The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath! is a two-part TV film that has been a New Year's must in Russia for over thirty years since it was first broadcast on New Year's Day in 1976.
"The comedy born by the director Eldar Ryazanov is the most loved film of all Russia, — writes Lurkmore.—It is also an object of unbridled adoration (~) of all who are nostalgic for everything Soviet and the Soviet way of life. Every New Year from the time of its release the film is shown on at least one and sometimes several TV channels [in Russia]. Anonimus remembers an occasion when the film was on on three main TV channels at the same time (but staggered, not synchronised.) On New Year's night, it has become a good tradition in true Russian families to contemplate this example of the art of cinema with vodka-heavy eyes and a mouthfuls of festive olivier salad (because it will be off the next day.) A whole generation of citizens has grown and matured who have been watching The Irony of Fate from age two. They can imagine the holiday without the film no more as without the chimes of the Kremlin clock tower, olivier and hellish hangover on the morning of the 1 January. And they successfully instill the beautiful tradition in their children."
Dialogues in the film are in a perfectly correct Russian, to the point of being bland. This makes it a good aid for language lessons.
The songs, all of which have become national hits, are to the poems by Yevgeniy Yevtushenko, Marina Tsvetayeva (two), Bella Akhmadulina, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Aronov, Vladimir Kirshon and Mikhail Lvovsky. They are sung by Alla Pugachyova and Sergei Nikitin.
Here is the film in full with English subtitles.
(Episode 1, from the official Mosfilm YouTube channel)
In February I wrote about a few missing stanzas in an Enlgish tranlsation of the famous Russian poem by Bella Akhmadulina. The poem, dated 1959, has also become popular in its song form from the 1975 film 'The Irony of Fate'.
It happened so that just as I published that article a new version of the song was performed at a concert in Moscow. At one point the camera shows a dark haired man in the audience. That's the director of the film Eldar Ryazanov.
Read an expanded version of this article on 'Cardinal Points' ("Стороны света") in English and in Russian.
I stay calm and carry on sorting and cataloguing books that have been piling up over the years. But this one got me really excited and ready to proclaim it the best short anthology of Post-War Russian Poetry (The Penguin poets) (20th century, compiled by Daniel Weissbort).
Translations are good, as poetic translations can be good. The collection is representative, poets are well chosen, from older generation's Akhmatova and Pasternak to Brodsky and Soloukhin who flourished in the 70s. I noted that a few big official Soviet names are not in, which is fine, but I'd include two or three good lyrical poets of the Yesenin tradition who didn't make it into this anthology, Vladimir Sokolov and Nikolai Rubtsov, for example. Each poet's entry has an introduction, but poems, unfortunately, are not dated.
I would have proclaimed it the best short anthology of Russian poetry, had I not decided, conscientiously, to compare the translation of a well-known Akhmadulina (in the photo) poem 'Along this street of mine' ("По улице моей") with the original.
Two quatrains are missing in the book for some reason. I looked at the publication date - 1975 - and thought that perhaps it was because a shortened version of the poem is sung by Barbara Brylska and, off-screen, by Alla Pugacheva in the film The Irony of Fate, or "Enjoy Your Bath" ("Ирония судьбы, или с лёгким паром", watch the video below), a phenomenally popular romantic comedy. But the film was also released in 1975, so it couldn't have influenced the book. And also, in the film version of the poem three quatrains are omitted (second, third and fifth), two that are not in the book and another one.
I can't think of a reason for this omittance, especially because the eight missing lines change the poem from an intimate lyrical piece to one with 'great social and political import'.
For how many years along this street of mine have I overheard those footsteps - of my friends leaving. And the darkness outside my window draws pleasure in witnessing every sluggish departure.
[ missing quatrain 1]
[ missing quatrain 2]
That is your stern character, Solitude, as you flash an iron compass; how coldly now do you close your circles round me without attending to my useless protest.
Summon me, then, with some reward, since I have become your creature, and console myself with your favourites; let me rest against you and wash myself in the pale blue of your frost.
In your forest, on my toes, allow me to reach the slow peak of one strained gesture in your foliage, and raise the leaves to my face so I may feel - to be desolate is a blessing.
Give me the quiet of your libraries, severe melodies in concert halls; wise power - that is the way we forget those who are dead and those not yet alive.
So I shall learn wisdom and sadness together, and things will yield their hidden meanings up; even Nature leaning on my shoulder may reveal her childish secrets to me.
But out of all the darkness, tears, and the forgetting of what is lost for ever, the fine features of my friends will appear briefly to me, before dissolving.
My friends do not look after their affairs, nor music, neither songs are present in their homes, there's just a flock of usual Degas' girls with light-blue feathers, checking hues.
What can I do, what can I do, don't let your fears wake up you, helpless, in the night. That passion for betrayal, so mysterious, my friends, it's clouding your eyes.
Translated by A. Anichkin
There seems to be a mistake as well. The line which reads 'those who are dead and those not yet alive' in the original says 'those who are dead and those still alive', with a diametrically opposite meaning. Besides the obvious puzzlement over what forgetting those who are not yet alive might mean.
(Sung by Alla Pugacheva, music by Mikael Tariverdiyev, actress Barbara Brylska)
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