Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. The Interrupted Flifht.
Commentary to the song “It’s my fate — to the finishing line, to the cross...”
Here comes to mind Gabdulla Tukay’s poem “Where Is Sweetness?” (1907).
I v a n K a l i t a (also known as “Ivan I of Moscow”) was the Prince of Moscow from 1325 and the Grand Prince of Vladimir from 1328, he reigned to 1340.
T h e H o r d e o f Z a l e s e s was a common name of Rus’ in the period of her being under the influence of the Golden Horde, see the article “When Rus’ was Tatar” by Dmitry Zhantiev (2001) (this article is in Russian), the word “Zaleses” means those who live beyond the forest.
P e t e r means the Rossian Czar Peter I, he ruled Rossia from 1682 to 1725.
“Then there were Peter’s evil deeds...” — the eradication of the Russian spirit, initiated by Peter I at the state level, is actively continuing; in the article “On the Russian Question” (2019) (this article is in Russian), Igor Ilyin wrote about this well. One of those deeds was the “improvement” of the Russian alphabet, the natural consequence of it was the orthographic reform of the Soviet government. But in this publications, one can find all the unfoundedly abolished letters.
Of course, Peter I also performed good deeds, and one of them was the order to compile the collection “Honest Mirror of Youth, or Indication of Worldly Behavior” (1767) (the presented collection is in Russian).
Y e m e l y a n P u g a c h e v was a pretender to the Rossian throne, he led the great Cossack insurrection of 1773 — 1774.
The author had been endeavoring to finish off Vladimir Vysotsky’s work, and he considers himself to be the man the poet “hunted” for, who is named the poet’s friend in the original text.
The presented text is adapted from Sergey Roy’s translation.