Бажанов, А. Стихи и поэмы о саамском крае = Verses & poems on the Saami land / Аскольд Бажанов ; English translation by Naomi Caffee ; with an essay by Johanna Domokos. - Berlin : Nordeuropa-Institut der Humboldt-Universitat, 2009.

Here is the respite granted by nature, I live, like my grandfather, unhurried. Peacefully, uncivilized, the soul fully relaxes! In these fresh daily routines, you won’t find dull melancholy. Captivated by tundra journeys, I freely give birth to verse! Bazhanov’s personal and ethnic memory leads us to the places where he and his indigenous people have been, and it reminds us of the connections to what happened there. The precise moments of Bazhanov’s poetry loosen ordinary perceptions, thereby helping the reader to cross borders between the past and the present. Aware ness shifts its footing, and the character of the ever-changing place, poetically transfigured by thoughts of earlier days, quickly takes on a fresh and meditative gaze (consider especially the poems on pages 27, 37 , 49 , 67, 77 , 91 , 131, 147 , 157 )- 2. Saami literature/Bazhanov’spoetryas anexampleofminorityliterature Works of Saami authors demonstrate how the meta-narrative o f the majority culture influences the position o f the writer o f minority literature. From this respect it is very interesting that political meta narratives are not obvious in Bazhanov’s work, as they are in the works o f North-Saami authors such as Nils-Aslak Valekapaa or Kirsti Paltto; however, he still manages to express a complex poetical se riousness and validity. Throughout this volume, we sense the presence o f a penetrat ing poetic power coming from Bazhanov’s urge - which is perhaps partly unconscious - to bring the isolated private self into harmony and balance with reality, to verbalize the sense of the majesty and reverent mystery in all things, and to actualize those truths that give himself and his people dignity and significance. In poems on pages 49, 55, 57 83, 135, 141, and 157, Bazhanov redirects private emotions and integrates the energy generated by emotion within a ig o