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Famine in the village Tatarskaya Kargala
The Tatar village of Tatarskaya Kargala in the Sakmar District of the Orenburg region was severely impacted by the Russian famine of 1921–1922. The famine affected up to 20 million people across the Volga and Ural river regions, causing an estimated five million deaths. The region, along with the broader Volga basin, suffered from a catastrophic combination of drought, civil war…
I recorded the following verse from Khusniamal Aeetova (born in 1910) – Tatarskaya Kargala, Sakmarsky District, Orenburg region, Russia in 1991. She retained many 20th-century events in her memory, which she reflected in her poetry. I hope to transcribe her poems, which I managed to record on tape.
Many years ago, a soul departed, a young child's mother, lost to time,
Her lifeless breast the infant suckled, clinging to that empty, hollow rhyme.
The wretched babe, unknowing, grieved not, for hunger took her mother's breath,
I gazed upon that cold, still bosom, witnessing the silent sting of death.
The child, poor thing, from withered teats drew forth the last of mother's blood,
No nourishment could flow from veins that fed on roots in barren flood.
What milk could come from such a mother, starved and worn by endless strife?
Her heart’s own blood became the sustenance to feed her child’s frail life.
How many days of torment lingered, starving for this babe’s own sake?
How many nights she nursed her child, though hunger made her body quake?
How often did she cradle close, with roots to quell the hunger’s cry?
How much of her own heart she gave, while famished, watching life pass by?
What thoughts must haunt her fading soul, as death approached on darkened street?
What dreams for her ill-fated child, what hopes in her last heartbeat?
In pitch-black night, her eyes still searched, for some kind soul to lend her aid,
She waited for a spark of grace, then sighed and slipped into the shade.
Her lips, so parched, craved but a drop, as dryness cracked her final hour,
With groans and gasps, she left this world, her spirit torn from mortal power.
Yet still she clutched her child’s dark gaze, unyielding even in death’s embrace,
This verse I write with anguished heart, a warning for another’s fate.
Translated from Tatar language by Masguda Shamsutdinova
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