Some way or another, I always come back to the fact that I feel strangely foreign in all of this. When I was playing music from the list of songs we were given, I stopped at this one. It was so foreign to me and yet so strangely familiar. It made me smile in a way that none of the other songs did. So I listened to it some more.
Strangely enough, I did know this song - one Russian song out of 50 or so other options. I heard my mother sing it, she knows Russian, too. You should hear her speak; like glaciers melting away and plummeting into frozen waters. That's what her speaking Russian sounds like.
Although Russian is not a language I personally know, my approach to interpreting this song (prior to looking up the english translation) were all from my memory of how my mother sang the it. There was such longing. In Russia, as my mother would say, the snow and rain were harsh. When you were sitting in a warm room with others you would eat, drink, and sing.
Coming from a village, folk songs were what everyone sang. To me, they say more about the person who chooses to sing them than the actual song itself.
Oh, my song, song of a maiden's true love,
To my dear one travel with the sun.
To the one with whom Katiusha knew love,
Bring my greetings to him, one by one.
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