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I'm trying to understand why the dative is used here (last verse of the 1977 Soviet anthem):

В победе бессмертных идей коммунизма
Мы видим грядущее нашей страны
И Красному знамени славной Отчизны
Мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!

This line and the one above translates (roughly) to:

We see the future of our country and the red banner of the glorious homeland.

I can only understand that the dative is used for indirect objects, so the accusative is more appropriate here. Can anyone explain why it's dative here?

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  • 4
    Быть верным кому / чему - it's just the way it is.
    – shabunc ♦
    Jan 18, 2022 at 16:25
  • 11
    Your translation is simply wrong.
    – Anixx
    Jan 18, 2022 at 20:04
  • "dative is used for indirect objects" - I don't know what you suppose here, but literally word "Дательный" (падеж) is translated as "to give, this is given" and comes from " дать, давать". "Дать кому ?" is the primary question for this case in Russian... and in Latin this is "to give" too :> : "from Latin (casus) 'dativus' ‘(cases) of giving’, from dat- ‘given’, from the verb dare ." In this case, you give your allegiance to this Red Flag.
    –  Пилум
    Jan 19, 2022 at 17:57
  • 2
    @Пилум It would help if you familiarize yourself with the concept of indirect object before commenting, then you would know exactly what the asker "suppose".
    – il--ya
    Jan 20, 2022 at 3:31
  • il--ya In the light of the foregoing it doesn't matter.
    –  Пилум
    Jan 20, 2022 at 13:10

3 Answers 3

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4

I think your confusion comes from trying to parse it as you would an English sentence with a subject-verb-object word order. Also, in your text, there's a missing comma before the conjunction и, which doesn't help. If it was there, you would see more clearly that this is a compound sentence which is made up of two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction и (and):

В победе бессмертных идей коммунизма мы видим грядущее нашей страны, и Красному знамени славной Отчизны мы будем всегда беззаветно верны!

In Russian, word order in sentences isn't fixed. Красному знамени belongs to the second clause, not the first. So in the second clause, you have the object Красному знамени, followed by the subject мы, followed by the predicate будем верны. If we reorder it to SVO, that's: "мы будем верны Красному знамени", and знамени is the indirect object here.

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3
  • Are you sure it's an indirect object? Can adjectives have objects?
    – Yellow Sky
    Jan 20, 2022 at 10:53
  • Yeah, it's a direct object.
    – Alexey Veleshko
    Jan 20, 2022 at 11:29
  • @YellowSky yes I'm sure. If it's not an object, then what do you think it is?
    – il--ya
    Jan 20, 2022 at 13:05
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Your translation is wrong, the stanza literally translates to this:

In the victory of the immortal ideas of Communism
We see the future of our country,
And to the Red Banner of the glorious fatherland
We will be always wholeheartedly faithful.

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5

You are parsing it wrong. Красному знамени here is an indirect object of верны, meaning faithful. We are faithful to the red banner. Верны красному знамени.

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