seeing off

(krasnoarmeyskaya (red army) song)

words: d.bednuy

as my native mother
saw me off,
all my relatives
come:

"where do you go, boy?

where do you?
wouldn't go you, vanjek,
to soldiers!

in red army
there are bayonets.
bolsheviks will do
without you!

do you go against your will

or by wish?
vanya, vanya, you'll be lost
for nothing.

mother suffering about you

has turned grey.
here so much work
in field and in (peasant's) house (*).

how are things now?

very well!
how much ground
we have at once get!

there are no former oppresions

not in the least.
it's better you marry
arina.

would you live with a young wife,

no be lazy!"
here i bowed
to my native mother.

i have bowed to all my relatives

by threshold:
"don't whimper you about me,
...

were the others as you,

scatter-brains,
what should be retained from moscow,
from russia?
all woul be in the old manner,
...,
they take again from us
ground, freedom.

barin(*) will sit on ground

as wicked maluta,
we would howl in bondage
very cruel.

and i go no to dance,
to feast,
leaving to you
mother-old voman.

i'll go with red army

by campaign.
i'll wage death battle
with bourgeois riff-raff, odds and sods.

as with priest, as with kulak -

all talk:
to his fat paunch by bayonet -
to miroed.

don't you surrender? die,

"buffoon with you"!
{negotiation from hell} get with battle
would be more pretty.

not blood, drunk <rajy"" (*),

miroed one,
native russa, free land,
soviet land!"

----

house - peasant's log hut

barin - expoiter, bourgeis
kulak - exploiter in village
miroed - person who "eats world'
rajy - negotiation from hell

draft translation from russian to english - "word-by-word rough text"

28th of june, 2006