State Anthem of the Soviet Union
national anthem of the USSR, 1944 to 1991
The State Anthem of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was the national anthem of the Soviet Union 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 El-Registan (1899–1945), and its music was composed by Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov (1883–1946), initially as the Hymn of the Bolshevik Party. For a two-decade interval following de-Stalinization, the anthem was performed without lyrics. The second set of lyrics, also written by Mikhalkov and in which Joseph Stalin's name was omitted, was adopted in 1977.
A decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the same melody was used for its successor state, as the national anthem of Russia.
History
Origins
The anthem's music was originally composed by Alexander Alexandrov in 1938 for the Hymn of the Bolshevik Party. Its opening bars were borrowed from one of Alexandrov's previous pieces, "Life Has Become Better", which was based on a quote by former Soviet Union General Secretary Joseph Stalin at the First All-Union Meeting of the Stakhanovites on 17 November 1935.
Other than "Life Has Become Better", the music of the anthem has several possible outside influences. Alexandrov himself has described it as the combination of a march with Russian traditional music, particularly that of bylina epic songs. The anthem shares several chord progressions with Vasily Kalinnikov's overture Bylina, Epic Poem (which, as its name indicates, is also inspired by the bylina tradition).
The public source identifies “State Anthem of the Soviet Union” as national anthem of the USSR, 1944 to 1991. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around State, Anthem and Soviet.
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This entry incorporates text from “State Anthem of the Soviet Union” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.