Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. In a Faraway Kingdom.

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Commentary to the song “The Two Brothers”.

Here is stanza 1:

In the village of Big Forks, Where the hayloft was burnt off, There were in the days of old Two bad persons of great force — Brothers Nicholas and Prov.

These brothers symbolize the United States and “Israel”, the village of Big Forks — our Earth, and the hayloft — the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (the Chernobyl disaster, which hap­pened when the third angel sounded, burst out over the six years after the death of the poet). But the brothers can also symbolize two persons, and the village of Big Forks — Rossia. The song has the happy ending: the brothers felt ashamed of their behavior and stopped ter­ror­iz­ing people when the wanderer said to them, “Brothers, ye ought to be ashamed!”

The song was written in 1970.

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