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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]
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 [ru] (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]
One of the most famous Soviet patriotic songs, "The Sacred War" has been sung in several languages including Russian,[5] Finnish,[6] Hungarian,[7] Estonian,[8] Latvian,[9] Chinese,[10] Korean,[11] Japanese,[12] Vietnamese,[13] Hindi,[14] Punjabi,[15] German,[16] French[17] and English,[18] as well as several other languages of the Soviet Union. There exists a version of the song in Ukrainian,[19] however it is repurposed for the War in Donbas from the Ukrainian side and instead has anti-Soviet and anti-Russian themes. Like Katyusha, it is one of the most translated Soviet songs.
Lyrics
Russian original
Romanization of Russian
English translation
Вставай страна огромная,
Вставай на смертный бой
С фашистской силой тёмною,
С проклятою ордой.
Припев:
Пусть ярость благородная
Вскипает как волна!
Идёт война народная,
Священная война!
Дадим отпор душителям
Всех пламенных идей,
Насильникам грабителям,
Мучителям людей!
Припев
Не смеют крылья чёрные
Над Родиной летать,
Поля её просторные
Не смеет враг топтать!
^В. Олару. Стихотворение в газете Независимая Молдова, 21 июня 2001 ("Архив за 21.06.2001 - "Независимая Молдова"". Archived from the original on July 11, 2008. Retrieved 2009-09-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link))
^Е. М. Левашев. Судьба песни // Архив наследия — 2000 / Сост. и науч. ред. Плужников В. И.; РАН. Российский Научно-исследовательский институт культурного и природного наследия им. Д. С. Лихачёва. — М.: Институт Наследия, 2001, 305–330. (online version).
