What was most poignant for me were the poems quoted in the episode. Russians are serious about their poetry; it is often hauntingly beautiful and tragic. These poems certainly were:
Wait for Me (Konstantin Simonov, 1941)
According to the site http://russianpoetrytranslations.wordpress.com, "This poem was written and dedicated to V.Serova by Konstantin Simonov (1915-1979) in 1941. During the Great Patriotic War Simonov was a frontline correspondent for the newspaper ‘Krasnaya Zvezda’(‘Red Star’) . It was published in the newspaper ‘Pravda’ in February 1942, when the nazi forces were repulsed from Moscow. Soldiers cut it out of newspapers, copied it as they sat in their dugouts, learned it by heart and sent it in letters to their wives and sweethearts. It was found in the breast pockets of the wounded and the dead."
Wait for me, and I’ll return,
Wait, and I will come.
Wait when heavy yellow rains
Try to bring you down.
Wait through summer’s wasting heat,
Wait through falling snow,
Wait when others still repeat
Not to stay alone.
Wait with hope when letters stop,
Strong and tough just be…
Turn away from those who’re stern,
From their grief stay free.
Wait for me, and I’ll return
No illusions..Try
To escape the ones who mourn,
Keep away your heart.
Let my son and mother cry
And believe I am dead.
And ignore friends’ tears around
When weak hope is spent.
Bitter wine they’ll drink..Forget,
Their compassion, too.
Wait for me, believe instead..
Pray and smile once more.
Wait for me, and I’ll return.
I will go through flame.
I’ll be back to you, I’ll burn
Any threat’s disgrace.
They will never understand
How among the fire
Out of lethal empty space
I have come alive.
Only you and I will know why
I am at home again..
Why you’ve learned to wait in time
Like nobody has.
Then there is this poem:
The poem was also featured in the "Red Star" episode and has been published at the website http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread801701/pg "This poem "Son" was written by the Russian Jewish poet Pavel Antokolsky,a year after the death of his 18 year old son Lieutenant Vladimir Antokolovsky,killed in action on June 6th,1942... " The poem is a dialogue between father and son.
Do not call me, father, do not seek me,
Do not call me, do not wish me back.
We’re on a route uncharted, fire and blood erase our tracks.
On we fly, on wings of thunder, never more to sheath our swords.
All of us in battle fallen, not to be brought back by words.
Will there be a rendezvous? I know not.
I only know we still must fight.
We are sand grains in infinity, never to meet,never more see light.
Farewell then my son. Farewell then my conscience.
My youth and my solace my one and my only.
And let this farewell be the end of a story,
Of solitude vast and which none is more lonely.
In which you remain,barred forever and ever,
From light and from air,with your death pangs untold.
Untold and unsoothed, not to be resurrected.
Forever and ever, an 18 year old.
Farewell then, no trains ever come from those regions
Unscheduled or scheduled, no aeroplanes fly there.
Farewell then my son, for no miracles happen,
As in this world dreams do not come true.
Farewell…
I will dream of you still as a baby,
Treading the earth with little strong toes,
The earth where already so many lie buried.
This song to my son, is come to its close.
My generation of Americans were raised to think of Russians as godless communists -- the best that could be said for them that they were automatons who hated and feared us. Yet, six years before I was born, Russia was our steadfast ally and they paid a frightful price waging war against our common enemy. Their poetry from that war should remind us that soldiers -- all soldiers -- love and grieve, and that wars sometimes go in unintended directions and present unthinkable bills to the innocent and guilty alike.
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