another Russian question: Paul Winter

[ouisel]

In 1984, Paul Winter did a concert at the UN in honour of World Environment Day. One of the songs, "Hymn to the Russian Earth", is supposedly a Russian folk song. The lyrics are as follows:

If the people lived their lives
As if it were a song
For singing out of light
Provides the music for the stars
To be dancing circles in the night.

Can anyone

Comments

[oryx_and_crake]

Does not look like a FOLK song to me at all.
Most likely it was a Russian poem translated into English (and again it is impossible to say exactly which one).
As to translating it back, I am afraid that would be hopeless. You do realize, don't you, that in translation, especially of verses, the meaning, to say nothing of the words, gets shuffled around? The probability of getting back anything resembling the original is nil.

Гимн русской земле?

[dimal0]

First of all, translated name of the song is incorrect. There is no "Russian Earth". Русская земля = Russian lands.
I think if the name was translated incorrectly, then it wouldn't be possible to translate all lyrics back.

Re: Гимн русской земле?

[ouisel]

The title of the song has varied in usage since 1984, and is sometimes rendered as "Hymn to the Russian Earth" and sometimes as "Hymn to the Russian Land". In English, in this usage, the literal meaning is the same but the former is more deeply emotional. This, presumably, is why Paul Winter chose to use that word in the title when he recorded the song.

[5x6]

I agree with the previous posters - is is nearly for sure not a folk song, and definitely not a popular song at all. Either it is some little-know song or poem made known in the West due to an apt translation, or maybe plainly a fake, like Ossian songs.

[ouisel]

As far as I can tell, it was entirely unknown in the West before Paul Winter debuted it in 1984. Winter did have extensive connections with artists and musicians in the USSR at the time, and this concert was one of several musical collaborations.

The tune to the song is a round singable in three parts, in a minor key (Aeolian mode, I think), with the kind of clean simple beauty characteristic of a certain kind of folk lyric. For all I know, it may be the tune that's traditional, and the words may have been composed to fit the tune.

[5x6]

it may be the tune that's traditional, and the words may have been composed to fit the tune.

This is plausible.

[sophie_spence]

No clue about whether it is in fact a Russian folk song, but google produced this:

If the people lived their lives, as
If it were a song, for singing out a light...
Provide some music for the stars to be
Dancing circles in the night.

Yesli b zhizn' lyudyei byla
Kak skazochnaya pesn' dlya peniya v nochi,
Ta pesnya zvyozdy b obnyala
Gasnushchie, kak fitel' svechi.

~ Yuri Zaritsky and Eugene Friesen

(here)

[oryx_and_crake]

I bet my bottom dollar that this Russian text is the translation of the English text and not the other way round. (I should also say that the translation is not very close - the 3rd and 4th lines differ completely, the 2nd has some resemblance to the original but not more than that.)

[5x6]

I second this. While formally correct, no native speaker would ever put the words together in this exact way.

[ouisel]

Thank you, Sophie! I wonder why my own Googling completely failed to turn that page up?

I see that the web page is from a compilation made after 1984; the English text has to be a transliteration from the album, and is itself not entirely accurate (there's some of the kind of lyrical drift characteristic of that process). It's very plausible that the Russian text is translated back from that, with accuracy apparently sacrificed to rhyme.

In my original request, I asked that if no original Russian lyrics were available, would anyone be willing to make an accurate translation back. Any takers?

[lampika]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Ukrainian_Nationalists
March of Ukrainian Nationalists, 1932