Neruda's Oda a Stalin - is there a copy on-line?

September 29, 2004 11:53 AM

Neruda's Oda a Stalin - is there a copy on-line? Is it in Rafael Alberti's Antología Poética (I can't find it)? Has anyone read it?
(Prompted by this article.)

googling seems to turn up only references and i don't know how to refine my search. an english translation would be a start.

posted by andrew cooke to media & arts (5 comments total)

English translation here.

To be men! That is the Stalinist law! . . .
We must learn from Stalin
his sincere intensity
his concrete clarity. . . .
Stalin is the noon,
the maturity of man and the peoples.
Stalinists, Let us bear this title with pride. . . .
Stalinist workers, clerks, women take care of this day!
The light has not vanished.
The fire has not disappeared,
There is only the growth of
Light, bread, fire and hope
In Stalin's invincible time! . . .
In recent years the dove,
Peace, the wandering persecuted rose,
Found herself on his shoulders
And Stalin, the giant,
Carried her at the heights of his forehead. . . .
A wave beats against the stones of the shore.
But Malenkov will continue his work.

He also wrote an Ode to Lenin: Lenin, to write about you, I have to leave words aside. I have to write with trees, wheels, plows and crops...
posted by jfuller at 3:53 PM on September 29, 2004

P.S. one goes goggle-eyed at the banality of the last line. Hannah Arendt, where are you tonight?
posted by jfuller at 3:55 PM on September 29, 2004

sweet. thanks. that was enough to find this here:

Camarada Stalin, yo estaba junto al mar en la Isla Negra
Descansando de luchas y viajes,
Cuando la noticia de tu muerte llegó como un golpe de océano.
Fue primero el silencio, el estupor de las cosas,
y luego llegó del mar una Ola grande.
De algas, metales y hombres, piedras, espuma y
Lágrimas estaba hecha esta ola (...)
... Más tarde el pescador de erizos, el viejo buzo y poeta,
Gonzalito, se acercó a acompañarme bajo la bandera.
"Era más sabio que todos los hombres juntos", me dijo
mirando el mar con sus viejos ojos, con los viejos ojos del pueblo.
  fragment from here?
... "Pero Malenkov ahora continuará su obra", prosiguió
Levantándose el pobre pescador de chaqueta raída.
Yo lo miré sorprendido pensando: Cómo. Cómo lo sabe?
De dónde, en esta costa solitaria?
Y comprendí que el mar se lo había enseñado

which may be more of the same work (so the english translation is just a fragment of the fisherman's speech).

(eloquent portrait of malenkov here).
posted by andrew cooke at 5:59 PM on September 29, 2004

rats. stupid me for jumping to conclusions. that's not a censored photo at all (last link). sorry.
posted by andrew cooke at 6:00 PM on September 29, 2004

(a quick translation, if anyone is curious:

comrade stalin, i was by the see at the isla negra,
resting from struggles and travels,
when the news of your death arrived like a blow from the ocean.
first the silence, the stupor of things,
and then came from the sea a huge wave.
of algae, metals and men, stones, foam and
tears was that wave made (...)
... later the shellfish diver, old man and poet,
gonzalito, came to be with me under the flag.
"he was wiser than all men together:, he told me
watching the sea with his old eyes, with the old eyes of the people.

... "but malenkov will now continue his work", he continued
getting up, the poor fisherman with a torn coat.
i looked at him surprised, thinking: how, how did he know?
from where, on this solitary coast?
and i understood that the sea had taught him.)
posted by andrew cooke at 6:10 PM on September 29, 2004