Seeking words and music to Russian folk song.

Choirmistress

Wed, Aug 29 2018, 11:59 am

[size=12]I don't know Russian or even the Cyrillic alphabet, but there's a good reason I'm looking for anyone who knows the words and tune to the antiwar song "Na opushke lesa star'ly dub stoit": It seems this was the tune, by Leonid Shochin and Russian lyrics by Piotr Mamaichuk and Shmerke Kaczerginski, that then became "Dort Baym Breg fun Veldl", which in turn was reworked in 1947 by Menashe Baharav and Raphael Klatchkin into the more popular and familiar (Yaffa Yarkoni and Shoshana Damari, anyone?) Israeli protest song "B'Arvot haNegev". But most of us know, way better if not exclusively, the 1954 version (reworked as 3/4 instead of the former three versions' 4/4) with the English lyrics by Malka (Millie) Steinberg Saks, written for a Camp Bais Yaakov colour war when she was 17: Yes, folks, we are talking about "The Little Bird", which I have expanded on (by 100%) and translated into Hebrew. I have been finding more and more historical background to this tune. Enough, as is apparent from the above, that I think I am going to have to add an introductory/explanatory page before my double-column bilingual lyrics sheet. So any and all info on the original Russian version, also known as "Vanya's Song", would be most appreciated and gratefully acknowledged.

amother

Forestgreen

Sun, Jan 02 2022, 8:04 pm

Choirmistress wrote:

This is an old post so not sure it's still relevant, but I just googled the Russian song, and indeed, it does sound like The Little Bird is Calling. Huh.

Here's the link to the google search:
https://www.google.com/search?.....#ip=1

Btw the song is definitely not anti-war. It's actually pro-war; its just full of pathos. There were lots of pathos-inducing Russian war songs. ...Im no expert, but I would be surprised if Russia ever produced any anti-war songs. :/

Choirmistress

Mon, Jan 03 2022, 2:49 am

Thank you, Forestgreen, for that additional info. It may still be relevant, but not as much now as when I first began gathering sheets full of information on this tune. My "booklet" of 8.5" x 11" sheets now runs to at least six sheets, some of them double-sided, for a total of about ten pages.
And my expanded version now runs to seven, not six, verses.
So far, I have done rhyming translations of:
the original Russian;
the chronologically next, Yiddish, version;
the 1947-or-so Hebrew "b'Arvot haNegev";
my expanded version of Malka Saks' a"h 1954 version;
(all of the above in English);
and Hebrew and almost completed (I'll let everybody know) Yiddish of the latter.