Last edited by Balu; 12-26-2017 at 01:07 PM.
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
In Afghanistan, the black tulip ,
C in a glass of vodka we silently sail above ground
Mournful bird across the border
To Russian ZARNITSA carries kids home.
In the black tulip those with jobs
They're coming home to the land of sweet lie .
In a perpetual vacation , torn to shreds ,
They never, never warm hug the shoulders.
When oases Dzhellalabada fallen down on the wing, our tulip fell.
We cursed all his work.
Again, the loss of a company led bacha
In Shindand , Kandahar and Bagram
Again, per capita put a heavy stone
Again carry home heroes
That in 20 years the grave digging
That in 20 years the grave digging
But it is necessary to climb , it is necessary to gather
If you break down , then you can run and then
Mountains shoot Stinger soars
If you break that boys die a second time
And we did not go the way home
Where there is no war , and all have been familiar
Where the corpses see once a year pilots
Where the clouds not to bring down helicopters
And we go , from the wrath of his teeth
Dry vodka dampening lips
They come from Pakistan caravans
And, then, there is work for " Tulips"
And , then , there is a job for " Tulips"
In Afghanistan, the black tulip ,
C in a glass of vodka we silently sail above ground
Mournful bird across the border
To Russian ZARNITSA carries our brothers home.
When oases Dzhellalabada fallen down on the wing, our tulip fell.
We cursed all his work.
Again kid summed loss of a company
In Shindand , Kandahar and Bagram
Again, per capita put a heavy stone
Again carry home heroes
That in 20 years the grave digging
That in 20 years the grave digging
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
http://lyricstranslate.com/ru/tam-za...#ixzz52WvVQdaL
Blue sea, there is only blue sea astern
Blue sea and the road to home is very long
There, beyond mists always drunk
There, beyond mists our native land
Waves whisper, inhale and cry
But they, strange things, they can't understand that
There, beyond mists always drunk
There, beyond mists people love and wait for us
Sevastopol' waits*, Kamchatka* waits, Kronstadt* waits
The land believe to and waits for its native guys
There, beyond mists always drunk
There, beyond mists their wives do not sleep
We will come back, of course, we will reach the shore
And then we'll smile and press our children to our breast
There, beyond mists always drunk
There, beyond mists we will over the song
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
Paratroopers - Dandelions
In childhood we were all different,
The questions were strange.
"Mama, what is the name of
that flies in the clouds?"
"Oh, Mom, look, something falls,
like dandelions?"
The woman smiles:
"These, my son, are the paratroopers."
Time has passed, old boy,
Mother was all in tears, silent platform.
The girl pressed her lips to his lips -
The army is leaving it.
"don't worry, dear,
Time will pass and I'll go back home
I only want to try,
As dandelions are flying over the earth."
A man was he in the army:
Look brave and strong hands.
With fearless eyes he jumped
Strongly into the abyss of the blue.
But the one led him,
And, вылетя, slings tangled
And spare not open his able to -
Fell in the parachute pulled.
Time passed, and the girl that
Is leading a kid on the street.
The boy lifted up his eyes
Seeing as the clouds scowl.
"Oh, Mom, look, something falls,
Like dandelions?"
She suddenly began to cry:
"This, my son, are the paratroopers."
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
Oh, I was going to translate that last one
Btw I learned how to play it yesterday :3
Balu, thank you for keeping thread alive, I don't have a lot of time now
Thank you, Polite Russian!
I really like your English in a couple with your uniform. It seems you had experienced profs. Hope you continue your service in the Army, not in Police. No doubt it may be much more useful for Russia as there your rate of efficiency surely will be much higher
Regards.
Last edited by Balu; 12-28-2017 at 06:53 AM.
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
These songs have very interesting lyrics in them. I can not help but wonder how much do they suffer when translated into the English language?
I suspect quite a bit, as would my poetry, IF IT WERE READ ALOUD, TRANSLATED INTO THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE.
SOLDIERS ARE THE SAME THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, THEY SERVE, THEY FIGHT, THEY GET WOUNDED, OR DIE OR SURVIVE PHYSICALLY UNHARMED.
Honorably serving ones nation is the same no matter which nation it is, IMHO.
IN USA, WE OFTEN HAVE A MAJOR PROBLEM IDENTIFYING OUR REAL ENEMIES, DUE TO POLITICAL PROPAGANDA AND A VERY BIASED MEDIA....
KEEP POSTING AND DISCUSSING YOUR SONGS AS THAT IN ITSELF IS VERY REVEALING. --Tyr
18 U.S. Code § 2381-Treason Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
Dear Robert,
You've raised very important and complicated question. The point is that when translating you don't translate the words, but are handing over the thoughts and feelings in a language strange for you. The exclusion is when you are bi lingual and spent your childhood and the youth in a foreign country and both the languages are common in your family. Feelings are the emotional component of your thoughts which is damned difficult thing to be delivered basing on all the peculiarities of a foreign language. And to express it properly in poetic form, in full scale, the translator must be talented at least as the author - practically unsolvable task.
I am a lucky person. When I studied at the secondary school in early 60-s (USSR, Moscow) my teacher in literature said: "The only way to understand a novel or a poem so, as the author wrote it, you must be able and should read it in the language of original." I remembered it for the rest of my life.
You must have known that War and Peace has a lot of fragments written in French. So to understand and feel all the shades you must read it in French. (To understand "why in French" it is necessary to know the History of Russia.)
So, practically there is no chance to read your poems in Russian without loss of their quality. That's why my grand children are enjoying and keep on admiring your poems and sonnets in English only.
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
I am looking at it more from the perspective a Marine, not a politician. Of course the propaganda is there. It's in ours. As far as their patriotism goes, I EXPECT nothing less than for them to be as patriotic as we are.
The songs, chants or whatever you call them speak of the horror of what you go through and see. Ours don't. We're taught to suck it up and not talk about it. Well, except for the Starbucks employees that want to ask if you ever killed anyone. THAT commercial vanished QUICK.
My takeaway is that on the ground where the rubber meets the road, soldiers aren't so different in professional armies as old as ours. Accomplish the mission for God, Country and Corps.
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke
Ok, Robert. I'll try to find some. Unfortunately there are not many with the translation I like.
Some of them will be more or less modern, the other older. But all they are dedicated to the subject of this thread.
http://lyricstranslate.com/ru/nam-nu...#ixzz52bpqMGZ0
Birds not singing here,
Trees do not grow,
And only we, shoulder-to-shoulder
We grow into the ground here.
The planet burns and is turned,
Smoke over our Motherland,
And this means, now we need victory only,
One for all of us - for any price.
http://lyricstranslate.com/ru/my-vra...#ixzz52bqlO3tz
We rotate the world
We've been rotating the world back from the border,
It was true at the beginning,
But our battallion commander has turned it around,
Pushing his foot against the Ural.
Finally, we've got the order to attack,
To take back the bits and pieces of our land,
But we do remember the sun going backwards
And almost setting at the east.
We don't pace along the world,
Disturbing the flowers for no reason, —
We push it with our boots
Away! Away!
And the haystacks have bended under the eastern wind,
And the flocks of sheep are clinging to the rocks.
We have moved the Earth's axis without a lever,
Just by changing the direction of attack.
Don't be afraid if the sunset is misplaced,
The Day of Judgement is just a fairy tale for adults.
It's just that our marching troops
Rotate the world wherever they want.
We are crawling, embracing the hillocks,
Hugging the tussocks angrily, with no love,
And we push the world with our knees
Away! Away!
Even if someone wanted, they wouldn't have found
Anyone with their hands up.
The bodies are very useful to everyone alive:
We hide ourselves behind the fallen.
Will the stupid cold lead find everyone at once,
Will it strike point-blank or from the rear?
…Someone out there in front thrust himself on a gun slit,
And the world momentarily stopped.
I have left my feet behind,
And, casually mourning the fallen,
I'm rotating the world with my elbows —
Away! Away!
Someone stood up and, making a bow,
Accepted his inspiratory bullet.
But the batallion is crawling west, west,
So that the sun would rise at the east!
Our bellies in mud, we inhale the stench of bogs,
But we turn a blind eye to the smell.
The sun is moving normally across the sky now,
Because we are pushing for the west.
Whether our arms and legs are in thei place or not, —
Tasting the dew, as if in a wedding,
We are pulling the world with our teeth, by the grass, —
To us and away!
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
http://lyricstranslate.com/ru/vechny...#ixzz52bxi5N2l
The eternal flame(From heroes of the Past)
Versions: #1#2
Nothing is left of the heroes of bygone days.
Or names sometimes.
Those who sacrificed their lives,
Became just ashes and dust,
Only their formidable courage
Settled in the hearts of the living
This eternal flame was bequeathed
For only us
And we will keep it in our hearts.
Look at my soldiers,
The whole world remembers their faces.
Here stood a battalion in line-up.
I can recognize my old friends again.
The hard times they had to go through.
Though they were only twenty-five years old (or less then)
They were those, who with bayonets in their hands,
Stood as a single entity.
Those who took Berlin.
There is not some family in Russia,
who has not remembered their heroes.
And the eyes of young soldiers
Are looking at us from faded pictures
They look at us, and it is like the High Court
For the guys that are growing now.
And the boys cannot lie. They cannot deceive
And they have no way to turn away.
Indifferent alike to praise or blame
Give heed, O Muse, but to the voice Divine
Fearing not injury, nor seeking fame,
Nor casting pearls to swine.
(A.Pushkin)
You noticed an important issue here. Professional army. We didn't have it, when boys have to die in Afghanistan and Chechnya. 90% of our soldiers was convicts. They did not want to be soldiers. But they have to. And thats the tragedy. I agree, that it woud be weird, if a professional soldier write songs like these ones. I just think, that you can't understand. I was a convict less than a month ago and I clearly remember how it was. I like military service (but I have my reasons not to serve as a contractor in our armed forces), but there was a lot, and I mean A LOT of people who just dont give a F about being in a military. They just came to get the documents they give us, when we demobilised. And they don't want to serve. I was lucky to have really good officers in my batallion. But even they can't do anything with people who wore uniform against their own will.
And this is a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig problem we got here.
I understand to the extent that I would not want Marines in my unit who were forced against their will (we call it drafted). They are unreliable. We still have our problem with those that do not want to be there. A lot are there because of circumstance as much as anything else. In the beginning, I was. It was an escape from where I was.
I was not in the places you were or are. I was in the Middle East and Africa. What I mean by "I understand" is the things you see, hear and experience while you are there. In that, I do not believe being shot at or shooting is much different. Nor is seeing what horrible things other men can do to one another. No one wants to be "there" that isn't crazy.
And the food sucks
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edumnd Burke