Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

‘Walks on Water,’ the song that we are going to analyse more deeply, basically falls into the category of ‘sermons’—I deliberately omit the word ‘little’ because this word is somewhat out of place here. The song seems to have a philosophical, perhaps even a theological, not just an ethical dimension—no wonder, considering that the subject of it is St Andrew who meets Jesus Christ walking on water. Judge for yourselves—here are some copies of its lyrics translated into English so that you can understand what the song is about. (The translation was provided by a certain Schnurrbrat on lyricstranslate.com; I was able to contact the translator and have received his gracious permission to use the text for our purposes.)

[Verse 1]

The apostle Andrew was fishing the pier,

And the Saviour was walking the sea.

Just as Andrew was catching small fish with his net,

So, the Saviour was fishing the dead.

Andrew’s voice was sincere: ‘I’m leaving this pier

If you do share this secret with me!’

But the Saviour replied, ‘My dear Andrew, I swear:

There was never a secret concealed.’

[Refrain]

‘Look, you see on the hill—

There is a towering cross,

A dozen of soldiers in black;

You should try to hang on.

And when you suffer the loss—

You are free to come back,

To walk on the sea,

To walk on the sea,

To walk on the sea with me.’

[Verse 2]

‘But my mentor! The helmets are shining with horns;

A black raven is circling the cross.

Would you tell me today? Spare your fool from the scorn,

Crucifixion could wait or be tossed.’

And the Saviour got speechless and stomped with his heel

The water mirror beneath:

‘You indeed are a fool!’ Crying Andrew retreats,

While carrying his catch from the pier.

[Refrain]

The text, as it seems, raises not less than three important problems we shall deal with—raises them by the very fact of its existence, I mean. ‘Theological thinking beyond conventional religious paradigms’ would perhaps be the first of them. We do not normally expect rock musicians to be very pious or to seriously talk on devotional subjects. (But was it really pious, judging by the melody and the energy that Vyacheslav Butusov puts into his performance? You probably would agree with me saying that it was anything but pious, in the usual sense of the word, that is.)

Michael Holquist, in the fourth chapter of his Dostoyevsky and the Novel argues that Christ—as fully theologically understood—cannot be a character in a novel [Holquist, Michael. Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1977. Pp. 106-111]. Very true, because Christ’s story is written once and for all and because the very thought of rewriting it is in the eyes of a believer dangerously close to a sacrilege—but this fact has never prevented Russian poets and writers from creating their own interpretations of the Gospel story. (Fyodor Tyutchev, Vladimir Nabokov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leonid Andreyev, and Mikhail Bulgakov are just some of the names that should be remembered in this context.) It is perhaps very tempting to say that the Saviour of the song we are looking at, much like the figure of Jesus in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, is not the real Christ, not the true Son of God worshipped by Christian believers, just because the writers of the Holy Scripture have never recorded such a dialogue between the Saviour and one of His disciples. It is, as I have already said, very natural, in a sense, to reject this conversation—and the song in general—as theologically immature. Allow me, though, to abstain from such a judgement: your lecturer hasn’t been given the honour of eye-witnessing the events of Christ’s true life.