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Sidetracked: Exile in Hollywood
102 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 21, 2026
About the author
Alexander Voloshin
3 books2 followershttp://famous-birthdays.ru/data/31_av...
Alexander Nikitich Voloshin. His father worked as a boiler operator at the Putilov factory. With the outbreak of World War I, the Voloshin family moved to live with their relatives in Siberia. Alexander Voloshin spent all his childhood in the Novosibirsk region, where he entered the Komsomol and where he graduated from high school in 1929. During the years of the first five-year plan, Voloshin entered the construction of the Kuznetsk metallurgical plant, where he worked as a concrete worker and was active in social activities. Then Voloshin was sent as a Komsomol organizer of the mine to the Osinnikovsky mine, where he worked as a miner and a fireman.
In 1934 Voloshin was called up for active military service in the ranks of the Red Army. While doing military service, Voloshin graduated from the correspondence department of the Leningrad Communist Institute of Journalism. Demobilized from the army in 1936, A. N. Voloshin returned to the Osinnikovsky mine and got a job in the local newspaper "For coal". Two years later, Alexander moved to Cheremkhovo and began to cooperate with the newspaper Cheremkhovsky Rabochy. During the Great Patriotic War, Voloshin took part in many battles as an ordinary sapper, was wounded. In 1945, during the battles on the Oder, he became a member of the CPSU (b). After the end of the war, Alexander returned to Siberia, where he continued his work as a journalist, collaborating with the Kuzbass newspaper in Kemerovo. Member of the USSR JV since 1950
Alexander Nikitich Voloshin. His father worked as a boiler operator at the Putilov factory. With the outbreak of World War I, the Voloshin family moved to live with their relatives in Siberia. Alexander Voloshin spent all his childhood in the Novosibirsk region, where he entered the Komsomol and where he graduated from high school in 1929. During the years of the first five-year plan, Voloshin entered the construction of the Kuznetsk metallurgical plant, where he worked as a concrete worker and was active in social activities. Then Voloshin was sent as a Komsomol organizer of the mine to the Osinnikovsky mine, where he worked as a miner and a fireman.
In 1934 Voloshin was called up for active military service in the ranks of the Red Army. While doing military service, Voloshin graduated from the correspondence department of the Leningrad Communist Institute of Journalism. Demobilized from the army in 1936, A. N. Voloshin returned to the Osinnikovsky mine and got a job in the local newspaper "For coal". Two years later, Alexander moved to Cheremkhovo and began to cooperate with the newspaper Cheremkhovsky Rabochy. During the Great Patriotic War, Voloshin took part in many battles as an ordinary sapper, was wounded. In 1945, during the battles on the Oder, he became a member of the CPSU (b). After the end of the war, Alexander returned to Siberia, where he continued his work as a journalist, collaborating with the Kuzbass newspaper in Kemerovo. Member of the USSR JV since 1950
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Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
April 25, 2026
Boris Dralyuk has rescued a once obscure masterpiece. Maybe this poem could have been considered a quaint relic of the chaotic Russian emigre experience with educated and once prosperous, now despairing, people reduced to odd jobs like driving taxis and working as movie extras in a foreign country. But the poem Dralyuk has resurrected, at this crucial moment, has an unexpected immediacy as well as unexpected charm. (Those two qualities rarely happen together these days...) "Sidetracked" is the titular poem of a 1953 collection that is difficult to find even in the original Russian. Dralyuk's introduction and notes are crucial to understanding and appreciating the text and context, but his translation makes it a simple joy to read.
As an emigre author, Alexander Voloshin, shared the dual identity experienced by many Ukrainians. Ukrainians that I worked with in the Hoover Archives at Stanford explained that Russian was the language of school, business, and government. The closely related Ukrainian language was spoken almost as a private code at home, with friends and relatives. Ukrainian identity was submerged but never purged. Some of my reading provided a bit of background: Anne Applebaum's book "Famine," explains the extremely deadly lengths that the central Soviet government went to in order to crush Ukrainian independence in the 1930s, and Teffi's memoirs sketch a territory briefly under the control of the Ukrainian separatist Skoropadsky even earlier during the 1920s. Voloshin was a brilliant writer in classic Russian, and also a Ukrainian proud of his cultural heritage.
After his experiences in the Russian Civil War and the failed efforts at Ukrainian independence during that early period, Voloshin has few illusions. But he did survive, barely, working unpredictable, odd jobs as an extra in Hollywood movies:
"Reader its time you understood:
There's no free lunch in Hollywood."
He survived the revolution and civil war, found a perch in Los Angeles, but then news from Europe in the 1930s brought back old fears. And these once esoteric footnotes that I savored as a history nerd, suddenly have an immediate relevance, here and now:
"here - laws are trampled and some crazed
loony takes on the World entire
War, with its bloody wind and fire,
again has set the globe aglow."
But Voloshin also has a message from his experience that is positive in its own Slavic way:
"War a raging hurricane...
The Whole world has gone insane...
Yet faith smolders in our souls
like a mound of stubborn coals."
As these brief quotes suggest: the translation is sparkling and brilliant even when dealing with tragedy. There is a chapter on translation in Alberto Manguel's "History of Reading" that suggests that -- while most of the time sense and beauty are 'lost in translation,' -- there are instances when the translation has its own merits beyond the original. I don't know the original Russian text of "Sidetracked," and my Russian wouldn't be sufficient even if I tracked it down, but Dralyuk's translation is simply brilliant. It sparkles. Native Russian speakers do have an appreciation for rhyme, much easier in Slavic languages than in English. But it is instructive that sometimes a Russian can master English better than the "natives." Darlyuk's rhyme schemes are highly colloquial, unexpected, and unexpectedly bright. Occasionally I have noticed the same effect when Josef Brodsky wrote in English. Dralyuk's English is simply better than Brodsky's, but there are also a few times when, like with Brodsky's English, the text sounds slightly better read with a Russian accent, like when he rhymes "rejoice" with "toys." In any case I recommend reading "Sidetracked," and best to find a quiet spot where you can read it out loud, the way poetry is meant to be.
As an emigre author, Alexander Voloshin, shared the dual identity experienced by many Ukrainians. Ukrainians that I worked with in the Hoover Archives at Stanford explained that Russian was the language of school, business, and government. The closely related Ukrainian language was spoken almost as a private code at home, with friends and relatives. Ukrainian identity was submerged but never purged. Some of my reading provided a bit of background: Anne Applebaum's book "Famine," explains the extremely deadly lengths that the central Soviet government went to in order to crush Ukrainian independence in the 1930s, and Teffi's memoirs sketch a territory briefly under the control of the Ukrainian separatist Skoropadsky even earlier during the 1920s. Voloshin was a brilliant writer in classic Russian, and also a Ukrainian proud of his cultural heritage.
After his experiences in the Russian Civil War and the failed efforts at Ukrainian independence during that early period, Voloshin has few illusions. But he did survive, barely, working unpredictable, odd jobs as an extra in Hollywood movies:
"Reader its time you understood:
There's no free lunch in Hollywood."
He survived the revolution and civil war, found a perch in Los Angeles, but then news from Europe in the 1930s brought back old fears. And these once esoteric footnotes that I savored as a history nerd, suddenly have an immediate relevance, here and now:
"here - laws are trampled and some crazed
loony takes on the World entire
War, with its bloody wind and fire,
again has set the globe aglow."
But Voloshin also has a message from his experience that is positive in its own Slavic way:
"War a raging hurricane...
The Whole world has gone insane...
Yet faith smolders in our souls
like a mound of stubborn coals."
As these brief quotes suggest: the translation is sparkling and brilliant even when dealing with tragedy. There is a chapter on translation in Alberto Manguel's "History of Reading" that suggests that -- while most of the time sense and beauty are 'lost in translation,' -- there are instances when the translation has its own merits beyond the original. I don't know the original Russian text of "Sidetracked," and my Russian wouldn't be sufficient even if I tracked it down, but Dralyuk's translation is simply brilliant. It sparkles. Native Russian speakers do have an appreciation for rhyme, much easier in Slavic languages than in English. But it is instructive that sometimes a Russian can master English better than the "natives." Darlyuk's rhyme schemes are highly colloquial, unexpected, and unexpectedly bright. Occasionally I have noticed the same effect when Josef Brodsky wrote in English. Dralyuk's English is simply better than Brodsky's, but there are also a few times when, like with Brodsky's English, the text sounds slightly better read with a Russian accent, like when he rhymes "rejoice" with "toys." In any case I recommend reading "Sidetracked," and best to find a quiet spot where you can read it out loud, the way poetry is meant to be.
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