Forever, Our Souls Remain

This is a poem from The Last of the Departed published by Bagrat Shinkuba. It is an excellent story of the Ubykh, Zaurkan Zolak, who was expelled as a young man from Kafkasia in 1864. His story is told through the linguist Sharakh Kvadza when Zaurkan was a 100 years old.

Let's look back at our mountains,
They don't know where we're going.
Let's look back and leave them our song
To wonder like an echo
From one mountain to another.
If a child leaves its mother,
The mother is to blame.
But is she really to blame?
Is she really to blame?
"Why are you leaving children?
What have I done to you, children?"
Our land is crying;
Our land is asking.
Forgive us unfortunate ones,
Forgive us!
We have no power to stay.
We can leave you
One thing only: our souls.
We are leaving forever.
Forever, our souls remain.

Forever, my soul remains...


The Mountaineers leave the aul (village). 1872.