"Zhuravli" (, Cranes), first performed in 1969, is a famous Russian language song about soldiers who did not come back alive from battles. The song was composed by Yan Frenkel on translation of poem by Rasul Gamzatov and performed by Mark Bernes. Inspiration The Dagestani poet Rasul Gamzatov, when visiting Hiroshima, was impressed by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and its monument to Sadako Sasaki, a girl who contracted leukemia as a result of the radioactive contamination of the city. Following Japanese traditions, she constructed one thousand paper cranes, hoping (in vain) that this might save her life. The memory of paper cranes folded by this girl—a girl who to this day serves as one symbol of the innocent victims of war—haunted Gamzatov for months and inspired him to write a poem starting with the now famous lines: "I sometimes feel that the soldiersWho have not returned from the bloody fieldsNever lay down to earth But turned into white cranes..." Translations The poem was originally written in Gamzatov's native Avar language, with many versions surrounding the initial wording. Its famous 1968 Russian translation was soon made by the prominent Russian poet and translator Naum Grebnev, and was turned into a song in 1969, becoming one of the best known Russian-language World War II ballads all over the world. One English translation of Gamzatov's poem by the poet Leo Schwartzenberg is provided here: CRANES Sometimes I feel that all those fallen soldiers, Who never left the bloody battle zones, Have not been buried to decay and molder, But turned into white cranes that softly groan. And thus, until these days since those bygone times, They still fly in the skies and gently cry. Isn’t it why we often hear those bell chimes And calmly freeze while looking in the sky? A tired flock of cranes still flies – their wings flap. Birds glide into the twilight, roaming free. In their formation I can see a small gap – It might be so, that space is meant for me. The day shall come, when in a mist of ashen I’ll soar with cranes, and final rest I’ll find, From the skies calling – in a bird-like fashion – All those of you who I’ll have left behind. Sometimes I feel that all those fallen soldiers, Who never left the bloody battle zones, Have not been buried to decay and molder But turned