ВОСПОМИНАНЬЕ О НИБЕЛУНГАХ / A Memory of the Niebelungs

[med_cat]

ВОСПОМИНАНЬЕ О НИБЕЛУНГАХ

Это было
почти перед самой войной,
мы смотрели немецкий фильм,
Песню о Нибелунгах,
фильм, конечно, немой,
и веселый тапер
из студентов
наяривал лихо на пианино
что-то смешное,
и мы хохотали,
когда белокурый красавец Зигфрид
умывался кровью дракона
под мелодию
популярной в ту пору
спортивной песни.
Мы изучали тогда
немецкое средневековье,
миннезанг,
майстерзанг,
мы любили щегольнуть
каким-нибудь звучным именем,
каким-нибудь Вальтером
фон дер Фогельвейде.
Оставалось несколько месяцев
до начала этой войны,
с которой мы возвращались
долгие годы,
с которой не все мы вернулись,
мы,
от души хохотавшие
над этой отличной шуткой —
Зигфрид
умывается кровью дракона,
умывается
кровью,
ха-ха,
умывается
кровью!


A Memory of the Niebelungs

This took place
just before the war,
we were watching a German film,
The Song of the Niebelungs,
it was, of course, a silent film,
and a cheerful piano player,
a college student,
was playing away on the piano,
playing some funny melody,
and we laughed so hard,
when the blond handsome Siegfried
washed his face with dragon's blood
to the tune
of a sports song
that was popular at the time.

We were then
studying the medieval German history,
Minnesang,
Meistersang,
we liked to show off
by saying some sonorous name,
some name like Walter
von der Fogelveide.
There were but a few months left
before this war began,
the war from which we spent
long years returning,
the war from which not all of us returned,
we,
who whole-heartedly laughed
at this excellent joke--
Siegfried
washes his face with dragon's blood,
washes his face
with blood,
haha,
washes his face
with blood!

(Levitanskiy)

Comments

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

The problem with is, if he had seen Das Niebelnungenlied in Germany in 1939, it would have been the Nazified version which was cut down to two hours and provided with a Wagner Soundtrack on the film prints.

[med_cat]

Interesting, thank you for the info.

Levitanskiy was a Soviet poet, so his "just before the war" would have been in Russia, in the early 1941.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I don;t think that would alter the situation much. The immediate ante bellum period was one of tremendous detente between the Nazis and the Soviets and Stalin was all for making a show of embracing Nazi culture right up until the invasion he thought there was some way of preventing it. Famously, Eisenstein directed a production of Wagner's Siegfried in Moscow at that time (though IIRC he was later questioned by the NKVD about it, as if Stalin hadn't ordered it).

Also, when I first looked at this, I just saw the machine translation (instead of the Cyrillic) and just figured (foolishly) it was German.

[med_cat]

It is indeed as you say re: detente etc.

I didn't know about the Siegfried production, but it makes sense.

And I see re: German

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this, thanks for sharing.

[med_cat]

My pleasure; glad you liked it :)

[debriswoman]

Oh...goodness...

[med_cat]

Yes...