Beautiful Minka

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Schöne Minka is the beginning of a poem by Christoph August Tiedge and the name under which a Ukrainian folk song became popular in Germany.

origin

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Ukrainian song Es ritt ein Kosak über der Donau (Їхав козак за Дунай) became known in Germany. Most of the time the melody was called air russe , from Ruthenia or Little Russian .

Christoph August Tiedge wrote about this in 1808 under the title The Cossack and his girl, a relatively free transmission in the form of a dialogue between Olis (the Cossack) and his girl.

text

The Cossack and his girl
in general German Kommersbuch

1. Beautiful Minka, I have to part, oh you don't feel the suffering of being
far away on joyless pagans, far away from you!
The day will seem dark to me, lonely I will go and cry;
in the mountains, in the groves, I call, Minka, you.

2. I will never turn from you; with
my lips and with my hands I will send greetings to you from distant heights.
Many a moon will pass before we meet again;
oh, hear my last plea: stay true to me and beautiful!

3. You, my Olis, leave me? My cheek will turn pale;
I will hate all joys that are friendly.
Ah, in the nights and in the days I will complain of my sorrow;
I'll ask all the breezes if they saw Olis!

4. My songs fall silent, I cast my eyes down;
but if I see you again, it will be different.
Whether all the fresh colors of your youth bloom died:
yes, you are with wounds and scars, sweetheart mine!

reception

With a slightly different melody, the Tiedge version, which quickly became very popular, found its way into most German folk song collections and the Kommersbuch .

Johann Nepomuk Hummel used the original tune for his Adagio, Variations and Rondo on a Russian theme (op. 78); Ludwig van Beethoven used Schöne Minka, I must divide in the 23 Songs of Different Nations (1816) and in the Variations on Schöne Minka op. 107.7. Carl Maria von Weber wrote variations on this song ( Air Russe varié pour le Pianoforte , op. 40, 1815), which he dedicated to Maria Pawlowna , the then Hereditary Grand Duchess of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach , and also to Friedrich Silcher and Ferdinand Ries (op. 154 no. 5) edited The Cossack and his girl . More recently, Franz Biebl has arranged it for male choir; there are other versions for accordion orchestra and guitar .

Beautiful Minka became a catchphrase due to the popularity of the song and found its way into literature, for example in Theodor Storm's Pole Poppenspäler : New laughter was the answer. "Kasperl should sing!" - "Russian! Beautiful Minka, I have to divorce!" , and in Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain , Hans Castorp calls the Russian Madame Chauchat beautiful Minka .

On the CD "Total Balalaika Show" of the Leningrad Cowboys (1993) the song can be found under the name A cossack was riding beyond the Duna .

An instrumental version is on the LP "Kosaken-Patrouille" by the Balalaika Ensemble Troika (CBS 63261, 1967), under the title "Kosakenliebe".

literature

Web links