19.IX.1962
Children sometimes make salient remarks unawares.
I recall: a year ago Oles3 and I were fooling around by the Kazbet market, espying the monument of the despot, he questioned:
— “Daddy, who is that?”
— “Stalin.”
He looked at him for a moment and almost casually asked:
— “Why did he climb up there?”
It’s true, Stalin did not descend upon the pedestal; neither did the people put him there. He climbed up himself — through treachery, turpitude, he climbed up bloodily and insolently just like all the tyrants do. Now this tiger that fed upon human flesh would die from anger, if he found out what a prize for scrap-metal collectors his cheap, dull monuments have become.
It’s terrible when temporal glory and deification become posthumous shame. It isn’t glory at all, but only a toy, with which grown-up children play. Only the poor in mind and spirit cannot understand this.
Перекладач: Andriy M. Freishyn-Chirovsky
Оригінал: Окрайці думок (19.09.1962)
Мова: english
