Accidental acrostrich is as strange and wonderful
a bird, as doubtful asphodel is a flower. But, I confess,
I too miss the point of DN's joke (or his serious remark, what do
I know?). Does he think that there is an acrostic (or a beginning of the
acrostic) in Derzhavin's last poem or that there is none?
Ruina chti meaning "the ruin of glory" is,
of course, total nonsense. In its singular, not necessarily archaic, form
(which happens to be the word's plural form in
Latin), ruina can mean "artificial ruin", a building or
monument that was purposedly made to look like a ruin (cf.
iskusstvennaya ruina, the two arch-connected towers flanking the
road in the Alexandrovskiy Park of Tsarskoe Selo, or ruina of the
Gedaechtnis Kirche in Berlin). In the graveyard poetry, ruiny
("ruins") are a symbol of cemetry. Derzhavin was a half-Tartar, who had
a peculiar ear for harmony. I think he could have used the
word ruina in the sense "tombstone", "graveyard monument".
Ruina chti looks to me like a beginning of a phrase. Ostanki
Derzhavina ("the remains of Derzhavin") comes most naturally as its
continuation, at the same time providing convenient letters to start new
lines with them. If I had VN's talent of stylization, I might have
attempted to complete Derzhavin's poem myself (but I would have tempted to
substitute "Sklyarenko" for "Derzhavina", for my name, written in
Cyrillic, also has nine characters, just like the name "Derzhavin" in
Genitive).
By the way, there is Ruinen, a town in the
Neverlands, in ADA (2.3). Apart from being the German word for "ruins", its
name hints at Rouen, Flaubert's home town, and ryuen', the
old Russian name of September (see my article on Turgenev in
Zembla).
Yesterday, my English (but not
me!) nemnogo podgulyal (was kind of tipsy). Sorry. "Was
influenced" should be "was inspired" and several other corrections and
improvements could be made.
Alexey
Sklyarenko