“The Russian God” by Prince PA Vyazemsky (1828) – Anthology & Interpretation

“The Russian God” by Prince PA Vyazemsky (1828)

Do you need an explanation
what the Russian god can be?
Here’s a rough approximation
as the thing appears to me.

God of snowstorms, god of potholes,
every wretched road you’ve trod,
coach-inns, cockroach hunts and rat holes,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

God of frostbite, god of famine,
beggars, cripples by the yard,
farms with no crops to examine,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

God of breasts and … all that’s sagging,
swollen legs in bast shoes sod,
curds gone curdled, faces dragging,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

God of brandy, pickle vendors,
those who paen what serfs they’ve go,
of old women of both genders,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

God of medals and of millions,
god of yard-sweepers unshod,
lords in sleighs with two postillions,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

Fools win grace, wise men be wary,
there he never spares the rod,
god of everything contrary,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

God of all that gets shipped in here,
unbecoming, senseless, odd,
god of mustard on your dinner,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

God of foreigners, whenever
they set food on Russian sod,
gods of Germans, now and ever,
that’s him, that’s your Russian god.

My Interpretation

The gods
of our lives
ruin hope and
destroy what life
and love we were supposed
to get. Never was it possible to sit
by and allow the world to pass us by.
Now our lives are constantly moving. This
perpetual movement makes the bad seem
horrible and the good seem minuscule,
for we are constantly moving
forward towards success.
Feeling the trials
through life
offer an opportunity
for love to penetrate. Or, it
creates a disunity. The constant
pushing down or pulling forward, dragging
the idiots along creates frustration. Tears sweep down
the dirt streaked face and pushes you even
farther than before. Further
down the spiral of anger,
frustration and hate.
No longer able
to be
in
complete
harmony, but live
in a constant rampage of
destruction. Feeling that the inevitable
will occur even without a say in the do’s or don’ts.
We see the injustices in the world and cry out,
“Why?!” to the made-up-saviors that
we have proclaimed as gods. We
cry out to the gods of
money, property
and greed.
We cry
out to the festering
evil that proclaims itself ruler.
We cry out in mockery at the non-existent
god in which people preach. we find that the world is
ruled by a darkness much greater than our
own. it creeps into the shadows,
breeding our doubts, our
hatred, our fears.
We cry out —
“Where is the light that
we were promised? Where is the
light that would bring us out of our spiral?”
But we cry out to the things of this
world. All steeped in traditions
and customs. No one brings
the comfort that
we cry
out
for. No one
brings the fulfillment we
need. No one end the hunger or the
strife or the greed. No one brings about the
promises of failed leaders and ideas. They are empty cries
reverberating through the air. Hallways
filled with the cries of deceased;
the haunted roam the
streets waiting
for their
cries
to be answered.
Waiting for the empty promises
to come true. Trying to protect the ones
they left behind, but even the dead’s march is not
enough to raise the empty promises spoken
by the falsely promoted gods. For in the
beginning, we created them-
now our own creations
have become our
bitter
end.

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