“We Swore We’d Stay Eternal Friends”: Vernon Duke Remembers Boris Poplavsky

Over the past six months I’ve occasionally ventured beyond the Angeleno émigré scene, which continues to hold most of my attention, in order to translate the work of Russophone exiles who landed on other shores. One of these is the fabled poète maudit of the First Wave, Boris Poplavsky (1903-1935), who made his career, such as it was, in Paris, but whose earliest poems of note were written during the initial stage of his exile, in Constantinople — one of the primary way stations for those fleeing the Civil War from southern Ukraine. I’ve translated and written about Poplavsky before, but this time I had the occasion to render his dazzling youthful cycle of sonnets about his temporary home for a soon-to-be published volume dedicated to the literary legacy of “Russian Constantinople.” In 1920-21, the young poet found himself wandering through the streets, squares, and alleys of this borderland between…