Real comments from 1,412 listeners - Russian, Tatar, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian. People not born into this music, but moved by it.
Read all 626 voices: original + English →
Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah in Russian, performed by Elechka. The songs travel far, and so do the people who find themselves in them.
За всю многолетнюю историю этой популярной и зажигательной песни впервые встречаю такой хороший перевод и исполнение в русском варианте - а давно хотелось услышать. Браво.
In all the many years of this popular and lively song's history, this is the first time I encounter such a good translation and performance in Russian (I've wanted to hear one for a long time). Bravo.
Это - гениальная мелодия, замечательная песня и очень талантливый перевод! Слава добрым людям всех национальностей!
This is a genius melody, a wonderful song and a very talented translation! Glory to good people of all nationalities!
Браво! Эта песня привлекает мелодией, а с этим текстом - вообще гимн оптимистов!
Bravo! This song captivates with its melody, and with these lyrics - it's a true anthem of optimists!
Всегда хотелось понять, о чём эта песня! Спасибо! Гениально и просто!
I always wanted to understand what this song is about!!! Thank you! Brilliant and simple!!!
Я хоть и не еврей, а слушаю как родную песни. В далёком детстве у нас была пластинка «Тумбалалайка», и танцевали все - и дети, и взрослые. Евреям всем привет!
Even though I'm not Jewish, I listen to these songs as if they were my own. In my distant childhood we had a Tumbalalaika record, and everyone danced - children and adults. Hello to all Jews!
Гимн замечательный! Такая пронзительная мелодия, никакой воинственности. Желаю вам победы! Я русская, живу в России.
The anthem is wonderful! Such a poignant melody, no belligerence. I wish you victory! I am Russian, living in Russia.
Я азербайджанка - очень люблю и уважаю израильский народ. Привет из Баку.
I am Azerbaijani, I love and respect the Israeli people very much. Greetings from Baku.
В такие моменты мне жалко, шо я не еврей…
In moments like these, I feel sorry that I'm not Jewish…
Я вообще татарин, но почему-то еврейские песни нравятся с детства. В оркестре был дирижёр-еврей - земля ему пухом, великий человек. Видно было, как его трогала эта музыка, и не только его.
Great song. I am actually Tatar, but for some reason, I have loved Jewish songs since childhood. 7-40, Hava Nagila - I play them myself on the accordion. I played in an orchestra where the conductor was Jewish, may he rest in peace, a great man... You could see how this music moved him, and not just him. Perhaps he was remembering his childhood, the evacuation, and so on. Leonid Zinovievich, we will not forget you.
Я вот вроде не еврейка, и родственников евреев нет… а ком к горлу подступает, и за душу берёт. В ней слышится история, тоска и чаяния древнего народа. Мощная песня. Не могу наслушаться.
Thank you for the translation! I don't seem to be Jewish... but a lump comes to my throat... It's hard to even call it a song.. You can hear the history, longing and aspirations of an ancient people... Powerful song...
У вас изумительный голос. Песни еврейские всю душу переворачивают, пою и плачу. Гены отзываются…
You have an amazing voice. Jewish songs turn my whole soul upside down, I sing and cry. Genes are responding. Thank you for this miracle!
Совершенно случайно услышал эту песню в Вашем исполнении. До души дошло. Нарыдался по полной. И потом стало гораздо легче.
Completely by chance I heard this song in your performance. It reached my very soul. I cried my heart out. And afterward it became so much easier. Your voice is simply fantastic. Thank you so much..
Эта песня живёт со мной с тех пор, как я услышала её… В концлагере учительница немецкого за две недели научила маленькую Веру фразам на немецком - это спасло её от голода. Через две недели учительницы не стало: она была еврейкой. Как жаль, что имя её неизвестно.
This song has lived with me ever since I heard it performed by Dean Reed (I was 10-12 years old). Recently I started learning Hebrew with Boris Kipnis - it's the best thing on the internet. And I'm also acquainted with the wonderful Vera Alekseyevna Migunova; this year she'll turn 92. In 1941-45, while in a concentration camp on German territory (as an 8-year-old child), a German teacher, in two weeks, without pencil or paper, taught little Vera phrases in German. This saved her, and not only her, from starvation: she managed to slip out under the barbed wire beyond the camp grounds and come back with bread. Two weeks later, the teacher was gone: she was Jewish. What a pity that her name is unknown.
Очень печальная песня - вот также ехали дети во время голода в Поволжье маленькие братья моей бабушки. Будь проклят фашизм, нацизм и все человеконенавистнические «измы», убивающие детей.
A very sad song. Children traveled just like this during the famine in the Volga region, my grandmother's little brothers, two and four years old, taken to an orphanage as complete orphans, and my grandfather's brother and sister! My grandmother's brothers went missing without a trace, she searched for them for several years, in vain! My grandfather's brother and sister died on the road... And how many little children perished in the children's death camps... Cursed be fascism, Nazism, and all the misanthropic "isms" that kill children, that brand them as sons and daughters of enemies of the people!!!
Моя бабушка родом с Белоруссии, г. Гомель. Она в детстве пела мне её - мне очень нравилось, потому что эту песню в те времена не пели по радио, я даже не знала, что есть такие песни.
My grandmother was from Belarus, Gomel. She sang it to me as a child, I loved it, because this song wasn't played on the radio back then. I didn't even know such songs existed. It's good that now you can hear everything.
Слушаю почти каждый день - и перед глазами бердичевский наш дом, пластинка крутится, звучит идиш, бабушка спешит из кухни, чтобы послушать, а я подпеваю. Спасибо за эту чудесную песню и за воспоминания.
I listen almost every day and before my eyes I see our house in Berdychiv, the record spinning, Yiddish playing, grandma rushing from the kitchen to listen, and I sing along 'vi nemt en aynbikhele mazl...' thank you for this wonderful song, for the memories, and for the beautiful performance.
Еврейской крови четверть - но откликается моментально! Моя русская мама очень любила эти песни и слушала с удовольствием.
A quarter Jewish blood, but it responds instantly! My Russian mother loved these songs very much and listened with pleasure. Thank you so much.
In 1901 Mark Warshawsky wrote Oyfn Pripetshik, a song about a rebbe teaching little children the alphabet by a burning stove. The poet Olga Anikina wrote a Russian text on that melody. It is not a translation: it replaces the realia of the cheder not with words but with their function. The rebbe becomes a grandfather, and in the place of komets-alef, the first syllable a Jewish child learned, stands the first sentence of the Russian primer, the one every Russian-speaking child learned to read. Then something happened that nobody planned. Listeners started leaving their own grandfathers in the comments.
Не знаю, что в этой песне такого, что заставляет меня плакать каждый раз. И вспоминаю своего замечательного папу, который был чудесным дедушкой для моей дочки. А дедушек я своих не знала ни одного. Один умер в блокаду, второй погиб под Ленинградом.
I do not know what it is about this song that makes me cry every time. I remember my wonderful father, who was a wonderful grandfather to my daughter. I never knew a single one of my own grandfathers. One died in the siege of Leningrad, the other was killed near Leningrad.
У меня всё это было, только с моей бабушкой Матрёной Михайловной.
All of this was mine too, only with my grandmother Matryona Mikhailovna.
Спасибо, песня про моё детство. У печки с дедулей, он меня учил азбуке. Значит, не у меня одной такое воспоминание.
Thank you, this song is about my childhood. By the stove with grandpa, he taught me the alphabet. So I am not the only one with that memory.
Слушаю и плачу. Мне 61, но вспоминаю своё счастливое детство и замечательного доброго дедушку, который меня растил.
I listen and I cry. I am sixty-one, and I remember my happy childhood and my kind grandfather who raised me.
Казалось бы, капля крови во мне еврейской. А вот так отвечает душа, что просто ком в горле. Слушаю уже не знаю в какой раз.
You would think there is barely a drop of Jewish blood in me. And yet the soul answers like this, a lump in the throat. I have lost count of how many times I have listened.
И так всю жизнь: то ли буквы я никак не выучу, то ли текст не тот.
And so it goes, all your life: either I cannot learn the letters, or the text is not the right one.
Read them again and notice who is speaking. A woman whose grandfathers died in the siege of Leningrad. A woman whose grandmother was named Matryona Mikhailovna. A listener who says there is barely a drop of Jewish blood in him. They are not remembering a Jewish world. They are remembering their own, and this song gave them the door into it. That is what the work is for: to make deeply Jewish songs feel universally human, so that they go on being sung by people who did not inherit them.
Not everyone agrees, and the argument is worth showing. Some listeners write that this is not a translation and that the original says something else entirely. They are right about the fact and wrong about the label. This is an adaptation, and the literal translation of Warshawsky's Yiddish deserves to be read on its own: it is a great poem about letters that hold tears, and about drawing strength from them in exile. Both belong on the same page. That is what this site is for.
Something else happens in those threads. One listener posted the Yiddish original in transliteration. Another posted a literal Russian translation. Others asked for the chords, so they could teach the song to their grandchildren. Nobody organized any of it. A song page fills itself, if the song is alive.
If a song here found its way to you, that is the whole point. Listen, sing along, and pass it on.
Memories and responses from people who found something of their own in these songs.
In all the many years of this popular and lively song's history, this is the first time I encounter such a good translation and performance in Russian (I've wanted to hear one for a long time). Bravo.
347 Hava Nagila · @joker1000-f8d
Real comments from 1,412 listeners - Russian, Tatar, Azerbaijani, Ukrainian. People not born into this music, but moved by it.
Hanukkah, oh Hanukkah in Russian, performed by Elechka. The songs travel far, and so do the people who find themselves in them.
За всю многолетнюю историю этой популярной и зажигательной песни впервые встречаю такой хороший перевод и исполнение в русском варианте - а давно хотелось услышать. Браво.Open Hava Nagila
In all the many years of this popular and lively song's history, this is the first time I encounter such a good translation and performance in Russian (I've wanted to hear one for a long time). Bravo.Open Hava Nagila
Это - гениальная мелодия, замечательная песня и очень талантливый перевод! Слава добрым людям всех национальностей!Open Hava Nagila
This is a genius melody, a wonderful song and a very talented translation! Glory to good people of all nationalities!Open Hava Nagila
Браво! Эта песня привлекает мелодией, а с этим текстом - вообще гимн оптимистов!Open Hava Nagila
Bravo! This song captivates with its melody, and with these lyrics - it's a true anthem of optimists!Open Hava Nagila
Всегда хотелось понять, о чём эта песня! Спасибо! Гениально и просто!Open Hava Nagila
I always wanted to understand what this song is about!!! Thank you! Brilliant and simple!!!Open Hava Nagila
Я хоть и не еврей, а слушаю как родную песни. В далёком детстве у нас была пластинка «Тумбалалайка», и танцевали все - и дети, и взрослые. Евреям всем привет!Open Tumbalalaika
Even though I'm not Jewish, I listen to these songs as if they were my own. In my distant childhood we had a Tumbalalaika record, and everyone danced - children and adults. Hello to all Jews!Open Tumbalalaika
Гимн замечательный! Такая пронзительная мелодия, никакой воинственности. Желаю вам победы! Я русская, живу в России.Open Hatikvah
The anthem is wonderful! Such a poignant melody, no belligerence. I wish you victory! I am Russian, living in Russia.Open Hatikvah
Я азербайджанка - очень люблю и уважаю израильский народ. Привет из Баку.Open Hatikvah
I am Azerbaijani, I love and respect the Israeli people very much. Greetings from Baku.Open Hatikvah
В такие моменты мне жалко, шо я не еврей…Open Chiribim
In moments like these, I feel sorry that I'm not Jewish…Open Chiribim
Я вообще татарин, но почему-то еврейские песни нравятся с детства. В оркестре был дирижёр-еврей - земля ему пухом, великий человек. Видно было, как его трогала эта музыка, и не только его.Open Горсточка счастья
Great song. I am actually Tatar, but for some reason, I have loved Jewish songs since childhood. 7-40, Hava Nagila - I play them myself on the accordion. I played in an orchestra where the conductor was Jewish, may he rest in peace, a great man... You could see how this music moved him, and not just him. Perhaps he was remembering his childhood, the evacuation, and so on. Leonid Zinovievich, we will not forget you.Open Горсточка счастья
Я вот вроде не еврейка, и родственников евреев нет… а ком к горлу подступает, и за душу берёт. В ней слышится история, тоска и чаяния древнего народа. Мощная песня. Не могу наслушаться.Open Hatikvah
Thank you for the translation! I don't seem to be Jewish... but a lump comes to my throat... It's hard to even call it a song.. You can hear the history, longing and aspirations of an ancient people... Powerful song...Open Hatikvah
У вас изумительный голос. Песни еврейские всю душу переворачивают, пою и плачу. Гены отзываются…Open Hatikvah
You have an amazing voice. Jewish songs turn my whole soul upside down, I sing and cry. Genes are responding. Thank you for this miracle!Open Hatikvah
Совершенно случайно услышал эту песню в Вашем исполнении. До души дошло. Нарыдался по полной. И потом стало гораздо легче.Open Горсточка счастья
Completely by chance I heard this song in your performance. It reached my very soul. I cried my heart out. And afterward it became so much easier. Your voice is simply fantastic. Thank you so much..Open Горсточка счастья
Эта песня живёт со мной с тех пор, как я услышала её… В концлагере учительница немецкого за две недели научила маленькую Веру фразам на немецком - это спасло её от голода. Через две недели учительницы не стало: она была еврейкой. Как жаль, что имя её неизвестно.Open Hava Nagila
This song has lived with me ever since I heard it performed by Dean Reed (I was 10-12 years old). Recently I started learning Hebrew with Boris Kipnis - it's the best thing on the internet. And I'm also acquainted with the wonderful Vera Alekseyevna Migunova; this year she'll turn 92. In 1941-45, while in a concentration camp on German territory (as an 8-year-old child), a German teacher, in two weeks, without pencil or paper, taught little Vera phrases in German. This saved her, and not only her, from starvation: she managed to slip out under the barbed wire beyond the camp grounds and come back with bread. Two weeks later, the teacher was gone: she was Jewish. What a pity that her name is unknown.Open Hava Nagila
Очень печальная песня - вот также ехали дети во время голода в Поволжье маленькие братья моей бабушки. Будь проклят фашизм, нацизм и все человеконенавистнические «измы», убивающие детей.Open Едут дети
A very sad song. Children traveled just like this during the famine in the Volga region, my grandmother's little brothers, two and four years old, taken to an orphanage as complete orphans, and my grandfather's brother and sister! My grandmother's brothers went missing without a trace, she searched for them for several years, in vain! My grandfather's brother and sister died on the road... And how many little children perished in the children's death camps... Cursed be fascism, Nazism, and all the misanthropic "isms" that kill children, that brand them as sons and daughters of enemies of the people!!!Open Едут дети
Моя бабушка родом с Белоруссии, г. Гомель. Она в детстве пела мне её - мне очень нравилось, потому что эту песню в те времена не пели по радио, я даже не знала, что есть такие песни.Open Tumbalalaika
My grandmother was from Belarus, Gomel. She sang it to me as a child, I loved it, because this song wasn't played on the radio back then. I didn't even know such songs existed. It's good that now you can hear everything.Open Tumbalalaika
Слушаю почти каждый день - и перед глазами бердичевский наш дом, пластинка крутится, звучит идиш, бабушка спешит из кухни, чтобы послушать, а я подпеваю. Спасибо за эту чудесную песню и за воспоминания.Open Горсточка счастья
I listen almost every day and before my eyes I see our house in Berdychiv, the record spinning, Yiddish playing, grandma rushing from the kitchen to listen, and I sing along 'vi nemt en aynbikhele mazl...' thank you for this wonderful song, for the memories, and for the beautiful performance.Open Горсточка счастья
Еврейской крови четверть - но откликается моментально! Моя русская мама очень любила эти песни и слушала с удовольствием.Open Hava Nagila
A quarter Jewish blood, but it responds instantly! My Russian mother loved these songs very much and listened with pleasure. Thank you so much.Open Hava Nagila
In 1901 Mark Warshawsky wrote Oyfn Pripetshik, a song about a rebbe teaching little children the alphabet by a burning stove. The poet Olga Anikina wrote a Russian text on that melody. It is not a translation: it replaces the realia of the cheder not with words but with their function. The rebbe becomes a grandfather, and in the place of komets-alef, the first syllable a Jewish child learned, stands the first sentence of the Russian primer, the one every Russian-speaking child learned to read. Then something happened that nobody planned. Listeners started leaving their own grandfathers in the comments.
Не знаю, что в этой песне такого, что заставляет меня плакать каждый раз. И вспоминаю своего замечательного папу, который был чудесным дедушкой для моей дочки. А дедушек я своих не знала ни одного. Один умер в блокаду, второй погиб под Ленинградом.Open By the Stove
I do not know what it is about this song that makes me cry every time. I remember my wonderful father, who was a wonderful grandfather to my daughter. I never knew a single one of my own grandfathers. One died in the siege of Leningrad, the other was killed near Leningrad.Open By the Stove
У меня всё это было, только с моей бабушкой Матрёной Михайловной.Open By the Stove
All of this was mine too, only with my grandmother Matryona Mikhailovna.Open By the Stove
Спасибо, песня про моё детство. У печки с дедулей, он меня учил азбуке. Значит, не у меня одной такое воспоминание.Open By the Stove
Thank you, this song is about my childhood. By the stove with grandpa, he taught me the alphabet. So I am not the only one with that memory.Open By the Stove
Слушаю и плачу. Мне 61, но вспоминаю своё счастливое детство и замечательного доброго дедушку, который меня растил.Open By the Stove
I listen and I cry. I am sixty-one, and I remember my happy childhood and my kind grandfather who raised me.Open By the Stove
Казалось бы, капля крови во мне еврейской. А вот так отвечает душа, что просто ком в горле. Слушаю уже не знаю в какой раз.Open By the Stove
You would think there is barely a drop of Jewish blood in me. And yet the soul answers like this, a lump in the throat. I have lost count of how many times I have listened.Open By the Stove
И так всю жизнь: то ли буквы я никак не выучу, то ли текст не тот.Open By the Stove
And so it goes, all your life: either I cannot learn the letters, or the text is not the right one.Open By the Stove
Read them again and notice who is speaking. A woman whose grandfathers died in the siege of Leningrad. A woman whose grandmother was named Matryona Mikhailovna. A listener who says there is barely a drop of Jewish blood in him. They are not remembering a Jewish world. They are remembering their own, and this song gave them the door into it. That is what the work is for: to make deeply Jewish songs feel universally human, so that they go on being sung by people who did not inherit them.
Not everyone agrees, and the argument is worth showing. Some listeners write that this is not a translation and that the original says something else entirely. They are right about the fact and wrong about the label. This is an adaptation, and the literal translation of Warshawsky's Yiddish deserves to be read on its own: it is a great poem about letters that hold tears, and about drawing strength from them in exile. Both belong on the same page. That is what this site is for.
Something else happens in those threads. One listener posted the Yiddish original in transliteration. Another posted a literal Russian translation. Others asked for the chords, so they could teach the song to their grandchildren. Nobody organized any of it. A song page fills itself, if the song is alive.
If a song on this site brought back your grandfather, your kitchen, or a record spinning in the next room, write it down. Any language is welcome. We will translate it, the way we translate all the voices on this page.
If a song here found its way to you, that is the whole point. Listen, sing along, and pass it on.
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