DDT frontman Yuri Shevchuk has released the video “Motherland, Come Home.” In the new single, he calls on his country to stop the war and go about its own business. The video was shot by Shevchuk in collaboration with producer and composer Dmitry Yemelyanov.
Yuri Shevchuk wrote the poem “Motherland, Come Home” in the summer of 2022, a few months after Russia had launched its invasion of Ukraine. In the run-up to the invasion’s anniversary, the rocker set it to music and recorded the song. “Don’t go crazy, this is not your war,” Shevchuk urges listeners.
Shevchuk has repeatedly spoken out against the war in Ukraine. He has consistently taken a pacifist stance and opposed all wars, including the military operations in Chechnya, South Ossetia, and anywhere else in the world.
In 2022, Shevchuk was fined fifty thousand rubles after he was found guilty of “discrediting” the actions of the Russian army. The occasion for the fine was an anti-war statement he made in May at a concert in Ufa. After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, concerts by his band, DDT, in Russia have often been postponed or canceled “due to technical difficulties.”
In the summer of 2022, the media reported the existence of a list of “banned” Russian artists who had opposed the war in Ukraine, including the bands DDT, B2, Aquarium, and Pornofilms, the rappers Face and Oxxxymiron, and the solo performers Zemfira, Monetochka, and Vasya Oblomov. There were more than fifty names on the list. Many of the musicians have already faced the cancellation of concerts, and some have been designated “foreign agents” by the Russian Justice Ministry.
Source: “Yuri Shevchuk releases anti-war video ‘Motherland, Come Home,'” Radio Svoboda, 19 February 2023. Translated by the TRR. Thanks to Kerstin Nickig for the heads-up.
Никотиновый вдох,
Распальцованный взгляд,
Я ещё не подох,
Ещё мои шланги горят.
A nicotine breath,
A swaggering look,
I’m not dead yet,
My hoses are still on fire.
Этой лютой весной
Суета с тишиной
Пульс неровный несут.
Пульс неровный несут
Моё сердце на суд.
This fierce spring
Helter-skelter and silence,
The pulse is uneven.
The pulse is uneven
My heart is on trial.
Опустело село,
Пьёт Рязань из Днепра,
От венков расцвело,
В рыжей глине – дыра.
The village is deserted,
Ryazan drinks from the Dnieper,
The wreaths have burst into blossom,
There is a hole in the red clay.
Маята, как сорняк
Телевизор в печи,
У державы стояк.
У державы стояк,
Воют бабы в ночи.
The torment is like a weed
The TV’s like a furnace,
The empire has a boner.
The empire has a boner,
Women howl in the night.
Тёмен век мой.
Господи, как всё случилось?
Рваный лик твой –
Укололась и забылась.
Не сходи с ума,
Это не твоя война.
Ждут грачи в полях весной.
Родина, вернись домой!
My age is dark.
My God, how did it happen?
Your ragged face,
Pricked and forgotten.
Don’t go crazy,
This is not your war.
Rooks wait in the fields in spring.
Motherland, come home!
Безнадёги иной
Я не переживал,
Коллективной виной –
Сделал шаг и пропал.
Other doom and gloom
Didn’t bother me,
But with collective guilt
I took a step and went MIA.
Давит воздух густой,
Но тебя не забыть,
Мертвецов напоить.
Мертвецов напоить
Родниковой водой.
The air is thick,
But I can’t forget you,
Get the dead drunk.
Get the dead drunk
On spring water.
Голоса белены
Тянут мысль одну:
Ты вернёшься с войны,
Вновь попасть на войну.
Voices are faded white
They dredge up one thought:
You’ll come back from the war
To go to war again.
И летят облака,
Разбиваясь в дали,
О крутые бока
Нашей плоской Земли.
And the clouds are flying,
Crashing in the distance
On the craggy sides
Of our flat Earth.
Тёмен век мой.
Господи, как всё случилось?
Рваный лик твой –
Укололась и забылась.
Не сходи с ума,
Это не твоя война.
Ждут грачи в полях весной.
Родина, вернись домой!
My age is dark.
My God, how did it happen?
Your ragged face,
Pricked and forgotten.
Don’t go crazy,
This is not your war.
Rooks wait in the fields in spring.
Motherland, come home!
Source: Yuri Shevchuk & DDT, “Motherland, Come Home,” Reproduktor. Translated by the Russian Reader
Thanks to VG for posting this find on their now-locked Facebook page
Source: Sergey Abashin (Facebook), 18 February 2023. He took this snapshot at the Sergei Kirov Museum in St. Petersburg.
The Russian Reader 