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In the Forum: Musical Discussions
In the Thread: The Yevgeny Mravinsky Film
Post Subject: Sometimes it is fun to be a Russian-bornPosted by Romy the Cat on: 4/30/2006
 yoshi wrote: |
| Unfortunately, we also have the lists of "Audiophile recommended CDs" on every audio related publications in Japan. I refer to them as something I should avoid. |
|
Avoid? Not necessarily. Yoshi, It is not about the fact that exist or do not exist the “Audiophile recommended lists” but THE QUALITY OF PEOPLE who compiles those lists.
Sometimes it is fun to be a Russian-born. Russians have a writer Alexander Griboyedov (1795-1829). Among many things, he wrote a large comedy in verse “Woe from Wit”, or sometimes it translated as “The Misfortune from Intelligence” or "Wit Works Woe". It is very neat satirizing of the foolishness that infested Russian in 19 century (Only Russians?), and in a way Griboyedov did something similar to what Oscar Wilde did in the second part of the 19 century with his Brits.
A quote from one of the characters from the “Woe from Wit”: (the translation is horrible of course)
I wonder who the judges are!
With age they show hostility to freedom,
They read the press that dates as far
Back as the Crimean war. They call it wisdom.
They're quick to criticize and curse
And always sing the same old song,
They never think they can be wrong.
The older these men are the worse.
Where are those fathers of the nation,
Good models for our generation,
The ones that roll in looted money
With influential friends and relatives on hand?
The ones that feast away their lives of honey
And dwell in houses magnificent and grand?
The houses in which the foul features of the past
Will never be revived by all this foreign caste.
The Moscow they will keep your mouth shut
By sending you a dinner party invitation card.
Or, maybe,
It is the man to whom you used to take me
For a bow when I was a baby?
The leader of otstanding rascals, he
Had a team of loyal servants
That during fight-and-drinking rounds
Had saved his life and honour, but then once
He suddenly exchanged them for three hounds.
And then there is the man, as good as all the others,
He gathered children for his ballet muse
By tearing them away from their mothers.
He set his mind on Zephirs and Amours
And let the whole of Moscow admire their beauty,
And when it came to setting his accounts
He didn't bother about credits. «Out of sense of duty»
All his Amours and Zephirs he sold out.
Those are the men that now have grown old and grey,
The men enjoying high respect and estimation.
«They are indeed our fair judges» -- you will say.
And if there is a man among the younger generation
That never strives for vacansy nor seeks an occupation
Who sets his mind on science and shows a thirst for knowledge
Or good himself fills him with inspiration
To creativity in art,
They scream: «Disaster! Fire!» and acknowledge
The man to be a dreamer and dangerous at that.
The coat! The coat! They wear it still,
So beautifully made, it used to hide
Their timidness and their flippant mind.
And that's the road that we should take at will.
The wives and daughters, too, affect the coat
And so did I until a while ago.
I'm not an infant now, you know,
On things like that I shall no longer dote.
When some Guard's officers one day
Were on a short time visit here
The women shouted: «Hurrah!»
And threw their bonnets into the air.
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