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Looking up my Russian pie recipes, I note that my cookery book (written and published by an Englishwoman in 1989) takes it absolutely for granted that the Ukraine is at the heart of Russia, e.g. "The Russian tradition in bread is said to be at its strongest in the Ukraine, the country's proverbial breadbasket"...
I have been singing 19th-century русские романсы from an old book I picked up somewhere, and had a lot of trouble deducing from the Internet that the 'A Tolstoi' who was credited with the lyrics was in fact neither the famous Tolstoy of "War and Peace", nor the Alexei Nikolaievich Tolstoy who wrote "Aelita", nor even Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, who wrote ballads and historical drama in the mid-nineteenth century (and all of whom were distantly related; here's an interesting vampire story that the latter wrote -- in French -- in 1839, long before "Dracula": The Family of the Vourdalak). Due to the fact that Russian song credits are given in the genitive, with the words or music being 'of the author', I eventually realised that the lyricist is actually implied to have been a woman, "A. Tolstaya".
( there were clearly far too many assorted Tolstoys running around Russia )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCzPx32ufDo
Whoever did write it, this is a simple and beautiful lyric:
( lyrics )
I have been singing 19th-century русские романсы from an old book I picked up somewhere, and had a lot of trouble deducing from the Internet that the 'A Tolstoi' who was credited with the lyrics was in fact neither the famous Tolstoy of "War and Peace", nor the Alexei Nikolaievich Tolstoy who wrote "Aelita", nor even Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy, who wrote ballads and historical drama in the mid-nineteenth century (and all of whom were distantly related; here's an interesting vampire story that the latter wrote -- in French -- in 1839, long before "Dracula": The Family of the Vourdalak). Due to the fact that Russian song credits are given in the genitive, with the words or music being 'of the author', I eventually realised that the lyricist is actually implied to have been a woman, "A. Tolstaya".
( there were clearly far too many assorted Tolstoys running around Russia )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCzPx32ufDo
Whoever did write it, this is a simple and beautiful lyric:
( lyrics )