Alexey Merzlyakov

Alexey Fyodorovich Merzlyakov (1778–1830) was a poet and critic and professor of rhetoric at Moscow University. His songs written in the folk manner were widely sung in Russia. Bowring prints his version of Isaiah’s oracle on the fall of Babylon and a pastoral “Duett”.

The versions here are by John Bowring, from his Specimens of the Russian Poets (Part the First, 1821; Part the Second, 1823), one of the first English anthologies of Russian verse. They are free, rhymed versions, and should be read as period translations rather than as literal renderings.