Years apart, still the same song...

But a generation before Ms. Thuy Tram, this song was also the inspiration for the immortal poem Mau tim hoa sim by poet Huu Loan.

The song is called Suliko.

It turns out that I had known and hummed this song Suliko during my years in the Southern battlefield. At that time, we really liked Russian songs, commonly called Soviet songs. This song Suliko is a song from Georgia, a republic of the (former) Soviet Union. It was probably born during the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, and quickly spread to many European countries.

The path of the song Suliko to Vietnam with Vietnamese lyrics, according to poet-musician Nguyen Thuy Kha, began with the French translation by musician Pham Tuyen. At that time, musician Pham Tuyen was teaching music to children at the Central Campus in Nanning (Guangxi-China).

But what is really interesting is that, according to musician Nguyen Thuy Kha, during the resistance war against the French, General Nguyen Son brought the song Suliko - the French version - from China to Vietnam. And it was General Nguyen Son who sang it (in French) for poet Huu Loan to listen to. Of course, for many other people to listen to as well. Poet Huu Loan really liked this song. He once confided to Nguyen Thuy Kha that when his wife, Mrs. Le Do Thi Ninh, passed away in her hometown of Thanh Hoa , it was the song Suliko that inspired Huu Loan to write the poem Mau tim hoa sim khoc vo minh. And that poem became famous throughout Vietnam, later becoming the immortal poem that made Huu Loan famous.

During the resistance war against America, the song Suliko once again "went to battle" with educated young people in the North, mainly in Hanoi , when they brought this song to the battlefield in the South.

Ms. Dang Thuy Tram was one of the "petty bourgeois" students in Hanoi who loved the song Suliko , and the song followed her to the battlefield in Duc Pho, Quang Ngai .

Also according to musician Nguyen Thuy Kha, before that, while studying at Hanoi Medical University, Thuy Tram and a female classmate sang a duet of the song Suliko in a song performance contest at the medical school, and won a gold medal.

It turns out that a song from Georgia became so familiar to Vietnamese youth during both the resistance wars against France and the US that it became poetry and was sung in Vietnamese on the battlefields of Vietnam.

Doctor - martyr - hero Dang Thuy Tram, who after nearly 35 years of her death, became famous all over the world through her work Dang Thuy Tram's Diary. When translated into English and published in the US, this diary was called Last Night I Dreamed of Peace . Ms. Thuy Tram loved the song Suliko , an extremely simple song, with only 4 musical lines, and the main lyrics (verse 1), translated from French by Pham Tuyen, are like this:

SULIKO

(Georgian Song - French translation by musician Pham Tuyen)

Day and night I searched around

Where is the green grave of my beloved?

Wandering around looking for me, not finding me until when?

Do you know, Suliko?

A song with only 4 musical lines, but became immortal, spread throughout the world, enough to know, when the art of music reaches its peak, even though it is very short, it still has a wide spread.

Ms. Thuy Tram fell in love with the song that foretold her own fate, and after Ms. Thuy Tram sacrificed, who would sing this song, Suliko , if not the person she once loved dearly - Mr. Nguyen Moc. Perhaps, Mr. Nguyen Moc was the one who taught Ms. Thuy Tram this song.

Yes, Mr. Nguyen Moc, later, was a sworn brother whom I loved like a real brother, Mr. Khuong The Hung. Mr. Hung was the son of poet Khuong Huu Dung, an uncle whom I was close to and respected. It turned out that the song Suliko "stuck" to me by chance, only later did I know. In a poem I wrote 11 years ago to commemorate Ms. Thuy Tram, there was still that strange name of the song Suliko :

Last night I dreamed of peace

( In memory of Ms. Dang Thuy Tram )

quiet footsteps path

she hurried back to the infirmary

where the wounded are waiting

have a dream like clouds flying over the forest

have a sad dream like a tree with a broken top

have a little dream

"Last night I dreamed of peace"

at the very moment when Tram dreamed of peace

gun

bullets in dreams