Song “Cranes”

In 1968, composer Yan Frenkel wrote music to Rasul Gamzatov’s verses.

The song was performed by Soviet actor and singer Mark Bernes.

Poet R. Gamzatov wrote the poems after his visit to Japan. As a member of the Soviet delegation he visited Hiroshima on the 20th anniversary of the atomic bombing. There the poet learned the tragic story of a girl Sadako Sasaki, who died of radiation sickness. According to Japanese legend, she could have been saved if she had made a thousand paper cranes. But she did not have time. Gamzatov was impressed by this story, as well as by the monument to this girl – with a white crane.

R. Gamzatov also visited the obelisk in North Ossetia, erected in memory of seven brothers who died during the Great Patriotic War. The mother of these brothers died after the third funeral, and the father’s heart failed after the death of his last son.
In 1963, an obelisk in the form of a grieving mother and seven flying birds was erected in the village.

#MusicofVictory.

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