Some of the best and well-known civil and military verses written by the English poet Rudyard Kipling were set to music by the Ukrainian singer Kyrylo Bulkin. The CD was released by ‘Bohdan’ publishing house and is, in a way, a pinnacle of the publisher’s efforts to advertise the works of Rudyard Kipling in Ukraine.

The title of the CD is ‘Wishing-caps’ by the name of the title song. This poem belongs to Rudyard Kipling’s novel ‘Kim’ that also was recently published in Ukrainian. But the main leitmotif of this song collection is the Great War, and Kipling’s poems about the years, the heroism and the losses resonate with the sentiments uniting Ukraine today. All songs are performed in Ukrainian and mostly were translated by Kyrylo Bulkin himself. Other poems were translated by Yevhen Sverstiuk and Volodymyr Chernyshenko. The main idea of a collage used for the cover of the CD was to show some of the ties that tethered Kipling to the Great War. Here we can see the uniform of Irish Guards to whom Rudyard’s only son belonged, and the war medal of this regiment, and the letter of Rudyard to his son. The four-leaved clover used in the decoration is not only the symbol of Ireland (Irish Guards) but also a sign of the Fortune taken from the title song’s refrain: “Largesse! Largesse, Fortune! Give or hold at your will.” Those Fortune who betrayed John Kipling, poets son, who was killed in his first battle somewhere in Flander fields…

And then if you’ll open the CD-box you’ll see the whole picture and realize the idea of the design and possibly will be terrified by it. But – as Kipling wrote and Bulkin sang on the CD – ‘The game is more than the player of the game, and the ship is more than the crew’. War-poems and life poems, love stanzas and death verses are under one cover adorned with the clover leaves and flowers, symbolizing somehow a Fortune to live and the green grass on War memorials.