Any Russian person who has ever seen the film “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath” knows this poem. Actually, it’s called “The Ballad of a Smoky Car,” but most often it is remembered by the very line that I wrote in the title of the post.
I am not a passionate lover of poetry - not even the most talented one. But there are poems that sink into the soul so much that it is impossible to be indifferent to them. One of them is “The Ballad of a Smoky Car” by Alexander Kochetkov.
Here is the story of how it was written.
First, the poem itself.
BALLAD OF A SMOKY CAR
- How painful, dear, how strange,
Connected in the ground, intertwined with branches, -
How painful, honey, how strange
Split under the saw.
The wound on the heart will not heal,
Will shed pure tears,
The wound on the heart will not heal -
It will spill with fiery resin.
– As long as I’m alive, I’ll be with you –
Soul and blood are indivisible, -
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Love and death are always together.
You will carry it with you everywhere -
You will carry with you, my love, -
You will carry it with you everywhere
Native land, sweet home.
- But if I have nothing to hide with
From incurable pity,
But if I have nothing to hide with
From the cold and darkness?
- After parting there will be a meeting,
Don't forget me, darling,
After parting there will be a meeting,
Let's both come back - you and me.
- But if I disappear into obscurity -
Short daylight beam -
But if I disappear into obscurity
Beyond the star belt, into the milky smoke?
- I will pray for you,
So as not to forget the earthly path,
I will pray for you,
May you return unharmed.
Shaking in a smoky carriage,
He became homeless and humble,
Shaking in a smoky carriage,
He was half crying, half sleeping,
Suddenly he bent with a terrible list,
When the train is on a slippery slope
The wheels were torn off the rails.
Superhuman strength
In one winepress, crippling everyone,
Superhuman strength
She threw earthly things off the ground.
And didn't protect anyone
The promised meeting in the distance,
And didn't protect anyone
A hand calling in the distance.
Don't be separated from your loved ones!
Don't be separated from your loved ones!
Don't be separated from your loved ones!
Grow into them with all your blood, -
And every time say goodbye forever!
And every time say goodbye forever!
When you leave for a moment!
It was a complete surprise for me to find out when the poem was written - in what terrible period of Russian history. And here is an excerpt from the article Lev Ozerov about the history of writing the ballad.
————————————————————————————–
The history of the appearance of “Ballad” is told by the poet’s wife Nina Grigorievna Prozriteleva in notes left after her death and still unpublished:
“We spent the summer of 1932 in Stavropol with my father. In the fall, Alexander Sergeevich left earlier, I was supposed to come to Moscow later. The ticket had already been purchased - the Stavropol branch to the Kavkazskaya station, there for the direct train Sochi - Moscow. It was difficult to leave, and we put it off as long as we could. On the eve of departure, we decided to sell the ticket and delay departure for at least three days. These same days are a gift of fate - to experience them as a continuous holiday.
The reprieve was over, it was necessary to go. A ticket was bought again, and Alexander Sergeevich left. A letter from him from Kavkazskaya station illustrates the mood in which he was traveling. (In this letter there is an expression “half sad, half asleep.” In the poem - “half crying, half asleep.”)
In Moscow, among friends whom he informed about the first day of his arrival, his appearance was accepted as a miracle of resurrection, since he was considered dead in a terrible crash that occurred with a Sochi train at the Moskva-tovarnaya station. Acquaintances who were returning from a Sochi sanatorium died. Alexander Sergeevich escaped death because he sold a ticket for this train and stayed in Stavropol.
In the very first letter that I received from Alexander Sergeevich from Moscow, there was a poem “Wagon” (“The Ballad of a Smoky Wagon”)…”
Protected by fate from the train crash that happened the day before, the poet could not help but think about the nature of chance in human life, about the meaning of meeting and separation, about the fate of two beings who love each other.
This is how we find out the date of writing - 1932 - and the dramatic history of the poem, which was published thirty-four years later. But even unpublished, it in an oral version, passed from one person to another, received enormous publicity. I heard it during the war, and to me (and many of my friends) it seemed written at the front. This poem became my property - I never parted with it. It became one of my favorites.
The first person who told me the history of “The Ballad of a Smoky Car” was A. S. Kochetkov’s friend, the late writer Viktor Stanislavovich Vitkovich. In the winter of 1942, a participant in the defense of Sevastopol, writer Leonid Solovyov, author of an excellent book about Khoja Nasreddin “Troublemaker,” came to Tashkent. At that time, Yakov Protazanov was filming the film “Nasreddin in Bukhara” in Tashkent, based on the script by Solovyov and Vitkovich. Vitkovich brought Solovyov to Kochetkov, who was then living in Tashkent. It was then that Soloviev heard “The Ballad of a Smoky Car” from the author’s lips. He really liked her. Moreover, he fanatically fell in love with this poem and took the text with him. It seemed like it had just been written. This is how everyone around him perceived him (and Solovyov - at that time a correspondent for the Red Fleet - read the poem to everyone he met). And it not only captivated the listeners - it became a necessity for them. It was rewritten and sent in letters as news, consolation, and prayer. In lists, various versions (even mutilated), it circulated on the fronts, often without the name of the author, as a folk one.
“The Ballad of a Smoky Car” was first published by me (with an introductory note about the poet) in the collection “Poetry Day” (1966). Then “Ballad” was included in the anthology “Song of Love” (1967), published in “Moskovsky Komsomolets” and since then has been increasingly and more willingly included in various collections and anthologies. The stanzas of the “Ballad” are taken by the authors as epigraphs: a line from the “Ballad” became the title of A. Volodin’s play “Don’t Part With Your Loved Ones,” readers include the “Ballad” in their repertoire. It was also included in Eldar Ryazanov’s film “The Irony of Fate...” We can say with confidence: it has become a textbook.
This is about the poem.
Now about the author, about Alexander Sergeevich Kochetkov. In 1974, the publishing house “Soviet Writer” published his largest work, the drama in verse “Nicholas Copernicus,” as a separate book. Two of his one-act poetic plays were published: “The Head of Homer” - about Rembrandt (in “Smena”) and “Adelaide Grabbe” - about Beethoven (in “Pamir”). Cycles of lyric poems were published in “Poetry Day”, “Pamir”, “Literary Georgia”. That's all for now. The rest (very valuable) part of the heritage (lyrics, poems, dramas in verse, translations) still remains the property of the archive...
Alexander Sergeevich Kochetkov is the same age as our century.
After graduating from the Losinoostrovskaya gymnasium in 1917, he entered the philological faculty of Moscow State University. Soon he was mobilized into the Red Army. The years 1918-1919 are the poet’s army years. Then, at different times, he worked either as a librarian in the North Caucasus, or at the International Organization for Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution, or as a literary consultant. And always, in all the most difficult circumstances of life, work on the poem continued. Kochetkov began writing early - at the age of fourteen.
His masterful translations are well known. As the author of original works, Alexander Kochetkov is little known to our readers. Meanwhile, his play in verse about Copernicus was performed in the theater of the Moscow Planetarium (there was such a very popular theater). Meanwhile, in collaboration with Konstantin Lipskerov and Sergei Shervinsky, he wrote two plays in verse, which were staged and enjoyed success. The first is “Nadezhda Durova”, staged by Yu. Zavadsky long before A. Gladkov’s play “A Long Time Ago” - on the same topic. The second is “Free Flemings”. Both plays enrich our understanding of the poetic dramaturgy of the pre-war years. When the name of Alexander Kochetkov is mentioned, even among ardent lovers of poetry, one will say:
– Oh, he translated “The Magic Horn” by Arnimo and Brentano?!
“Excuse me, it was he who gave the classic translation of Bruno Frank’s story about Cervantes!” adds another.
“Oh, he translated Hafiz, Anvari, Farrukha, Unsari and other creators of the poetic East!” exclaims a third.
“And translations of works by Schiller, Corneille, Racine, Beranger, Georgian, Lithuanian, Estonian poets!” the fourth will note.
– Let’s not forget Antal Gidash and Es-habib Vafa, a whole book of his poems, and participation in the translations of large epic paintings – “David of Sassoun”, “Alpamysh”, “Kalevipoeg”! - the fifth one will not fail to mention.
Thus, interrupting and complementing each other, poetry connoisseurs will remember Kochetkov the translator, who devoted so much effort and talent to the high art of poetic translation.
Alexander Kochetkov worked enthusiastically on poetry until his death (1953). He seemed to me one of the last students of some old school of painting, the keeper of its secrets, ready to pass on these secrets to others. But few people were interested in these secrets, like the art of inlay, making lionfish, cylinders and phaetons. An astrologer, he adored Copernicus. A music lover, he recreated the image of the deaf Beethoven. A painter in a word, he turned to the experience of the great beggar Rembrandt.
Behind Kochetkov's works, their creator appears - a man of great kindness and honesty. He had the gift of compassion for the misfortune of others. He constantly took care of old women and cats. “Such an eccentric!” - others will say. But he was an artist in everything. He didn’t have any money, and if he did, it immediately migrated under the pillows of the sick and into the empty wallets of the needy.
He was helpless regarding the fate of his works. I was embarrassed to take them to the editor. And if he did, he was embarrassed to come for an answer. I was afraid of rudeness and tactlessness.
To this day we are greatly indebted to the memory of Alexander Kochetkov. It has not yet been fully shown to the reading public. It is hoped that this will be done in the coming years.
I want to briefly outline his appearance. He had long, combed back hair. He was easy in his movements, these movements themselves betrayed the character of a man whose actions were guided by internal plasticity. He had a gait that you rarely see now: melodic, helpful, and there was something very old about it. He had a cane, and he carried it gallantly, in a secular manner, one could feel the last century, and the cane itself seemed to be ancient, from the time of Griboedov.
A continuator of the classical traditions of Russian verse, Alexander Kochetkov seemed to some poets and critics of the thirties and forties to be a kind of archaist. What was good and solid was mistaken for what was backward and callous. But he was neither a copyist nor a restorer. He worked in the shadows and in the depths. People close to him appreciated him. This applies, first of all, to Sergei Shervinsky, Pavel Antokolsky, Arseny Tarkovsky, Vladimir Derzhavin, Viktor Vitkovich, Lev Gornung, Nina Zbrueva, Ksenia Nekrasova and some others. He was noticed and noted by Vyacheslav Ivanov. Moreover: it was a friendship between two Russian poets - the older generation and the younger generation. Anna Akhmatova treated Kochetkov with interest and friendly attention.
For the first time I saw and heard Alexander Sergeevich Kochetkov in Khoromny cul-de-sac in the apartment of Vera Zvyagintseva. I remember that Klara Arseneva, Maria Petrovykh, and Vladimir Lyubin were with us then. We heard poems read softly and sincerely by the author, whom I really liked. That evening he heard many kind words addressed to him, but he looked as if all this was being said not about him, but about some other poet who deserved praise to a greater extent than himself.
He was welcoming and friendly. No matter how sad or tired he was, his interlocutor did not feel it.
The interlocutor saw in front of him, next to him, a sweet, sincere, sensitive person.
Even in a state of illness, lack of sleep, need, even at a time of legitimate resentment at the inattention of editors and publishing houses, Alexander Sergeevich did everything to ensure that this state was not transmitted to his interlocutor or companion, so that it would be easy for him. It was with such ease coming from the soul that he one day turned to me and, gently tapping his cane on the asphalt, said:
– I have one composition, imagine – a drama in verse. Wouldn't it be difficult for you to get acquainted - at least briefly - with this work? There is no hurry, when you say and if you can...
So, in 1950, the dramatic poem “Nicolaus Copernicus” came to me.
Starting with the history of one poem (“The Ballad of a Smoky Car”), I turned to its author and his story.
From one poem a thread stretches to other works, to the personality of the poet, whom he loved so much and became a close friend and interlocutor for him.
This book of selected works by the poet represents different genres of his work: lyrics, dramatic short stories (as A. S. Kochetkov himself called them), poems.
In working on the book, I used the advice and archives of the poet’s friends - V. S. Vitkovich and L. V. Gornung, who, among other things, gave me the photograph he took of Alexander Kochetkov, which is included in this book. I offer them my gratitude.
Ballad of a smoky carriage
- How painful, dear, how strange,
Connected in the ground, intertwined with branches, -
How painful, honey, how strange
Split under the saw.
The wound on the heart will not heal,
Will shed pure tears,
The wound on the heart will not heal -
It will spill with fiery resin.
- As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Soul and blood are indivisible, -
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Love and death are always together.
You will carry with you, my love, -
You will carry it with you everywhere,
You will carry it with you everywhere
Native land, sweet home.
- But if I have nothing to hide with
From incurable pity,
But if I have nothing to hide with
From the cold and darkness?
- After parting there will be a meeting,
Don't forget me, darling,
After parting there will be a meeting,
We'll both come back - you and me.
- But if I disappear into obscurity -
The short light of a daylight beam, -
But if I disappear into obscurity
For the star belt, milky smoke?
- I will pray for you,
So as not to forget the earthly path,
I will pray for you,
May you return unharmed.
He became homeless and humble,
Shaking in a smoky carriage,
He was half crying, half sleeping,
Suddenly he bent with a terrible list,
When the train is on a slippery slope
The wheels were torn off the rails.
Superhuman strength
In one winepress, crippling everyone,
Superhuman strength
She threw earthly things off the ground.
And didn't protect anyone
The promised meeting in the distance,
And didn't protect anyone
A hand calling in the distance.
Don't part with your loved ones,
Don't part with your loved ones,
Don't part with your loved ones,
Grow into them with all your blood, -
And every time say goodbye forever!
And every time say goodbye forever!
When you leave for a moment.
Alexander Kochetkov, 1932
Poor Ippolit went out into the cold, a sober Zhenya Lukashin returned to Moscow, and we were left with the lines on our lips: “How painful, dear, how strange...”
We have become so intertwined with this film, our lives are so intertwined with the lives of the characters, that even endless repetitions of “Irony...” do not prevent each of us from having our own “Irony...” in our souls - completely personal, unique. It contains misunderstandings, pain and miracles of our and only our lives. Twists of fate that are still unsolved by us.
And when we leave (and we always have to leave somewhere), we stand in the doorway, hesitate, talk about trifles (“did you forget your cell phone?”), and the Christmas tree is still burning in the room, and, looking back at it, we understand: What we don’t say is the main thing. But the main thing, as always, remains behind the scenes of the soul. It sounds later, when we are walking through a snowstorm: “Don’t part with your loved ones... And every time you say goodbye forever when you leave for a moment...”
There is some kind of Pushkin’s clarity in these lines, and the poet’s name was the same as Pushkin: Alexander Sergeevich.
Alexander Sergeevich Kochetkov. He was born on May 12, 1900. After graduating from the Losinoostrovskaya gymnasium in 1917, he entered the philological department of Moscow State University.
He was mobilized into the Red Army. Then he worked as a librarian. In the 1930s he became a professional translator. Translated from French, German, Spanish...
“The Ballad of a Smoky Car” was written by Kochetkov in 1932 under circumstances that the poet’s wife Nina Grigorievna described as follows: “We spent the summer in Stavropol with my father. In the fall, Alexander Sergeevich left earlier, I was supposed to come to Moscow later. The ticket was "already purchased - the Stavropol line to the Kavkazskaya station, there on the direct train Sochi - Moscow. It was difficult to leave, and we delayed as much as we could. On the eve of departure, we decided to sell a ticket and delay the departure for at least three days... Love saved us."
The train that left without them crashed at the Moscow Tovarnaya station. Many passengers died. Friends who knew about Kochetkov's arrival on this train considered him dead and were shocked when he showed up in Moscow three days later.
Even during the Great Patriotic War, “The Ballad of a Smoky Car” was copied by hand and sent in letters. The poem spread so widely thanks to the correspondent of the newspaper "Red Fleet", a participant in the defense of Sevastopol, writer Leonid Solovyov (author of a book about Khoja Nasreddin). In the winter of 1942, he met Kochetkov in Tashkent, heard “Ballad...” from him and copied the poem into a notebook.
When Andrei Myagkov and Valentina Talyzina read “The Ballad...” behind the scenes, Zhenya Lukashin walks to his house number 25 on Stroiteley Street. He walks through a snowstorm, against the wind, past a concrete fence. And behind the fence is an ancient church with miraculously surviving crosses on the domes. I recently found out: this is the Church of the Archangel Michael in the Troparevo district of Moscow.
By external standards, Kochetkov was a failure: only his close friends knew him as a poet. The first book of Alexander Kochetkov’s lyrics was published only in 1985, and he died in 1953. And how surprising it is that his last poems are the poems of a peaceful and even happy person. Reading them, it seems: the author received an undoubted assurance from above that his poetic destiny was created in heaven, and it will also take place on earth...
I don't believe prophecies
This has been said to me more than once:
What will be loneliness
My hour of death is bitter.
If only with mortal eyes
Neither took possession of that dream, -
Inconspicuous friends
I'm always surrounded...
...Will the appointed time come?
In the evening ringing darkness, -
Rocked by the murmuring of nests,
I will touch the ground.
If the night is gloomy -
Cricket can't sleep with me,
And I'll forget myself, thinking
That the day will come again...
Lines from the poem “Don’t part with your loved ones!” After the release of the New Year's comedy "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath" they became familiar to almost everyone. This poem is called “The Ballad of a Smoky Car”, its author is Alexander Kochetkov, and the history of the poem’s appearance deserves special attention.
The story of the poem’s appearance was told in her diary by the poet’s wife, Nina Grigorievna Prozriteleva.
The couple spent the summer of 1932 with relatives, and Alexander Kochetkov had to leave before his wife. A ticket was purchased to Kavkazskaya station, after which it was necessary to transfer to the Sochi-Moscow train. According to Nina Grigorievna’s recollections, the couple could not separate, and already during boarding, when the conductor asked the mourners to leave the train, Nina Grigorievna literally rescued her husband from the carriage. It was decided to return the ticket and postpone departure for three days. After three days, Kochetkov left and, arriving in Moscow, discovered that his friends already considered him dead in the crash that occurred with the Sochi-Moscow train. It turned out that those three days of delay saved the poet from inevitable death. The very first letter from her husband that Nina Grigorievna received contained the poem “The Ballad of a Smoky Car.”
Everything that happened made the poet think about the role of accidents in a person’s life and about the great power of love that can protect a person from the tragic vicissitudes of fate. Despite the fact that the poem was written in 1932, it was published only 34 years later in the collection “Poetry Day”. However, even before publication, these heartfelt lines left no one indifferent and were literally passed on by word of mouth, like the very story of its creation. After its publication, the poem “The Ballad of a Smoky Car” began to be included in numerous collections of poems as one of the best lyrical works of that time.
Alexander Kochetkov wrote many wonderful poems, but he remained in memory thanks to his “Ballad...”. More than a dozen years have passed since the writing of “The Ballad...”, and the lines from this poem continue to remain the anthem of all lovers. And in any life’s ups and downs, the most important thing is to always follow the poet’s order: “Don’t part with your loved ones!”, and then even the inevitable will recede.
Ballad of a smoky carriage
- How painful, dear, how strange,
Connected in the ground, intertwined with branches, -
How painful, honey, how strange
Split under the saw.
The wound on the heart will not heal,
Will shed pure tears,
The wound on the heart will not heal -
It will spill with fiery resin.
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Soul and blood are indivisible, -
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Love and death are always together.
You will carry it with you everywhere -
You will carry with you, my love, -
You will carry it with you everywhere
Native land, sweet home.
But if I have nothing to hide with
From incurable pity,
But if I have nothing to hide with
From the cold and darkness?
- After parting there will be a meeting,
Don't forget me, darling,
After parting there will be a meeting,
We'll both come back - you and me.
But if I disappear into obscurity -
Short daylight beam -
But if I disappear into obscurity
Beyond the star belt, into the milky smoke?
- I will pray for you,
So as not to forget the earthly path,
I will pray for you,
May you return unharmed.
Shaking in a smoky carriage,
He became homeless and humble,
Shaking in a smoky carriage,
He was half crying, half sleeping,
Suddenly he bent with a terrible list,
When the train is on a slippery slope
The wheels were torn off the rails.
Superhuman strength
In one winepress, crippling everyone,
Superhuman strength
She threw earthly things off the ground.
And didn't protect anyone
The promised meeting in the distance,
And didn't protect anyone
A hand calling in the distance.
Grow into them with all your blood, -
And every time say goodbye forever!
And every time say goodbye forever!
When you leave for a moment!
Alexander Kochetkov, 1932.
Poetry lovers may be interested in hearing how
There are few people who are not familiar with the lines from the poem “Don’t part with your loved ones...”, especially after the release of the movie “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath.” In fact, Alexander Kochetkov’s poem is called differently - “The Ballad of a Smoky Car.”
This poem has an interesting history of creation, which the poet’s wife Nina Grigorievna Prozriteleva told about in her notes. The couple spent the summer of 1932 with relatives, and Alexander Kochetkov had to leave before his wife. The ticket was purchased to Kavkazskaya station, after which it was necessary to transfer to the Sochi - Moscow train.
According to Nina Grigorievna’s recollections, the couple could not separate, and already during boarding, when the conductor asked the mourners to leave the train, Nina Grigorievna literally pulled her husband out of the carriage. It was decided to return the ticket and postpone departure for three days.
After three days, Kochetkov left and, arriving in Moscow, discovered that his friends already considered him dead in the crash that occurred with the Sochi-Moscow train. It turned out that those three days of delay saved the poet from inevitable death.
The very first letter from her husband that Nina Grigorievna received contained the poem “The Ballad of a Smoky Car.”
Everything that happened made the poet think about the role of accidents in a person’s life and about the great power of love that can protect a person from the tragic vicissitudes of fate. Despite the fact that the poem was written in 1932, it was published only 34 years later in the collection “Poetry Day”. However, even before publication, these heartfelt lines left no one indifferent and were literally passed on from mouth to mouth, just like the story of its creation itself. And after its publication, “The Ballad of a Smoky Car” began to be included in numerous collections of poems as one of the best lyrical works of that time.
Alexander Kochetkov wrote many wonderful poems, but he remained in people’s memory thanks to his “Ballad...”. More than a dozen years have passed since it was written, and the lines from this poem continue to remain the anthem of all lovers. And in any life situations, the most important thing is to always follow the poet’s order: “Don’t part with your loved ones!” And then even the inevitable will recede.
How painful, honey, how strange,
Connected in the ground, intertwined with branches, -
How painful, honey, how strange
Split under the saw.
The wound on the heart will not heal,
Will shed pure tears,
The wound on the heart will not heal -
It will spill with fiery resin.
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Soul and blood are indivisible, -
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Love and death are always together.
You will carry it with you everywhere -
You will carry with you, my love, -
You will carry it with you everywhere
Native land, sweet home.
But if I have nothing to hide with
From incurable pity,
But if I have nothing to hide with
From the cold and darkness?
After parting there will be a meeting,
Don't forget me, darling,
After parting there will be a meeting,
We'll both come back - you and me.
But if I disappear into obscurity -
The short light of a daylight beam, -
But if I disappear into obscurity
Beyond the star belt, into the milky smoke?
I will pray for you,
So as not to forget the earthly path,
I will pray for you,
May you return unharmed.
He became homeless and humble,
Shaking in a smoky carriage,
He was half crying, half sleeping,
Suddenly he bent with a terrible list,
When the train is on a slippery slope
The wheels were torn off the rails.
Superhuman strength
In one winepress, crippling everyone,
Superhuman strength
She threw earthly things off the ground.
And didn't protect anyone
The promised meeting in the distance,
And didn't protect anyone
A hand calling in the distance.
Don't be separated from your loved ones!
Don't be separated from your loved ones!
Don't be separated from your loved ones!
Grow into them with all your blood, -
And every time say goodbye forever!
And every time say goodbye forever!
When you leave for a moment!
From: Sh-kaf
Source -
Sometimes the reader and listener learn about a poet from one poem, which he learned by chance or not by chance. For the poet Alexander Kochetkov, author of “The Ballad of a Smoky Car,” this is the same case. Although it is not the only wonderful creation. And this poem, you see, is truly a beautiful poem, a rare success.
The history of the appearance of “Ballad” is told by the poet’s wife Nina Grigorievna Prozriteleva in the notes left after her death and still unpublished: “We spent the summer of 1932 in Stavropol with my father. In the fall, Alexander Sergeevich left earlier, I was supposed to come to Moscow later. The ticket had already been purchased - the Stavropol line to the Kavkazskaya station, there on the direct train Sochi - Moscow. It was difficult to leave, and we delayed as much as we could. On the eve of departure, we decided to sell the ticket and delay the departure for at least three days. These same days are a gift of fate - experience it as a complete holiday.
The reprieve was over, it was necessary to go. A ticket was bought again, and Alexander Sergeevich left. A letter from him from Kavkazskaya station illustrates the mood in which he was traveling. (In this letter there is an expression “half sad, half asleep.” In the poem - “half crying, half asleep.”)
In Moscow, among friends whom he informed about the first day of his arrival, his appearance was accepted as a miracle of resurrection, since he was considered dead in a terrible crash that occurred with a Sochi train at the Moskva-tovarnaya station. Acquaintances who were returning from a Sochi sanatorium died. Alexander Sergeevich escaped death because he sold a ticket for this train and stayed in Stavropol.
In the very first letter that I received from Alexander Sergeevich from Moscow, there was a poem “Wagon” (“The Ballad of a Smoky Wagon”)...”
Protected by fate from the train crash that happened the day before, the poet could not help but think about the nature of chance in human life, about the meaning of meeting and separation, about the fate of two beings who love each other.
This is how we find out the date of writing - 1932 - and the dramatic history of the poem, which was published thirty-four years later. But unprinted, it was in an oral version, passed from one person to another, and received enormous publicity. They knew his poems during the war; to many it seemed written at the front. It became one of my favorites.
“The Ballad of a Smoky Car” was first published (with an introductory note about the poet) in the collection “Poetry Day” (1966). Then “Ballad” was included in the anthology “Song of Love” (1967), published in “Moskovsky Komsomolets” and since then has been increasingly and more willingly included in various collections and anthologies. The stanzas of the "Ballad" are taken by the authors as epigraphs: a line from the "Ballad" became the title of A. Volodin's play "Don't Part With Your Loved Ones", readers include the "Ballad" in their repertoire. It was also included in Eldar Ryazanov’s film “The Irony of Fate...” We can say with confidence: it has become a textbook.
This is about the poem. Now a few words about the author, Alexander Sergeevich Kochetkov.
In 1974, the publishing house "Soviet Writer" published his largest work as a separate book - the drama in verse "Nicholas Copernicus". Two of his one-act poetic plays were published: "The Head of Homer" - about Rembrandt (in "Change") and "Adelaide Grabbe" - about Beethoven (in "Pamir"). Cycles of lyrical poems were published in “Poetry Day”, “Pamir”, “Literary Georgia”. That's all for now.
The rest (very valuable) part of the heritage (lyrics, poems, dramas in verse, translations) still remains the property of the archive...
Alexander Sergeevich Kochetkov is the same age as our century. After graduating from the Losinoostrovskaya gymnasium in 1917, he entered the philological faculty of Moscow State University. Soon he was mobilized into the Red Army. The years 1918-1919 are the poet’s army years. Then, at different times, he worked either as a librarian in the North Caucasus, or at the International Organization for Assistance to Fighters of the Revolution, or as a literary consultant. And always, in all the most difficult circumstances of life, work on the poem continued. Kochetkov began writing early - at the age of fourteen.
His masterful translations are well known. As the author of original works, Alexander Kochetkov is little known to our readers.
Meanwhile, his play in verse about Copernicus was performed in the theater of the Moscow Planetarium (there was such a very popular theater). Meanwhile, in collaboration with Konstantin Lipskerov and Sergei Shervinsky, he wrote two plays in verse, which were staged and enjoyed success. The first is “Nadezhda Durova,” staged by Yu. Zavadsky long before A. Gladkov’s play “A Long Time Ago (Ryazanov’s Film “The Hussar Ballad”)” - on the same topic. The second is "Free Flemings". Both plays enrich our understanding of the poetic dramaturgy of the pre-war years.
I read in the memoirs of his publisher that “When the name of Alexander Kochetkov is mentioned, even among ardent poetry lovers one will say:
Oh, he translated “The Magic Horn” by Arnimo and Brentano?!
Excuse me, it was he who gave the classic translation of Bruno Frank's story about Cervantes! - another will add.
Oh, he translated Hafiz, Anvari, Farrukha, Unsari and other creators of the poetic East! - a third will exclaim.
And the translations of works by Schiller, Corneille, Racine, Beranger, Georgian, Lithuanian, Estonian poets! - the fourth will notice. "
Thus, interrupting and complementing each other, poetry connoisseurs will remember Kochetkov the translator, who devoted so much effort and talent to the high art of poetic translation.
Alexander Kochetkov worked enthusiastically on poetry until his death (1953).
Behind Kochetkov's works their creator appears - a man of great kindness and honesty. He had the gift of compassion for the misfortune of others. He constantly took care of old women and cats. "Such an eccentric!" - others will say. But he was an artist in everything. He didn’t have any money, and if he did, it immediately migrated under the pillows of the sick and into the empty wallets of the needy.
He was helpless regarding the fate of his works. I was embarrassed to take them to the editor. And if he did, he was embarrassed to come for an answer. I was afraid of rudeness and tactlessness.
I think this poet deserves to be read and remembered, although the full fruits of his titanic labor have not yet been shown to the reading public. We must hope that this will be done by Russian publishers (and maybe foreign ones, those who care) in the coming years.
In Russia there is one of the latest reprints of selected works of the poet.
Alexander Kochetkov. Don't be separated from your loved ones! Poems and poems. Moscow: Soviet writer, 1985.
Lev Ozerov
BALLAD OF A SMOKY CAR
How painful, honey, how strange,
Connected in the ground, intertwined with branches, -
How painful, honey, how strange
Split under the saw.
The wound on the heart will not heal,
Will shed pure tears,
The wound on the heart will not heal -
It will spill with fiery resin.
- As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Soul and blood are indivisible, -
As long as I'm alive, I'll be with you -
Love and death are always together.
You will carry it with you everywhere -