Pal Genai (Gennady Smirnov)
Hill Mari poet, memoirist, librettist
1. Who I Am
I am a Hill Mari — a man of the Mountain Mari people from the right bank of the Volga.
I was born in the village of Chalomkino and grew up in Yungo‑Kusherga, a place whose fields, forests, and river shaped my earliest memories and still return to me in dreams.
I am 77 now. My life has taken me through Yoshkar‑Ola, Irkutsk, Chukotka, and seven unforgettable years in Rivne, Ukraine. For the last decades my wife Varya and I have lived in California — on the far shore of the ocean, where warmth and safety coexist with a constant ache for the world I left behind.
The Mari — like many peoples of the Russian Federation — have faced rapid assimilation.
Fewer young people speak our language. Many no longer identify with their roots.
For those of us who still carry the old speech and the old stories, this loss is painful.
Around 2014 I returned consciously to my Hill Mari identity. I began writing poems, essays, and memories; I revived forgotten words; I avoided unnecessary borrowings; I tried to prove — first of all to myself — that our language is rich, expressive, and alive.
My Hill Mari blog
A collection of photographs, essays, folklore, and ethno‑futurist materials.
Note: most texts are in Hill Mari and Russian.
Link: [https://hillmarygames.blogspot.com/](https://hillmarygames.blogspot.com/)
3. The War and the Wound
The war of 2022 struck me deeply.
Ukraine had become my second homeland.
My wife was born in Rivne; I taught ecology in Ukrainian; we lived there happily for years.
When the invasion began, I was finishing my second memoir. I could not write a foreword. Instead I wrote:
- “In my peaceful old age,
- the word ‘Russian’ suddenly took on the same meaning
- that ‘Nemets’ had in my peaceful childhood…”
Publishing in Russia became impossible.
So I made both books freely available online.
War sharpened everything: memory, identity, language, belonging.
It forced me to ask: Who am I? Where is my place? What can I preserve? What can I pass on?
4. The “Embryos” — Ӹлянӹквлӓ
Over the past ten years I have written dozens of short poems in Hill Mari — small “embryos” of memory.
I wrote them by hand, in ink, often adding simple drawings in the margins. Each poem holds a fragment of my native world:
- the Shanavӹl Kü cliff
- the forest of Kӱšӹl Šӹrgӹ
- the goose on the Milky Way
- the sandpiper‑ferryman
- the goddess Mother‑Water
- the quarrelsome Keremet
- the girl Kӱm — “not yet born from stone”
- and the Hill Mari who have been hiding for 450 years in an invisible cave, waiting for Kӱm to lead them out.
These poems are my way of preserving a language that is fading — and of offering a Hill Mari voice to the wider Finno‑Ugric family.
Poetry collection “Ӹлянӹквлӓ” (Embryos)
Note: texts are in Hill Mari, Russian, and English (English translations are still limited).
Link: [https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qfecBRyB_R9gMnHIbLyseDh1aPu9L7W0](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qfecBRyB_R9gMnHIbLyseDh1aPu9L7W0)
5. My Books
“Сам себе пишу я эти письма…” (I Write These Letters to Myself…) — Volume I
Memoirs about Hill Mari childhood, village life of the 1950s–60s, and the fragile world of a small people living between tradition and Soviet modernity.
Language: Russian
Link: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BuZyi28wdjhGVRSXCYEzL6szH45crfh8/view](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BuZyi28wdjhGVRSXCYEzL6szH45crfh8/view)
“Сам себе пишу я эти письма…” — Volume II
A continuation of the first book: student years in Yoshkar‑Ola, Kirov, and Irkutsk; early professional life in Chukotka; encounters with Chukchi, Eskimo, and other Indigenous peoples of the Soviet northeast; and reflections on identity across vast distances.
Language: Russian
Link: [https://drive.google.com/file/d/192HR7CHfCbiu_qeoccB8wWWTRNUT_M_a/view](https://drive.google.com/file/d/192HR7CHfCbiu_qeoccB8wWWTRNUT_M_a/view)
Important note for readers
Most of my materials available through the links — including both memoir volumes — are in Russian and Hill Mari.
Only a small portion has been translated into English so far.
6. The Opera Libretto “Shanavӹl Kü” (Rainbow Stone)
I have completed a full libretto for an opera based on Hill Mari mythology and history.
The text is rhymed, written in Hill Mari, and transliterated into Latin script.
Subtitles in English and Russian are ready.
I am now seeking a composer and a theatre company willing to bring this story — a story of a small people with their own language, history, and culture — to the world stage.
Libretto “Shanavӹl Kü”
Note: the libretto is in Hill Mari; subtitles are in English and Russian.
Link: [https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10BTyavjwXEvIxIK32QIhJ4lDRLbUsYT5](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10BTyavjwXEvIxIK32QIhJ4lDRLbUsYT5)
7. Why My Voice Is Present Here — Even Though I Cannot Be
I cannot attend the opening of the Finno‑Ugric Cultural Capital 2026 in person.
Age, distance, and the long road from California make the journey impossible.
But I wanted my voice — the voice of a Hill Mari elder, a poet, a keeper of a small and fragile language — to be present among you.
So I prepared this booklet, my books, my poems, and my stories for you to read, hold, and carry further.
I believe that our cultures strengthen one another when we speak, write, and share.
I believe that memory is a form of resistance.
And I believe that even a small language can shine brightly when placed among its kin.
If my words reach even a few of you — if they awaken curiosity, recognition, or kinship — then my presence here has been fulfilled.
Tau! Thank you for listening.
Kindness and peace to all.
Contacts
Email: gennady_smirnov@hotmail.com
Blog: [https://hillmarygames.blogspot.com/](https://hillmarygames.blogspot.com/)
Poetry collection: see link above
Memoirs: see links above
Opera libretto: see link above
