Is Russian toska (‘yearning / longing') translatable?

Abstract

What is “yearning/longing” (toska in Russian)? Inspired by this question, which Rainer Maria Rilke posed in a letter to A. N. Benois (1901), the author examines different aspects of “longing” in Russian history and culture, drawing out the national specificity of this concept. The focus is not on “yearning/longing” as a state of mind or specific psychophysiological state variously reflected in European and Russian poetry, but rather on Russian “yearning/ longing” and its entanglements with traditional characteristics of Russian life (abject poverty, wistful folk songs, endless roads, space and, finally, specific notion of the motherland). A series of examples borrowed primarily from Russian poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries helps shed light on the deep “metaphysical” meaning of “yearning/longing” (described earlier by N. Berdiaev). “Russian longing” is considered as a characteristic feature of the national “soul”, and the author argues that it is impossible to replicate this unique “substrate” in any other language. The article concludes with an excursion into the present time — a reflection on Russian toska (‘yearning/longing') in new historical circumstances.