To Eat Meat from the Knife
On Vysotsky's Greatest Ballad
It was when I began learning Russian in High School, that I came apon the works of the great Soviet singer and folk-balladier, Vladimir Vysotsky. I would ask my Uzbek friend to just talk to me in Russian for practice, and being rather dumbfounded by all the topics to choose from- by being asked to start a conversation without much for a prompt by an ignorant English Speaker- he taught me a lot of Russian poetry. Often, he’d just go on about this damn scientist cat walking a chain around a golden oak1, or about this time that a burning Moscow was given over to the French2- without ever explaining that it was poetic language. And I ate it up! The first stanza of Evgyenii Onyegin and the whole of Borodino, I can still recite today, and while reciting them will never earn me kudos from my friends who don’t speak Russian (which your friends suck if they don’t speak Russian), I definitely got something from the ordeal…
Ballada O Borbye
(Full Text Here)3 Translating to “Ballad about Struggle”, the song serves as a perfect explanation of Vysotsky’s ethos. He is a counter-cultural figure, lacing themes discreetly into his songs in opposition to the Soviet Regime. Ballada O Borbye is ultimately one about the view of the world from a child’s eye -
Детям вечно досаден Их возраст и быт -' 'И дрались мы до ссадин, До смертных обид. Но одежды латали Нам матери в срок... Children are always vexed By their age and their being. We fought to scratches, until deadly offense But our clothes were mended by our mothers in time...
There is an innocence that lies in it. The fighting is all a game that in the end, its devastation shall be repaired by a mother’s needle. But as a child grows, the illusion changes. For a young man, honor is required of him, it is a mantle he must pick up:
Испытай, завладев
Еще теплым мечом,
И доспехи надев, -
Что почем, что почем!
Разберись, кто ты - трус
Иль избранник судьбы...
Test it out, taking hold
of a still warm sword.
And wearing the armour,
What's it worth? What's it worth?
Pick out whether you're a coward
Or chosen by fate...The ills of the world and the real face of strife become clearer:
Ты поймешь, что узнал, Отличил, отыскал По оскалу забрал - Это смерти оскал! - Ложь и зло, - погляди, Как их лица грубы, И всегда позади - Воронье и гробы! You will catch on, that you realized, discerned, discovered By the smiles gathered It's the smile of death! Lies and evil, - look upon How crude their faces are And always in tow Are the crows and coffins!
In this light, where all the glamour of childhood has died- mother will not mend the clothes, there are real consequences to every action, and people looking to lead you astray exist around every corner, it is easy to give up. It is easy to shrink back into the corner and think what’s it all for? Perhaps you long most to go back to being a child, when the world was simple and people took care of you- the decisions these days are too hard.
I always have my own doubts about where I am heading. When decisions are hard, it is only easiest to rationalize a path out. Instead of asking a girl out or going to a social gathering where I risk rejection and awkward estrangement, I could make myself believe that such ventures would be a waste of time. I could rationalize that it’s all stupid and beneath me! I don’t need to be challenged by the new and stifling! I need to remove myself from the world… a cabin in the woods is the solution! Such sentiments tempt and are often successful- the path to the underground, to the back alley, to a world of fantasy4. Many times when those lines of thought creep back into my head, I fall back on Vysotsky’s words:
Если мяса с ножа ты не ел ни куска, Если руки сложа наблюдал свысока, И в борьбу не вступил с подлецом, палачом - Значит, в жизни ты был ни при чем, ни при чем! If you never ate meat from the knife, not even a bite, If you looked down with your arms crossed from great heights, And in battle never dealt with bitches and excecutioners- Know that in life, you were without reason, without reason!
Not even a bite…
Think of all the nights, in all of human history, that men have spent under a blanket of stars with nothing but the fire to comfort them- those long cold nights where stories were crafted and shared and prayers muttered before sunrise. There is a uniting power in such a scene that brings that lively past and the future into one lens. Every time we go camping, in some sense (no matter how mundane), we are engaging with this stream of human experience. And perhaps most literally, this is where you’d encounter a piece of meat being fed to you from the tip of a knife.
There is an exceeding amount that is not enjoyable about camping- the hassle of it, finding a place, forgetting gear, being cold, and especially being without the modern amenities we find ourselves with every day. Yet the experience of all of these elements in combination with the good: silence and tranquility, gazing at the raw beauty of stars and nature, gathering amongst dear friends and family- that’s why many of us go back to camping, hunting, fishing, farming, etc… It is a timeless experience that requires patience- it requires discomfort- but if those can be surmounted and stomached, the reward is priceless. It merely takes one to overcome a fear of the blade and its tip.
And this is true of everything valuable in the world. Every happy marriage began with a man’s leap of faith to ask a question and to be prepared to receive a negative answer. The same as how every spit of peace required restraint among its children, and often war among its founders.
To circumvent all of that- to uninvolve yourself from the processes of the world is a tempting fate. It’s rather akin to the life of a child, one who watches the adults talk but never joins in, and one who shrinks away from these bitches and executioners instead of confronting them. Imagine an entire lifetime spent at the wayside- drudging along the streets in merry contentment with your noise-cancelling airpods as the people have their gatherings without you. Happy may you be that you never endeavored to make friends, never stood up for the down-trodden, and never had the pride to assert your own wants, but all of this shall fall onto the face of regret, as you lived a life without reason.
My Uzbek friend (“Bob” he is called) explained to me the concept of the Huma bird- this luck-granting creature of Central Asian folklore representing prosperity and sovereignty that only will fly into your hands three times in your whole life. It is your job to catch it, however, before it flies away, and for the passive and cowardly- it will not come back…
And so all dear things must be endeavored for- sacrifices must be made, and there will be nights spent shivering under the stars, that will make you question what it’s all for… and that’s ok. Not much of what you did shall be regretted, in comparison to what you didn’t.
Danke,
ABSURDISMUS
https://lyricstranslate.com
From the opening of Pushkin’s Ruslan & Ludmila
“Borodino” by Mikhail Lermentov
I have skipped listing quite a few verses, so please read the full.
Notes from the Underground, The Brothers Karamazov, and White Nights by Fyodor Dostoyevsky- read them now.