What do you think of "mama" and "papa" as ways of getting across an intimate but not childish form of address for parents? This is how they normally get around it in French and other foreign literature translated into English. It helps retain the sense of "foreigness" of forms of address that might sound strange to us.

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Note added at 2003-07-03 00:27:49 (GMT)
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You could also vary it a bit, as per мама, мамуся, мамуля, мамочка, etc. by changing the \"dear\" to \"dearest\", \"sweetest\", \"darling\", etc.

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Note added at 2003-07-03 00:30:10 (GMT)
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To William:
Yes, it is \"mum\" in Brit English.
But don\'t you think that \"mum\" doesn\'t have the necessary pathos and emotion of soldiers writing from the front?

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Note added at 2003-07-07 23:53:17 (GMT)
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Elizabeth, to answer your later question:
My feeling is that \"мамуся\" is not the usual way offspring would address mothers - especially boys. It does rather beg to be translated as \"Mummy\". It has a great degree of pathos and would suggest to me that the young man is under great duress. A girl playing cute is what comes to mind when I hear \"мамуся\" (it has great \"cringe\" value), or else a boy under a great deal of strain, such as in wartime at the front.

Yes, it does sound pansy - inappropriate, even - and it is to be read with the knowledge that in desperate times, Russians tend to forget all notions of machismo or \"stiff upper lip\".