Dear Heaven Maker:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sickened our peace-loving world.
In this video, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, a Russian bass-baritone, sings White Cranes, composed in 1969 in honor of those Russians killed in World War II.
I was reluctant to share it at first because of the Russian military personnel. But, the more I watched it and the more I heard the oh-so-beautiful music and the oh-so poignant words, the more I realized that this song is not merely a Russian song. It is universal, timeless. It transcends nationalities.
The song speaks of the sadness of soldiers not returning, of those who, on dying, turn into white cranes who pray for peace for all.
It speaks to all who feel the futility and senselessness of war…to all who see the dead, the wounded, the traumatized, the lives up-ended, the soldiers never coming home again…on both sides of the current conflict and all conflicts.
The faces of the Russian audience speak to the universality of human misery in the experience of war.
May this song touch the hearts of people all over our world and bring this war to a quick resolution.
If you’re moved by this video, please share it widely.
With Love and Thanks,
Martin
PS: I’ve attached here both the lyrics and a little more on the origin of the song.
‘White Cranes’
Lyrics
It seems those soldiers who have not returned from the bloody battlefields,
those that were not buried in our soil,
they turned into white cranes instead,
and from those distant times,
they fly and we hear their voices!
Probably that’s why so often and so sadly we fall silent and look at heaven!
The tired crane flock flies,
flies in the midst at the end of the day.
There is a small gap in their line,
Perhaps that place is for me!
The day will come, and in such crane flock,
I’ll fly in the same blue-gray haze,
Calling out (for peace) like a bird from heavens to all of you people on earth!
It seems those soldiers who have not returned from the bloody battlefields,
those that were not buried in our soil,
they turned into white cranes instead!
The Origin of ‘White Cranes’
White Cranes was composed in 1968 by the Russian composer and performer Yan Abramovich Frenkel, and became one of the most popular Russian songs about World War II.
The origin of the song was a poem written by the Dagestan poet Rasul Gamzatov. After he had visited Hiroshima and the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, he was impressed by the story of a young Japanese girl, Sadako Sasaki, to whom a monument in the park was dedicated.
Sadako was two years old when the atomic bomb exploded near her house and she was blown out the window. Her mother found her alive and thought nothing was wrong. Ten years later Sadako developed swellings in her neck, and then purple spots on her legs. She was diagnosed with leukemia caused by radiation exposure.
The poem was published in the journal Novy Mir and caught the attention of the famous Soviet actor and singer Mark Naumovich Bernes, who revised the lyrics and urged Yan Frenkel to write music for it.
Monument dedicated to Sadako Sasaki
Martin Rutte
