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"Mama is laughing haha …"

2023; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 97; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2023.0066

1945-8134

Egana Dzhabbarova, Elina Alter, Hilah Kohen, Mark Lipovetsky, Кевин М. Ф. Платт,

Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia

"Mama is laughing haha …" Egana Dzhabbarova (bio) Translated by Elina Alter (bio), Hilah Kohen (bio), Mark Lipovetsky (bio), and Kevin M. F. Platt (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Linor Goralik, Trinity in Bucha (2022), black cardboard, gold, white, and red paper, black watercolor, black thread, bandage, red acrylic, pen / Courtesy of the artist / linorgoralik.com mama is laughing hahapapa is laughing hahayou sound so funny in Azerbaijani you don't pronounce the words rightyou have a terrible accenta mercury-stained mess in the middle of your mouthyou talk, and beads of mercury fall from your mouthscattering and poisoning everything around do you remember, sister,when we broke the thermometerand hid the strange green beads under the couchso nobody would ever see anything so nobody would ever find out what we'd donewe hid under the blanket and pretended to be asleepthe mercury beads hug the floorkiss us on the lipsindecently, improperly mama says: you should know your own languagepapa says: you've gone completely Russianif I hadn't come to this country,my kids would be normalmy kids would have grown up normal do you remember, sister,how ashamed we wereto be Russified kidswho grew up in a foreign land,to be rus bala, rus bala1 ata-can,2 can you ever forgive me,bring these foster kids into your family,make us a bed on the floor? they tell the bus driver: talk Russian, you're in Russia nowI sit in the back and read the Koranthere's a woman constantly turning to look at mefor her, I'm like an injection of mercury beadsshe wants to tell meyou're in Russia now, but I'm already getting out the way you write isn't quite Russian, K tells me,forgive me, please, I won'tI can't do it any other waysorry, K, I can't do it in Russian I get out on this streetI walk to the dorm where good and bad daughters livewhere Russified kids live with their sad parentswhere Nino, the Georgian woman who raised me, liveswe hold hands and form a chain,we are a chain of mercury beads,fragile, not poisonous. [End Page 56] Egana Dzhabbarova Egana Dzhabbarova is a poet and associate professor at the Ural Federal University in Ekaterinburg, Russia. She has published three books of poetry and is organizer of the festival MEZHA. She has been recognized with the Poetic Debut Award and was also longlisted and shortlisted for the Arkady Dragomoshchenko Award. Her work is featured in the international anthologies Under One Cover (Kazakhstan) and F-Letter (England). Her poetry has been translated into English, Polish, German, and Italian. She currently resides in Taipei, Taiwan. Elina Alter Elina Alter is a writer and translator. Her translations include Alla Gorbunova's It's the End of the World, My Love and Oksana Vasyakina's Wound. She lives in New York. Hilah Kohen Hilah Kohen is a University of Pennsylvania doctoral student currently in residence at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. Her collaborations in Juhuri (Kavkazi Jewish) language advocacy include curatorial work for the Jewish Language Project and an article foregrounding Indigenous languages of the Russian Federation for Russian Language Journal. With Josephine von Zitzewitz, Kohen co-edited the "Russophonia" issue of Words Without Borders. Mark Lipovetsky Mark Lipovetsky is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages at Columbia University. Among his many publications are books on Russian postmodernism, New Drama, Dmitry Prigov, and post-Soviet literature. Lipovetsky is also one of four co-authors of A History of Russian Literature (Oxford, 2018). He was awarded the Andrei Bely Prize for his contributions to literary studies. Photo by Evgeny Ratkov Kevin M. F. Platt Kevin M. F. Platt is a professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He works on Russian poetry, history, and memory in Russia and eastern Europe, global russophone culture, and translates contemporary Russian poetry. His new book, Border Conditions: Russian-Speaking Latvians between World Orders, is forthcoming...