A song based on a Polish tango by Jerzy Petersburski entitled “The Last Tango,” reworked in the Soviet Union by the poet Josif Al’vek and first performed by Alexander Tsfasman’s jazz orchestra, sung by soloist Pavel Miklhailov, and immediately recorded in 1937, the year of Stalin’s Great Terror.
The song’s title, “Утомлённое_солнце,” though literally meaning “Wearied by the Sun,” is much more widely known as “Burnt by the Sun.” It’s based on a Polish tango by Jerzy Petersburski entitled “The Last Tango,” reworked in the Soviet Union by the poet Josif Al’vek and first performed by Alexander Tsfasman’s jazz orchestra, sung by soloist Pavel Miklhailov and immediately recorded in 1937, the year of Stalin’s Great Terror.
Since then, many famous singers have covered the song, which has been immortalized in recent years, especially through films. One movie, by Nikita Mikhalkov, was even entitled after it, going on to win an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The song has also appeared, not only in Russian films, but also American (Schindler’s List) and Polish works (Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours: White). Perhaps most significantly, it was used by Yuri Norstein in his great animated classic, Tale of Tales, considered by some critics to be the greatest animated film of all time.
The Russian version of the song is much shorter than the Polish original. “Расставания” (Parting) was once its Russian title, and that is what this song is about. Whereas the Polish song is about the lament of a young man who has just lost his lover to a richer suitor and who begs for a final meeting on Sunday – hence the Polish title, “The Last Sunday” – the Russian lyrics concentrate more on the concept of parting in an abstract way. Who abandoned who seems less important than the idea that love between the protagonists is about to end. It is clear that the woman rejects the man’s love, but the prevailing emphasis at the end is on the absence of love and on the undeniable sense of “Тоска” (longing, melancholy, and nostalgia).
The song is little more than two verses long, so it doesn’t bear a particularly detailed linguistic analysis, and it would be a fine text for someone whose Russian is not yet advanced. The occurrence of negative constructions – “нет любви” (no love) and “я не стану злиться” (I won’t get angry) – should be noted, and the song also introduces language students to the fascinating world of the Russian reflexive verb, much more prevalent and multi-faceted than the English equivalent. Indeed, in these cases, none of the verbs are reflexive in English. In Russian, these verbs are often used to express feelings and attitudes or joint actions: “прощалось” (to say farewell “with the sea”), “призналась” (to confess), “взгрустнулось” (to become sad), and “злиться” (to get angry).
