by Alyans
“Na Zare” (“At Dawn”) is the best-known song of Alyans, a new wave band formed in Moscow in 1981. It was written by the band's keyboardist Oleg Parastaev and released in 1987, when the band's singer was Igor Zhuravlev. In April 2019 Parastaev published a previously unreleased 1987 music video, which drew almost half a million views within a day and became a viral hit. Monetochka and Basta are among the artists who have covered the song. The lyric is short. In our translation the verses are a chain of images with no verbs at all: the steady course of fate, night, sorrow and the soul's brilliance, moonlight and May rain, the sleepy shimmer of dew, loud laughter, a timid glance and the strength of hands. Then the chorus arrives: at dawn, voices call me, and in the last line the heavens call too.
Koinei's own English translation. The original Russian lyrics are not shown on this page: open the reader to follow them word by word with the audio.
The steady course of my fate
Night, sorrow, soul's brilliance
Moonlight and May rain in the skies
The long life of my star
Sleepy shimmer of earthly dew
Loud laughter and heavenly honey in the skies
At dawn, voices call me (x2)
Light of the sun, sound of heart
Timid glance, strength of hands
The starry moment of my dream
In the skies at dawn
Voices call me at dawn (x3)
Heavens call me at dawn
| Word | Say it | Meaning | Type | In the song |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| судьба | sudba | fate | noun | судьбы: genitive, singular, feminine |
| блеск | blesk | shine | noun | блеск: nominative, singular, masculine; here “brilliance” |
| свет | svet | light | noun | свет: nominative, singular, masculine |
| майский | mayskiy | May | adjective | майский: nominative, singular, masculine |
| небо | nebo | sky | noun | небесах: prepositional, plural, neuter; here “heavens” |
| громкий | gromkiy | loud | adjective | громкий: nominative, singular, masculine |
| заря | zarya | dawn | noun | заре: prepositional, singular, feminine |
| голос | golos | voice | noun | голоса: nominative, plural, masculine; here “voices” |
| звать | zvat | to call | verb | зовут: present, 3rd person, imperfective; here “call” |
| звёздный | zvyozdny | stellar | adjective | звёздный: nominative, singular, masculine; here “star” |
«На заре» (Na zare) “at dawn”
Заря (dawn) becomes заре after на, which takes the prepositional case when it means “on” or “at” a place or a moment. Several time expressions use на rather than в: на рассвете (at daybreak), на закате (at sunset), на этой неделе (this week). Feminine nouns in -я like заря take -е in the prepositional, as in земля, на земле (on earth).
«моей судьбы» (moyey sudby) “of my fate”
Where English says “of my fate”, Russian puts the second noun in the genitive: судьба (fate) becomes судьбы, and the possessive мой agrees as моей, the feminine genitive. Normally the genitive follows its head noun, as in this line and in “the strength of hands”, where рука becomes рук. In the line about the sun and the heart the poem flips the order and puts солнца and сердца first, a common inversion in verse.
«В небесах» (V nebesakh) “in the skies”
Небо (sky) has a special plural with the stem небес-: небеса (the heavens), небес, небесам, небесах. It sounds poetic or religious, like English “the heavens”; everyday speech uses the singular, в небе. В takes the prepositional case for location, and the plural ending is -ах. The song's last line uses the nominative plural, небеса, as the subject.
«зовут меня» (zovut menya) “call me”
Зовут is the 3rd person plural of звать (to call). Its present tense uses the stem зов-: я зову, ты зовёшь, они зовут. Here the subject is голоса (voices), the plural of голос, and меня is the accusative of я. The same verb gives the everyday way to say your name, меня зовут Анна, literally “they call me Anna”, with no subject at all.
Translation, word notes and commentary by Koinei. Rights holders: see Copyright and takedown requests.