The unseen world attacks the world in sight. Out of black concrete holes the rockets fly. He is the light by whom the world is illumined,Īnd when battle flags fly, He is their Wind. With the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father. The bullet’s a fool, the bayonet a good boy, one hit - and no more boy to fear. He has a comb of gold, and a log in each eye, too.īe glorified in the highest, God, behold not what’s going on down here. He’s taken an oath to submit to his own dear tsar.īut his own dear tsar has flown up on a branch and cries, “Cocka-doodle-doo!” “Yes, sir!” says the General, hand to visor. God is cruel at times, but still better than earthly thrones.ĭid the Lord trample down death with death for your kind? We bless you, soldier, who on bayonet raise up the foe, We praise you, soldier, slender of neck, sharp of throat. Glory to God in the highest, and on earth - bodies flail, Glory to God in the highest - be not troubled, soldier, nightingales! Glory to God in the highest, and on earth - more war. Glory to God in the highest - wondrous are Your works! If You are for us, who can be against us? It poses questions it doesn’t answer: How do we pray collectively on days of such human ugliness? How do we make East and West speak together? How do we survive the legacies of empires? Khersonsky’s poem presents spiritual solace alongside raging grief. In part through its end rhyme, the poem swings from moments of strange coalescence to moments of bathos and disjuncture. Here he draws the Latin mass into conversation with Russian church and colloquial language alike. In recent years he has worked increasingly with the ancient, Slavonic language of the Russian Orthodox liturgy. In this instance Khersonsky connects Russian not with Ukrainian but with another imperial language, Latin. “Missa in tempore belli” probes the territory of language in unexpected ways. The Russian language will continue to exist on both sides of the border, and literature will be the bridge that unites us even in tempore belli.” Even for me this serves just as additional proof that poetry has its own territory, and this territory is language. The paradox is that the book is being published in Russia. On their LiveJournal feed in June 2014, he wrote, “This little book contains poems written over the last few months against the background of tragic events in my country - written with a level of emotional stress I haven’t experienced in a long time. Nevertheless, he published “Missa in tempore belli” in an eponymous collection with a revered Russian independent literary press based in St.

During the Soviet period he played an important role in Underground culture and was published throughout the USSR in samizdat (unofficial works distributed through networks of acquaintances).įor most of his career Khersonsky has written in Russian, but in recent years he has, like other Russian-language Ukrainian writers, shifted to publishing in Ukrainian. There Khersonsky chairs the department of clinical psychology at Odessa National University. Odessa is one of the points of the current invasion. Khersonsky is based in Odessa, a key, historic Black Sea port for trade and strategy. I’m repeating it today.” Friends commented on the distressing aptness of what originated as a response to the invasion of Crimea. 1950), one of Ukraine’s most prominent writers, posted “Missa in tempore belli” on Facebook, commenting, “This poem was written in 2014 in unfond memory of that year. On February 24 Russian forces invaded Ukraine on multiple fronts.

Russian transliteration of poems