War time songs

We present to your attention information about songs dedicated to the war and the great Victory. Some of them are written directly in the years of mortal combat with the enemy or shortly after the defeat of fascism. Also, there is the text of 3 songs — what they knew, loved and sang our grandparents. Here is the original text in Russian.

1. In the dugout (В землянке). Read song...

      In the late autumn of 1941, the 78th Infantry Division of the 16th Army defending Istra received the name of the 9th Guards Division, and in connection with this, the Western Front Political Administration invited correspondents of the "Krasnoarmeiskaya Pravda" to cover this event; Alexei Surkov was among others. On November 27, the journalists first visited the headquarters of the division, and then went to the command post of the 258th (22nd Guards) infantry regiment, who was in the village of Kashino.

      Upon arrival, it turned out that the command post had been cut off from the battalions by the advancing 10th Panzer Division of Germany, and the infantry of the enemy was approaching the village itself. The shelling of mortars that had been launched forced the officers and journalists to sit in the dugout. The Germans occupied the neighboring houses. Then the chief of staff of the regiment, captain IK. Velichkin, crawled to the buildings throwing grenades at the enemy, which weakened the enemy shelling and made it possible to go for a breakthrough. Safely passing the minefield, all went to the river and crossed it through still thin ice - under resumed mortar shelling - to the village of Ulyashino, in which the battalion stood.

      When Surkov reached his own, his whole greatcoat turned out to be pierced by fragments. Then he said: "I did not make a single step further than the staff of the regiment. Not one ... And there are only four steps to death.“ After that, it only remained to finish: "It's not easy for me to reach you ..."

      After coming to the village, the staff officers and correspondents were stationed in a dug-out. Everyone was very tired, so much so that, according to Surkov's recollections, the chief of staff, Velichkin, having sat down to eat a soup, had fallen asleep after the second spoon, since he had not slept for four days. The rest settled near the stove, someone started playing the accordion to relieve tension. Surkov began to sketch for reporting, however verses had come out.

      In February 1942, the composer Konstantin Listov, who was looking for lyrics for the songs, went to the editorial office of the newspaper "Frontline Truth", where Surkov also began to work. Surkov remembered the written verses, formalized them in a clear and gave the musician - in his own words, he was confident that nothing will turn out. However, a week later Listov returned to the office and, taking a guitar from photo journalist Mikhail Savin, performed a new song, calling it "In the dugout." Everyone approved the composition, and in the evening Savin having asked for the text performed the song himself: the melody was remembered from the first performance.

      Writer Eugene Vorobyov, who worked in the "Frontline Truth", copied notes and text and brought them to the editorial office of Komsomolskaya Pravda together with Mikhail Savin. There they sang a song (Vorobyov sang, and Savin accompanied); the song was liked by the listeners and was published in the newspaper's issue on March 25, 1942.

      Soon the song went along the front. It was performed by soldiers, front-line creative teams, and was included in the repertoire of the famous Lidia Ruslanova.

      Often the last line is executed in the variant "From your unquenchable love". During the war in some performances the lyrics looked completely different: after the first two couplets (unchanged) not two but four followed. There were also several song-answers. Natalia Surkova recalled that her father during one of the feasts was indignant: "People sing:" I'm warm in the cold dugout / From your irresistible love "- and it's written" from mine "!". To this the wife replied: "Now, Aleshenka, the folks have corrected you."

2. The Baksan song (Баксанская). Read song...

      The song was written in early February 1943. At the end of January, a group of 20 mountaineers received an order to remove from the tops of Elbrus two fascist banners raised on August 21, 1942 by the huntsmen of the fascist captain Grotte, who had been on the Elbrus before the war, and established the Soviet ones. Soviet banners were installed on the Western peak on February 13 and on February 17, 1943 on the Eastern peak. There is a release of the sound magazine "Krugozor" in 1968, where Lyuba Korotaeva (the only woman of 20 climbers) recalls the creation of the song:

Once Andrei Gryaznov and I were given the task: to establish the ways of the retreat
of the Germans from the Caucasus. The whole day we lay in the snow on the ridge of
Kogutai. And in this situation, different thoughts come, and we decided to mark this
place. We took out a fuse from one grenade, wrote that there were lieutenants
Gryaznov and Korotaev scouting. Then they made a cairn and put a grenade in it. We
agreed that whoever comes first after the war will inform the other that he took this
grenade. Neither he nor I ever went there again ...

      The time passed. We were ordered to remove the German flags. The road from the Elbrus region began. When we stopped to sleep in Itkol, we set a watch on the veranda of the Balkar house. There was a wonderful moonlit night, and the ridge on which we left a grenade was very clearly visible from Itkol. Everyone went to the balcony. Andrei Gryaznov began singing a song to himself, and then he accidentally formed the words: "Remember the grenade and the note in it". And then someone added: "On a rocky ridge for future days."And then we felt such an enthusiasm to a composition, something came out of it, and we have started to create.

3. Military march of infantry (Боевая пехотная). Read song...

4. Roads (Эх, дороги).

      The song was written shortly after the end of the Great Patriotic War, in the fall of 1945, for the theatrical program "Victory Spring", which was written and implemented by Sergei Yutkevich, the producer of Song and Dance Ensemble of the NKVD, for the celebrations on 7 the November.

      All the songs in it, according to the producers's plan, were to be connected with a certain plotline - the departure of the fighters from Germany, so their themes and character were pre-scheduled and agreed. The authors of the song, composer Anatoly Novikov and poet Lev Oshanin, were given a long list of them, typed on a typewriter. From this list Novikov and Oshanin chose a song-contemplation with the conditional title "Under the clatter of wheels" and started to work.

The first performer of "Roads" was Ivan Shmelev, the soloist of the NKVD Ensemble. The premiere was successful, however the authors were working on the song another month yet.

• We finished the song. The song was accepted and praised. And now we are sitting at the premiere of the new program. And they sang the song not God knows how (not very well). But in the hall there was a long silence. Then the audience exploded and demanded a repetition of the song. And I listening to the song looked at the hall, and it became clearer to me one thing: it was not a song "To the sound of wheels". We did not understand ourselves what we wrote, it's still a semi-finished product, a piece, a half of a song. I grabbed Novikov's hand:
• "Stop the song!"
• What is it? - Novikov answered, - I have already passed the clavier to the publishing house.

And I again:

• "Stop the song for a week." It's wrong.

Novikov grunted in displeasure:

• You have some kind of whim ...

      But from his cunning squint, I felt that he was starting to understand me. And it was already clear to me that this is the song of the war outcome. Whether we wanted it or did not, and in the song some inexplicable, but true note of time had rang. For a month I kept the song in search of the outcome that I saw then in the concert hall. And then we released it again. And it was called initially "Soldiers' Roads", then, "Oh, roads" and finally just "Roads".

      By the way, there are some words about formal song laws. When the "Roads" already appeared, I suddenly noticed with surprise that the quatrain (a chorus and at the same time a beginning of each verse, because it does not complete, but opens the song) consists of only nouns. And the verbs have jumped into the middle part of the song. Probably, this is the only case in poetry.

Anatoly Novikov told:

- The schools started to invite Oshanin and I for a visit. I sat at the piano, we sang the "Road", and the pupils sang this soldiers’ song with us. Then we went out of school and I asked Oshanin: "What happened, why the schoolchildren sang this song? It is a soldier’s song" And then we realized that the children feel these military adult roads with their hearts deeply. The song contains for them a funeral for a father, and a bomb shelter, and non-childish military fears. And the boys and girls sang it unusually, "with a tear". You do not always know how your song will work…

5. March of Artillery (Марш артелерии).

      It was written on the instructions of the Chief Marshal of Artillery N. N. Voronov.

"It was in 1944,"- recalls composer A. G. Novikov, -"when our artillery unfolded in its full power, it solved great strategic tasks and artillerymen covered themselves with unfading glory. The poet Sergey Vasiliev and I were told that we need a new song about the "god of war" - artillery. We were thinking and seeking what this song should be like and its style. We were remembering both soldiers’ traditions and old Suvorov epic songs. I wanted to write it in a wide, Russian style, use all the characteristic features of the genre, and above all the chorus should be upbeat, so that the soldiers would sing it in their ranks..."

      When the song was written, the poet and composer, together with the soloist of the Red Banner Ensemble, Nikolai Ustinov, went to the main artillery headquarters. The marshal himself was assessing the song commissioned. The singer sang a march. The marshal liked it. They asked me to sing again. I wanted to try a song in the ranks: will it be sung "under the foot"?

"Then Nikolai Nikolayevich Voronov,"- says the composer, "- asked his generals (six of them) to stand up. Then we sang, and they sang alone and marched in place. It was, I must say, an unusual sight: the generals take on a new song and are themselves the first to try it while matching. The song was accepted. Voronov told us to send her to the Red Banner Ensemble. We did so. Since then, whenever there was a victory salute in honor of the capture of the next city by Soviet troops, our song "March of Artillery" also sounded on the air.

6. My Beloved (Моя любимая).

      In the autumn of 1939 composer Matvey Blanter, and poets Vladimir Lugovskoy and Evgeny Dolmatovsky participated in the Red Army's campaign to Western Belorussia. They wrote several songs ("Cossacks-Cossacks", "March of the 52nd Division" and others) and at the same time started working on a song that later became known as "My Beloved".

      The first version of the poems was unsuccessful, and Blanter, writtten music, asked the poets to compose another text. But on the "hot trail" this was not successful, and soon Lugovskoy lost interest in composing songs.

And already later at the beginning of 1941, Dolmatovsky wrote new words that sounded like a memory of a 1939 campaign:

Я уходил тогда в поход
В суровые края.
Рукой взмахнула у ворот
Моя любимая.

- It seems to me that if I have written "My beloved" after June 22, it would be much more severe, maybe even gloomier. The song has something from easy days. However, it is possible that they sang it just because it is peaceful and brings out memories treasured by people.

      Indeed, as practice shows, many songs written in the days of peace were sounded with special force in the days of the war. In this regard, Matvei Blanter said well:

- You cannot imagine the situation like this: the war began on June 22, 1941 - military songs began, and on May 9, 1945, on the Victory Day, they ended. In fact it was different: the war brought grief, loss, deprivation, but people remained people - they joked, laughed, loved even in that difficult time. The best prewar years were perceived as something in a new way: deeper, more penetrating. And many began to believe that these songs appeared in wartime. I am proud that the same happened with my song "My beloved" written in the days of peace.

      This song was very close to the front-line soldiers, answered their secret thoughts, and sometimes perceived as a letter to relatives and friends.

It is interesting that at first the line, which became the title of the song, its refrain, sounded differently: "My Beloved." But one day, while working on the song, the composer and the poet sang "My Beloved" and realized that it was better, although the melody required another, not quite right stress in the word "beloved". But this irregularity gave the refrain a special charm.

7. Dancing Before the Morning (Случайный вальс).

In one of the February issues of the newspaper of the South-Western Front "Red Army" for 1942 was published a poem by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky "Dancing Before the Morning", where there were such lines:

Танца вечная погоня
Удивительно легка,
И лежит в моей ладони
Незнакомая рука...

Dolmatovsky said:

• I wrote this poem almost from real life. Even the first heavy military winter, being in the troops on the border of Russia and Ukraine in the region of Kharkov and Belgorod, I noticed that complexity of the situation, a mortal danger, devastation, misfortune cannot drown out and reject all that belongs to the seemingly peaceful times and called lyricism.

      It is enough for the military column to stop for the night in a front-line village or town, and acquaintances, frank conversations, and love are arising. All these are sad and chaste; and early in the morning, there are parting, leaving...

      Even in the headline of the poem I brought out what was written in large, awkward letters on the sheets of paper attached to the school doors: "Dancing until the morning." Such advertisements were used to attract the youth in those ays...

     Many months later, in December 1942, Dolmatovsky met the composer Mark Fradkin, with whom they wrote "The Song of the Dnieper." The meeting took place in the Stalingrad area. With the brigade of artists, Fradkin wandered through the troops that completed the Stalingrad operation.

• I read him "Dancing until the morning," -Dolmatovsky continues his story. - Soon on the trophy accordion, he played me a waltz melody, inspired, as he said, by this poem. Naturally, rhythmically poems and music went unheeded.

I had to think about a new version of the text, but, in truth, the moment demanded other songs: we were becoming witnesses and even participants in a big victory..."

      Soon after the Battle of Stalingrad, when Paulus's army was finally crushed and there was the unusual and stunning silence on this sector of the front, the poet and the composer was invited to the meeting of the Military Council of the front. They were awarded well-deserved Red Star medals and asked to be introduced to their new songs and tell about their creative plans.

• "Fradkin played the songs, and I looked at my idol, General Rokossovsky," the poet concludes his memories of that time. "I have never seen so closely this commander, who enjoyed the boundless love of his soldiers and officers ... The commander, in the presence of his main political advisers, is K.F. Telegin and S.F. Galadzheva, was interested in the state and operation of the ‘song weapons’, which were in his troops under his command.

      I told about our idea - to turn the poem "Dancing till the morning" into a song. Head of the Political Administration Front Sergei Galadzhev, who knew this poem before, said that it should be something like an officer's waltz.

At that time, the word "officer" only acquired the right to exist, only penetrated into everyday life. I really liked the name "Officer's Waltz" for the future song.

      Rokossovsky said that our new meeting will take place on a new sector of the front that will be given to our Stalingrad troops. What it will be for the site, what is its geography, the commander of the front did not say. We left the hut, which hosted the Military Council of the front, and immediately learned that we had to get ready for the road. The night caught us on the road. The train was moving north. Fradkin and I were in the car of the Political Administration. It was there that the "Officer's Waltz" was written.

According to some sources, in the original version of the song were the words:

Ночь коротка,
Спят облака,
И лежит у меня на погоне
Незнакомая ваша рука.

      According to the legend, after listening to the song, I.V. Stalin asked to change these lines, noting that "the epaulettes of an officer should not overshadow anything," even the hand of a girl. Thus, the song was called "Occasional Waltz", and "epaulettes" turned into "palms". The "Occasional waltz" was sung at the front concerts by many artists. And Leonid Utesov made a record of it . Since then, this song lives among the people, remaining one of the favorite lyrical songs of the military era.

8. Dark-skinner (Смуглянка).

      The song was part of a suite written by composer Anatoly Novikov and poet Yakov Shvedov in 1940, commissioned by the ensemble of the Kiev Special Military District. This song was about the girl-guerrilla of Civil war times. And the entire suite was dedicated to Grigory Kotovsky. However, the song was never performed in the pre-war years. Its clavier was lost, and the authors had only drafts left.

      The composer remembered about this song four years later, when the artistic director of the Red Banner Ensemble Alexander Aleksandrov called him and asked to show songs for the new program of his ensemble. Among others, Novikov showed the "Dark-skinner", which he grabbed just in case. However it was this song that Alexandrov liked and immediately began to learn it with the choir and soloists.

      For the first time the ensemble sang the song at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in 1944. The soloist of the Red Banner Ensemble Nikolai Ustinov sang it, and to whom this song largely owes its success. The concert was broadcast on the radio. Thus a lot of people heard "Dark-skinned". They picked her up both at the home and at the front. The song, which talked about the events of the civil war, was perceived as a song about those who fought for the liberation of Moldova in the Great Patriotic War.

      After the war, the song "Dark-skinner" in different variatoons was included in the repertoire of various performers. The song sounds in the movie "Some Old Men Are Going to Battle", as well as in the fourth part of the epic "Soldiers of Freedom".

9. Dark Night  (Темная ночь).

      "Dark Night" was written by composer Nikita Bogoslovsky and poet Vladimir Agatov in 1943 for the film "Two Soldiers".

Songs in this film were not planned at first. However, soon the director demanded from Nikita Bogoslovsky a lyrical ballad for the scene in the dugout.

From the memoirs of Nikita Bogoslovsky:

• One evening the film director Leonid Lukov came to me and said: "You see, I cannot get a scene in a dugout without a song." And he so amazingly staged and played artistically this non-existent song, that a miracle happened. I sat down to the piano and played without a single stop the whole melody of "The Dark Night". This occurred to  me the first (and, obviously, the last) time in my life ... Poet Agatov, who arrived instantly at the request of Lukov, wrote poetry for already finished music very quickly and almost without blots.

      Mark Bernes, who has always leant songs for months, has prepared "The Dark Night" in just 15 minutes. The song was recorded, and in the morning they were filming the scene in the dugout under the soundtrack of this song...

The film has forever become the trademark of Mark Bernes, who received the Order of the Red Star for him from the government, and the title "Honorary inhabitant of the city of Odessa" from citizens of Odessa.

Even before the release of the film, Leonid Utesov, having received a song from Nikita Bogoslovsky, recorded it. However, the interpretation of Mark Bernes, which is remarkable for its sincerity, is considered classical.

10. State Anthem of the USSR. Read song...

     State Anthem of the USSR was performed by Paul Robson (1898 - 1976) , an American singer, fighter against fascism, an actor and human rights activist. The commission of McCarthy had included Robson in the black lists of Hollywood. He also received a ban on leaving the US until 1958.

     Having first visited the Soviet Union in 1934, Robson received a strong impressions of the USSR. "From the moment of arriving in Russia, I realized that I had found what I had been striving for all my life. Only in the Soviet Union I did feel like a full-fledged person, "he recalled.

In 1936 - 1938, Robson performed before the anti-fascist fighters in the Spanish civil war. In 1952 he was awarded the International Stalin Prize "For the Strengthening of Peace among Nations".

11. Street-roads (Дорога на Берлин).

The poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky wrote about the history of this song creation:

- By no means refusing to be the author, I still have to admit that in the song "The Road to Berlin" some lines are not exactly belong to my pen. Warsaw and Berlin in general were not named by me in the text. Hand on heart, I will say that even the name of the song is not invented by me. And yet, if the word "scheme" is applicable in art, I declare that the scheme of the song is mine...

And then we are talking about how in November 1943, in the liberated from the Nazis town of Gomel Dolmatovsky wrote a poem from just a few lines, which he called "Street-roads": "

С боем взяли мы Орел,
Город весь прошли,
Улицы последней
Название прочли:
Брянская улица на запад ведет?
Значит — в Брянск дорога,
Значит — в Брянск дорога.
Вперед!

- Further nothing was written, - writes Dolmatovsky, - only in the planned scheme was inserted a line: in the second stanza - about the introduction to Bryansk, in the third - about Gomel. The song ended with a strophe about Minskaya Street, about the fact that we face a road to Minsk. Verses were published in the front-line newspaper "Red Army", then sent to composer Mark Fradkin in Moscow. And he wrote music to them and offered them to Leonid Utyosov. This song was performed by Utyosov on the radio adding new cities and the names of their streets as they were freed until the victory, i.e. until the capture of Berlin by the Soviet troops.

12. Wait for me (Жди меня).

The poem "Wait for me" by Konstantin Simonov was written in July-August 1941 and was dedicated to actress Valentina Serova.

Konstantin Simonov recalled:

- The poem "Wait for me" has no special history. I just went to war, and the woman I loved was at home. And I wrote her a letter in verse.

Initially, the poem was not intended for publication as too personal; nevertheless Simonov repeatedly read it to his friends. He read it in the air on 9 December 1941.

Based on the reviews in late 1941 - early 1942 Simonov nevertheless agreed to give it to the press. He tried to publish a poem in the newspaper "On Assault" (the printed organ of the 44th Army), and in the "Red Star", where he worked then, but he was rejected by both newspapers. It was first published in ‘Pravda’ on 14 January 1942 on the third page.

During the war the poem enjoyed incredible popularity. The literary critic I.V. Kukulin wrote:

- "Wait for me" not only looked like a spell in its genre, but also functioned as such in social practice. Repeated reading of this poem in itself had a psycho-technical function. Doctor Slava Mesdelevna Beskina, who worked during the war in front hospitals, recalled that the wounded soldiers, especially when they were in strong pain, recited "Wait for me" by heart.

In 1942, the poem was laid to music by Matvei Blanter. It sounds like a song in the films "A guy from our city (1942) and" Wait for me "(1943).