Oh, My Dear One

2011

Video, 7.32 mins

My grandmother is present in the embroidery in her name, while my mother - in her work. To enhance their presence, I have made a film, in which the cloth is rolled between their hands to the sound of my mother’s voice. When I was little, she used to lull me with a song called “Миленький ты мой” - “My Dear One”.

It is a dialogue of lovers about to separate. The woman repeatedly pleads the man to take her with him on his journey home, suggesting she could be his wife, his sister, or just a stranger. He repeatedly refuses, stating that while he already has a wife and a sister back home, a stranger is of no use to him.

The simple, melodic tune for this song, often referred to as anonymous or folk, in fact may have been written in the 1910s-1920s by a popular Russian-Jewish composer of romances, Lev Drizo (d. 1935). It has been performed in the USSR by many popular singers whose concerts have been broadcasted on TV,  even though by now I have no memories of them.

Our home folklore pictures my mother repeating the song at my demand over and over again, until she falls asleep, leaving me awake and wondering. This lullaby came from the bed that was covered with the very same cloth I embroidered, thus closing a circuit in my childhood memories.