Hai c-am furat un negativ

The title (a phrase for which Trilema amusingly scores as one of the only 4 extant hits) is a find by Romanian "hip-hop"ⁱ group Parazitiiⁱⁱ. During a 2002 live performance at Böblingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany Ombladon went "..hai toata lumea mainile sus! ..nu se sperie nimeni! ..nu fuge nimeni de noi! ..suntem prezenti! ..hai c-am furat un negativ!" as an intro, which roughly translates to "everyone - hands in the air, nobody fear, nobody run away from us, we're here, let's go, I've stolen a music track".

This references the tendency of Romanian "hip hop" to simply add Romanian words to other people's music tracks (in this case I think it was Mary J Blidge), an observation that's actually very far reaching. Such a great find it is, really, that not only I still remember it - they even used it as an album title years later.

So now you know what we're going to do here. Alf found a poem, which goes like so :

Наум Коржавин - Трубачи

Я с детства мечтал, что трубач затрубит,
И город проснется под цокот копыт,
И все прояснится открытой борьбой:
Враги - пред тобой, а друзья - за тобой.

И вот самолеты взревели в ночи,
И вот протрубили опять трубачи,
Тачанки и пушки прошли через грязь,
Проснулось геройство, и кровь пролилась.
Но в громе и славе решительных лет
Мне все ж не хватало заметных примет.
Я думал, что вижу, не видя ни зги,
А между друзьями сновали враги.
И были они среди наших колонн,
Подчас знаменосцами наших знамен.

Жизнь бьет меня часто. Сплеча. Сгоряча.
Но все же я жду своего трубача.
Ведь правда не меркнет, и совесть - не спит.
Но годы уходят, а он - не трубит.
И старость подходит. И хватит ли сил
До смерти мечтать, чтоб трубач затрубил?

А может, самим надрываться во мгле?
Ведь нет, кроме нас, трубачей на земле.

And which he translated (roughly) like so :

'The Buglers' (Noam Korzhavin, 1955.)

As a child I would dream there's a bugler to blow,
Wake us up s'as to hear the cavalry go,
Show us plain who is who, allow no one to hide:
Your foes straight ahead, and your friends - at your side.

Then aeroplanes pierced the night with their roar,
And buglers were blowing their bugles once more,
Tachankas and cannon rolled forth through the mud,
And heroes awakened, and out poured their blood.

Their thundering valor pierced time with its shine
Yet there I was, looking for an obvious sign.
I thought I could see - but how blind must I've been,
While among trusted friends loads of foes scurried in.

There were plentiful foes right among our own ranks,
Oft'enough they'd be carrying flags on our flanks.

Life hit me hard, pushed me out of the ring.
But still - here I wait for my bugle to sing.

Truth does not fade, nor my conscience can go
But days turn to years, yet that bugler won't blow.
As old age draws near, will I remain strong,
To dream, 'till I die, of the bugler's bright song?

But what if to blow it ourselves is our lot,
Since we are the only buglers we've got ?

The battle hymn of the Web of Trust, you could say.

1. What this term means in Romanian is oft surprising. [↩]
2. One of the top two, by a very fat margin. The other one. [↩]