebears. Many of that breed fled from the Red Terror that followed the Bolshevik revolution; those that stayed behind had their lives blighted, or ended, by the communist hatred of “class enemies”. But young Sergei slipped through that net, working humbly in a Moscow loom factory and writing poetry on the side. That was his ticket to the new aristocracy of proletarian cultural workers. He remained, at heart, a courtier and a cynic.
他在帝俄時期出生于一個貴族家庭，先祖中不乏海軍元帥和王子。這類人紛紛逃離布爾什維克革命之后隨之而來的紅色恐怖；他們中間留下來的或者是被共產黨對“階級敵人”的仇恨毀掉了余生，或者干脆就因為這種階級仇恨丟了性命。但年輕的謝爾蓋成了漏網之魚。他在莫斯科一家織機廠干著卑微的工作，業余寫點詩歌。那成了他藉以躋身無產階級文化工作者這一新貴階層的門票。在心底里，他其實仍然是一名侍臣，同時也玩世不恭。
He gained his first success with a children's verse fable about the exploits of a very tall policeman, “Uncle Steeple” (Dyadya Styopa). Given what the real-life police were doing in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, it should probably be classed as escapist fiction. A little later, he wrote a poem praising—he claimed—a girl with a dark-blond plait whom he had met at the House of Writers. Her name was Svetlana. Since that was also the name of Stalin's daughter, the poem brought the tall, tinny-voiced, stuttering young man to the dictator's notice.
使他首獲成功的是他為兒童寫的一個詩歌體童話，講述的是一個名叫“教堂尖頂叔叔”的高個警察的英雄行為。考慮到二十世紀三十年代真實生活中的警察都在蘇聯干了些什么，該作品大概應該歸入逃避現實的虛構作品一類。其后不久，他寫了一首詩贊美他在作者之家遇到的一名梳著暗金色發辮的女孩――反正他是這樣聲稱的。她的名字是絲薇特拉娜。因為那也是斯大林女兒的名字，所以這首詩讓獨裁者注意到了這位身材高大，說話蚊子般哼哼，同時有些結巴的年輕人。
In 1944 he was commissioned, along with Gabriel El-Registan, a Soviet Armenian poet, to write the words for a new national anthem to replace the “Internationale”. The rousing hymn of the international workers' movement—freedom thundering against oppression, starvelings rising to end the age of cant—was felt not to fit the needs of the contemporary Soviet Union.
1944年他和葛布列·艾爾瑞杰斯坦一起被委托為一首新的國歌作詞，以取代當時作為國歌的“國際歌”。這首國際工人運動的激昂戰歌—自由斗士們對壓迫發出雷鳴般的怒吼，饑寒交迫的人們起來結束偽善的時代――被認為不再適合當時蘇聯的需要。
Its replacement, set to a stirring tune composed by Alexander Alexandrov, was a sentimental and militaristic ditty that gave equal weight to Lenin and Stalin:
代替《國際歌》的是一首煽情和頗帶鐵血意味的歌謠，配以亞歷山大·亞歷山德羅夫所作的一支振奮人心的曲子。這首歌謠對列寧和斯大林給予了同等重要的地位：
Through days dark and stormy where Great Lenin led us
偉大的列寧領導我們穿越黑暗和風暴，
Our eyes saw the bright sun of freedom above
我們的雙眼看到高天自由的太陽；
and Stalin our Leader, with faith in the People,
我們的領袖斯大林，以他對人民的信任
Inspired us to build up the land that we love.
激勵我們在這片熱土上建起高樓萬丈。
Admittedly, national anthems rarely make great literature, and other Soviet poets, including on one occasion even the great Anna Akhmatova, found it expedient to put their pens at the service of the regime. But Mr Mikhalkov's loyalty was exceptional. A good example of his work is “I want to go home”, a 1948 propaganda play about post-war orphanages in Germany, in which sinister British officials try to brainwash and kidnap Soviet children to use them as spies and slaves in the imperialist cause. The plot is foiled by heroic and kindly Soviet officers. The truth was exactly the other way round: it was the Soviet secret police who organised ruthless repatriations, often dividing families.
誠然，極少有國歌能成為不朽的文學作品，而且其他的蘇聯詩人出于自身利益也曾用他們的筆桿為政權服務，即便是了不起的安娜·阿赫瑪托娃也曾這樣做過一次。 但是米哈爾科夫先生的忠誠罕有其匹。他的作品中一個頗好的例子是“我想回家”，這是1948年的一部關于戰后德國孤兒院的宣傳劇，在那部劇中陰險的英國官員試圖對蘇聯兒童進行洗腦和綁架，以便在帝國主義大業中把他們當作間諜和奴隸來使用。該陰謀被英勇善良的蘇聯軍官挫敗了。事實恰恰相反：正是蘇聯秘密警察殘酷地強制流散到蘇聯境外的人返回蘇聯，常常導致一家人骨肉分離。
Songs without words
無字之歌
Mr Mikhalkov's lyrics did not long survive Stalin's death in 1953. From then until 1977 the anthem was played without words, neatly illustrating the Soviet Union's ambiguous attitude to Stalinism. Mr Mikhalkov adapted to the times, becoming a pillar of the Soviet literary establishment and a notable enforcer of party discipline in its ranks. He wrote, in 1970, some new lyrics to the national anthem. To mark the introduction of the new Soviet constitution in 1977, the authorities adopted them. They ignored Stalin, praised Lenin and highlighted Russia's role in welding the “unbreakable union of free-born republics”.
米哈爾科夫先生的歌詞在1953年斯大林死后不久也壽終正寢。從那時起直到1977年，蘇聯國歌在播放或演奏時都沒有歌詞，這貼切地顯示出蘇聯對斯大林主義的曖昧態度。米哈爾科夫先生緊跟時代，成為了蘇聯文學當權派的重要成員，也成了在基層黨員中維護黨紀的著名人士。在1970年，他為蘇聯國歌填寫了新詞。為了慶祝1977年開始實行的新的蘇聯憲法，當局采用了這套歌詞。新的歌詞忽略了斯大林，贊美了列寧，并且強調了俄羅斯在締造“自由共和國牢不可破的聯盟”中所起的作用。
The union proved anything but. Given a whiff of freedom under Mikhail Gorbachev, the captive nations of the Soviet empire bolted for the exit. They found, or restored, their own songs. But Russia was tongue-tied. It dumped the Soviet anthem and adopted a resonant tune by Glinka, called simply “Patriotic Song”. It failed to catch on. In 2001 Vladimir Putin ordered the restoration of the Soviet tune—and it was Mr Mikhalkov's turn to write, once again, the words. The anodyne doggerel that resulted is no better (and certainly no worse) than other countries' national anthems. It praises Russia's uniqueness, mentions God, and concludes: “Thus it was, is, and always shall be!” Except that it isn't, and wasn't. Few knew that better than the wily Mr Mikhalkov.
后來發生的事情證明這個聯盟唯一不具備的品質就是牢不可破。蘇維埃帝國中被囚禁的諸國在呼吸了米哈伊爾·戈爾巴喬夫任職期間一絲自由的空氣后，就紛紛拔腿跑向出口，脫離了聯盟。它們有的找到了新的國歌，有的恢復了自己過去的國歌。但俄羅斯卻變得張口結舌，不知所措。它丟棄了蘇聯國歌，轉而采用了格林卡的一首洪亮的曲子，名字很簡單，就叫“愛國之歌。”但是它沒有被普遍接受。2001年時弗拉基米爾·普金下令國歌重新采用前蘇聯國歌的曲調――而為之填詞的任務又一次落到了米哈爾科夫先生身上。米哈爾科夫先生因此所作的這首排憂解痛的打油詩并不比其它國家國歌的歌詞更好（當然也并不比它們差）。它贊美了俄羅斯的獨一無二，同時也提到了神。歌詞結尾處寫道：“俄羅斯曾經是這樣，現在是這樣，也將永遠是這樣！”。問題是它現在不是這樣，過去也不曾這樣。沒有多少人比靈活善變的米哈爾科夫先生更清楚這一點。
