Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. The Nature Reserve.

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Commentary to the song “The Nature Reserve”.

As the epigraph to this song, there can be used the words of the sea dwellers from the poem “The Blizzard” written by Porphyry Ivanov, peace be upon him:

Now there will be equity in Nature, The people won’t be such hostile things.

Here comes to mind Gabdulla Tukay’s poem “The Poor Hare” (1910).

Allah, glorious and exalted is He, made man the master of the Earth, having bidden him to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (the Book of Genesis, chapter 1, verse 28), not to exterminate the Earth’s creatures.

Here is what is written in stanza 9:

In spotless white aprons, desirous to serve, And loudly declaring, “Don’t harm anything!” The huntsmen must guard all this Nature reserve By Moses’ commandment, “A man shall not kill!”

The song was written in 1972 for an unfulfilled performance of the Leningrad Theater of Miniatures.

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