Thread: Translation needed for Russian song

And, by the way, naturally I wondered why the door was painted with голубая краска -- as opposed to some other color. Three possible reasons:

(1) голубой fits the meter because it has three syllables and is end-stressed

(2) Figuratively, голубой can mean "idyllic, impractical, head-in-the-clouds, dreamy" (and this meaning goes back to the 18th century, AFAIK)

(3) Mikhail Kuzmin was apparently bisexual. English Wikipedia claims that he had a brief sexual affair with an artist named Sergei Sudeikin after befriending Sudeikin's wife, the actress Olga Glebova. Russian Википедия does not include this bit of gossip about Kuzmin's personal life, but it does note that Kuzmin's 1906 novel «Крылья» was the "первая в русской литературе повесть на гомоэротическую тематику." (Of course, regardless of the poet's sexual orientation, homoerotic themes would've been "a hot topic" among Russians in literary/artistic circles of that era, because Oscar Wilde's sodomy trial had only been about 10 years earlier, and was internationally scandalous. So the fact that Kuzmin included such themes in Wings does not necessarily mean anything about his personal life -- it may have simply been his way of commenting on Wilde.)

HOWEVER, regardless of Kuzmin's own orientation, it's not clear to me whether голубой had already acquired the slang sense of "gay" when Kuzmin wrote this poem in the 1920s -- obviously, the reference to "light blue paint" cannot have (homo)sexual significance if the word голубой didn't have such a meaning at the time!

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

And, by the way, naturally I wondered why the door was painted with голубая краска -- as opposed to some other color. Three possible reasons:

(1) голубой fits the meter because it has three syllables and is end-stressed

(2) Figuratively, голубой can mean "idyllic, impractical, head-in-the-clouds, dreamy" (and this meaning goes back to the 18th century, AFAIK)

(3) Mikhail Kuzmin was apparently bisexual. English Wikipedia claims that he had a brief sexual affair with an artist named Sergei Sudeikin after befriending Sudeikin's wife, the actress Olga Glebova. Russian Википедия does not include this bit of gossip about Kuzmin's personal life, but it does note that Kuzmin's 1906 novel «Крылья» was the "первая в русской литературе повесть на гомоэротическую тематику." (Of course, regardless of the poet's sexual orientation, homoerotic themes would've been "a hot topic" among Russians in literary/artistic circles of that era, because Oscar Wilde's sodomy trial had only been about 10 years earlier, and was internationally scandalous. So the fact that Kuzmin included such themes in Wings does not necessarily mean anything about his personal life -- it may have simply been his way of commenting on Wilde.)

HOWEVER, regardless of Kuzmin's own orientation, it's not clear to me whether голубой had already acquired the slang sense of "gay" when Kuzmin wrote this poem in the 1920s -- obviously, the reference to "light blue paint" cannot have (homo)sexual significance if the word голубой didn't have such a meaning at the time!

(4) He had a blue doors in his house

According to this article the term was used since about 1970s, maybe 60s.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

HOWEVER, regardless of Kuzmin's own orientation, it's not clear to me whether голубой had already acquired the slang sense of "gay" when Kuzmin wrote this poem in the 1920s -- obviously, the reference to "light blue paint" cannot have (homo)sexual significance if the word голубой didn't have such a meaning at the time!

Some russian толковые словари provide examples of metaphors with голубой, such as Голубые магистрали (о больших реках), Голубое топливо (о газе). Голубой экран (о телевизоре) - such expressions appeared and were quite popular in Soviet journalism and my guess is they appeared after 1923 (considering Russian history, for example history of television). Such expressions were used roughly through 40s - 60s (I can just guess here), so perhaps even at that time this new meaning was unknown.