I drank birch sap in the spring forest,
I spent the night with my beloved songstress in a haystack ...
What I had - I lost, what I loved - I didn't save,
I was courageous and lucky, but I did not know happiness.
And carried me like an autumn leaf.
I changed cities and changed names.
I breathed in the dust of overseas roads,
Where flowers did not smell, the moon did not shine.
And I threw my cigarette butts overboard into the ocean,
Cursed the beauty of the islands and seas
And the Brazilian swamps malaria fog,
And the wine of the taverns, and the melancholy of the camps ...
Black out all my life and start over
Fly to my beloved songstress!
Yes, that's just whether the Motherland will know
One of your missing sons?
I drank birch sap in the spring forest ...
Evgeny Danilovich was born on October 13, 1918 in Orel. In the subsequent drafting of the documents, the date was recorded as November 14, 1919, and this version, as a rule, was indicated in various documents and publications as the official date.
Since 1938, Agranovich has been composing songs based on his own verses. During the war he went to the front, where he continued to compose poetry and songs. Some of his songs of those years, as well as those written later, received anonymous distribution and, in fact, became popular.
After the war he graduated from the Literary Institute. Gorky (1948). After graduation, he worked as a journalist for the OSOAVIAKHIM newspaper, where he wrote articles about events in military units on the instructions of the editorial board.
After he worked under a contract at the film studio. Gorky, wrote scripts for Soyuzmultfilm.
Unfortunately, the Internet turned out to be not rich in information about this undoubtedly interesting and talented person.
And I dare to present to your attention an interview with Evgeny Danilovich, which he gave to Igor Bederov ("Novaya Gazeta").
- AND sometimes I feel sick. And the thought that I am a miserable loser and did not take place as a person creeps into my head, says the artist and poet Yevgeny Agranovich. - But in this difficult moment I know what to remember. Polytechnical Museum. December 6, 2001. I am standing on the stage with which Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Yesenin read. I just sang my song from the movie "Officers". The host announces that today is 60 years of our counteroffensive near Moscow, where I had my baptism of fire. The reclining chairs thunder like a volley. The hall rises. And what, tell me, after that, the hell do I need Mercedes?
M We are standing in the middle of the museum of miniature carved sculptures, which for decades turned into his one-room apartment on the top floor of the tower house. Evgeny Danilovich Agranovich has the eyes of a person who knows war and peace. This is our second meeting.
The first was in the forest. A year ago, Agranovich was invited to a gathering of art song lovers. A crowd of people disguised in tattered vests and worn windbreakers respectfully flowed around his erect figure. And in the middle of this stream he rose in impeccable snow-white pair with the tired dignity of a noble traveler, who decided to while away the time until the evening reception at the Queen of England.
However, Agranovich was not a wedding lord in the tent city. The temperament and artistry with which he performed on the stage between the three pines, and the young could envy. Although he began to speak publicly at an age when, in his own words, "the old man is always tempted to lie down on the sofa and calmly wait for cremation."
WITH amoironia is Agranovich's reliable weapon. Mainly a shield.
Before the war, Zhenya Agranovich, a student at the Literary Institute, had no need for a shield as he is today.
“Everyone liked me in some way then,” recalls Evgeny Danilovich. - The institute immediately fell in love with me. The guys elected the headman of the course. But after the first year, all my fellow students published something. Danilych did not have a single line of yours. In the press. But it went around Moscow.
Agranovich's young friend Boris Smolensky, who then raved about storms and sails, wrote the first four lines of a sea song. I didn't know where to turn next. Agranovich continued. This is how the famous "Odessa-Mama" appeared, which instantly gained popularity and legends. Agranovich and Smolensky did not insist on the official registration of their creation.
- I didn’t even offer it to the newspaper. - Agranovich again goes headlong at a time when his co-author, who died on the Karelian front, was still alive. - Although there was no direct disagreement in her. But the ability to laugh in its own way was already a counter. Take, for example, the line "And Sashka Pushkin is famous for the fact that here he remembered a wonderful moment." Well, who could in those days call Pushkin, canonized by official propaganda, Sasha? Or even an ironic mention of Babel, whose name they tried not to pronounce at all. By the time the song went to companies with and without guitars, all of Moscow knew that he had been arrested and shot.
NS Yevgeny Agranovich received his first international recognition, also unofficial and anonymous, at the front. True, this happened only in 1945. And in 1941, a private of a fighter battalion formed from volunteer students, a company commander Agranovich was carrying out the order of the battalion commissar: the retreating units needed a marching song.
- What to sing? - And today that old question of Agranovich sounds like "Hamlet's". - "If tomorrow is a war, if tomorrow is a campaign?" "When will Comrade Stalin send us into battle?" It is stupid and indecent. We were retreating. And I used the translation from Kipling: “Dust, dust, dust, dust from walking boots. There is no vacation in the war. " The whole battalion sang these words every other day.
New lines were born under the shuffling of army boots. The song of Kipling and Agranovich was sung first by the division, then by the army. Individual couplets flew to other fronts of the Great Patriotic War. During a meeting with the allies on the Elbe, the Americans, who disliked the British and had no idea who Kipling was, also sang a Russian drill song. In English, she sounded as rhythmic as in Russian. Twenty-five years after that spring, Agranovich, on one of the Voices, through the crackle of jammers, again heard the familiar Kipling lines in the frame of the melody he had composed.
(Sculpture "Darling")
WITH Yevgeny Agranovich wrote the most famous song to order.
“After the war, I still graduated from the Literary Institute,” Agranovich recalls again. - Worked as a correspondent in one modest edition. I went on business trips a lot. He wrote in large strips. But once he joked something in the smoking room about the fight against cosmopolitanism. Instantly snitched, a woodpecker was found in the company. It flew out of the newspaper with a bang. It's good that at least on the street, and not on the felling. So I ended up at the Gorky Film Studio in the dubbing shop. My position was called "the author of the Russian lyrics of the duplicated pictures." Before me, Mikhail Arkadievich Svetlov worked there. He used the advance received under the contract for a very good five-star cognac. I could not return the advance payment, but flatly refused to write the script. And they jailed him. The same dubbing shop. He translated these subtitles quite competently and decently. As soon as the amount of his earnings equaled his debt, he, literally on the same line, got up, took his leave and left. I was such a godsend for the studio, as they are for me. I was not allowed to protrude. And so he barely jumped out.
By 1954, Evgeny Agranovich had already settled down in the pavilions at the Gorky Film Studio thoroughly. And the director who was filming the spy detective Night Patrol starring Mark Bernes commissioned a song for Mark Bernes's character. Bernes was eager to perform it in the frame. But the management of the film studio did not accept the famous today "I drank birch sap in the spring forest ...".
- In our conservative cinema, if you once successfully played a bandit, then you will play bandits up to gray hair, - Yevgeny Danilovich sneers again. - I have been doing the Russian lyrics for all the duplicated films for 12 years as a monopoly. The couplets from The Age of Love with Lolita Torres, from The Tramp with Raj Kapoor are all mine. The whole country sang. When the management was informed that the translator of poems Zhenya Agranovich had written the song, they were very surprised. Instead of me alone, a famous composer and, perhaps, the best songwriter in those years, was invited to this work. Composed. Mark Bernes sang it. This song was forgotten right after it was played. And my song, which did not go into the film, I used to run on tape recorders and companies.
- Is it possible that the words about the beloved songstress, with whom you were lucky to spend the night in a haystack, are invented to order? I ask. - "And the wine of the taverns, and the melancholy of the camps ..." - is that really written to order?
- The idea of such a song in my head and soul was worn from the front, - explains Agranovich. - It's just that I put off everything. I was reluctant to work at the table. For example, they asked me: “You write in the first person. Have you seen the "Brazilian swamps malaria fog"? I, of course, have not seen the "Brazilian swamps malaria fog". But I saw people who were returning from there. And talked to them. Indeed, in the troops of Rokossovsky, where I served, no SMERSH could prohibit putting the "displaced persons" in line, so that they too would have a chance to redeem their guilt in battles.
The song of “displaced persons”, as the author called it in those years, came out of the semi-underground unexpectedly. Fifteen years after its creation. At Baikal. During the rain, which forced the film crew to take refuge in an unheated bath. A guitar was at hand. When one of the actresses sang "I am in the spring forest ..." director Benjamin Dorman jumped almost to the ceiling: "Where can I get the words? Who is author? This is the song for my next film. " And I heard in response: “Do not freak out. The author is in front of you. " And everyone looked at Agranovich.
After the adventure film "The Resident's Mistake" was released, the whole country was already singing about the fate of one of the missing sons of the Motherland.
The name of Evgeny Agranovich even got into the credits. But the song was quickly attributed to a famous actor who performed it in the frame. Of course, no one denied the authorship of Evgeny Agranovich. He was simply hushed up.
- I went through the first stages easily. As soon as it came to the signature of some responsible person, it turned out that I was not like everyone else. - "Not like everyone else" is pronounced with an accent. - What annoys me very much in life is the widespread immorality. Once I learned about how the whaling fleet catches whales. Bionics have modeled a whale SOS. Whales rush to the rescue at this sound. Save your fellows. And at the same time they are killed with pleasure. They get whales at such a sneaky reception. This method struck me as beastly. A person should not stoop to this. I wrote a harsh poem about it. Novy Mir even typed it. Then the set was scattered. Apparently, they felt that I had invaded an area where we literati should not invade.
- Is that why you started making sculptures? - I suggested.
- Yes, these are the consequences of working in cinematography. I've written a lot of scripts. The director accepts. We go to the artistic council. And suddenly there they begin to pass through a meat grinder in both directions. Then mix with various minor substances and heat. What does my fellow friend do in this case? To keep his heart from giving up, he grabs the glass. I grab the cutter. Hands are busy. You rejoice at the invented. And after a while dignity returns to me. It's still a work of art. Whether it's in the Louvre or on your windowsill.
(Sculpture "Return in Spring")
Agranovich brings me to one of the compositions "A Girl Seeing Off the Swans". In this work, as, indeed, in others, the meaning lies precisely in the details - a face swollen from tears and a very expressive hand. Swans are carved from a deer horn.
- Humanity has been holding a deer horn in its hand for about 40 thousand years. - In the voice of Evgeny Danilovich, a couple of minutes ago, harsh and cocky, warmth is felt again. - Used the horn as a weapon handle or as a clothes hanger. And it never occurred to anyone that, for example, the hands of the virtuoso pianist Van Cliburn could be reproduced from a deer horn. I really like very good natural material: boxwood, mahogany, antler. Mammoth bone, for example, allows you to very thinly make the pupil, eyelashes. I can achieve a certain expression in my eyes. Time is not a pity for noble material. I tried to do with lightweight material. Linden, for example. So what? Something will crack. And nothing will happen to the boxwood. The ship's shaft on a yacht is made of boxwood.
For boxwood roots Evgeny Danilovich climbed in a gorge near Gagra. Often I sawed the very branch on which I hung over the cliff. He was not in California, but he traded the cuttings of a sequoia - a California pine - for vodka from the workers in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden. Cynical customs officers twisted their fingers to their temples when Agranovich showed them an unskinned log at customs: they say, to Russia and with firewood. They could not even imagine what would come out of this firewood.
- M I was considered unlucky all my life. Modest collections of my poems and stories came out only in the 90s. - Evgeny Danilovich takes a breath for a second, after a momentary pause an even more furious continuation follows. - By and large, a poet without books, an artist without exhibitions, a screenwriter without full-length films. And they tried to teach me how to live. For the refrigerator to be cooler, the tape recorder is more tape-recorder, and the car is so automobile that there is nowhere for automobile. And I am happy with my findings. This is not given to everyone. When I came up with a ragamuffin who plays in the rays of the sun, like on giant strings, and managed to sketch it, and then saw it printed in a book, then, believe me, I experienced much more joy than buying a sheepskin coat.
At this moment, Evgeny Danilovich Agranovich recalls one of his works. It is called "The Boy Taking Off the Mask of Old Age."
(Sculpture "Pasternak")
Most famous songs
Soldier from Alabama
Dust (the first 4 stanzas based on the verses of R. Kipling, translated by A. Onoshkevich-Yatsyna, 1941-1943)
"I drank birch sap in the spring forest ..." (1956)
Parachutists' song (from the movie "Jump at Dawn")
"The path is sliding among the stones"
The last knight on the Arbat
Tiny clam
Saber-love ("Trying to keep love") (late 1950s)
Eternal Flame (From the Heroes of Bygone Times, music by R. Hozak)
Swan song (1991)
Filmography
1959 Mishka Strekachev's extraordinary journey, lyrics
1961 Dear penny, screenwriter
1961 Overseas reporter, screenwriter
1961 Satire Windows, screenwriter
1962 Heavenly Story, screenwriter
1962 Chatted ("The Wick" No. 12), screenwriter
1964 Do's and Don'ts, screenwriter
1965 Your Health !, screenwriter
1969 False Note, screenwriter
1970 The Valiant Robin Hood, screenwriter
1973 Health Begins at Home, screenwriter
1973 Mitya and microbus, screenwriter
1974 I have a friend, screenwriter
1976 Be Healthy Green Forest !, screenwriter
1976 Secret Box, screenwriter
1978 Our Friend Pishichitai (Issue 1) (1978), screenwriter
1979 Our Friend Pishichitai (Issue 2) (1979), screenwriter
1980 Our Friend Pishichitai (Issue 3) (1980), screenwriter
1980 Budkhuz Teddy Bear (Most Delicious), screenwriter, lyricist
1981 Fairy Tale on Wheels, screenwriter
1982 About the White Rose, which knew how to blush, screenwriter
1983 Merry-go-round No. 13. The Mouse and the Cat, screenwriter
1983 Merry-go-round No. 15. Everything for everyone, screenwriter
1983 Mouse and Cat, screenwriter
1984 Not Late, screenwriter
1984 Soldier Lamp, screenwriter
1986 Maple Branch, screenwriter
1986 Snow Tale, screenwriter
P.S. The song "I am in the spring forest ..." I personally associate with the image of the young Marna Vlady from the film "The Witch". That is why her photo is on the front page.
I drank birch sap in the spring forest, I spent the night with my beloved songstress in a haystack, What I had - I didn't save, what I loved - I lost. I was bold and lucky, but I did not know happiness. And carried me like an autumn leaf. I changed names, I changed cities. I breathed in the dust of overseas roads, Where flowers do not smell, the moon did not shine. And I threw cigarette butts overboard into the ocean, Cursed the beauty of the islands and seas And the Brazilian swamps malaria fog, And the wine of the taverns, and the melancholy of the camps. To cross out all my life and start first, Fly to my beloved songstress. But will the Motherland-Mother recognize One of its lost sons? I drank birch sap in the spring forest, I spent the night with my beloved songstress in a haystack, What I had - I didn't save, what I loved - I lost. I was brave and lucky, but I did not know happiness.
Listen / Download this song
Mp3 320kbps on a third party site
This is interesting: Born on January 19, 1937 in the city of Moscow. He graduated from the Moscow school number 479, then - the Construction College of the Moscow City Council, the Theater Studio of Variety Arts of the Moscow State Variety Theater. He worked as an artist on the staff of the Variety Theater, then in the Moscow State Stage. In a short time he became one of the most popular Variety artists. Worked as an author and performer ...
What do you think the song is about "I drank birch sap in a spring forest (lyrics by M. Nozhkin, music by E. Agranovich)" ?
Olga Okhapkina 22 Sep 12:20
Emigration?
Lydia Klimova 12 Dec 18:56
Being a happy person and not noticing it, the person decided to look for better happiness. Wherever fate did not throw him, even to other countries, where he did not notice beauty, color, or smell, everything was alien to him, his thoughts returned to his native places, where he was afraid to return, he was afraid that he would not be understood and will not be accepted. Ah, in vain. Motherland, it is the Motherland for that, so that, if it is necessary to punish, it will punish, but also forgive. I live in a beautiful place, but a half-forgotten, half-abandoned farm is always in my heart.
Andrey Maslennikov 12 Jan 5:29 am
This is a beautiful song about a yearning emigrant, possibly an agent of the GRU, who was probably repressed in his homeland, and then acquitted. He recalls the wonderful moments that he spent with the beautiful woman, ready to drop everything and return to her, but he has no idea how he will be greeted by the Chekists.
Valery Novikov 24 Jan 17:24
For me this song is the yearning of my soul. When I heard it for the first time, in a movie, the melody and words engraved in my memory for the rest of my life. A complete orphan who was doomed by the sinister forties. The early fifties threw me to the sidelines of life. And carried me like an autumn leaf. I changed cities and changed addresses, but for the rest of my life I fell in love with the birch groves of Russia. How much birch sap was drunk in those years of wandering. Valery
Evgeny Agranovich: - And recently there was such a case. I was invited to one morning television program, asked to sing this song. Then I was applauded by everyone who was present in the studio: lighting, sound engineers, and those who were waiting for their turn to shoot. I was, of course, terribly happy about this and began to ask permission from the presenter to sing something else. And she almost gives me permission, only says: "We'll have a detective now." Then I realized that she was waiting for a question from the audience, but there was a technical problem, and there was no connection. I sang another song. And then suddenly an irritated female voice breaks into the air. Some lady says that since childhood she knows the song “I am in the spring forest”, and therefore asks to prove that this song was written by me and not by Mikhail Nozhkin. Completely disregarding the irritated tone, I explain that the song was written in 1954 at the Gorky film studio for the movie "Night Patrol", that this song was supposed to be performed by Mark Bernes, who liked it, but the studio management for some reason decided not to give the song to the film.
But, since the song was not taken into the film and it remained with me, I began to sing it in different companies, people immediately picked it up. Then it was decided to use the song in the film "Resident's Error". But here's what happened: there are two songs in the picture: "And everything is calm at the cemetery", composed by Nozhkin, and the second one is mine, which I asked to indicate with a separate title. But the directorate said that in the legal department of the studio it is known which of the songs belongs to whom and that in this case there are contracts with the authors. Therefore, the credits read: "Songs of E. Agranovich and M. Nozhkin." People could get the impression that Nozhkin and I sat down and wrote both songs together. But that would still be okay - the fact is that, performing in concerts, Nozhkin never mentioned that this song belongs to me. In 1972 I published a collection of my poems, which I called "I am in the spring forest", and before this poem I placed a special title: "Words and melody of E. Agranovich." You understand, if I attributed his poems to myself, a big scandal would have arisen long ago.
Fragment from the film "The Fate of the Resident"
Performed by Mikhail Nozhkin
Poems and music by Evgeny Agranovich (song from the movie "The Resident's Error", 1968)
I drank birch sap in the spring forest,
I spent the night with my beloved songstress in a haystack ...
What I had - I lost, what I loved - I didn't save,
I was courageous and lucky, but I did not know happiness.
And carried me like an autumn leaf.
I changed cities and changed names.
I breathed in the dust of overseas roads,
Where flowers did not smell, the moon did not shine.
And I threw my cigarette butts overboard into the ocean,
Cursed the beauty of the islands and seas
And the Brazilian swamps malaria fog,
And the wine of the taverns, and the melancholy of the camps ...
Black out all my life and start over
Fly to my beloved songstress!
Yes, that's just whether the Motherland will know
One of your missing sons?
I drank birch sap in the spring forest ...
Are you interested in the information in this or any other blog post? But are you not sure if this is right for you? Just talk to me. Conversation for 30 minutes is free!
In 1944-1952, repatriation took place, that is, the return of displaced persons to their homeland. In theory, civilians and prisoners of war should have regained their citizenship without any persecution. But in practice, many ended up in camps, penal battalions, experienced various infringements of rights and freedoms in civilian life. Therefore, not for every displaced Soviet citizen, returning to their homeland was a simple and pleasant experience. It is these sad moments of our history that are reflected in the song “I am in the spring forest”.
But history teaches little people. In the 21st century, wars on the planet flare up with renewed vigor. And now “I am in the spring forest” can be sung by refugees from different countries as a kind of anthem.
Alexander Malinin is one of the performers of the song “I am in the spring forest”. Photo from A. Malinin's personal archive
Let's go back to the history of the song. It would be quite natural to assume that “I am in the spring forest” was written by one of the displaced persons, who had fully drank the horrors of the war and for some reason did not dare to return to the Union. But this is not the case.
The official premiere of the song "I am in the spring forest"
For the first time, the song was officially performed in 1968 in a Soviet psychological detective story "Resident error", in its second part "The Return of the Snipe". Just in case, let me remind you that this is the first of four films about the intelligence officer Mikhail Tulyev. I think many people watched this spy Soviet mini-series. If you haven't seen it yet, take a look.
The song "I am in the spring forest" is sung by Bekas - the fugitive recidivist Matveyev, who is also the counterintelligence officer of the KGB of the USSR Pavel Sinitsyn. The famous actor, composer and poet Mikhail Nozhkin (1937) plays the role of Bekas. He walks with a guitar and sings at the house of Stanislav Kurnakov, a resident of Western intelligence in the USSR, Count Mikhail Alexandrovich Tulyev, who works with us under the pseudonym "Nadezhda". The role of the resident is played by the equally famous Soviet and Russian actor Georgy Zhzhonov (1915-2005). Here is a scene from the movie.
Mikhail Nozhkin - “I drank birch sap in the spring forest”
The song performed by Mikhail Nozhkin immediately fell in love with the audience. Simple in execution, sincere, tragic and in the spirit of the times, it sounded everywhere. It was sung by people who survived the war and fascist captivity, as well as advanced youth who, perhaps, no longer understood the original meaning of the song. However, the emigre theme in Russia is consistently relevant and popular. Only the nuances change.
After the release of the film "Resident's Error" on the screen, the authorship of the song "I am in the spring forest" was quickly attributed to Mikhail Nozhkin. Moreover, it was indicated in the credits. Many people still consider M. Nozhkin to be the author or co-author of the song. But this is a delusion. The song “one of the lost sons of the Motherland” was written by a completely different person. And almost 15 years before it became known to a wide range of listeners. Who is this?
The real author of the song "I am in the spring forest"
The real author of the text and music of the song "I am in the spring forest" was Evgeny Danilovich Agranovich (1918-2010) - Soviet and Russian screenwriter, screenwriter, writer, poet, bard and artist, younger brother of the Soviet film director and screenwriter Leonid Danilovich Agranovich (1915-2011 ).
He was not a displaced person, he did not see the "Brazilian swamps, malaria fog", "and the wine of the taverns, and the melancholy of the camps" he did not know. But he talked a lot with such people at the front, when he served in the troops of K.K. Rokossovsky. At the same time, Agranovich had an idea to write a “song of displaced persons”. But he realized his idea much later. Here is how it was.
In 1954, a spy detective was filmed at the M. Gorky film studio "Night patrol"(1957) starring Mark Bernes. And it was necessary to write a song for the main character. Evgeny Agranovich suggested his own version - the song “I drank birch sap in a spring forest”. By that time, Agranovich had collaborated with the film studio for 12 years and wrote Russian lyrics for all the films dubbed there. The poet hoped that his song would sound in the picture. Moreover, Mark Bernes himself highly appreciated the work of Evgeny Agranovich and really wanted to perform the song in the frame. However, the management of the film studio "wrapped up" the song.
The principle “every cricket know your six” worked. Agranovich was only a translator at the film studio. Of course, he could not write anything worthwhile on his own - so the local bosses reasoned. Therefore, the "Song of the Motherland" for Mark Bernes was written by the famous composer Andrei Eshpai (1925) and the then popular songwriter Lev Oshanin (1912-1996). Now the main song of the film "Night Patrol" is unlikely to be remembered by anyone, and even after the film was released on the wide screen, the song did not make much of an impression on the audience.
Wanderer song
After the refusal of the management of the film studio, the song remained with E. Agnanovich and repeated the fate of the “lost son of the Motherland” - for almost 15 years she “walked” on tape recordings and among filmmakers. If not for one incident, we would not have learned about the song “I am in the spring forest”.
In the early 60s, director Benjamin Dorman filmed a musical comedy "Come to Baikal"(1965). During the filming, it started raining and the film crew hid in the bathhouse. Out of boredom, they began to sing to the guitar. And when one of the actresses sang “I'm in the spring forest”, Dorman cried out: “Where did you get the words? Who is author? This is the song for my next movie! ”. Fortunately, the author of the song, Evgeny Agranovich, was part of the film crew. So a song that did not fit for one spy detective sounded almost 15 years later in another.
I spent the night with my beloved songstress in a haystack ... Photo: Grigol Makharadze
After the premiere of the film “Resident's Mistakes”, the whole Soviet Union sang a song about the fate of “one of the missing sons of the Motherland”. And in the morning Yevgeny Agranovich ... did not wake up famous. Moreover, all the glory and popular love went to Mikhail Nozhkin, who performed “I am in the spring forest” in the frame. Almost like in the song: "I was brave and lucky, but I did not know happiness."
What kind of villainous fate pursued the song of E. Agranovich?
Intentional mistakes by residents
In the film “Resident's Mistake” Mikhail Nozhkin sings two songs: "And everything is calm at the cemetery" and “I drank birch sap in the spring forest”... The first song was written by Nozhkin (although many thought it was a song by Vladimir Vysotsky), and the second - by Agranovich.
In order not to write extra text in the credits or for some other reason, the management of the picture ordered to indicate the authorship of both songs in one line: “Songs of E. Agranovich and M. Nozhkin”. Understand what you want: either both songs were written jointly by Agranovich and Nozhkin, or some song was co-written, or each song has its own author.
I don’t know if the audience read the credits, but it wouldn’t help them anyway. Therefore, both songs were attributed to the performer, that is, Mikhail Nozhkin.
On this one could scold the Soviet bureaucrats and put an end to the story about the unhappy fate of the song “I am in the spring forest”. But even Mikhail Nozhkin was not particularly interested in the true authorship of the song. Rather, he kept it silent.
Speaking at meetings with the audience, M. Nozhkin often sang “I am in the spring forest”. But he did not speak about the real author of the song, although he did not attribute it to himself. At least E. Agranovich stated so.
Birch sap is the taste of childhood. Photo: Misha Kolesnikov
Evgeny Agranovich tried to restore justice. In 1972 he published a collection of his poems entitled “I am in the spring forest”, and before the text of the song he wrote: “Words and melody of E. Agranovich”. At meetings with the audience, he explained that he alone wrote the song - both music and poetry.
But with Mikhail Nozhkin, Agranovich did not begin to sort things out. Perhaps Nozhkin “at the top” was forbidden to mention the name of the real author, since Agranovich was a Jew and, of course, due to the mentality prevailing at that time, he could not write the “Russian” song that everyone loved.
Judging by the interviews, Evgeny Agranovich, until the end of his days, retained a grudge against the M. Gorky and Mikhail Nozhkin film studio and an unfair fate.
Today I want to pay tribute to the memory of the talented man Yevgeny Agranovich. Let everyone who loves and sings the song “I am in the spring forest” remember Yevgeny Danilovich. We usually have little interest in songwriters. But they put their souls into writing poetry and music, but the love of the audience almost always goes to the performers.
Such words are probably more suitable for the authors of Soviet songs. Nowadays the overwhelming majority of musical works have no artistic value, and often have no meaning. Sometimes one gets the impression that the authors, while working on the song, do not call on the Muse, but use psychoactive substances. However, this is a topic for another conversation.
Friends, this is where I will conclude my story about the sad fate of the song by E. Agranovich “I am in the spring forest”. Do you like this song? It was sung by many popular performers. Which performance do you think it sounds best? Share your opinion in the comments.
In your opinion, can “I am in the spring forest” be reborn as a modern anthem for refugees? Or are more brutal songs in demand now?
Interesting? Tell your friends!
Many consider the song "I drank birch sap in the spring forest" folk, at least, the creation of an anonymous author, but it has a very specific author and was born relatively recently.
Song "I drank birch sap in the spring forest". author
Russian Soviet screenwriter and poet Evgeny Danilovich Agranovich (1918-2010)
Songwriter "I drank birch sap in the spring forest"- Russian Soviet screenwriter and poet Evgeny Danilovich Agranovich(1918-2010) - was born on October 13, 1918 in Orel. With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he volunteered for the front, after the war he graduated from the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky (1948), worked as a journalist in the newspaper OSOAVIAKHIM, at the Film Studio. M. Gorky and screenwriter in "Soyuzmultfilm". He began to compose songs on his own verses in 1938, later creating such famous songs as "The Last Knight on the Arbat", "The Song of Parachutists" (from the movie "Jump at Dawn"), "The Path Slides among the Stones", "Odessa-Mama" (co-authored with B. Smolensky), "A Soldier from Alabama" and the most famous - "I drank birch sap in a spring forest." The song was written in 1954 for the movie Night Patrol (not included in the film). Later she sounded in the film "Resident's Mistake" (1968) directed by Veniamin Dorman, performed by Mikhail Nozhkin.
Song "I drank birch sap in the spring forest". Text
And carried me like an autumn leaf.
I changed cities, I changed names.
I breathed in the dust of overseas roads,
Where flowers did not smell, the moon did not shine.
And I threw my cigarette butts overboard into the ocean,
Cursing the beauty of the islands and seas
And the Brazilian forests malaria fog,
The darkness of the taverns and the melancholy of the camps.
Black out all my life and start over
I should fly again to my songstress ...
Will the old Motherland know
One of his lost sons?
I drank birch sap in the spring forest,
I spent the night with my beloved songstress in a haystack ...
What I had - I lost, what I loved - I did not save.
I was brave and lucky, but I did not know happiness.
1956
Song "I drank birch sap in the spring forest". Listen online
Stills from the film "Resident's Mistake" (1968). Song "I drank birch sap in the spring forest". Performed by Mikhail Nozhkin
