Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

Do you know that its melody originates from Songe d’Automne, a waltz written in 1908 by Archibald Joyce, an English light music composer? This is exactly Songe d’Automne that the unnamed accordionist is playing and his comrades are listening to. The waltz in question was very popular in Soviet Russia before WWII, the Great Patriotic War, or simply the War, as Russians often call it. This brings me to my second thought, namely, that of the importance of music that literally builds bridges between cultures. I know that the thought has long become a banality—which fact doesn’t make it less true. The unknown Soviet soldiers were fighting to restore peace on earth that would allow them to go back to their beloved ones whom they first met when they went dancing along Songe d’Automne; it is, therefore, not very wrong to say that the waltz, written by a British composer, was a part of what they were fighting for. Is culture—or art—valuable in itself? What or whom would you rescue from a burning house: a Nazi, a Rembrandt, or a cat? A great question which is falsely attributed to Marseille Proust—in fact, it was Alberto Giacometti who authors it. I will be happy to learn your answers to it in less than twenty minutes.

Whichever way you answer it, the very fact that the unknown Soviet soldiers were eager to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of a waltz—this fact may take your breath away. Things are not that Kafkaesque, of course: this waltz requires a world where waltzes, written by British composers, still can be played, this world being exactly what the soldiers were fighting for. We are completely unable to empathise with their state of mind, to reflect it in our mind as long as we refuse to deal with the concepts of duty and sacrifice. It is precisely the readiness to sacrifice your own life that makes even your death—‘in fire, in smoke’—a relatively simple matter. Can we still deal with this concept, though, ‘over-intelligent’ as we are? Are we up to it? The world we live in has become a very safe place over the last fifty years. In the world of today, it is no longer needed to sacrifice one’s own life, and the idea that each human life is invaluable has long become a commonplace with us. What if it is not? What I mean to say is: aren’t there some things that are still more valuable than the life of an individual?