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Государственный Гимн СССР

At the PDSA charity shop in Thornbury a few years ago I spotted a 10" record with an orangey-red sleeve on which the title and artist (so I presumed) were spelled out in Cyrillic text. I recognised the Melodiya logo on the cover: that being the USSR's state-run record label. I already owned a few Melodiya records, and on the prior occasions when I'd bought LPs with titles in Russian it hadn't worked out badly: one being a fine performance of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony; the other an interesting compilation of balalaika music. My weak recollection of the Russian alphabet failed me in the moment, but, as the record was only £1, I thought I'd buy it anyway.

This wasn't such a successful purchase: I'd acquired some performances of Государственный Гимн Союза Советских Социалистических Республик - that is, the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, and of 'The Internationale' (Интернационал). Side A begins with the Anthem sung by the Bolshoi Theatre Chorus, accompanied by the Bolshoi's Orchestra, conducted by Yuri Simonov. Next comes an instrumental rendition of the Anthem by the Brass Orchestra of the Ministry of Defence of the USSR with Nikolai Mikhailov conducting, followed by a short version of the same. Three versions of 'The Internationale' fall likewise on Side B, performed by the same forces, except with the estimable Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting the choral-and-orchestral one.

I appreciate the sentiment behind 'The Internationale', but, as a piece of music it leaves me cold. The Soviet (and now Russian) Anthem, on the other hand, is undoubtedly a strirring tune, but even so, this is a record I've only ever played a few times, and one which is likely to form part of a future charity shop donation. I had been unaware of the Anthem's history until looking it up today and have now learned (per wikipedia) that it:

was the national anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the regional anthem of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1944 to 1991, replacing "The Internationale". Its original lyrics were written by Sergey Mikhalkov (1913–2009) in collaboration with Gabriel El-Registan (1899–1945), and its music composed by Alexander Alexandrov (1883–1946). Following a two-decade interval in which the anthem was performed without lyrics, a second set of lyrics, also written by Mikhalkov, was adopted in 1977. 


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