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.

202 elements (p. 129). He also reveals another aspect of this close link to nature, which is the strength o f familial and ancestral ties (pp. 45, 53 , 55 , 793 - In fact, the fundamental presence of nature in Bazhanov’s po etry proved to be a difficult obstacle for other reasons as well. I had difficulty translating the myriad of regionally specific terms for plants and animals, geographic locations, military and communist political jargon, and the language relating to the Saami livelihood of reindeer herding. In the end, many of these terms have such sig nificance in Russian that the publishers and I chose to leave them un-translated. Above all, I have attempted to preserve the intense and all- pervasive interconnectedness between the Saami people, their po etry, and their environment, which forms the bedrock of Bazhanov’s poetics. Bazhanov incorporates nature in tones that are at times grandiose and laudatory, and at other times, highly intimate, sub dued, and confessional. Additionally, this treatment of nature as a vehicle for poetry and a revelatory force in the human consciousness has many strong predecessors in the Russian tradition - for instance, in the lyrics o f nineteenth century poet Afanasy Fet or the mod ernist innovations of Boris Pasternak in the twentieth century (for instance, the 1917 collection Sestra moia-zhizn »My Sister Life«). As a matter of fact, this treatment of nature as a blueprint for human culture has its loudest and most resonant voice in figure of nine teenth century novelist Lev Tolstoy. Like Tolstoy, Bazhanov uses the natural environment as the site of overwhelming trauma and, at other times, exuberant joy, culminating in a moment o f epiphany in which the poetic subject comes into harmony with the universe (pp-51, 131, 141 and 153). Thus, for all the perceived incompatibility o f perspectives be tween minority and majority literatures, it is a pleasure to see the Saami and Russian traditions linked with such skill and understand ing in Bazhanov’s poetry. Because Bazhanov uses the culturally spe cific as a gateway to the universal, his poetry is remarkably compre hensible and relatable in any language. In reading this volume, we are able to achieve a deeper appreciation o f the Saami experience by first recognizing elements in it that are familiar to all o f us. It is my hope that the translation w ill be instrumental in this process.