Little people

This video has just been sent in a comment by Araz to the post “Paper soldiers”. It was made in 1974 during a casting where Rolan Bykov was looking for a child actor to his film Автомобиль, скрипка и собака Клякса (Car, violin and Blob dog). The poem (1969) of Robert Rozhdestvensky is read on it by Sasha Chernyavsky. The following pictures were taken between 1941 and 1944 in Stalingrad, Leningrad and on the Soviet Western front.

На Земле ............безжалостно маленькой жил да был человек маленький. У него была служба маленькая. И маленький очень портфель. Получал он зарплату маленькую… И однажды — прекрасным утром — постучалась к нему в окошко небольшая, казалось, война… Автомат ему выдали маленький. Сапоги ему выдали маленькие. Каску выдали маленькую и маленькую — по размерам — шинель. ........А когда он упал — .....................некрасиво, неправильно, в атакующем крике вывернув рот, то на всей земле ............не хватило мрамора, чтобы вырубить парня в полный рост!

On the ruthlessly ............little Earth there was once a little man. He had a little job and a very little purse with a little salary… And once – on a beautiful morning – there knocked on his little window a little –  it seemed – war… A little gun was given in his hands, little boots were given on his feet, a little helmet was given on him with a little – by measure – cloak. ........And when he fell – ................in an ugly, ungainly way – with his mouth frozen in the “hurrah” of the assault – on the whole world ............there was not enough marble to carve him life-size