To understand Trump/Putin conversations, read a Russian fable

Lev Tsitrin

One hears much about the puzzling phenomenon of Trump/Putin phone calls — the calls in which Trump stresses the need to end Ukraine butchery, and Putin agrees — only to blast Ukraine with a swarm of drones and rockets the day after.

The Westerners can’t figure it out — but to any Russian with a modicum of middle-school Soviet education (like yours truly), this behavior would invite this simple comment: “while listening, cat Vaska eats.”

I thought I’d try to bridge the cultures, and translate the Russian classic by Ivan Krylov from which this saying originates. (Krylov lived two centuries ago; he started out as a translator of La Fontaine, but went on to produce a raft of original fables, greatly enriching the genre.)

So please give a read, and see whether you can match the protagonists of Krylov’s fable to the political figures of our time — though in my translation I went only as far as Muses would allow, leaving much of original texture and detail out; I hoped to just convey the essentials, while struggling — and occasionally succeeding — to find a rime. Also, a comment on the use of Russian nicknames is in order: a man whose official documents spell his name as “Vassily” — a Russian equivalent of Basil, I guess — would be called Vasya by his wife and close friends, but referred to — in a somewhat lighter, if not semi-contemptuous manner as “Vaska” by those neighbours and acquaintances who do not take him too seriously. This said —

A cook and his cat

A cook — well-read and hence of modern, liberal persuasion
For half a day left kitchen on occasion
Of having to attend his neighbor’s final rites
Entrusted cat to chase away the mice.

On his return, the sight is not too nice:
Vaska — the cat — into baked chicken bites,
While crumbs from vanished pie are scattered round.

“I used to be of you so proud” —
The cook shocked silence breaks —
“Why aren’t you ashamed?
“The very walls shame you, and not just people!”
(While listening to this lament, cat Vaska chews away)
“Of shining honesty you seemed example
“But you in fact belong in thiefdom’s very temple!”
(Cat Vaska’s jaws still very busy stay).

The flood of moral rhetoric went on
Till Vaska-cat the whole dish gulped down.

***

Words are but wasted and abused

Where raw power should be used.

I have no listening devices planted in Kremlin, but am willing to bet that every time Trump talks to Putin, “while listening, cat Vaska eats” is echoed in its every corner — because the proverb that originated in this fable so readily comes to a Russian mind.

There is precious little chance that this post would ever reach Trump. If it did, he might find the fable amusing. Or — given how he comes across in it, perhaps not. But to judge by his sanctioning Russian oil, and his (now-paused — after yet another phone call with Putin) talk of arming Ukraine with the Tomahawk missiles show that while likely unaware of Krylov, Trump does understand the moral of his fable.

Illustration by Anita Lobel at Art Net, from the book The cat and the cook and other fables of Krylov pub 1994