Use of dative with быть

Question

In this poem by Marina Tsvetaeva we have:

Не упразднившему — тренья

I don't understand the construction of this sentence. I believe that тренья is the subject. Is the meaning the same as Тренья не упразднившие?

Answer 1

Here's a more extended excerpt from the poem:

Народоправству, свалившему трон,
Не упразднившему — тренья:
Не поручать палачам похорон
Жертв, цензорам — погребенья
Пушкиных.

First of all, this is not anything close to idiomatic Russian. Its grammar is very weird, choice of words peculiar and punctuation non-standard.

That said, what this sentence seems to convey is something along these lines: "The democracy that has knocked down the throne but hasn't abolished the tensions is not to put executioners in charge of their victims' funerals, or censors of interment of Pushkins".

• Народоправство is a calque from "democracy", with a derisive overtone.
• I honestly have no idea what the em dash between упразднившему and тренья is supposed to mean.
• Трения (literally, "frictions") means "social tensions, discord". The syncopic form тренья is used here to maintain the meter.
• Why the word упразднить is being used with трения, I don't know either. Probably some kind of metaphor or something.
• The infinitive in conjunction with the dative can be used to convey the imperative (or, rather, jussive) mood, similar to the Italian impersonal imperative, or to English constructs like "Alice to call Bob and report the status of the work", that are used in meeting minutes.

Answer 2

There is a full translation of this poem by a Russian at https://lyricstranslate.com/ro/stikhi-k-pushkinu-poems-pushkin.html I say Russian, although I don't know what kind of surname Shambat is. He is Ilya Shambat - is this a Jewish name? He has translated every single line of Tsvetaeva's poetry at https://sites.google.com/site/ibshambat/tsvetayeva-full?authuser=0 and so must be considered an authority on her.

But he is not a native speaker of English, and his translation is difficult to understand. He translates

Народоправству, свалившему трон, Не упразднившему - тренья: Не поручать палачам похорон Жертв, цензорам - погребенья Пушкиных.

as

The people's power, having overthrown the throne, Not celebrated - friction: To executioners not to allow burial Of victims, the burial of Pushkin To censors.

I'm not aware of all the possible older meanings of упразднить - can it really mean "celebrate"?

Could it mean "the people's power, which has overthrown the monarchy, but has not done away with absolute power for itself, should face dissent/the executioners should not be allowed to bury the victims/ and the Communist censors should not be allowed to bury the Pushkins (do away with Russia's poets and identity and culture)"? I'm giving a free translation here trying to capture the internal meaning, not translate the words.

Bear in mind, this poem was written in 1931, when Tsvetaeva was living outside of the Soviet Union.

Answer 3

This verse is a kind of an exorcise against outlaws - the word народоправство hears like arbitrariness of ones who was not blessed to rule by law but only by criminal order. Not so bluntly but in a same sense - Cvetaeva was and opposite to the Bolshevik's rule. So, the first part is:

Народоправству, свалившему трон,
Не упразднившему — тренья:
Не поручать палачам похорон
Жертв, цензорам — погребенья\

Пушкиных.

If it unwird, looks this way:

Народоправству, свалившему трон, Не упразднившему — тренья:
Не поручать палачам похорон Жертв,
цензорам — погребенья Пушкиных.

By the end: Pushkinyh ~ the artists; then on second line word "поручать" means to entrust to do something. So the dash mean same word - do not let/trust(~entrust) to executors their victims burying.
Упразднить - to cancel/remove, and about first one dash трение ~ friction - it is a physical law, so she said something, that criminals broke the human(monarchy) laws(law of civilians) but they unable to broke the word laws like physics in same moment. They able to fall the throne but thay unable to fall the world, that created by the artists like Pushkin and others.
So i think, at the dash place have to be words physic laws like frictions ~ the resistance of the created word.

So, she said: they can take the throne by force, but thay unable to take the world of ideas and to rule it. A prohibit them to do this, because am a artist like Pushkin.