Ukrainian cultural figures Taras Zhitinsky, Anton Mukharsky and Taras Silenko have spread a version that "Poruchik Golitsyn" - one of the most famous "White Guard songs" in the USSR and modern Russia - is a reprise of the Ukrainian rebels' song "My Friend Koval".
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Mark Beygelzimer, PhD, systems analyst and project manager of the Trust but Verify project, looked into the situation.
Facts
Below are the musical excerpts and lyrics of both songs.
"Poruchik Golitsyn" (excerpt) performed by Arkady Severny with the ensemble "Aelita".
Recorded in 1978, source - Dennis Bradshaw.
"My Friend Koval" (excerpt) performed by Vasyl Lyutyi and Taras Zhytitsky.
Video sequence from the movie "Kruty 1918", source: Cherpak TV
The English text below is a verbatim, not a literary translation of the Russian and Ukrainian poems.
Poruchik Golitsyn (text source: Zvezdinsky's website)
For the fourth day the villages are burning,
A great war is raging on the Don.
Don't lose heart, poruchik Golitsyn,
Cornet Obolensky, pour some wine.
Somewhere their troikas are rushing to the "Yar",
The moon looks at them indifferently.
And the commissars are sitting in our rooms,
And our girls are led to the office.
We're marching by the gloomy Don as a squadron,
So bless us, Russia, country!
Cornet Obolensky, distribute ammunition,
Lieutenant Golitsyn, put on your orders!
For tomorrow morning at dawn the red scum
The squadron will march with a deployed lava.
Black midnight has descended over the Motherland,
Only the stars of our epaulettes shine.
For our fallen friends, for our tainted shelter.
We'll repay the commissars for everything.
Poruchik Golitsyn, prepare to attack,
Cornet Obolensky, saddle your horse.
And the air of our fatherland, clear and blue.
And the bitter dust of the country roads...
They are for Russia, and we are for Russia, -
Cornet Obolensky, who is our God with?
The familiar faces of the Arbat glimmer,
The gypsy girls come in my dreams.
What did we fight for, poruchik Golitsyn?
What's the use of battle orders now?
In vain are our brides waiting for us in St. Petersburg.
And the nights of assembly, alas, are not for us.
The trenches and blizzards are behind us now,
We've left the Crimea and the Caucasus.
The black and red birds are circling above us,
Three years have passed like a joyless dream.
Abandon your hopes, Lieutenant Golitsyn,
The last cartridge remains in the barrel.
And in the morning, the sun dawned as before,
The ship "Emperor" froze like an arrow.
Poruchik Golitsyn, shall we go back?
Why should we, Lieutenant, go to a foreign country?
Roots cut down, nests plundered,
And our loved ones are long gone.
Poruchik, we won't return to our homeland...
The bloody dawn is rising over Russia.
My friend Koval (source: pisni.org.ua)
The pilafs have been breaking out for four days,
The dampened wall of the hiding place is weeping.
Don't cry your heart out, my friend Koval,
For it's not easy for me either.
We've been waiting for the flu for weeks,
When the country will go up in flames.
My friend Koval, let's play a song,
For it's not easy for me either.
Our horses have ridden far away
And our fate has been carried away in the starry night.
We dream of being separated
A grieving father,
A gray-haired wife comes to us in a dream.
And we wish we could openly smash the wicked agitations
To smash against the holiness of a firm hand.
But in our name, their black deeds
The Moscow regiments again covered their black deeds.
And stepmotherly fate and false infamy
We were given victorious years.
So let us be unbreakable,
My friend Koval,
For the glory of Ukraine, for all eternity!
The lyrics of the songs are different, although they are close in meaning and literary forms. But they are set to the same melody, so, undoubtedly, they are somehow related to each other.
The first recorded performance of the song "Poruchik Golitsyn" (under the title "The fourth day the stanitsas are burning") is considered to be the recording of Arkady Severny with the ensemble "Black Sea Seagull" in May 1977 at a concert in Odessa [1].
The authorship of "Poruchik Golitsyn" has not been established. It was claimed by musician and sound engineer Vladislav Kotsishevsky (1937-2017) [2; 3], singer and composer Mikhail Zvezdinsky (born 1945) [4], and dissident bard Vasily Moksyakov (1944-2020) [5; 6].
Many researchers attribute the authorship of the song to the associate of Lieutenant Konstantin Golitsyn, poet and Major-General of the White Army Georgy Goncharenko (1877-1940) [7-10]. I have not found documentary confirmations of this version in the open access. But we know the printed poems of Vadim Delaunay (1947-1983) "My Role in the Revolution", dated 1966 [11, p. 57], which in many lines echo the above text of "Lieutenant Golitsyn" (here both "The Fourth Day in the Foggy Capital..." and "Distribute posters, Vladimir Bukovsky! Pour a shot, poet Delaunay!", and "Behind our glass sit cagebists and our girls are being led into the office"). Judging by the stylistics of Delaunay's poems, they were written as an imitation of another poem. Delaunay was probably inspired by the text of "Poruchik Golitsyn," which was known in dissident circles in Moscow in the 1960s (see, for example, the memoirs of Vasily Moksyakov [5]).
Ukrainian musician and folklorist Vasyl Lyutiy in 2006, based on his research, concluded [12] that "Poruchik Golitsyn" is a plagiarized version of the Ukrainian song "My Friend Koval", authored by Transcarpathian poet Mykola Matola (1952-1993). Actually, it was Vasyl Lyutoy's statement that became the source of spreading this version by other Ukrainian cultural figures.
However, after some time Vasyl Lyuty himself abandoned his version after the widow of Mykola Matola told that her late husband wrote the poem "My Friend Koval" to his favorite music of "Poruchik Golitsyn" [13].
To summarize:
1. The widow of Mykola Matola admitted that her husband's song "My Friend Koval" was written to the music of "Poruchyk Golitsyn".
2. It is documented that already in 1966 (i.e. when Mykola Matola was only 14 years old) Vadim Delaunay's poems imitating the text of "Poruchyk Golitsyn" were known.
3. Vasiliy Lyutyi, the author of the version that the prototype of "Poruchik Golitsyn" was the song "My Friend Koval", later refused this version.
Thus, based on the presented data, we can conclude that the song "My Friend Koval" was written later and uses the music of the song "Poruchik Golitsyn".
The authorship of "Poruchik Golitsyn" remains in question. But this is another story, which is beyond the scope of this article.
Conclusion
The song "Poruchik Golitsyn" is not a plagiarized version of the song "My Friend Koval". On the contrary, the lyrics of the Ukrainian song were written to the music of the song "Poruchik Golitsyn".
Sources of information
1. Arkady Severny. The 4th Odessa concert with the ensemble "Black Sea Seagull" [in Russian].
2. Memories of Vladislav Petrovich Kotsishevsky [in Russian].
3. Poems and songs about the White Guard. Research by Sergei Karamaev [in Russian].
5. Vasily Moksyakov (Documentary film-portrait). Source - Vladimir Kuts.
6. History of the creation of the song "Poruchik Golitsyn". Source - Arsen Ventures.
7. Poruchik Golitsyn (song). Material from Wikipedia [in Russian].
8. How the most famous romance about poruchik Golitsyn appeared, and who became its real prototype. Culturalogy [in Russian].
9. With a bouquet of black orchids. Does the romance "Poruchik Golitsyn" have seaside roots? "Rossiyskaya Gazeta-Nedelya". Primorsky Krai № 4502 of October 26, 2007 [in Russian].
10. Victor Podlubnyi. General and poruchik. How it really was. IMHOclub.lv from August 16, 2015 [in Russian].
11. Vadim Delone. Poems 1965-1983. Paris, 1984, 158 p. EBook [in Russian].
12. Olena Bilozerska. Internet-conference with Zhivosil Lyutyi. "For Our Ukraine", No.2, January 13, 2006 [in Ukrainian].
13. Oksana Ivanets. "Poruchik Golitsyn". ArmiaInform. June 06, 2021 [in Ukrainian].
On the cover is a frame from the movie "The New Adventures of the Elusive" (Mosfilm studio, USSR, 1968).
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