The Sacred War

“The Sacred War“ (Russian: Священная война Svyashchennaya Voyna, also known as Вставай, страна огромная! Vstavay, strana ogromnaya, “Arise, Great (Vast) Country!“) is one of the most famous Soviet songs of the Second World War. The music is by Alexander Alexandrov, founder of the Alexandrov Ensemble and the music composer for the State Anthem of the Soviet Union. The lyrics are by Vasily Lebedev-Kumach.[1] The circumstances of the composition and first performance of the song were hurried; the lyrics were published on 24 June 1941, and Alexandrov immediately wrote the music for them, writing the notes out on a blackboard for the singers to copy manually. The first performance was on 26 June at Belorussky Railway Station, where according to eyewitnesses it was sung five times in succession.[2] There are a number of foreign-language adaptations of this song, among them the German version Der Heilige Krieg (written by Stephan Hermlin), the Korean 정의의 싸움에 (Jeong-ui-ui Ssaum-e) and the Hungarian version Fel, küzdelemre, hős haza. In the 1990s Russian media published the allegation that the lyrics had been plagiarized by Lebedev-Kumach, and that they were indeed written during the First World War by Aleksandr Bode (Russian: Александр Адольфович Боде, 1865–1939). These claims were taken to court, and the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta in June 2000 was forced to publish a retraction of the claim.[3] Prof. Evgeniy Levashev (2000) still upheld doubts on the authorship, and on the reasonableness of the court’s decision.[4] The song has been used during the march of the color guard in Victory Day Parades in both the Soviet Union and Russia.