From “Russian Prayer” to “wordless”: what hymns sounded in Russia

New Year's holidays - a great time for a family vacation, "disconnecting" from a pretty annoying year policybut ... Unfortunately, for the sweet bustle around the Christmas trees, gifts and tables set, we often forget about some important milestones in the history of our country, which fall precisely on these days.

It so happened that it was during this period that one of our main sovereign symbols was born - the national anthem. And this happened twice, with an interval of more than half a century: first in the Soviet Union, and then in the Russian Federation. How was the “main melody” of the land on which we all born and live born? What ups and downs are associated with this event, how much truth is in the official versions of those events and what remains a secret for us?

At first it was ...

And at the very beginning there was nothing at all! It so happened that the Russian Kingdom, and subsequently the Russian Empire, existed without an official national anthem. No, some “main” musical compositions performed on especially solemn occasions, of course, were present. As a rule, it was these or those church chants. Peter I, however, in accordance with his own predilections, replaced those for military marches ... By the beginning of the XNUMXth century, two melodies could perhaps be considered “unofficial hymns” of Russia: “Kohl is glorious is our Lord in Zion” и "Thunder of victory, be heard, have fun brave Ross". The last solemn song perfectly reflected the “age of golden Catherine”, brilliant and formidable for the enemies of our Fatherland. By the way, it was written by Alexander Suvorov’s capture of the “impregnable” Ishmael. Oh, there was a little time ... In 1816, the Russian Empire nevertheless appeared the national anthem, officially approved and the highest - that is, Emperor Alexander I. However, this is bad luck - this piece, called “Prayer of the Russians”, was performed on the motive ... anthem of the British Empire! This situation categorically could not satisfy the next monarch - Nicholas I, who ascended the throne to the thunder of cannons, sweeping away from the Senate Square the “foreign foolishness” of the noble conspirators. Generally speaking, this emperor, who was a true sovereign, didn’t break his cap in front of “enlightened Europe,” and he put things in order there, if required, with a bayonet and buckshot, completely not repairing or embarrassing.


If you believe the historical evidence, the fact that during an official visit to Prussia and Austria, he was universally greeted with an “Aglitz melody”, led the Tsar to almost a rage. Are we Russian or who ?! The director of the Court Singing Chapel accompanying him on this trip, Alexei Lvov, immediately heard the highest deign: to create new music, certainly Russian! So the hymn “God Save the Tsar!”, Known to all experts on the history of monarchist Russia, appeared, officially approved by Nicholas I in 1833 and sounded above our land until the fateful February 1917. After him, of course, there was no question of any “praise of the bloody autocracy”. “Temporary”, who began to sculpt something of their own on the ruins of the great Empire destroyed by them, the French “Marseillaise” was quite expected to be the new anthem. “We will renounce the old world ...”, and so on. However, in reality, there was only a melody in French (and even then at first), and the words were the most Russian, written by the revolutionary from the "old guard" Peter Lavrov. Subsequently, our compatriot Alexander Glazunov “corrected” the music to this text. By the way, there were a lot of completely original Russian versions written immediately after February, but the Provisional Government, which was completely incapable of decisively, took the path of least resistance. Be that as it may, but in the very near future - already in October of the same 1917, another French revolutionary melody took the place of another: the International, written in the days of the rout of the Paris Commune. So he lingered for a long time.

From the “last and decisive” to the “indestructible alliance”

The domestic version of the Internationale, in truth, also differed quite significantly from the original. Arkady Kots (author of the Russian text) translated all six verses, but only half of them were performed. The song, which Vladimir Ilyich Lenin sincerely admired, considering it a world-wide password for "class-conscious workers," became the anthem of first Soviet Russia, and then the Soviet Union. This continued until 1944, when Comrade Stalin finally got his hands on this crucial issue.


Some "historians" undertake to argue that to change one of the main symbols of the country's greatest war in history, Iosif Vissarionovich invented almost for the sake of the Western "allies", on the eve of the upcoming meeting of the "Big Three" in Tehran, thus deciding to demonstrate "refusal from the ideas of the world revolution. " In my opinion, this is not just nonsense, but reference nonsense! It’s about the same damage as the allegations that the Supreme returned the officer’s gold epaulettes to the shoulders of the Soviet commanders “to unify uniforms with the Allies.” It would be absurd to think of nothing ... By 1944, at the time when our victory in the Great Patriotic War was only a matter of time, Stalin, in the mildest way, was spitting out the opinion of the British and Americans. Having taken the hardest lessons from the war years, the Leader simply, having rejected all sorts of sentiments, began openly and steadily to revive the Empire. Shoulder straps, orders of the name of “tsarist” generals and even princes, the revival of the Orthodox Church and the creation of a new magnificent, truly imperial anthem - these are all from one “opera”. From the same ...

Unfortunately, the vast majority of our compatriots know and remember the anthem of the USSR in an ugly emasculated emasculated and stolen after the death of Stalin. A brief comparison, which is not difficult to make today, speaks about the essence of the "Stalinist" version of the anthem more than exhaustively. In my opinion, it fully shows the direction of his thoughts and plans, already outlined at that time and subsequently costing Joseph Vissarionovich life. Yes, Stalin was mentioned in the hymn. Already once. But there was not a word ... about the Communist Party! It is enough to bring one of the verses, ruthlessly thrown out of the anthem in 1977, so that everything becomes extremely clear:




The imperial anthem, which is already there - to the marrow of bones ... It contains all of Stalin and his era. This is the song of the victorious warriors that have no equal in the whole world. By the way, here's another detail: in the "Stalinist" version of the USSR it was called a reliable bulwark of "people's happiness." Subsequently, the happiness was cleaned out of the anthem, replaced by "friendship of peoples." It turns out that Stalin didn’t - there was no happiness either ... The “party of Lenin, popular power” that broke into the anthem should now lead our people not “from victory to victory”, but to the abstract “triumph of communism”. A characteristic detail: after the obscene Sabbath, called the "Twentieth Congress", at the behest of the jackal Khrushchev, since 1956 the anthem of the Soviet Union was performed without words at all! They rewrote them, as I said earlier, already in 1977. Until that time, the pitiful successors of the Generalissimo lacked the courage to raise a hand on his legacy ...

Birth of a hymn: truth and fiction

Let us return, however, to the distant 1944. And even, perhaps, at an even earlier time - in the landmark 1936 for the Stalinist USSR. It was then that the Leader, still slowly, began to wrap up the country from oak "Marxism-Leninism" and, even more so, from Trotskyist ravings about the "world revolution" to something completely different. It was then that the poet Vasily Lebedev-Kumach wrote the text of the song “Life has become better!” Subsequently, he, in collaboration with composer Alexander Alexandrov, created the "Anthem of the Bolshevik Party", which Joseph Vissarionovich liked so much that he called it a "battleship song." The “unofficial anthem” reappeared in the country, in parallel with the International, which called for “to destroy to the ground.” Stalin, who was about to build it, was not on the way with such a hymn. Surely a new one would have been created earlier - if not for the war. Nevertheless, as already mentioned, in 1943 an official competition was announced for the new anthem of the Soviet Union. The government commission on this issue was led by Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov, known for his ability to complete the most complex undertakings. The first stage of the competition was open to all comers; 170 composers took part in it, presenting to the highest court more than two hundred tunes, and 19 poets. The final stage of the competition, which reached 8 participants, was held in November at the Bolshoi Theater. I listened to the creations of the applicants personally Joseph Vissarionovich. It was he who made the final decision ... This was approved on December 14, 1943 by a special Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (B.). For the first time, a new anthem was performed on New Year's Eve from December 31 to January 1 of the coming 1944. However, this initial arrangement was again redone, and the tune familiar to all of us was finally approved and sounded on All-Union Radio only in April 1944. However, we ran a little ahead, ignoring the most tense moment - the final of the competition.


I must say that there are plenty of memoirs on this subject. In truth, many of them leave a very painful and unpleasant impression. As, however, all the moments when the great "people of art" are taken to pour their own bile on more successful rivals, reaching the level of a banal squabble. For example, the great composer Dmitry Shostakovich was for some reason convinced that Stalin did not choose the version of music for the anthem, which he co-authored with Aram Khachaturian, solely because Shostakovich, after the remarks made by the Leader, asked for “tuning” the melody for only five hours! “If they asked for a month, they would win!” - later assured Khachaturian. There were also those who reproached the winners of the contest for "imitation" and almost plagiarism. Be that as it may, the tune of Alexandrov became the musical version of the anthem. A poetic - the words of Sergei Mikhalkov and El-Registan. It’s right, embarrassing, to read the fabrications of “experts” trying to explain Mikhalkov’s success by the fact that back in 1936 he wrote the poem “Svetlana”, which Stalin took as a dedication to his daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. Published in the central newspapers, it was supposedly on her birthday. N-yes ... The lousy thing is envy. To explain the further triumph of Sergei Vladimirovich exclusively with this creation of his, at least, is stupid. Especially taking into account the fact that the number of works devoted to Stalin, and much more loyal ones, both in poetry and in prose, was calculated in the USSR by numbers completely unimaginable. In addition, in this case, where is Mikhalkov’s poem dedicated to one of Vladimir Putin’s relatives? After all, it was he who again became the author of the words of the new, already Russian anthem, approved by the current president.

Glory to our free Fatherland!

It must be said that the stakes in the unprecedented creative competition that unfolded in 1943 were also closely incomparable with any of the current music competitions, and not only in ideological and moral terms. The Stalin Prize of 100 thousand rubles, and even 4 thousand for each version of the anthem that reached the "closed" stage, was "shone" to the finalists. There is nothing to talk about other material incentives. There is a story that looks a lot like a historical joke, but still very characteristic. Allegedly, after the end of the contest, Joseph Vissarionovich in his usual manner asked a question about the mercantile wishes of the winners (in addition to the cash prize). Who asked what, he received accordingly: El-Registan - a car, Alexandrov - a cottage ... Mikhalkov told the Leader that there would be enough for him the pencil with which Comrade Stalin repeatedly ruled his texts. Here they gave him a pencil. In addition, with a car and a summer house! Who would then have thought that for one of the following versions of the same work, though written more than half a century later, Sergei Mikhalkov would receive the Order of the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called! However, in this anthem, with which we all live today, there is only one line left from the "Stalinist": "Glory to our free Fatherland!" Nevertheless, this (and, more precisely, the music of Aleksandrov and the authorship of Mikhalkov) was more than enough for the “progressive public” of our country, which, in my opinion, is much more befitting the name “demshiz”, to roll up uniforms tantrums about this state symbol. Their would-Russia-to this day would live without him. Or, in the best case, with the “wordless” version of the anthem, as it was from 1991 to 2000 (Patriotic song).


The fact that the "democrats" who seized upon power after the collapse of the USSR tried to send his anthem "to the dustbin of history" is not surprising. It is not surprising that after much welding, squabble, useless disputes and talk, they could not offer anything in return. As a result, the “visiting card” of Russia was the tune of Glinka's “Patriotic Song”. As for the text of the “consensus”, it was not possible to reach. The situation changed with the end of the terrible period of anarchy, during which Russia almost lost not only the attributes of statehood, but also itself. Again, the new anthem of our country was approved again on New Year's Day - a melody on December 25, and the words (temporarily) - on December 30, 2000. In the spring of 2001, the text of Sergei Mikhalkov was legally adopted as a permanent one. Incidentally, the most ardent supporter of this particular option was Vladimir Putin. Interestingly, the adoption of the anthem to “Stalinist music”, about which many “the best representatives of the creative intelligentsia” raged with foam at the mouth, was unambiguously supported by the Orthodox Church in the person of the then Patriarch Alexy II. However, it is not at all surprising, given the attitude of Joseph Vissarionovich to the church and its role in its revival in the Soviet Union. Two decades have passed since then. During this time, there were unsuccessful attempts to remove from the main song of Russia, for example, the word "God", which some members of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and other "very smart" citizens dislike. But basically, discussions and debates on this issue somehow stopped by themselves. Perhaps, not least because our anthem is de jure banned in such “cute” places like the Baltic States and Ukraine.


At the last Winter Olympic Games, despite all the disqualifications and the strictest ban, the words about the sacred power and the great country sounded from the tinned throats of our hockey players who tore the “gold” and their fans in an incredible fight, tightly blocking the Olympic anthem. In the West, this was rightly perceived as “mockery,” but they were afraid of contacting the IOC — they were wiped out as cute ... The anthem created in the year of war years under the strict guidance of Comrade Stalin turned out to be truly immortal - how immortal is the country, Great Russia, about which he sang.