Sergey Lavrov's fascist poem, "White Horse," penned at forty (January 1990)

The unwillingness and inability of the Kremlin to take a principled and serious position toward, that is, against the fascist anti-Russian Banderas coming to power and settled in power in Ukraine goes deeper than just its will to kiss and make up with the West and to get back to "business as usual" and it goes deeper than just political shortsightedness or strategic miscalculation, not to mention naivete.

As Heraclitus taught one's character is one's fate. In this regard, the Russian elite cannot deny its particular oligarchic character with all its deeds, genesis, ties, and addictions. The Russian oligarchic elite, to borrow Lenin's phrase once applied to imperial capitalism, emerged both as a child and gravedigger of the rotten, dying and decomposing communist elite, which, almost as one man, became seemingly overnight devout, zealously hedonistic, money-chasing anti-communists and thieves.

Sometimes, as Surkov's occasionally psychologically and politically candid twitter, which has been recently deactivated, the oligarchic character of the late, deceased Soviet bureaucrat sends a beam of light, which illuminates the moral, ideological, and political cavern (the Cave of Plato's Republic) from within. Such is also Sergey Lavrov's program and prophetic statement encoded in his poem "The Year of the White Horse" written in January of 1990, just few months before his 40th birthday when he was already a high ranking official in the Russian Foreign Ministry. The poem was, however, published only in February of 2012 by Russkiy Pioner

The poem in its argument, wording, political message, and its openly Russophobic or anti-Russian character is fundamentally fascist. Yes, it is a fascist poem, and in that poem, while decrying and denouncing all the cruelty and oppression of the Russian state, Lavrov prophesies fascism, the rule of "the Uberman" over "the peoples of lower ethnic types," among which he does also seem to include the Russians themselves who are thus being carried to their national death (see the last strophe and the poem's last line). Otherwise, the White Horse stands for most of the poem for the Russians who are thus reduced to a beast of burden on which, in the end, only one Uberman is to ride and ride it to death.

Three half-Armenians are thus holding a good portion and potion of Russia's fate in their hands: Arsen Avakov in Kiev in charge of the Nazi "volunteer battalions," Sergey Kurginyan who had almost a stroke when he learned that Strelkov and his soldiers did not let themselves be wiped out at the hands of the fascists in Slavyansk, and Sergey Lavrov.

In my translation of this awful, fascist poem, I tried less to preserve Lavrov's choppy style than its ideological substance and message.

The Year of the White Horse by Sergey Lavrov (January 1990)

The clock reads it’s twelve right now,

And from the holy Spassky door
The New Year’s regal whitish mount
Moves to fill the masses’ awe.

Though inspired by the Chinese lore,
The figure keeps the minds for its home:

With their firm knees, Russia’s kings and queens

Forever squeeze nothing but the white steeds.

The conqueror sits on the white beast,

And that means: “Triumph and crackers!”
And again, “Hurrah!” And “Urraaahs!”
Thus foreigners are bound to hail the king,

So grateful that they are neither spoiled nor spilled.
A worship-ride of their defeater may begin,

And the Tzar on the white back will receive

The Nobel Prize for winning such Peace.

But truth to be told, after the grand tour,
For lunch on his throne the Tzar will leave.
And the horse? Back in the stable and dung

There to wait and see whom his master will defeat.

White horses’ fates are never women’s fun,
Either Gypsies steal them out into the night,
Or the Tzar gets them neutered, unmanned, fixed,
Or, under a slave’s collar, their spine is nixed.

What else will the year’s sign raise and breed?
Perhaps the whole State will neigh as one?
Or will there be a pageant, a long parade,

Of beautiful boys with stallion gags, straps and beaks?

Or for luck they’ll serve people with horseshoes,

Or will they clink and clank in other kicks and boots?

Or will they be crucified or released?

Or will they fetter this time more than their feet? 

Under the gaze of the “Old Fine White Horse”[1]

—our kind whisky from abroad—convicts,

Our new mates, overturned the Socialist Camp

And so they are free for the past freedom at last!

The police can’t help it, they have no clue.

What will their black magician make them do?

Should the cart go where it ought to be,

Or, again, will the horses be marching behind?

But our soul will never be baffled

When the white charger reaches Baku.[2]

The steed will make butcher’s red meat,

Groaning a wheeze of “merci beaucoup!”

And so the the mare howls throughout the ages,
When, at terrible pace, blinkers are down,
And the fatherland is lying in ashes
Made of carbonized hides.

People of lower ethnic types

Will roll and mire in this mud,

Though Russia has paid in full

To be other than this horse’s food.

Our beloved country pulls and moves

Over the bones of such symbols, forms,

And spits and spews and cries and groans

With power of a mare that befalls a mount.

With whatever Chinese beast

Should we mark this day and age,

The people will choose just one

To be the Horse’s Übeman.

My belief is firm: the symbol, the fashion,

Will not stand for treason this year.

The horse is the hearse, whose corpse

And coffin must reach its land high up and free!

Here is the original:

ГОД БЕЛОЙ ЛОШАДИ

Бьют двенадцать куранты на площади,
И из Спасских священных ворот
На величественной белой лошади
Выгарцовывает Новый год.

Хоть навеян китайской традицией,
Образ этот прижился в умах —
На Руси завсегда царь с царицею
Выезжали на белых конях.

Белый конь — атрибут триумфатора.
Значит, снова триумф и салют.
Значит, снова «ура!» многократное
Иноземцы царю пропоют.

Благодарны, что их не угробили,
Триумфатора станут качать.
Значит, премию мирную Нобеля
Нам на белом коне получать.

Правда, после турне грандиозного
Царь — к себе во дворец на обед,
Ну, а конь — на конюшню навозную
Ждать грядущих царевых побед.

Судьбы белых коней не измерены —
То ль цыгане в ночи украдут,
То ли сделает царь сивым мерином,
То ли шею раздавит хомут.

В чем еще символ года проявится?
Может, дружно держава заржет?
Или будут встречаться красавицы
С лошадиною мордой весь год?

То ль одарят на счастье подковами,
То ли лязгом не конских подков,
То ли будут все кони раскованы,
То ль наладится ковка оков.

Заграничные «Белые лошади»
С этикеток глядят вискаря,
Как зека возвращаются в прошлое,
Опрокинувши соцлагеря.

А охрана не знает, не ведает,
Что прикажет ей год-чародей:
То ль телегу поставить, как следует,
То ль опять впереди лошадей.

Не смутить нашу душу контрастами —
Белый конь, доскакав до Баку,
Обернулся кониною красною,
Прохрипевши: merci, мол, beaucoup.

Громыхает кобыла по вечности,
Шоры сорваны, страшен аллюр,
А вокруг — до небес дым отечества
От обугленной кожи и шкур.

И повалятся в грязь перед клячею
Люди низших этнических форм.
Хоть сполна за Россию заплачено,
Не в коня исторический корм.

Лошадиной единственной силою,
Изрыгая то стоны, то плач,
Наша Родина тащится, милая,
На костях символических кляч.

Но какой бы китайской животною
Ни назвать этот год или век,
Лишь один будет избран народами
Года Лошади Сверхчеловек.

Твердо верю: символика модная
Не обманет в нахлынувший год —
Обязательно в царство свободное
Белый конь катафалк довезет.

Москва, январь 1990 года

When it was published, those words were added by the editor:

Сергей Лавров давно обещал написать для «Русского пионера» колонку. Но в итоге на страницах «РП» появились его стихи. Двадцатилетней давности, но оттого еще более актуальные. С настоящей поэзией всегда так ГЛАВНОМУ РЕДАКТОРУ ЖУРНАЛА «РУССКИЙ ПИОНЕР» А. КОЛЕСНИКОВУ

Уважаемый Андрей Иванович,

продолжая наш разговор об авторской песне, готов вынести на суд прогрессивной общественности пару текстов из того, что я написал в прошлом веке и показывал друзьям под три аккорда на семиструнке.

Первый текст посвящен празднованию наступившего в тот момент 1990 года — Года Белой Лошади.

Второй — застолью с друзьями в том же году.

Третий — сочинен под впечатлением от сказочного похода по Алтаю, сочетавшего сплав по бурным водам Катуни, пешие и конные прогулки. Именно в этом смысле прошу воспринимать словосочетание «водка, пешка, конка».

Искренне, Сергей Лавров

Стихи Сергея Лаврова были опубликованы в журнале «Русский пионер» №25.

And readers' comments:

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[1] Вискарь is a jargon word for whiskey. There is a kind of whiskey called "White Horse." Today it is a synonym of cheap whiskey (500 roubles). But in 1990 when the poem was written it was very (VERY) expensive for the citizens of the dying Soviet Empire. It was also impossible to buy it. Only Lavrov and his friends—higher on the pyramid (both the official and the unofficial ones)—drank it. Besides other "strange" personifications and identifications of the White Horse, Lavrov here compares the White Horse and the whiskey to prison inmates.

White Horse Scotch Whiskey is a blended Scotch whiskey from Edinburgh. White Horse is also the brand of scotch preferred by Jackie Gleason's character Minnesota Fats in The Hustler (1961). Imbibed White Horse to excess is said to be “riding the white horse.”

[2] Lavrov is referring here the Baku Pogrom, which then led to „January Massacre“ or „Black January.“ During the Baku Pogrom, almost 100 Armenians were brutally killed and others ethnically cleansed from Baku by Azerbaijani right-wing nationalists. This was followed by Gorbachev’s declaration of a state of emergency and deployment of military and police forces. The quelling of the anti-Armenian riots led to 100-300 dead among the people of Baku and some 20-30 dead among the Soviet troops. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku_pogrom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_January

Армянский погром в Баку — беспорядки на этнической почве в городе Баку, столице Азербайджанской ССР, 13—20 января 1990 года, сопровождавшиеся массовым насилием в отношении армянского населения, грабежами, убийствами, поджогами и уничтожением имущества. Жертвами погромов стали, по различным данным, от 48 до 90 (согласно некоторым источникам — до трёхсот) человек. Согласно докладчику Human Rights WatchРоберту Кушену, «погромы не были полностью (или, возможно, полностью не) стихийными, так как погромщики имели списки ар\мян и их адресов». Иногда армянский погром рассматривается как часть событий «Чёрного января», приведших к вводу советских войск в Баку.