Tag: USSR

Book: Maxim Katz “The History of the New Russia”

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Russian history—past, present, and future—is being discussed a lot right now, and in completely different terms. I’m also interested in how exactly we all ended up at the point we’re at now. Boris Akunin wrote an entire series about the history of the Russian state from ancient times all the way up to 1917. Alexander Yanov tried to make sense of the history of the ‘Russian Idea‘. And the blogger and politician Maxim Katz constantly discusses current events, projecting them into the future, while still keeping historical realities in mind.

You can feel differently about Maxim Katz, but he’s definitely a pretty interesting storyteller. I respect his opinion, even though he’s often overly wordy, suffers from heavy self-repetition in his blog, but at the very least he tries to be objective and not lean too hard into emotions (which, for example, I’m very far from always managing).

Recently, Maxim released a book, The History of the New Russia, in which he laid out his view of how the Russian Federation developed starting from the late Soviet Union.

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Book: Kir Bulychev “Those Who Survive”

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Kir Bulychev is most often regarded as a children’s science-fiction writer. When people hear his name, the first thing that usually comes to mind is the adventures of Alisa Selezneva.

However, Kir Bulychev wrote many works that are anything but children’s literature. Among them, probably the most well-known is the novel Those Who Survive, originally published in Russian under the title Posyolok (The Settlement in English). Initially, Bulychev wrote only the first part of the story, titled The Pass, which was published as a standalone novella in 1980. Only eight years later, in 1988, he wrote the second part, Beyond the Pass, and only then did the book become a single novel known as Posyolok.

The story is built around a spaceship that crashed on a distant planet many years ago. The planet is not exactly hostile; rather, it is simply what an alien world should be — not Earth. It has its own flora and fauna, which were never meant to coexist with humans. As a result, survival is extremely difficult for the crash survivors. The entire world is against them, and after the catastrophe almost none of the technological marvels of the future remain. Those who avoided immediate death are forced to focus solely on survival in this unwelcoming environment — and even that does not always succeed.

Over the years, they have become increasingly primitive in terms of everyday life, yet they have learned how to survive. Children born on this planet know nothing of any other life; they learn about it only through lessons in the small school of the Settlement. Even those who were born before the crash were very young at the time and remember almost nothing of life “before.”

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Films with Different Dubbings — Part 2

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It seems the first post about films with different dubbings was received quite well — and even back then I promised there would be a second part.

Although by now I’ve realized that calling it just “different dubbings” wasn’t quite accurate. It would have been more precise to call it “different versions.”

3. Rock’n Roll Wolf (1976)

Ever since childhood, I remember those TV “film concerts” — long compilations of songs from various animated films and movies. And almost always, one beautiful song would appear in those programs: “Mama” from the 1976 film of the same name (because in Russian the film was released under the title “Mama”, not “Rock’n Roll Wolf.”). Curiously, the film itself was shown on television quite rarely.

And yet it’s simply a costumed musical (we didn’t even use that word back then), loosely based on the fairy tale The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats (in English it is usually translated as The Wolf and Seven Kids.) At the same time, there was another wonderful Soviet musical, Wolf and Seven Kids in a New Way, which was released both as a vinyl record and as an animated film.

The movie Rock’n Roll Wolf was directed by the Romanian filmmaker Elisabeta Bostan and was a co-production between three countries: the USSR, Romania, and France. The main roles were played by well-known Soviet actors — Lyudmila Gurchenko, Mikhail Boyarskiy, Saveliy Kramarov, Natalya Krachkovskaya, and even the clown Oleg Popov as the Bear — alongside Romanian actors (how famous they were at the time, I honestly don’t know). The screenplay was a Soviet–Romanian collaboration, while the music was written by French and Romanian composers.

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Films with Different Dubbings — Part 1

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Many people enjoy watching films — some prefer the original audio, others like the dubbing tradition that has existed in the Russian-speaking world for nearly a century. But few people realize that some films were released with multiple different dubbings. The reasons varied, but the fact remains. And today I decided to talk about a few such films — all of them made in the Soviet Union.

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Book: Leonid Rabichev “War Excuses Everything”

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I was born in the USSR, where the Great Patriotic War was part of the country’s terrifying history. But I don’t recall anyone back then trying to glorify it and shouting “We can do it again.” They did heroize it—yes—and films often added notes of humor, without which, perhaps, war is impossible to endure. Yet they didn’t bombard us with rah-rah patriotism. Apparently because in every family the memory of those times was still fresh. Parents or grandparents remembered that war; many families had lost loved ones.

Then it was also shown from very frightening angles, like the documentary Triumph Over Violence or Elem Klimov’s acclaimed and very heavy Come and See.

Only they didn’t bring to the fore the flip side of any war—that in war there are no absolutely good and absolutely bad. War is blood, brutality, and sheer meanness on both sides; only the degree varies. Yes, many knew about “trophies” taken out from occupied territories, but that wasn’t considered looting, and they certainly didn’t make films about it. In one way or another, war also harmed the civilian population—and by no means only the enemy’s; it’s enough to read the recollections of the partisan movement in Belarus (a few years ago, incidentally, eyewitnesses were still alive).

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Book: Bulat Okudzhava “From School to the Front”

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Since my youth I have liked the work of Bulat Okudzhava, though back then I knew him only as a performer of songs. At home we had several of his records, and I enjoyed listening to the entire collection of my parents’ music. A little later I discovered Okudzhava also as the author of music and lyrics for many film songs, which I still enjoy listening to today.

Among other things, Bulat Okudzhava wrote quite a few songs for war films. I am sure almost everyone knows at least “We Face Deadly Fire” from Belorussky Station, or “Drops of the Danish King” from Zhenya, Zhenechka i ‘Katyusha‘. Okudzhava’s songs were able to convey the full range of feelings, and between the lines you could sense that the author knew what he was writing about.

And then I came across a book by Okudzhava from the series “My War,” in which veterans’ memoirs are published.

From School to the Front is not a single work but a collection of recollections that can formally be divided into “novellas” and “stories.” Formally — because this is not fiction, but rather the memoirs of Bulat Shalvovich, conveyed in his own manner.

The book begins with excerpts from interviews with the author, and only then come his writings. Okudzhava’s childhood was not easy. His father was repressed, and his mother also endured prison as the wife of a repressed man. And then came the war, at the start of which Bulat Okudzhava was only 17 years old.

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Book: Alexandra Arkhipova, Anna Kirzyuk “Dangerous Soviet Things”

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If someone says to you “dangerous Soviet things,” what would you think of first? For me, right away it’s the “coffin on wheels.” It may sound like nonsense, something that never existed. But many of my peers knew dozens of such scary stories. Eduard Uspensky even wrote his novella about the Red Hand based on them.

However, the book Dangerous Soviet Things is more serious, though at times it deals with equally “nonsensical” theories that, nonetheless, people believed.

The book by Alexandra Arkhipova and Anna Kirzyuk is a large study of the phenomenon of the urban legend, with a focus specifically on the Soviet era. Abroad, the study of urban legends began quite a while ago; in our region, somewhat later. Though in certain periods the KGB quite actively and professionally collected such information, since behind rumors and legends there always hides some secret fear. And one must understand where the fear comes from, and also know how to counter it — or use it to one’s advantage.

From the description of the book, you expect popular science — interesting and entertaining reading. But from the very first pages, it feels like a bucket of cold water has been poured over you. Because the first seventy pages are an immersion into highly specialized terminology and the history of studying urban legends. For non-specialists (like me), this becomes rather disheartening. And only after that do the authors begin to examine the legends themselves, dividing them into thematic groups.

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Song: Beautiful Far Away… Far Away, But Not There

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Today, I learned something completely unexpected about a childhood song that everyone knows—”Prekrasnoye Dalyoko” (“Beautiful Far Away”). Yes, the one from the movie Guest from the Future. And the revelation shocked me so much that I decided to dig deeper, do a little investigation, and prove that we’ve all been deceived. Turns out, we have been—but not entirely. So, here’s what I found.

I don’t know about you, but as a kid, I absolutely loved Guest from the Future. And like most Soviet boys, I had a bit of a crush on Natasha Guseva, who played the main character, Alisa Selezneva. I also read Kir Bulychev’s novella One Hundred Years Ahead, which the movie was based on—but it was completely different. Not the point right now, though.

After the movie, the song that played at the very end of the last episode became a massive hit. “Prekrasnoye Dalyoko” exploded in popularity—it was performed by various state and school choirs, released on vinyl records with children’s songs, and practically overshadowed every other song on the charts at the time. Probably the only real competition came from “Krylatye Kacheli” (“Winged Swings”) from The Adventures of the Elektronic.

“But what’s the big deal?” you ask. And here’s where things get interesting—something often called the Mandela Effect. That is, when many people collectively remember something that never actually happened. With this song, everyone remembers and sings the lyrics as: “I hear a voice from the beautiful far away, it calls me to wondrous lands…” (This research is about the Russian lyrics, but I am providing them in a literal English translation.) Sometimes the lands are far away, sometimes beautiful, sometimes something else. But in every breakdown of this phenomenon, in every reference to the Mandela Effect, they say that these lyrics never existed. Because in the actual song, the words are: “It calls me not to paradise lands.”

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Book: Shimun Vrochek “My Soviet Childhood”

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Recently, Shimun Vrochek wrote a book about his Soviet childhood. Since his childhood and mine happened during the same years (he was born on November 1, 1976, and I was born three months later, on January 28, 1977), I was very curious to see how someone from my “generation” experienced it, but in a different part of the Soviet Union. He was born in Kungur, in the Urals, and grew up in Nizhnevartovsk, while I spent my entire childhood in Minsk.

I even had the same school uniform as the one he wears in the photo, though it wasn’t so easy to find in Minsk—my father brought it from Moscow.

The book originated from notes that Shimun wrote in his blog (at least some of which could be read individually). Eventually, those notes were compiled into this book. That’s why it isn’t a sequential narrative but rather a collection of short memories about various things, with no clear structure or connection between chapters. Sometimes, this approach works very well (just think of The Un-Chekhovian Intelligentsia or The Life of Remarkable People and Animals by Boris Akunin).

Even though there was a great distance between me and the author, many of the feelings and experiences resonate, making the book truly transport me back to my childhood. Like Shimun, I believed I was living in the best country in the world, where everything was wonderful, and a bright communist future lay ahead—a future of fairness, with no poverty, and so on.

For bringing me back to those years, I am truly grateful to the author.

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Song: Till Lindemann “Lubimiy Gorod”

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And here’s Till Lindemann (the lead singer of Rammstein) with a wonderful rendition of the song “Lubimiy Gorod” (“My Beloved Town”). I think even Mark Bernes wouldn’t have been ashamed to hear such a performance. As someone in the “Longplay” group comments noted, “The collab with Loboda turned out great.” 😉

Personally, I really liked his version—it turned out heartfelt.