Andrei Platonov (1899–1951) is one of the greatest Russian writers. His longer works were published only long after his death, but the short stories he published during his lifetime are no less remarkable. “Fro“ is one of the most charming and tender of these. Most of Platonov’s best short stories and short novels have been translated by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler, in collaboration with Olga Meerson and other translators, and published by NYRB Classics and Vintage Classics.
Kornely Zelinsky (1896–1970) was a Soviet literary critic, of great influence from the early 1930s until his death. In 1940 he wrote a damning internal review of a collection of poems that Tsvetaeva, recently returned to the Soviet Union, was trying to publish. He also played an important part in the public attacks on Pasternak in 1958, after Doctor Zhivago had been published abroad.
Translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler.
This poem will appear in the forthcoming collection Lev Ozerov: Portraits without Frames, translated by Robert Chandler, Boris Dralyuk, Maria Bloshteyn, and Irina Mashinski (NYRB Classics, November 2018).