"God Is a Rusyn": Anthology of Contemporary Carpatho-Rusyn Literature

Nataliia Dudash

Nataliia Dudash NATALIIA DUDASH was born in Ruski Kerestur in present day Serbia in 1958. Dudash studied literary theory at the University of Belgrade. She worked as editor of the literary supplement to the Rusyn weekly newspaper Ruske slovo and as Rusyn correspondent for Radio Novi Sad. From 1998– 2000 she served as deputy minister of culture in Serbia. Dudash has published several books of poetry (Wild Dance / Dzivi tanets, 1980; Birth of Music / Narodzovanie muziki, 1985; On the Literary / O literaturnim, 1987; Silky Snake / Hadvab had, 1989; On Melancholy Crafts / O melanholichnikh remeslokh, 1996) and a collection of critical essays (Eggshell / Shkarupina, 1991). She has also compiled an anthology of Rusyn poetry from all countries where Rusyns live (Rusyn Poems / Rusinski / ruski pisnï, 1997). Dudash’s poetic style demonstrates her familiarity with contemporary postmodern European poetry. In her poems she attempts to unite the traditional rhythms of Rusyn verse with contemporary social and psychological insights. 216 SERBIA [From O melanholichnikh remeslokh] Embroidery when I was small I spent summers at my uncle’s farm I was afraid of only one thing near the house toward the roof bent an old, exhausted, well-branched pear tree with a fat green worm among the rustling leaves with a green caterpillar in the forking branches to get to the yard I had to start running inside the house and dash wildly out I endured so much once women came to pick plums ripe yellow and blue and hopping like birds in front of the farmhouse the women sang quietly and then louder suddenly a woman screamed between plum tree ladders with wide eyes one woman smiled vaguely on her blouse on her back was fixed that stupid worm a real Rusyn woman is no woman at all if she does not know the secret of embroidery NATALIIA DUDASH 217 from childhood my baba and mother have taught me that if you want to embroider you must bite through a green worm117 in a house where women were heeded I would wake at night from a frightening dream sweating among the plum trees with the worm’s feet piercing my back I learned to embroider
 When You Change Me God when you change me God into other forms and contents I will understand because only change is constant and who knows where you are now but to debate this has been unnecessary from time immemorial like the fable of the donkey and its shadow118 but when you God change me and this is a vital creation since it changes but does not destroy make of me delicate porcelain 117 Children were told that to master a particular skill they must perform an abhorrent or frightening act. So, for example, in order to sing well, one had to swallow a bird’s egg. To embroider well, one had to bite through or ingest a silkworm, or in this case, a caterpillar. 118 In one of Aesop’s fables, a traveler rents a donkey, and an argument ensues with the donkey ’s owner about who has the right to the shadow of the donkey for protection from the sun. While the men fight, the donkey gallops off. The moral to the story is that in quarreling about the shadow, we often lose the substance. 218 SERBIA a simple teacup for the kitchen shelf where it smells nicely of fine bottles pepper chili anise sage garlic cinnamon drops of soy from which dust is brushed healthy fingers of walnut leaves as if a dense oil were squeezed but I know that one’s own shadow even has hair therefore make from me porcelain china to be placed on the table exposed to the sun’s beam in the window next to the book that lies open to be read again even aside from this we have fears and we have reasons mold from me a teacup God from fine porcelain and give me a handle so that every movement might be a philosophically supported category since not knowing certain things is the real beginning of wisdom and when you pull from under me the laid tablecloths and patchworks since what you withhold no one can give when you take all hands from me let me be from the finest material that will surely shatter into grains of glass as when teeth clench as a startled animal [3.145.163.58] Project MUSE (2024-04...