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Last Will And Testament
by Nazim Hikmet
Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
-- I mean,if I die before freedom comes --
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery --
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
-- and it's looking more and more likely --
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.
Moscow, Barviha Hospital
Trans. by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk (1993)
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Yesterday was 45th anniversary of Nazim Hikmet's death.
And his grave is still NOT in Turkey..
Leman Sam-nazim hikmet memleket
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYqYQvOwhZM
Genco Erkal ( Fazil Say )- Vatan Haini (traitor) (english subtitles..and amazing!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6JGtxw-bHc
translations is :
TRAITOR
Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor,
We are a half-colony of American imperialism, said Hikmet.
Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor.
This came out in one of the Ankara newspapers,
Over three columns, in a pitch-black screaming streamer.
In an Ankara newspaper, beside a photograph of Admiral Williamson,
smiling in 66 square centimeters, his mouth in his ears,
the American admiral.
America gave 120 million liras to our budget, 120 million liras.
We are a half-colony of American imperialism, said Hikmet.
Nazim Hikmet is still continuing to be a traitor. Yes, I am a traitor, if you are a patriot, if you are a defender of our homeland,
I am a traitor to my homeland; I am a traitor to my country.
If patriotism is your farms,
if the valuables in your safes and your bank accounts is patriotism,
if patriotism is dying from hunger by the side of the road,
if patriotism is trembling in the cold like a cur and shivering from malaria in the summer,
if sucking our scarlet blood in your factories is patriotism,
if patriotism is the claws of your village lords,
if patriotism is the catechism, if patriotism is the police club,
if your allocations and your salaries are patriotism,
if patriotism is American bases, American bombs, and American missiles,
if patriotism is not escaping from our stinking black-minded ignorance,
then I am a traitor.
Write it over three columns, in a pitch-black screaming streamer,
NazIm HIkmet is continuing to be a traitor, still!
Nazım Hikmet, July 28, 1962 (Translation: Hüda Cereb and James Ryan)
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