I'm not holding out much hope... but if anybody can provide a translation of the songs, it would be much appreciated.

I think the point here goes beyond just the art world - if you're making decisions that are not in your nature mainly to please others, you'll have to live with the consequences of that, some of which may not be immediately apparent. Unfortunately, we often don't have the means to avoid that, but perhaps we have more than we think.

But to be specific to the film's theme, this rejection of abstract art (often called "formalism", aka. "the study of structure rather than meaning", to quote a good definition from Richard Taruskin) really did have wide support in Soviet society. Not just in publicly-funded art, but also in underground artistic movements (such as "tourist song"). A good description and many visual examples of some of the excellent art that came out of it may be found in the book "Soviet Impressionist Painting" by Vern G. Swanson. It sells for insane prices now, but if you can find it in a library near you, it's well worth checking out!

Funnily enough, at the very same time that this film was made, other animation directors such as Fyodor Hitruk and many others were pushing very bold styles, moving as far away as they could from the realism of the early 1950s. As long as the style remained subordinate to the story or overall point of their films, they seemed to get away with it. Mostly.

BONG BÓNG, CỌNG RƠM VÀ CHIẾC HÀI
ПУЗЫРЬ, СОЛОМИНКА И ЛАПОТЬ

Ngày xưa có ba bạn thân là bong bóng, cọng rơm và chiếc hài.
Жили-были пузырь, соломинка и лапоть.

Một hôm, chúng rủ nhau vào rừng đốn củi. Đến một con sông, chúng không biết làm thế nào để qua.
Пошли они в лес дрова рубить. Дошли до реки и не знают, как перейти через реку.

Chiếc hài bèn bảo bong bóng :
Лапоть говорит пузырю :

- Này bong bóng, cậu cho chúng tớ ngồi lên cậu để bơi qua sông chứ ?
- Пузырь, давай на тебе переплывем !

Nhưng bong bóng tinh ranh nói :

- Không, hài ạ ! Để cọng rơm giăng từ bờ này sang bờ kia, còn chúng mình đi trên nó thì hơn.
- Нет, лапоть ! Пусть лучше соломинка перетянется с берега на берег, мы по ней перейдем.

Thế là cọng rơm căng ra. Khi chiếc hài đang qua sông thì cọng rơm đứt bục. Hài ngã tòm xuống nước.
Соломинка перетянулась с берега на берег. Лапоть пошел по соломинке, она и переломилась. Лапоть упал в воду.

Thấy thế bong bóng cười ha hả, nó cười to đến mức vỡ tan tành.
А пузырь хохотал, хохотал, да и лопнул.

【Aleksandr. N. Afanasiyev】

The voice work in the Russian version isn't awful, but it's just not as good as the Estonian. And children who are too young to read probably shouldn't be watching this one anyway, so there really seems to be not too much reason for the Russian version to exist (other than it being standard practice at the time to make one - and apparently quite a lot of young kids back then across the whole country did end up watching this).

The way things turn out seems a bit too contrived to me. What a change in style between this one and Raamat's very next (deservedly much-better-known) film, though! (Toell the Great)

This story has been included in the book «Stories for Third Grade» (Truyện đọc lớp Ba) in Vietnam (when I was a kid, every Saturday morning there was a hour to ask pupils reading one story from this book in class and at home they must read an other - so this is a supplementary subject, not a study one). I remember when I was in Second Grade, I borrowed this book from a neighbor girl, so I could not sleep all summer night... out of fear. ☹

Another cute article about "The Argonauts" : The Argonauts, or Merry Chronicle of a Dangerous Voyage.

This is a very good article about "The Return from Olympus" : Soviet Hercules in Russian Animated Films.

I think Birubir is "retired" already. The last time I saw a trace of him since 2014. After a few times his account was deleted by YouTube, he probably did not continue his favorite work. But indeed, his group of subtitles was "mental medicine" for me during my university years.

>>1
Yep, I remember when YouTube was limited to 360p. I tried VeeHD because of that, though it was a real pain to upload anything with external subtitles. Don't remember Birubir, though. Is his channel still around?