“Of course, I will be back
with my friends and flowers”
The more time elapses, the better we realize whom we have lost… Vladimir Vysotsky is a poet, performer of his songs, theatre and cinema actor. At the beginning of the third millennium he started to be spoken of as one of the most talented people of the 20th century… In memory of the 65th birthday anniversary of Vladimir Vysotsky, the Russian guild of actors proposed to dedicate the year 2003 to his name. A monument has been erected in memory of the national actor, although he did not believe in it when he was alive, since when alive, no one recognized Vladimir Vysotsky officially. He left a great heritage - as his wife, French actress, Marina Vladi says – more than 900 songs. They were heard almost in every house, in all the extensive area of the former Soviet Union from the hot Samarkand to the cold Murmansk. People of all generations – the young ones and those who saw the horrors of the Great Patriotic War – liked Vladimir Vysotsky’s songs. All of them considered the poet to be theirs: he often sang from the first person and wrote as though he experienced it all himself. That is why no one had any doubt: the veterans thought that he was at war; pilots thought that he was a pilot; miners thought that he worked in the mine. Everyone liked him; his new songs spread throughout the country in a moment. 260 million honored, loved their favorite who they even did not know by sight. There was only his voice: hoarse, “cracked”, coming from the bottom of his heart that captivated the people’s souls. He was a national poet.
Vladimir Vysotsky was not officially recognized during his life: he was neither a member of the Union of Writers, nor a member of the Union of Composers. Even the Russian official poets – Evtushenko, Voznesensky, and Rozhdestvensky – did not recognize him. They were pleased to socialize with Vladimir Vysotsky, as his wife, Marina Vladi, recollected. They took his poems a lot of times, promising that they would publish them, but they did not do anything. Only after Vladimir Vysotsky’s death, Robert Rozhdestvensky, shaken by the recognition and love of the people, selected about 70 poems by the poet and published the collected poems “The Nerve” in his memory.
“If only they were treated with more kindness when they are alive”, Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote about the poets. But there was no kindness: there was only lack of understanding by the officials and the ban on everything: publishing of poems, performances on TV, disk releasing. But Vladimir Vysotsky performed everywhere where it was possible: at the stadiums, in the village clubs, in the taiga in front of geologists and loggers. He gave several concerts a day, not knowing where he would sing the next day: in the theatre in Moscow or in front of the seamen in Severomorsk.
Officially he was considered to be a theatre actor in Taganka Theatre, the director of which was Yuri Lyubimov. He invited Vladimir Vysotsky to the theatre. He was one of the first to realize what outstanding talent this actor had. Yuri Lyubimov gave him the leading parts in the plays “The Fallen and the Alive”, “Hamlet”, etc. Lyubimov understood when Vysotsky wanted to star in the films. He starred in about 30 parts in various films. The best of them are “Vertical”, “Dangerous Turnings”, “Two Friends Served in the Army”, “Master of the Taiga”, “You Can’t Change the Place of Appointment”. In the common opinion, the last work was recognized to be the best one, but also this recognition was only after his death. In 1987, Vladimir Vysotsky was awarded the posthumous State Prize of the USSR. In many films he performed the sound track particularly written for the film.
As he recollected later, he started writing the lyrics for guitar under the impact of Bulat Okudzhava. No one could perform his songs as he could; they were neither beautiful nor lyrical, rather dramatic ones – written on the feelings and nerves. The voice tore, burning the nerves of the audience. It was the only way to realize his poetic gift. During his life there were many “ordered” articles against Vysotsky in the press. They tried to annihilate him, calling his songs “the criminal lyrics”. It hurt Vysotsky badly, he considered himself to be a poet and worked a lot on his poems that he usually wrote at night. In the morning he had rehearsals in the theatre, in the evening he acted, performed in front of the audience, but at night he wrote. The crazy capacity for work was amazing. He slept only 2-3 hours of the 24 and it affected his health. He tried to alleviate with wine the pain in his soul that was caused by non-recognition. The poet’s heart often did not endure. At a concert in Bukhara in July heat, not standing the overloads, suddenly it stopped beating. But the people’s love saved him: a doctor that was at the concert made an injection into the heart and he survived, making the people happy with his songs.
In the summer of 1972, Vladimir Vysotsky came to us in Chisinau. Unfortunately, Chisinau authorities did not give him a big concert hall. The concert was in Zeleny Theatre at the former Komsomolsky Lake. The tickets were sold out immediately and the people took Zeleny Theatre by storm as did the marines when taking Zimny Palace. No actor coming to Chisinau enjoyed such a success. After the concert in Zeleny Theatre, Vladimir Vysotsky gave another concert in the Trade Unions’ Palace of Culture on request of the working people. Following the concert, the actors of “A. P. Chekhov” Russian Drama Theatre invited him to the theatre. Vladimir Vysotsky just could not refuse his colleagues. As Nelly Kameneva recalls, he met them at night, he was singing tirelessly all night long. His songs were interrupted by the monologues from “Hamlet”. The actors asked him a lot of questions and he answered them with pleasure. He had always had a kind attitude towards the warm reception of the actors. He was a man of great, Russian, open soul. Up to now everyone recalls his tour to Chisinau as an amazing cultural event in the life of our city. A memorial brass was proposed to be placed, but as usual the funds were not found. He amazed thousands of people in Moldova by his talent of the singer and actor.
He always knew his worth, but the success never went to his head comparing to the conceit of many actors nowadays. He remained accessible for everyone, he never thought of money: the price for his concert admission tickets was just symbolic. He did not make fortune on the people’s love, like many artists do now. He loved his motherland, his simple people.
At the end of his creative life he began touring abroad: he was given a warm welcome everywhere, especially in France and the USA. In New York during the CBS famous talk show “Sixty minutes” he was asked a question if he would like to abandon Russia. “I work with the word, I need my background, and I am a poet. I am nothing without Russia. There is no me without the people for whom I write. I can’t live without the audience that is crazy of me. I gasp for breath without their love. But I am dying without freedom,” Vladimir Vysotsky answered. In America, the Nobel Prize winner, Iosif Brodsky, recognized him as a poet. At the meeting he was stricken by the dramatic poems of Vladimir Vysotsky, he realized how talented he was. As a keepsake, Iosif Brodsky gave Vladimir Vysotsky a book of his collected poems with a dedication. It was for the first time in his life that a really great poet recognized Vysotsky as his peer. Vysotsky remembered it all his life. Brodsky’s book of poems always stood on the most honorable place in Vysotsky’s small library, and he never failed to show it to every guest.
After his death, Vladimir Vysotsky’s songs were subdivided into cycles such as “About Sports”, “About Love”, “About War”, “About Friendship”, etc. The poet particularly appreciated the works of the heroic patriotic character, he was a child of the after-war years, and his father and friends were at the war, often telling of that to little Volodya. The memories of the childhood were the strongest feelings in his soul that took the shape of the poems, and they made the veterans cry. Vladimir Vysotsky’s songs are filled with the true humanness, audacity, soul warmth, love of life and energy. All the poet’s life is presented in them as well as the presentiment of the close end. The song “Fastidious Horses” where Vladimir Vysotsky sang about his irrepressible thirst for life and his passing away to the other world is unique. There was a trinity of poetry, music and performing art in it. Even after his death, no one could perform his songs better than Vladimir Vysotsky himself.
He left the life still young, in the prime of his creative life. This year he would be 65! His creative works at the cinema and the theatre, the written lyrics would be enough for several lives. Books of his poems are published, disks with his songs are released. In memory of the talented actor, the play “Vladimir Vysotsky” directed by Yuri Liubimov is performed twice a year in Taganka Theatre in Moscow. Meeting Nikita Vysotsky, his son, the President of Russia Vladimir Putin spoke about the opening of Vysotsky Museum in Moscow. In 1985, the astronomers of the Crimean Observatory named VLADVYSOTSKY a discovered planet between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is numbered 2374 in the International Planet Catalog. Today his beautiful songs still warm the soul of millions of people on the Planet Earth with ever-burning warm feelings.
Ludmila Mamaliga
Translated by Vlada Popushoi
