Alexander Tvardovsky
I was killed near Rzhev
I was killed near Rzhev,
In a nameless swamp,
In the fifth company, on the left,
In a brutal raid.
I didn’t hear the burst,
I didn’t see the flash
♪ Like a cliff into the abyss ♪
And no tire and no tire
And in all the world
For the rest of his life
Not a buttonhole or a cap
From my breastplate.
I’m where the blind roots
Seeking fodder in the darkness;
I’m where with a cloud of dust
The rye walks on the hill;
I’m where the cockerel cries
At dawn on the dew;
I’m where your cars
Where your cars tear the air on the highway;
Where grass to grass
Where the river spins the grass
I’m where your mother won’t come
Not even my mother will come.
In the summer of a bitter year
I’m murdered. For me
No news, no bulletins
After this day.
Count, you who are alive,
How long ago
Stalingrad was first named
Stalingrad was suddenly named.
The front was burning without ceasing,
Like a scar on the body.
I’m dead and I don’t know,
Is Rzhev finally ours?
Did ours hold out
There on the Middle Don?
That month was terrible,
Everything was at stake.
Could it be that before the fall
Was the Don behind him already
And even with his wheels
Did he get to the Volga?
No, it’s not true. The task
The enemy did not win that task!
No, no! Or else
How could even the dead?
And the dead, the voiceless,
There’s only one joy:
We have fallen for our country,
But she is saved.
Our eyes have faded
The flame of our hearts is gone,
On the ground when we’re called
It’s not us they’re calling out.
We’re like a bump or a stone
We’re a stone, we’re a stone, we’re darker, we’re darker.
Our eternal memory
Who envies it?
Our ashes are rightfully
Our ashes are in the black earth.
Our eternal glory
It’s not a cheerful reason
We’ll never wear
We’ll never wear our orders.
All this is for you, the living.
To us it’s a joy
That it’s not for nothing that we fought
We fought for our motherland.
Let our voice not be heard.
You must know it.
You had to, brothers,
To stand like a wall,
For the curse of the dead
This punishment is terrible.
This dreadful right
It’s ours for all eternity
And it’s ours for the taking
This bitter right.
In the summer of '42,
I was buried without a grave.
All that was afterward,
Death has spared me.
All that may have been long ago
That you may be familiar and clear,
But let it be
in accordance with our faith.
Brothers, perhaps you
have not lost the Don,
And in the rear of Moscow
You died for Moscow.
And in the distant Volga region
You dug trenches in haste,
And with battles we reached
To the edge of Europe.
It’s enough for us to know
That there was, without a doubt,
The last inch
On the road of war
That last inch
That, if left behind,
That if you step backward
There’s no place to put your foot.
That line of depth
Beyond which rose
From behind your back
The flame of the Urals forges.
And you turned the enemy
Westward, backward.
Maybe we’re brothers,
And Smolensk has already been taken?
And you’re defeating the enemy
On another frontier,
Maybe you’ve reached the border
Maybe you’ve already reached the frontier!
Perhaps… May you fulfill
The word of the holy oath! -
Berlin, if you remember,
was named near Moscow.
Brothers, who now trample
The fortress of the enemy’s land,
If the dead, the fallen
If only the dead and fallen could weep!
If the victorious volleys
We who are mute and deaf,
We who are consigned to eternity
If we were revived for a moment
O faithful comrades,
If only then on the warrior
Your immense happiness
You’d realize it.
That happiness, that happiness, is undeniable.
Our blood part in it,
Ours, cut off by death,
Our faith, our hate, our passion.
Our everything! We did not cheat
We have not faltered in our struggle,
We gave everything and left nothing
And left nothing to ourselves.
Everything is on you
Forever, not for a term.
And no reproach to the living
Your voice is not a reproach to the living.
Brothers, in this war
We have known no distinction:
The living and the fallen.
We’ve been on equal footing.
And none of the living
No one of the living owes us a debt of gratitude
Who from our hands
Who took up our banner on the run,
For the holy cause,
For Soviet power
Perhaps just as surely
A step farther down.
I was killed at Rzhev,
The other one was killed near Moscow.
Somewhere, soldiers, where are you?
Who’s left alive?
In cities of millions,
In villages, at home with your families?
In battle garrisons
On a land that’s not ours?
Ah, whether it’s our own or a stranger’s,
All in flowers or in snow…
I bequeath my life to you.
What more can I do?
I bequeath you a life
To be happy
And to serve your native land
And serve your native land with honor.
Grieve proudly,
Without bowing your head,
To rejoice without boasting
In the hour of victory itself.
And cherish it sacredly,
Brothers, keep your happiness
In memory of a brother soldier
Who died for her.