The saplings of the green-tipped birch
Draw my foot from bondage:
Let no boy know your secret!
Oak saplings in the grove
Draw my foot from its chain:
Tell no secret to a maid!
The leafy saplings in the oak
Draw my foot from prison:
Tell no babbler a secret!
Briar shoots with berries on –
Neither a blackbird on her nest,
Nor a liar, are ever still.
by Anonymous
12th century
Do Russian people stand for war?
Go, ask the calm on plain and shore
The wide expanse of field and lea,
The birches and poplar tree.
The soldiers who once fought abreast,
And near the birches lie at rest,
Their sons will answer by the score,
Ask them if Russians are,
Ask them if Russians are,
Ask them if Russians are for war.
Not only for their country’s life
Did soldiers perish in their strife –
But that all human creatures might
Sleep always peacefully at night.
Ask those that fearful battles knew,
Who on the Elbe joined with you,
We keep these memories evermore –
And ask if Russians are,
And ask if Russians are,
And ask if Russians are for war.
Yes, We know how to fight,
But we don’t want again
For soldiers to fall
On their bitter land.
Ask the mothers,
Ask my wife,
And then you should understand
If the Russians,
If the Russians,
If the Russians want war.
The working people of each land
Will come, for sure, to understand
Throughout the world on sea and shore –
If Russian people are,
If Russian people are,
If Russian people are for war.
by Евгений Александрович Евтушенко
(Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko)
(1962)
English lyrics translation by Ольга Моисеенко (Olga Moisseyenko)
Хотят ли русские войны?
Спросите вы у тишины
Над ширью пашен и полей,
И у берез, и тополей.
Спросите вы у тех солдат,
Что под березами лежат,
И вам ответят их сыны:
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские войны?
Не только за свою страну
Солдаты гибли в ту войну,
А чтобы люди всей земли
Спокойно ночью спать могли.
Спросите тех, кто воевал,
Кто нас на Эльбе обнимал.
Мы этой памяти верны,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские войны?
Да, мы умеем воевать,
Но не хотим, чтобы опять
Солдаты падали в бою
На землю горькую свою.
Спросите вы у матерей,
Спросите у жены моей,
И вы тогда понять должны,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские,
Хотят ли русские войны?
Additional information: Хотят ли русские войны? (Do the Russians Want War?) is a 1961 anti-war song lyric written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and set to music by Eduard Kolmanovski.
Yevtushenko later said he wrote the song in response to conversations he had with foreigners while travelling in western Europe and the United States. The lyrics evoke the peaceful Russian countryside, the memory of the millions of lives lost in the Second World War, and the friendly meeting of U.S. and Soviet soldiers on Elbe Day.
The poem was cited by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his address to the Russian people immediately prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine during the 2021-2022 Russo-Ukrainian crisis.
On Thursday 24 February 2022 Russian citizens were heard singing the song at protests held in St Petersburg and Moscow. After these protests were broken up, by authorities in riot gear, it was apparently remarked by civilians “в России запрещено говорить, что русские не хотят войны…” (“In Russia it is forbidden to say Russians do not want war…”)
No civilians anywhere want war.
The smiles of summer are simply indistinct
And winter is too clear,
But I can unerringly pick out
Three autumns in each year.
The first is a holiday chaos
Spiting the summer of yesterday.
Leaves fly like a schoolboy’s notes,
Like incense, the smell of smoke,
Everything moist, motley, gay.
First into the dance are the birches,
They put on their transparent attire
Hastily shaking off their fleeting tears
On to the neighbour next door.
But as it happens, the story’s just begun.
A moment, a minute – and here
Comes the second, passionless as conscience,
Sombre as an air raid.
Everything suddenly seems paler, older,
Summer’s comfort is plundered,
Through the scented fog float
Far-off marches played on golden trumpets…
A flagstone covers the sky vault. Cold waves
Of incense. But the wind’s started to blow
Everything clean open, and straightway
It’s clear that this is the end of the play,
This is not the third autumn but death.
by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)
(1943)
from Седьмая книга (The Seventh Book)
translated by D. M. Thomas
Rambling At The Bridge Head 