Vladimir Vysotsky: Selected Works
By Vladimir Vysotsky and John Farndon
()
About this ebook
Amongst people of the former USSR, legendary singer, songwriter and poet Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-1980) is loved and admired like no other. A recent survey placed him as the most important cultural figure of twentieth-century Russia, and some say he is the greatest Russian poet since Pushkin; others talk of him as the Russian Bob Dylan, or Jacque
Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky (25 January 1938 - 25 July 1980) was a prominent Soviet and Russian singer-songwriter, poet, and actor whose career had an immense and enduring effect on Russian culture. He became widely known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which featured social and political commentary in often humorous street jargon. He was also a serious stage actor, becoming a member of the prestigious Taganka Theatre in Moscow.Vysotsky was born in Moscow, where his father was an army colonel and his mother, a German, was a translator. Despite his parents' divorce, he was able to receive a good education, attending an elite school before studying at the Moscow Art Theatre School.Vysotsky's career in entertainment began in the 1960s when he started writing songs and performing them in his distinctive raspy voice. His music, which combined elements of folk, blues, and rock, was not officially recognized by the Soviet authorities due to its subversive nature. However, his songs were widely distributed in unofficial recordings known as magnitizdat, and he became immensely popular, especially among the urban youth and intellectuals.In addition to his music, Vysotsky was a respected actor. He joined the Taganka Theatre in 1964 and played a variety of roles, including Hamlet. His performances were highly acclaimed, and he was considered one of the leading actors of his generation.Despite his success, Vysotsky struggled with alcoholism and health problems, which were exacerbated by his intense work schedule and lifestyle. He died in 1980 at the age of 42 from heart failure. His death was widely mourned in the Soviet Union, and his funeral attracted thousands of fans.Vysotsky's legacy continues to be influential in Russian culture. His songs are still widely listened to, and his influence can be seen in many aspects of Russian music, literature, and popular culture. His life and work have been the subject of numerous books, films, and scholarly studies.
Related to Vladimir Vysotsky
Related ebooks
Vladimir Vysotsky: Selected Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDimitri Shostakovich - The Life and Background of a Soviet Composer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Russian Mood Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRequiem and Poem without a Hero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Magic of Poetry and the Poet's Art Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEvgeny Boratynsky and the Russian Golden Age: Unstudied Words That Wove and Wavered Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Russian Mood Volume 2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHalf-Light & Other Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreat Short Poems from Around the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Art in the Light of Conscience: Eight Essays on Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMi Revalueshanary Fren Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5On Russian Music Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsListening to the Other: Versions of Yiddish, Vietnamese, and Aztec Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Years with Townes Van Zandt: Music, Genius and Rage Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCollected Poems: Frances Horovitz Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Congo and Other Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar of the Beasts and the Animals Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Stravinsky: The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers. Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMoscow Calling: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Selected Poems 1967 - 2007 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSt Petersburg: A Cultural History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Russia Washed in Blood: A Novel in Fragments Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kobzar of the Ukraine. Illustrated: Being Select Poems of Taras Shevchenko Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Poems: Marina Tsvetaeva Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSergei Eisenstein: A Life in Conflict Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEugene Onegin: Must Read Classics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shape of the Journey: New & Collected Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Music For You
Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon: Laurel Canyon, Covert Ops & The Dark Heart Of The Hippie Dream Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bowie: An Illustrated Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Me: Elton John Official Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Music Theory For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Singing For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Songwriting: Essential Guide to Lyric Form and Structure: Tools and Techniques for Writing Better Lyrics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Circle of Fifths: Visual Tools for Musicians, #1 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Open Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Strange Loop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guitar Theory For Dummies: Book + Online Video & Audio Instruction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Easyway to Play Piano: A Beginner's Best Piano Primer Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Meaning of Mariah Carey Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn Jazz Piano: book 1 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Piano For Dummies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Music Theory For Beginners Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn Guitar A Beginner's Course Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Everything Songwriting Book: All You Need to Create and Market Hit Songs Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Practice Piano Effectively: 50+ Proven And Practical Tips Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/588 Piano Classics for Beginners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Complete Piano Rags Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Becoming a Great Sight-Reader–or Not! Learn From My Quest for Piano Sight-Reading Nirvana Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Step By Step Mixing: How to Create Great Mixes Using Only 5 Plug-ins Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Can I Say: Living Large, Cheating Death, and Drums, Drums, Drums Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Vladimir Vysotsky
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Vladimir Vysotsky - Vladimir Vysotsky
Vladimir Vysotsky: Selected Works
(English Edition)
Vladimir Vysotsky
Translated by
John Farndon
Translated by
Olga Nakston
Glagoslav Publications
Vladimir Vysotsky:
Selected Works
Translated from the Russian by John Farndon with Olga Nakston
Proofreading by Richard Coombes
Published with the support of the Institute for Literary Translation, Russia
Publishers Maxim Hodak & Max Mendor
Original songs © 2022, Heirs of Vladimir Vysotsky
Translator’s note @ 2022, John Farndon
Cover art, book cover, and book layout by Max Mendor
English translation © 2022, Glagoslav Publications B.V. and John Farndon
www.glagoslav.com
ISBN: 978-1-914337-65-9 (Ebook)
First published in English by Glagoslav Publications B.V. in May 2022
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is in copyright. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Contents
About This Book
Translating Vladimir Vysotsky
Selected Works
Stubborn Horses
A City Romance
A Ballad about Guns
The Wolf Hunt
The End to the Wolf Hunt, or Hunting from Helicopters
He Has Not Come Back from the Fight
The Crown Is Smashed to Smithereens
Ice below and Ice above
In This Moment, I Love You
A Parable about Truth and Lie
A Song about a Friend
A Song about New Times
Brodsky’s Song
She’s Been to Paris
The Height
Masks
Morning Gymnastics
A Ballad about the Bath-House
My Tastes and Habits Are Unusual
Mass Graves
A Song about Nothing, or What Happened in Africa?
Katerina, Katya, Katerina
About our Meeting
All the Sons Leave for War
A Song about Reincarnation
What’s the Point in me Talking to You?
Ships Will Stay for a While
White Silence
A Ballad about Love
I Don’t Like
About Love in the Middle Ages
Cholera
A Song about Rumours
From Moscow to Odessa
The Fir Fronds Tremble
The Mountain Lyric
Again It Seems I’m Struck Down with the Chills
A Song about Stars
The Crystal House
Farewell to the Mountains
Ice
A Song about the Earth
Every Night, Candles Are Lit for Me
In the Beginning Was the Word, of Sadness and of Pain
Summit
The Parrot’s Song
In Spite of All the Things I Do on Land
To the Cold
To the Top
Save our Souls
Lads, Send Me a Letter
Rock Climber
So Many, Many Years
They Keep Telling Us Sincerely
A Song about Time
My Hamlet
About the Translators
Appendix. Sheet music
Notes
About This Book
Amongst Russians and people of the former USSR, legendary singer, songwriter and poet Vladimir Vysotsky is loved and admired like no other. His songs championed the underdog, and even today, forty years after his death at a tragically young age, people in countries as far apart as Bulgaria and Kazakhstan weep at the mere mention of his name. Yet remarkably this is the first landmark collection of his lyrics and poetry (Ice below and Ice above
, My Hamlet
) in English.
The translators set themselves the hard task of translating Vysotsky’s songs as first of all songs, not poetry, enabling readers to perform them in English. This collection of lyrics also includes sample sheet music for six Vysotsky’s songs. Vysotsky himself used the seven string guitar; the songs are adapted here to the western six string classical guitar by John Farndon and West-End singer Anthony Cable.
Translating Vladimir Vysotsky
Singer-songwriter and poet Vladimir Vysotsky (1938-1980) is one of the most extraordinary artists of the twentieth century. Some talk of him as the Russian Bob Dylan, or Jacques Brel, but that doesn’t really convey how much he was loved and revered across the Soviet Union.
Remarkably, very few of his hundreds of songs were officially recorded, or even bought on record. Instead, countless people heard his songs on scratchy reel-to-reel tape recordings passed on from friend to friend. In Soviet cities of the time, summer evenings were often filled with the latest crackly sound of a new Vysotsky song filtering through an open window.
When Vysotsky died, tragically young at just 42 in 1980, he was mourned by tens of millions. It was the time of the Moscow Olympics, and the KGB were anxious to keep this uncomfortable voice out of the news. Even so, over 30,000 gathered in Moscow to pay tribute, despite a KGB ban. Volodya
was, for them, the voice of truth. You understood what our lives are like – work, work, hellish work and nothing else,
wrote one mourner, while another said: We’re here because he spoke the truth, not the half-truths we hear all the time – he wrote about our life.
His impact spilled into the next generation, and his language was absorbed into Russian culture. I have a cleaner from Bulgaria, Zhivka Hristova, who must have been very young when Vysotsky died. When she saw a book of Vysotsky’s songs on my table, she at once burst into tears. Her sister Lydia wrote this note to explain why: They say Jesus spoke parables to his contemporaries. For the people of my generation, Vysotsky was like him – he taught us his songs. Whatever happened, we said: on this occasion, in one of his songs, Vysotsky says the following… He was our banner in those times!
A recent opinion poll in Russia put Vysotsky as the second most important Russian popular figure of the twentieth century after only the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, while some consider