Mikhail Lermontov - Borodino

Tell me, Uncle, it was not casually

That Moscow, burned by the fires,

Was given up to the French?

For there were battles indeed,

Oh, yes, people say they were really something!

Not in vain will all Russia remember

The day of Borodino!

-- Yes, there were folks in our time,

Not like the chaps we see today:

They were heroes, not like you!

Their luck turned rotten:

Very few returned from the field ...

And if it had not been God's will,

We would not have given up Moscow!

We withdrew for a while in silence,

Anxiously awaiting the battle,

And the old guard grumbled:

"What? Us go to our wintertime lodgings?

Will our commanders not dare

To rip up the foreign uniforms

With their Russian bayonets?"

And then we found a wide field,

Where one could walk as far as he pleased!

We built a redoubt there.

We'll keep our ears open!

No sooner had the dawn shone light on the cannons

And the blue tops of the trees,

The French stood before us!

I loaded the gun tightly

And thought, I'll play host to our friends!

Just wait, brother-Messieurs!

Why try to dodge it? Let's have a battle;

We’re ready to hit them like a wall,

We’re going to lay down our lives

For our motherland!

We were in a crossfire for two days.

What’s the sense in that?

We awaited the third day.

We started hearing people yell from everywhere:

“It’s time to get the canister!”

And then upon the field of the ferocious battle

Night’s shadow fell.

I lay down to sleep next to the mast,

And we could hear up until dawn

How gaily the French carried on.

But our open camp was quiet:

One cleaned his battered bearskin cap,

Another sharpened their bayonets, muttering angrily

And biting his long whiskers.

And then the heavens finally brightened,

Everyone suddenly began to stir noisily,

Rows and rows of soldiers went by.

Our colonel was born a hero:

He was a servant to the Tsar, a father to the soldiers …

But, what a pity: he was slain with a sword.

He sleeps in the damp ground now.

And he said, eyes flashing,

“Men! isn’t Moscow behind us?

Let’s meet our deaths near Moscow,

As did our brothers!”

And we resolved to die,

And we kept our oath

Throughout the battle of Borodino.

Well it was quite a day! Through the flying smoke

The Frenchmen moved, like clouds,

All upon our very own redoubt!

Lancers with their shining medals,

Dragoons with horsetails on their hats,

Everyone flashed before us,

Everyone was there.

You’ll never see battles like that!

Banners floated like shadows

And fire flickered amid the smoke;

The swords rang, the buckshot howled,

The arms of the fighters grew tired,

And the mountain of bodies was so wide

That the cannons could not shoot through it.

The enemy learned a fair amount that day

About what real Russian combat means,

Our hand-to-hand combat!

The earth shook, just like our chests;

Horses and people mixed together in a bunch,

And thousands of volleys from the guns

Merged into a drawn-out howl …

Then dusk came. Everyone was ready

To start the battle again in the morning

And fight until the bitter end …

Then the drums sounded

And the fiends retreated.

Then we counted the wounded,

We counted our comrades.

Yes, there were people in our time

Who were powerful and spirited:

They were heroes, not like you!

Their luck turned rotten:

Very few returned from the field ...

And if it had not been God's will,

We would not have given up Moscow!