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Heron’s Formula on Mari’s Manual literary portal.
I have in my heart three feelings with which one can never be bored: sadness, love and gratitude.
Alexandre Dumas
I sincerely thank Mari’s Manual for welcoming me on their literary portal.
Now Heron’s Formula is also here, as well as part of the Book Fair Gallery.
I can only say that I am extremely honored and I steal the words from the song: I think I feel CONFUSED AND HAPPY 🎶
In case you are not yet familiar with Mari’s Manual, you find the essence in the slogan: Poetry and Literature in the Seas of the Web.
I find the seas of the web to be a beautiful definition: aren’t we all virtual sailors?
Indeed, I would say better virtual sailors and dreamers.
Traveling the length and breadth of the world I have met magnificent dreamers, men and women who stubbornly believe in dreams. They keep them, cultivate them, share them, multiply them. I humbly, in my own way, did the same.
Luis Sepúlveda
So Heron’s Formula on Mari’s Handbook literary portal for me is first and foremost a dream, but I hope it can also be a journey that will lead me to the possibility of learning, discovering and sharing.
Hi I'm Claudia and this is KCDC.
“literary portal”:
I love literary portals, Claudia.
We always learn something new and interesting there.
Of course, I read them in Russian, for example the literary portal of “Biblio-Globus” in Moscow …
And what did I detect? A new book that I will definitely buy and read, written by Zakhar Prilepin about “Sholokov”, the Soviet author of “Quietly Flows the River Don”. He received the Nobel Prize for it. Have you read it, Claudia?
No: unfortunately I haven’t read it even though I’ve heard a lot about it.
How BEAUTIFUL, however, when we are struck by a book!
Is what you found some kind of biography?
I will let you know when I have read it, Claudia.
I will read it in Russian. Zakhar Prilepin is not easy to read. His style and language are rather complicated, very “literary”. A challenge for me.
I found this in wikipedia – Italian:
Zachar Prilepin (Nižnij Novgorod, 7 luglio 1975) è uno scrittore, politico e giornalista russo, veterano della guerra in Cecenia dove ha prestato servizio nell’OMON, le unità speciali antiterrorismo della polizia russa.
Le sue opere hanno partecipato ai più importanti premi letterari russi degli ultimi anni dove, spesso finaliste, sono riuscite ad aggiudicarsi più volte il primo posto; tra questi il premio Super-Nacbest. I suoi libri sono stati tradotti in 11 lingue.
Dal 2015 al 2017 è stato il consigliere di Aleksandr Zacharcenko nella Repubblica Popolare di Donetsk e comandava lì un battaglione, sotto il titolo di “maggiore Prilepin”.
I suoi scrittori preferiti sono Ėduard Limonov, Gajto Gazdanov e Mikhail Sholokhov.
Olivia I thank you because I didn’t know him or his inspirational writers.
Reading the short biography I assume that his experience of military life influenced his writings, right?
Yes, Claudia. Zakhar Prilepin’s military life has greatly influenced his writings. The last of his books that I read was about Russian officers throughout history, who were also poets. Yes, soldiers can write poetry, too! I loved this book. I read it in a French translation.
The next one about “Sholokhov” I am going to read in Russian. I think my Russian is good enough now so I will be able to understand what I read. Sholokhov’s Nobel Prize winning novel “Quiet Don” is also a war novel, dealing with Cossacks fighting in the Russian Civil War, in the 1920s.
Zakhar Prilepin has also written several books about his war experiences in the Russian Donbass but I have not read those yet.
How many HOW MANY things I don’t know Olivia!
But surely I also think that a soldier can write poetry. I can only imagine what level of reflections can be reached in certain extreme conditions.
Well, yes, but sometimes these things are funny too. For example a Russian aristocrat who wanted to go to war but was not accepted in the military for his bad eyes, he was myopic. Then he complains in his poems that he was not accepted, although his family goes back to the oldest princes who founded Rus. And he is much more Russian than all those military commanders with German names (of Baltic origin, mostly).
He certainly wrote beautiful poems but he could not shoot, he would have missed the aim because he could not see it.
Olivia thank you for quoting this anecdote which gives me the opportunity to underline how important irony is to me.
Irony can really help take life with that smile that can only do GOOD.
True, true, so true!
Can you imagine this guy, Prince Viazemzky, wanting to go to war to be shot?
As it is, he was spared, thanks to his myopic eyes. He lived to be over 80 and was, although married, a great lover of young ladies until the very end.
The author Prilepin, who tells this story, writes that he probably was a platonic lover in his last days. A lover, nevertheless. And his love poems are marvellous.
PS
https://wordpress.com/read/blogs/11417198/posts/46644
I translated one of Prince Pyotr Vyazemski’s beautiful Russian poems into English in this blog post of mine.
I love this poem. He had such a wonderful romantic soul. Can you imagine this poet going to war, Claudia? He would have been completely lost!
Just imagine those many cruel wars the Russian Empire and Soviet Union and Russian Federation has been fighting in its history of thousand years: Russian – Swedish wars, Russian – Polish wars, Russian-Turkish wars, the wars against Napoleon’s Army, Hitler’s Army, etc.
No! It is better that the poetic prince’s life was spared, due to his myopy, which did not hinder him to write marvellous poetry which I adore.
Thank you very much for the link! I really enjoyed reading your translation of the poem.
You’re right: there have been too many and too many terrible wars in history.
Cruel wars, as you rightly say.
Wars are always wrong.
We all lose, all of humanity loses in the face of war.
Well, the Russian Empire/Soviet Union/Russian Federation – whatever you might want to call this entity – has survived, due to wars. It has always been a waring state, keeping its borders intact with wars.
I am very sorry for these continuous wars, I wish with all my heart that the time of peace can finally come.
A person once said to me: “We always know the beginning of a war but we never know when it will end.”
I had never thought of it this way. An interesting thought!
True.
Sadly true.
Terribly true.
And the effects remain forever.
The effects remain for a very long time, for sure. I see and hear, I feel and read that Russians are still traumatized by wars that were pushed on them many hundreds of years ago.
Foreign affairs minister Sergey Lavrov just spoke about Napoleon and his invasion of Russian territory. He also spoke of Hitler and his invasion of Russian territory.
These scars will stay forever. The wounds have not healed yet, and I doubt that they will ever heal.These invasions and the lives they cost have engraved themselves in Russia’s collective memory, to be handed down from one generation to the next.
I get the impression that the citizens of the Russian Federation are very wary of the West. They could not care less about public opinion in western countries. They do what they feel is right and proper for themselves.
I read in TASS today that the Russian Federation is leaving some western Human Rights Institution they were members of. They have signaled they are giving up their membership. They do not care about “human rights”, made in the West. Russia has its own perception of human rights, and rightly so.
I am very sorry for these scars that people carry because of wars.
Something that I was lucky enough not to experience directly from my skin, but which, from people’s stories, can no longer be erased.
It often happens to me, listening to people older than me, to hear their sentences that always start with the same premise: “in time of war …” and then continue by telling what is impossible to forget.
Yet we are unable to oppose it and to ensure that this does not happen again.
Human rights should also be a universal concept, taken for granted, natural, guaranteed for everyone. Yet sadly humanity continues to give its worst.
Oh yes Olivia, you make me imagine the personality of this brave enterprising man and at the same time vulnerable and full of emotions to convey. People who know how to live their lives to the full in the face of obstacles are always to be admired.
Prince Viazemzky led a priviledged life. He belonged to Russia’s high aristocracy. The Tsar liked him, he got honours and well-paid posts. He could afford many love affairs and writing beautiful poetry. I mean, it was not very hard for him to be brave and enterprising. It did not cost him all that much.
Zakhar Prilepin, the author of “Soldiers and poets”, writes about him in a benevolent but slightly ironic tone. One gets the impression that he thinks of Prince Viazemsky as a “spoiled boy”.
Chapeau!
I really like these challenges.
The last book I read, on mathematics and physics was really difficult for me, but I’m happy to have reached the end.
Ah well, so a privileged life, so to speak.
Sure wealth can’t possibly buy happiness, but as they say, for many things…it helps…
It sure does!
“There are people who have money and people who are rich.”
Coco Chanel
Do not wear yourself out to get rich;
do not trust your own cleverness.
Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone,
for they will surely sprout wings
and fly off to the sky like an eagle.
Proverbs 23:4-5
Beautiful quote Olivia!
THANK YOU!
I really like the concept of getting rid of material wealth to fly!