Euridice

Ethnical Okroshka is a an image, a vision of identity. Okroshka is a cold summer soup from the Volga region, made of chopped ingredients put into one big pot, filled up with Ayran or Kefir. Its composition reflects a condition, a state of mind, it is the expression of an identification process that the poetess Sofia Koch has experienced in her formation as an individual.

Sofia was born in Kazakhstan and grew up in Germany, raised between two cultures. With time she realized that those two cultures contain stories of people and languages, heritages that are twisted and mixed, forgotten and lost, a result of russian imperialism.
Resulting from that, the topic about identity became a big question for her and she started to feel that it was not quite right to be labeled as “russian” by German society.

In 2023, Sofia joined a multilingual poetry workshop hosted by Dinara Rasuleva, a Tatar poetess who started to write poems in Tatar instead of russian, as she used to do. In her workshop, Dinara encouraged the participants to explore poetry and literature in their lost or forgotten native languages, by guided tasks like remembering cultural dishes and rituals, specific smells from childhood, and to write about it, with the few words the people know in their native language, as well as experimenting with mixing it with other ones.
From this point on, Sofia discovered a way, a poetic language to showcase the cultural variety in her family, to express her insecurities and urge of belonging, to try to get an answer for the question:
Who am I?

La la la
Lagh 
      Man 
Be be be
Be
         Shbarmak 
Абика а не мама
Ле ле ле
Ле
    пи
         Ла 
Laghman и Beshbarmak
А я я я
Как другие
Не когда не лепила и наверно не когда не буду
Потому что 
Это
Честно 
Наверно 
Не моя 
Blue Blue Blue 
Блю
       Да
А толко память 

Как грустно
я думаю 

La la la
Lagh
Man
Be be be
Be
Shbarmak
Grandmother and not mum
Mo mo mo
Mo
l
ded
Laghman and Beshbarmak
But I I I
Like others
Never molded and probably never will
Because
This is
Honestly
Probably
Not my
Blue Blue Blue
Di
Sh
But only a memory

How sad
I’m thinking

This poem talks about traditional Turkic dishes (Laghman and Beshbarmak) which Sofia’s
Tatar grandmother (Абика) likes to prepare for her when she comes to visit her family
in Kazakhstan.
Sofia uses the concept of food as a cultural identity to explain the ongoing loss of
Turkic culture in her nuclear family, because her mother is not able to prepare those
dishes.
She is saying that she herself has never and probably will never be able to prepare
those dishes, due to the fact that this kind of food does no longer belong to
her culture, playing with the sound of the russian word for dishes (Блюда) and the
color blue, which she associates with sadness.
The poem is written in russian and English.

*

Я хочу что этот
Тел 
Будет как
Су

Я хочу что моя 
Алтын чәчәк 
Росла в мое 
Йөрәк

Я хочу чувствовать этот
Тел
Как обнимашки мое
Әбике

Я хочу дышать этот
Тел
Чувствовать в мое
Упкә

Әйдә әйдә
Они сказали 

Скушай этот тел 
Что бы он был в твое ашказаны

Шулай итәм
Әйбәт итәм 

Мин балык эчендә су

Oh language
I want this
Language
To be like
Water

I want that my
Golden flower
Grows in my
Heart

I want to feel this
Language
Like the hugs of my
Grandmother

I want to breath this
Language
Feeling it in my
Lungs

Come, come
They said

Eat this language
So that it will be in your stomach

I do it this way
I do it well

I’m water inside a fish

Tel (Тел) means language in Tatar. The wish to be able to speak the native language of
Sofia’s mother and grandmother, demonstrating it with images of breathing the language
and feeling it in her lungs (Я хочу дышать этот Тел Чувствовать в мое Упкә) or feeling the
comfort of it like being hugged by her grandmother (Я хочу чувствовать этот Тел Как
обнимашки мое Әбике).
In the workshop by Dinara, Sofia learned that making mistakes while writing a poem or text
is a great demonstration of the loss and build up distance to the language and which should
not be corrected. Sofia’s intention was to finish the poem by saying “I’m a fish in the water”
but she ended up writing “I’m the water inside the fish” (Мин балык эчендә су), which at
the end has even a stronger meaning and shows, that resulting from a mistake, the poem
gains a unique texture.
The poem is written in Tatar and russian.

*

I день tity 
Identity 
Identity 
Let’s talk about identity 
I love me some identity 
Even if no identity 
Что это такое?
День день
I день tity 
Каждый день 
Identity 
Каждый день он ест 
Ест ест identity 
Не знаю как можно есть 
Этот синий identity 
С хлебом, мед и выпит с чайом  
Is it even tasty?
Is it sweet or sour?
Is it bitter or spicy?
Пробыла и выплюнула 
Каждый день не нравится 
Каждый день no identity 
День день 
Identity 
I hate me some identity 

I day tity
Identity
Identity
Let’s talk about identity
I love me some identity
Even if no identity
What is it?
Day day
I day tity
Every day
Identity
Every day it’s there
It’s there it’s there identity
I don’t know how to eat
This blue identity
With bread, honey and drinking with tea
Is it even tasty?
Is it sweet or sour?
Is it bitter or spicy?
I tried and spit it out
Every day no identity
Day day
Identity
I hate me some identity

As mentioned in the beginning, identity is a big topic for the artist, which she talks about in
this poem with the title identity (I день tity). Again, Sofia played with the sounds of the
English word identity, especially the -den- part of the word and the russian word for
day (день). The intention is to showcase that identity is something that we are confronted
with every day, it is part of who we are and who we want to become, trying to shape or
protect it from outer influences.
By saying “Let’s talk about identity”, Sofia is inviting to explore her own identity, realizing
that it is not easy, comparing it with something edible but she does not know how to
consume it, wondering if she could eat if with bread, honey, and black tea (С хлебом, мед и
выпит с чайом).
At the end of the poem, she concludes that she does not like the taste, cannot even
distinguish it (Is it even tasty? Is it sweet or sour? Is it bitter or spicy?), finishing the text by
the statement, that she is frustrated by her own identity.
The poem is written in English and russian.

*

Namenlos
Meine Sprache hat keinen Namen
Stattdessen ist es ein riesiger Topf
Крошишь крошишь и положишь 
Как verbale окрошка он пойдет 
Durch alle Straßen und alle Seen
Vermischt, verwechselt und kreiert
Это не так и это не вот 
Это кто я, ты меня поймешь?
Es gibt nicht mehr zwei sondern nur noch eins
Ich kann nicht mehr springen und will es auch nicht
Потому что это я и это мой язык
Это я и мой безымянный язык

Nameless
My language has no name
Instead it’s a huge pot
Cutting cutting and putting
Like a verbal okroshka it goes
Through all streets and all lakes
Mixed, mixed up and created
This is not this and this is not that
This is who I am, do you understand me?
There is no more two but only one
I cannot jump anymore and I don’t want to
Because this is me and my language
This is me and my nameless language

“Namenlos” is a text about Sofia’s language, which has not a specific name, it is nameless (namenlos).
In this poem she picks up the visual explanation of being an Okroshka, also referring it to her
language, which gets cut up in little pieces and put into a big pot (Stattdessen ist es ein
riesiger Topf / Крошишь крошишь и положишь / Как verbale окрошка он пойдет).
The artist is questioning the definition of mother tongue, a language that you learn from
early childhood, a language that you learn from your family, a language that is your primary
one.
Growing up bilingual, russian language from her parents and German from the kindergarten
and outer influences, Sofia decided that she does not want to see both languages separately,
but as one, twisted and mixed, starting a sentence in German and ending it in russian,
conjugating German verbs according to russian grammar.
The poem is written in German and russian.

Sofia Koch