“Interrupted Flight” by V. Vysotsky:to the quEstion of the title

The canonical title of the song “Prervannyi polet” (“Interrupted Flight”) is not clearly established in Vysotsky’s handwritten or audio archives. This raises the question of the exist­ence of alternative titles in the song’s textual history, their origins and textual status, the source of the title “Prervannyi polet”, and the reasons for its eventual textual consolidation. The creative history of the text is traced based on surviving manuscripts, authorized type­scripts, and materials from audio archives. The study reveals that at different stages in the song’s history, the author used various titles for it; a number of non-authorial titles are also documented, including translated titles in French. Some of these externally assigned titles were supported by Vysotsky himself, who used them to refer to the song during public per­formances. However, he did not fix any of the authorial or non-authorial titles as the main one, instead preferring to refer to the song by its opening line: “Kto-to vysmotrel plod” (“Someone spotted the fruit”). The title “Prervannyi polet” gained popularity and was canon­ized only after the poet’s death.