MEPhI Male Choir (in quarantine) - Do Russian People Want a War? (May 9, 2020)

The MEPhI Male Choir wishes you a happy 75th anniversary of the Victory Day!
While in self-isolation, the members of the choir performed the song "Do Russian People Want a War?" written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and put to music by Eduard Kolmanovsky.
Artistic director and conductor - Nadezhda Malyavina.
Do Russian people want a war?
Just ask the silence that did fall
Over the vast ploughed fields and leas,
The birches and the poplar trees.
Do ask the troops who’ve lost their lives
And still beneath the birches lie-
Their sons will let you know once more
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want a war.
Not only for their motherland
Our soldiers fought and fell back then,
But also for each nation’s right
To go to sleep in peace at night.
Ask those who raging battles faced,
Whom on the Elbe you embraced-
That day we honour as before-
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want a war.
We surely can put up a fight
But wish to never see the sight
Of soldiers falling dead again
On bitter soil of their land.
Do ask the mothers who still grieve,
Do ask my wife-You will believe
And wonder needlessly no more
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want a war.
The docker and the fisherman,
The humble worker and farmhand,
All nations, too, will know for sure
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want,
If Russian people want a war.
English translation by Alexander Mikhalev