Creator Bio
Yuli Daniel
1925–1988
The author of strange, satirical stories, Yuli Daniel inspired a generation of young Russian writers to follow his example and poke fun at the Russian government. Writing as “Nikolai Arzhak,” Daniel managed to export his work to the West, where it circulated widely, unhindered by government censorship. Put on trial with his fellow writer Andrey Sinyavsky for publishing “anti-Soviet stories,” he was sentenced to five years’ hard labor in 1966. “To My Friends” belongs to his cycle of poems written in the Gulag. Before his death, Daniel was celebrated as a fearless poet who suffered for his art and politics.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
To My Friends
God’s grace has surely been overabundant.
Riches were mine. Hardly a day would pass
When human sympathy did not alight on me
Like manna from the sky.
I cupped my slender fingers to receive it
Ironic…