The songs of the Great Patriotic War are a very special layer in our song culture. The works were born in the pauses between battles, on a halt, in the lines of letters to relatives, as an operational response to a rapidly changing situation at the front. And only those verses passed the test of time that rose above the evil of the day and found a universal sound.
Song for all times
The anthem of the entire four-year test is considered to be the "Holy War". Poems to her were already written by the venerable by the time the Soviet poet V. Lebedev-Kumach, and the music was composed by AV Aleksandrov. There was no time for notes - the enemy rushed to Moscow. It was necessary to take chalk, a slate board, so that singers and musicians could rewrite the text from there. Only a day was left for learning and rehearsing. Since the autumn of 1941, the song began to sound daily on the All-Union Radio - after the traditional chiming clock.
Vladimir Vysotsky, an oppositionist, is considered to be - and in one of the questionnaires he pointed out this hymn as a favorite song of the Great Patriotic War. And it is unlikely he turned a crush on his soul - after all, it is said in one of his own songs: "Not by a single letter nor a lie" ...
In a lyrical way
The first lyrical song of the Great Patriotic War was a poem by the poet Alexei Surkov "In the Dugout". The song, in fact, was not supposed to - a few lines in the verses that after the hardest battle Surkov survived miraculously sketched in a letter to his wife. If it were not for the composer Konstantin Listov, who asked for “something” to update the repertoire, perhaps “Zemlyanka” would have remained under a bushel ...
But no - it sounded first with the guitar, then with the orchestra, on the radio, it was released on the records. And in vain vigilant censorship warned that, say, the line "to death - four steps" is too decadent - the song has already "gone" to the people. And added to her popularity masterful performance Leonid Utesov and Lydia Ruslanova.
For Surkov, in essence, the poem was the work of the entire adult life - his poetry had never before risen to such piercing and tragic heights. So in unison beat the hearts of those who were for a long time, or even forever separated by war.
Universal lullaby
In the 1942 film Two Fighters, who played the role of sailor to Arkady Dzubin, Mark Bernes takes the guitar and begins to hum. So the country learned "Dark night" - a lullaby for all times. It is surprising that there is almost no rhyme in the poem - but it is imbued with a single, whole mood. The composer Nikita Bogoslovsky also worked superbly.
It’s shocking not that the song is still loved, but how it is adored abroad. Once, in one of the New York restaurants, Willy Tokarev began her solo career. And it was the performance of "Dark Night" that brought him huge success, and not his own lightweight songs. And another characteristic episode - the gramophone record with the first recording of the song was spoiled by the tears of the female technician who performed the recording. Well, she could not mechanically approach the case! ...
Music from the heart of the people
Another lyrical song of the Great Patriotic War was released from the pen of Mikhail Isakovsky at the height of the war, in 1943. Her name is "Spark". This is a simple story about how a guy goes to the front, bravely fights with the enemy, and the memories of his beloved give him strength, and life - meaning.
So far, it was not possible to establish the author of the melody. After the war, a special commission was even meeting at the Union of Soviet Composers to consider this issue. It turned out that none of the claimants confirmed the rights to the song.
Someone remembered the once popular tango "Stella", but that's bad luck - and there the author of the music remained unknown. "Twinkle" brought to life a whole wave of alterations and imitations, right up to the present day. Speech in them - about the betrayal of the girl in connection with the false news about the death of the guy, about his return home and their decisive explanation.
We will remember ...
The war was barely over, as the poet Mikhail Isakovsky wrote a poem "The Enemies Burned Their Hut". If the majority of military songs are customized, then this is a storyline: a soldier returns home from the front, but falls to ashes. With a bitter monologue, he addresses the deceased wife ...
And the party has already headed for peaceful construction, for restoring the country from devastation. It was as if the dead were told to forget, as if the Victory was not worth millions of victims. Poems banned.
Under the name Praskovya, people with disabilities started singing on the markets and in the trains. Only in 1960, singer Mark Bernes, who was patronized by one of the marshals of the Victory, V.I. Chuykov, decided to publicly perform this song. The hall stood up, stood for a while, in silence, and then gave the singer an endless ovation.
The song has become a kind of calling card of Bernes. To exceed his performance hardly anyone succeeded. It is like a lyrical popular requiem to those who forged a victory in the rear, who, without sparing their strength and health, beat the enemy on different fronts of the great war.
The author - Pavel Malofeev
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