This paper has three sources or “causes”, two of them “prior”, the third “final”. These are: firstly, the translation by the present writer of a fairly large group of poems and texts by the poet Velimir Khlebnikov (b1885, d1922), intended as a contribution to an anthology of English language translations of 20th century Russian poetry, published in 2004 by Anvil Press, under the title, “Ten Russian Poets. Surviving the Twentieth century, edited by Richard McKane (hereafter “TP”); secondly, a paper by the present writer, with the title, “Issues raised by a “rap” translation of a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov, included in the published proceedings of an international conference held in Moscow in May 2003, Poetika iskanii ili poisk poetiki (the poetics of questing or the quest for a poetics), Moscow 2004, - the poem in question, in Russian “Kammenaia baba”, literally “Stone woman”, translated as “Rockin mama” (hereafter KB) being one of those proposed as part of the TP contribution but finally not included; thirdly, the invitation for contributions to a publication on the theme, “Translation and Conflict” theme proposed by Professor Salama-Carr, of Salford University. The present text is a response to the invitation. The material and some of the sources of the Moscow paper have been adapted in order to address this theme; it also uses other materials relating to the Russian civil war.
