Dance With a Shadow

by Irina Ratushinskaya, David McDuff (Translator), Irina Ratushinskaya

Irina Borisovna Ratushinskaya was born in Odessa in 1954. She studied natural science at university, where she also experimented with writing scripts for revues, but she did not begin to write in earnest until the late 1970s, when she discovered the poetry of the Russian 'Silver Age'. That discovery led to her reading the banned work of Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Pasternak and Tsvetayeva, an intense and profound spiritual experience which spurred her into writing her own poems with a greatly increased seriousness and sense of artistic commitment.
In 1979 she married the human rights activist Igor Gerashchenko, a childhood friend, and moved with him to Kiev, where she became involved in the human rights movement. In December 1981 they were both arrested in Moscow's Puskin Square, where they had gone to demonstrate their support for Andrei Sakharov, and sentenced to 10 days imprisonment. She was arrested again in September 1982, held in prison for six months, and sentenced in March 1983 to seven years' hard labour and five years' internal exile on a charge of 'agitation carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening the Soviet regime'. Cited in evidence was the fact that she had written and circulated poems critical of the Soviet Union.
The poems which a Soviet judge had called 'a danger to the State' were published in Britain by Bloodaxe in her book No, I'm Not Afraid in 1986. She herself was unaware that they had been smuggled out, and that an international campaign was being mounted on her behalf, spearheaded by a book of her own poetry.
She was held for three years in the Small Zone, a special unit for women political prisoners in a strict regime labour camp at Barashevo in Mordovia. Many of the poems she wrote in the camp were first written with burnt matchsticks onto bars of soap, then memorised. She first learned that her poems had been published around the world when the KGB came to see her in the labour camp. They told her she would get another ten years for having her work published in the West.
The rest is history. Gorbachev and Reagan were given copies of her book, and in October 1986, on the eve of the Reykjavik summit, Irina Ratushinskaya was released after serving four years of her sentence. She was allowed to leave Russia in December 1986, and has since lived in America and Britain.

Genres: Poetry

77 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1993

About the author

Irina Ratushinskaya was born in Odessa, Ukraine. Her father was Boris Leonidovich, an engineer, and her mother was Irina Valentinovna Ratushinsky, a teacher of Russian literature. Her mother's family originated from Poland, and her grandfather was deported to Siberia shortly after the January Uprising, a Polish uprising against forced conscription in the Russian Army in 1863.

Irina was educated at Odessa University and was graduated with a master's degree in physics in 1976. Before her graduation she taught at a primary school in Odessa from 1975–78.

On September 17, 1982, Irina was arrested for anti-Soviet agitation. In April 1983, she was convicted of "agitation carried on for the purpose of subverting or weakening the Soviet regime", sentenced to seven years in a labor camp followed by five years of internal exile. She was released on October 9, 1986, on the eve of the summit in Reykjavík, Iceland between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.

While imprisoned, Irina continued to write poetry. Her previous works usually centered on love, Christian theology, and artistic creation, not on politics or policies as her accusers stated. Her new works that were written in prison, which were written on soap until memorized and then washed away, number some 250. They expressed an appreciation for human rights; liberty, freedom, and the beauty of life. Her memoir, Grey is the Colour of Hope, chronicles her prison experience. Her later poems recount her struggles to endure the hardships and horrors of prison life. Irina is a member of International PEN, who monitored her situation during her incarceration.

In 1987, Irina moved to the United States, where she received the Religious Freedom Award from the Institute on Religion and Democracy. In the same year she was deprived of Soviet citizenship by Politburo. She also was the Poet in Residence at Northwestern University from 1987–89. She lived in London, UK until December 1998, when she returned to Russia to educate her children in Russian school after a year of procedures to restore Russian citizenship.

She lives in Moscow with her husband, human rights activist Igor Gerashchenko, and two sons.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Yousseif Abdellatif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dance With a Shadow kept me hooked in one sitting, and I'm still a little mad about it because I had stuff to do. Irina Ratushinskaya builds momentum like a freight train, no fluff, no filler. The final twist is a touch too neat, but I'll live. Perfect for a rainy Sunday, bad for anyone with deadlines.

[Nada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poignant but I feel as if something is lost in translation.