"And Luck Is a Reward for Boldness"

I saw this on a list of anti-war songs compiled by Russian journalist Mikhail Kozyrev. It's not obviously antiwar to me, but I'll take his word for it. It's also

It's also a highly un-Russian song, because (at least on the surface) it seems optimistic, and indeed the song is called "Hope." (Compare the Russianest Russian Song Lines I Know, "Who of death will tell us a couple honest words?" / … / "About the things that happened, there'll be many lies." / "Will the inquest tell us how hard it is to die?") The singer is Manizha, who is Tajik, but the lyrics are by Anna German, who was an Uzbekistan-born Pole. Here's an excerpt:

Believe, that here, from afar
Much can no longer be made out
The thunderclouds melt
Our resentments seem ridiculous

We just need to learn to wait
We just need to be calm and stubborn
So that we sometimes get from life
Miserly telegrams of joy

Hope is my compass to the world
And luck is a reward for boldness
And all I need is one song
So long as it sings about home

UPDATE 3/28/23: I originally translated the key line as "And luck is a reward for courage," but on reflection I think the better translation is "… boldness." Cf. "Fortune favours the bold."

Comments

[Frank Drackman]

Optimistic?? get me something more cheerful like Wagner or Beethoven's Funeral March.

[Frank Drackman]

"War Pigs" is still the best, #1 on the Desert Storm Hits, followed by "Psycho Killer"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3b6SGoN6dA

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

I keep saying that this is Russia's Vietnam -- a war which will fundamentally change the country much as Vietnam changed this one.

The Korean war ended with the death of Stalin and this war will end with the death of Putin, that's a given, but the country has changed in ways that may not yet be apparent.

[grb]

Afghanistan was supposed to be Russia’s Vietnam, but the cost of that war is already a small fraction of the killed and wounded from Ukraine. It’s likewise with the international & economic damage; Putin invaded Ukraine believing his energy trade with Europe would bar them from taking any significant response. Instead, that trade is slowly disappearing country by country. Russia may find different customers in the East, but the political influence it built over decades in the West has vanished overnight.

Also gone is the belief Russia can be a normal country like others in Europe. There was an unvoiced understanding or social contract with the Russian people: In exchange for some degree of normalcy. Putin was allowed mafioso-style corruption & violence with his allies and foes. Some trace of that understanding probably persists, but for how much longer?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Remember that Korea was a very unpopular war, but largely forgotten. Vietnam changed attitudes and power bases in the US.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I agree this is Russia's Vietnam. Although worse, as at least Vietnam involved taking sides in a civil war, an entirely different proposition from Russia's invasion of an independent country. (And Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's Vietnam, after which it disintegrated. The result will be much the same for Putin, I suspect. Unless whoever wins the GOP nomination sells Ukraine out.)

[Bill Falcon]

totally wrong. Ukraine is being bled and destroyed. The Russians will keep east of the Dnieper and Crimea. The US will hang on for awhile like we did in Vietnam after we knew we would lose (something about global prestige but more about the next elections) and our foreign policy elites will move to the next failure. Two corrupt eastern european countries fighting over ethnic issues and land..sounds like the last 500 years. No, the US support was about imposing a new Trotsky on the Russian..get rid of Putin (regime change Bush/Clinton/Obama) style)..it has worked so well to date? The law of numbers is on the Russians side. Chalk it up as another loss for Team USA...maybe time to gut the current foreign policy elites..they are failures and America is just a vessel to be used for avenge old world grudges...listen and you can head the Big Red Machine..it is on the move...

[Anon]

Here is an interesting angle on the topic
https://youtu.be/u92TxpAfCxE

[Anon]

“If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars.” Leo Tolstoy

[Stephen Lathrop]

The title as translated is a succinct summary of ruinous gambling addiction.

[Bill Falcon]

The Big Red Machine is moving..you all better get used to how this ends. No it isn't with the New Trotsky (Zelinsky) the darling of the neocons leading the "right kind" of bolshevik revolution in Russia and imposing a Goldman Sachs crony corrupt controlled eastern europe (the dream of the neocons since their boy Trotsky lost out). The war will end with the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine part of Russia and America bankrupt and like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.."moved on to the next globalism crusade." Except with $30T in debt and a world moving away from the dollar...the empire born in the dreams of the cultural marxists post cold war will come to an end. Besides..no rural white kid is enlisting in an Army where the chief diversity officer of the US armed forces spews racist garbage. Who is going to fight the Russian..an army of Admiral Levines. It is over neocons/neolibs...the dreams of your fathers for a global bolshie empire built on the blood and treasure of America is gone. The Big Red Machine is coming for you...