The team of a Russian Jewish ethnomusicologist and Yiddish scholar Moisei Beregovsky collected hundreds of Jewish songs during 1930–1940s, and planned to publish an anthology. However, during the post-war outbreak of Soviet anti-Semitism Beregovsky was convicted of "Jewish nationalism" and sent to Gulag.[2] His confiscated archives were returned to his wife.[5]
The collection of wax cylinder recordings, of which 600 were made by Beregovsky, was looted by the Nazis but returned after the war. However, when the Cabinet of Jewish Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences was liquidated, the recordings disappeared and were believed to be destroyed.[5] In the 1990s Beregovsky's wax cylinders were discovered in the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and catalogized. His collections were published and republished, and many tunes entered the repertoire of Klezmer musicians.[6][7]
Anna Shternshis, Al and Malka Green Professor in Yiddish Studies and the Director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto worked with Beregovsky's paper archives, and Yiddish Glory is the result of a multi-year project by Shternshis and Psoy Korolenko.[2][3] Most of the selected Holocaust-related songs had only lyrics, and musical solutions for them were suggested by Sergei Erdenko.[4]
A satirical song, lyrics by a Veli Shargorodskii about the war experience of a Jewish soldier in 1943–44; ends with the words "Hitler is kaput!" (Hitler is done for!, a phrase learned by heart by every Soviet person by the end of the war, because that's what surrendering Germans repeated like a mantra.)[2]
Central Asia was a major destination of Soviet civilians, including 1.4 million Jews (with some 250,000 in Kazakhstan[2]), where at their new workplaces they met the Jews sent to Gulag. The song is about this piece of the Jewish eternal exile experience.[4] For this song Erdenko composed the only new tune, combining Roma, Yiddish and Romanian musical styles.[2]
"Mayn Pulemyot" – My Machine Gun
A Jewish soldier's pride at his machine gun killing the Germans[2]
"Taybls Briv" – Taybl's Letter To Her Husband at the Front
"Misha Tserayst Hitlers Daytchland" – Misha Tears Apart Hitler's Germany
Chuvasher Tekhter – Daughters of Chuvashia, words by Sonya Roznberg, 1942.
"Mames Gruv" – My Mother's Grave
The song a child who visits the grave of the mother who perished in the Holocaust.[4]
"Babi Yar"
About the Babi Yar massacre. The song is that of a Jewish soldier (one of half a million who served in the Soviet Army) who returns to Kiev and learns that all his family was massacred.[4]
"Tulchin"
Tulchyn was under the Romanian administration during the Holocaust. The song was written by a 10-year-old who lost his family in the ghetto in Tulchin[1]
Isaac Rosenberg (son of Shternshis and Rosenberg[12]), 12 years old when the project started; performs three songs,[13] including music written by a ten year old Jewish orphan whose parents perished during the Holocaust.[1]
Anna Shternshis, Al and Malka Green Professor in Yiddish Studies and the Director of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto
