A poem “Nemo” – forbidden love, forbidden city

For the summary I chose a poem by my good friend, colleague and companion Elena Zaslavskaja. She is a Russian-Ukrainian poet and children’s books writer from Lugansk, a laureate of the International Literary Prize. S. Yesenina “O Russia, flap your wings …” in 2015 in the “Word of Victory” nomination. Elena’s poems are translated into German, Spanish, English, French, Lithuanian and Bulgarian. Couple months ago she published her later poem “Nemo”. For three years Elena worked on it. Unfortunately, I could not make a high-quality literary translation of the poem’s parts, given in the summary, but I hope that I was able to analyze it and to find the additional meanings.

A poem by Elena Zaslavskaja was named after the protagonist of Jules Verne’s novel «Vingt mille lieues sous les mers» capitain Nemo (in latin “Nemo” means “Nobody”).

This poem is not just a rare example of love lyrics, romanticism and the Russian magic poetic tradition. It is also a multi-layered, varied sea quest, a dangerous voyage. Читать полностью