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SING
TO VICTORY!
Song in Soviet Society during
World War II
Copyright © 2019. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.
Ament, Suzanne. Sing to Victory! : Song in Soviet Society During World War II, Academic Studies Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook
SING
TO VICTORY!
Song in Soviet Society during
World War II
.
SUZANNE
AMENT
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ament, Suzanne, 1960- author.
Title: Sing to victory! : song in Soviet society during World War II / Suzanne
Ament.
Description: Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical
references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018023222 (print) | LCCN 2018025262 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781618118400 (ebook) | ISBN 9781618118394 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: World War, 1939–1945—Soviet Union—Music and the war |
Music—Political aspects—Soviet Union.
Classification: LCC ML3917.R8 (ebook) | LCC ML3917.R8 A4 2018
(print) | DDC 782.420947/09044—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018023222
©Academic Studies Press, 2018
ISBN 9781618118394 (hardback)
ISBN 9781618118400 (electronic)
Book design by Kryon Publishing Services (P) Ltd.
www.kryonpublishing.com
Cover design by Ivan Grave
Published by Academic Studies Press
28 Montfern Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135, USA
press@academicstudiespress.com
www.academicstudiespress.com
To my family, especially my sister Tina and my husband Jim.
All of you believed in me throughout this long process.
And
To all those who, through song, bring light into the darkest of places.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgmentsix
Introduction xii
Part One—The Songs and Their Creators
Chapter 1: The Songs of the War Years: Themes, Tunes,
and Trends 1
Prewar Songs and Their Influence 1
Blitzkrieg: The Early War Songs 9
Farewell to Normality: The Early Lyrical Songs 15
War Is Here To Stay: Songs about Wartime Life 22
Victory on the Horizon: The Tone Shifts 28
Victory Becomes a Reality 37
Chronologies, Shifts, and Variations in The Wartime Songs 44

Chapter 2: The Soldiers of the Song Front:
Composers and Poets during the War 48
The Composers 49
The Poet-Lyricists 55
Relations between Composers and Poets 60
Remuneration: Contracts and Contests 72
Amateur Song Writing 84
Critiques and Debates on Song 87
Table of contents vii
Chapter 3: Command and Control: Official Policy and Institutional

Responsibility over Song 94
The Creative Unions 95
Party and State Structures 100
Trade Unions and Other Organizations 108
Military Involvement 111
Censorship Control 112
International Relations and the Arts 120
Conclusions 123
Part Two—Song Distribution and Performance
Chapter 4: Print, Plastic, and Sound Waves:
Mass Media and Song Distribution 125
Songbooks and Other Musical Publications 125
Newspapers 130
Radio 137
Records 144
Film 147
Conclusions 157
Chapter 5: Ball Gowns and Bombs:
Performers and Brigades in Battle and at Home 159
Diversity and Quantity of Performance Groups 160

The Response to War 167
The Experience of War: Brigade Travel, Performances and
Living Conditions 173
At the Front 185
In Home Towns 192
In the Rear 195
Working Together 197
viii Table of contents
Part Three—Song Reception and Legacy

Chapter 6: From Dawn ’til Dusk: Song in Everyday Life 201
Audience and Memory 202
Children’s Experiences 205
Home Front Adult Experiences 214
Song at the Front 217
The Power of Song 223
Chapter 7: The Legacy of the War Songs 226
The Audience 227
The State 228
Fans and Idols 229
Song Function 229
The Legacy in the Body 232
Post War Images of Freedom 235
Conclusion 239
Appendix 1 243
Appendix 2 258
Appendix 3 267
Bibliography 274
Index290
Acknowledgments
T his book is truly a career-long project. It was born during my undergradu-

ate studies in Leningrad in 1981, when I first heard these songs and the sto-
ries that went with them, and continued through a year of research in Moscow,
through the completion of my PhD dissertation, then during my tenure as a
history professor trying to make sense of the things the dissertation had not
fully answered. The work is a labor of love for all who wrote, performed, and
listened to these songs.
In the case of my project and my personal situation, numerous individuals
have contributed to the final completion in myriad ways. Without all of them,
I would never have finished this daunting task.
Special thanks go to Barbara Allen, who gave up a year of her own gradu-
ate study to live and work in Moscow with me as my reader/assistant. Without
her dedication, I could never have finished the research for this work. Other
readers over these many years have also aided me greatly in the research,
writing, and revision of this project. With apologies ahead for anyone I miss,
thanks to you all: Nelia Amato, Michael Armbruster, Lena Bachniak, Violet
Bahudarian, Chris Bradbury, Natasha Bregel, John Glasscock, Frank Hall,

Kate Harshberger, Dasha Kinelovskii, Lena Kulagina, Rufina Levina, Galina
Lokshin, Ol′ga Obolonskaia, Mikhail Pervouchine, Louise Rarick, Linda Ring,
Leah Short, Alla Smyslova, Aida Soboleva, Ilias Syrgabaev, Lidiia and Inna
Tuaeva, Cori and Brett Vannatta, Ludmila Vasilyeva, Eli Weinerman, and Sonia
Zlotina.
For editorial assistance along the way I would like to thank Marilyn
Breiter, Dianne Davenport, Janet Rabinowitch, and Melanie Hunter. For the
second major revision I thank Julie Leighton, Melanie Hunter, and the staff at
Academic Studies Press, especially Faith Wilson Stein and Oleh Kotsyuba, for
their faith in my work and their assistance in bringing this book to publication,
Ekaterina Yanduganova for her expert help with translation and transliteration,
x Acknowledgments
Rebekah Slonim for her meticulous copyediting, Eileen Wolfberg for coordi-
nating the editorial process, and Kira Nemirovsky for production.
Thanks go next to my original dissertation committee: Alexander
Rabinowitch (chair), Ben Eklof, Hiroaki Kuromiya, and Anya Peterson Royce;
to Richard Stites, my former adviser at Georgetown University, who con-
tinued until his death in 2010 to read and critique my work and give moral
support; and to the staff and faculty of the Moscow Conservatory, my spon-
soring agency while in Moscow, especially Svetlana Sigida, professors Tat′iana
Cherednichenko, Mikhail Saponov, and Mikhail Tarakanov, as well as musicol-
ogist Vladimir Zak at the Union of Composers (and later in New York City).
For fellowships and other material support, I am grateful to the University
of Illinois Summer Slavic Research Laboratory, 1988 and 2004; the Indiana
University Department of History for a research grant-in-aid, 1989; the
International Research Exchange Board (IREX) for a fellowship for research
in Moscow in 1990–91; the Department of Education for a Fulbright-Hayes
fellowship for study in the USSR, 1990–91; the Social Science Research Council
for a dissertation write-up fellowship in 1991–92; and Ralston Purina for a dona-
tion of dog food for the year in Russia. I am also indebted to Radford University
for its support with a grant-in-aid (2004), a research grant (2011), and a semes-
ter’s leave for research and funding for publication costs (2012), with particu-
lar thanks to Dean Katherine Hawkins and department chair Sharon Roger
Hepburn. Many people have supported me financially or with donations of
places to stay (the equivalent of the Dom Tvorchestva, or “House of Creativity,”
in the former USSR), help in computer issues, transportation for research and
writing, and moral support. My thanks to Richard and Nancy Ament, Andrei
Barabanov, Charlene and Mark Braun, Dorene Cornwell, David Deming, Sergei
Dorozhenkov, Judy and Jerry Farnsworth, Martha and Jim Griesheimer, Rob and
Melanie Hunter, Susan Kwilecki, Connie Justice and Andrei Planson, Veronica
Lenard, Marjorie Maher, Zhanna Mosikova, Ruth and Jack Murphy, Galina and
Lev Podashov, Stanislav and Jamal O’Jack, Barbara and Andy Qualls, Misha and
Anya Roitburt, Petr Volchanskii, and Todd Weinberg.
For moral support throughout this lengthy and sometimes traumatic
process, I would like to thank the Bahá'í communities of Bloomington, Indiana;
Moscow, Russia; and Blacksburg, Virginia, for the many prayers said on my
behalf.
Mostly, I wish to thank my family, who has been extremely supportive
for so many years, especially my sister Tina, with her endless humor and ability
to put things in perspective when I could not, and to my husband Jim Boone
Acknowledgments xi
for his unfailing belief in me for all things. I must also acknowledge here
my wonderful yellow Labrador seeing-eye dog, Sparkle, who was with me
throughout the Moscow research, and my subsequent dogs, Quinnie, Nikita,
and Ulla, who literally led me through thick and thin. Sparkle especially
deserves recognition for all her efforts as the first American guide dog to live
in the USSR.
Suzanne Ament
Introduction
I n June 1941, a few days after the Germans attacked the USSR, the Red Army
ensemble set out for the Belorussian train station to provide music for the
newly recruited soldiers. As they played one newly minted song, the recruits
spontaneously stood, doffed their caps, and somberly, some with tears, created
the de facto anthem of the war. “Sviashchennaia voina” (The sacred war) was
to become a symbol of resistance, courage, and unity in the face of the cruel
enemy. A year later, a young singer who had spontaneously switched songs in
the midst of her performance, feeling that something “dear” was needed, stood
frozen with fear as her director showed her his fist from offstage. But then a
voice from the audience of wounded soldiers requested, “Comrade artist, please
sing that song again.” The new, somewhat controversial song “V zemlianke”
(In the dugout) had passed muster.
In Leningrad, the theater of musical comedy remained in the city and was
active for the entire 900-day blockade. Even when regular shows had to stop for
lack of electricity, transportation, and food, some artists still performed patron-
age work. Later, the future opera star Galina Vishnevskaia wrangled a reassign-
ment from Kronshtadt to Leningrad in order to spend all of her free time in
theaters and concerts, as this buoyed her spirits. Soldiers risked life and limb in
no-man’s-land to collect flowers for visiting singers. The singers and artists gave
special performances for badly wounded men, sometimes holding their hands
or their heads in their laps. Artists felt that this work was the most import-
ant contribution they had ever made—in fact, the high point of their careers.
A lyrical, melodic tune sung to a simple guitar accompaniment, “Temnaia
noch′” (The dark night) raced across the country by film to become one of the
most popular of the war songs, reassuring those at the front and those at home
that they were loved and important.
All of these stories illustrate the importance of song in the victorious war
effort, but more importantly they show how the songs helped preserve a sense
of humanity in the face of unimaginable cruelty and horror. The nation, young
Introduction xiii
and old, soldier and civilian, Communist and non-Communist, could identify
with and draw strength from this music. What’s more, the songs lasted beyond
the war as a legacy of that time when human needs, individual effort, and col-
lective unity superseded Communist party ideals, politics, and rhetoric to come
to the aid of those who were sacrificing at home and at the front and give them
what they needed. Even subsequent generations see this legacy not only as a
memoir of the war but also as a symbol of their identity and relation to that past.
This book is the story of these songs and the men and women who cre-
ated them, performed them, and heard them. It is a collection, compilation,
analysis, and synthesis of information about the songs and their function in
society during World War II in the Soviet Union. The goal is to create a broad
picture, a wide-angle snapshot for the reader that incorporates the songs, their
creators and performers, the audience, and the system that worked to distribute
and publicize them. This picture in itself contributes to a better understanding
of an aspect of Soviet wartime experience little known in the West. In addition, it
provides the basis for probing into broader, more abstract issues in several areas.
First is the interaction of culture with politics and political ideology, or
how the official Soviet institutions—government, Party, and military—worked
with and were affected by individual initiative as seen through creativity, per-
sonal preference and desire, and universal human needs. During any crisis
period, there are actions and reactions on an official level that take the form of
policies, orders, laws, and the like, as well as grassroots responses to the crisis
itself and to official reactions. By understanding how songs affected both the
official policies and systems and how they touched individuals, as well as the
reverse—that is, how systems and individuals actively chose to integrate songs
at different times for different reasons—we can better understand how the offi-
cial USSR and the general citizenry shaped both political and popular culture,
and how these two forces interacted with and shaped each other.
Second, for society to function, a balance must be maintained between the
two forces of collective and individual need: (1) society’s organization, protec-
tion, and maintenance of order, and (2) a personal, individual need for expres-
sion, creativity, spirituality, and nurturing. The first cannot exist in a positive
sense if the latter is not allowed to exist freely. In the end, it is the individuals,
with all of their spirit, knowledge, and initiative, who form and staff the systems
to organize society. This relationship, however balanced or unbalanced, always
exists in a society. In a crisis period, however, or a period of great change, such
as the Second World War, the similarities and dichotomies between them are
more strikingly marked, and the balance can shift. Studying these shifts in the
xiv Introduction
relationship between control and initiative in periods of stress not only can aid
our understanding of the distribution during crisis but can shed light on the
preexisting distribution in more seemingly stable periods.
World War II—or the “Great Patriotic War,” as it is known in Soviet
historical literature—was a crisis period for the USSR that had tremendous
effects, then and subsequently, on the natural, technical, physical, and human
resources of the nation. Both the official state apparatus and the grassroots cit-
izenry agreed that this was a profound crisis—a level of agreement that rarely
occurred in Soviet society. Initial conservative estimates placed the death toll
at around twenty million; as archives have opened, those estimates have risen.
Vast territories, mainly in the developed western regions, fell under German
occupation for lengthy periods of time. Other areas were trampled, bombed,
and destroyed several times over as armies fought for control. Large numbers
of the population migrated eastward, either fleeing the fighting, evacuating
along with the factories and plants that were dismantled and carried eastward
to Siberia, or forcibly resettled due ostensibly to fears of their disloyalty to
the USSR and potential fraternization and collaboration with the enemy. The
city of Leningrad was held in a stranglehold during the heroic but devastating
900-day siege. Many other cities, including Kiev and Sevastopol, fell and were
subsequently retaken—often, as in the case of Stalingrad, with fearsome,
lengthy fighting. There were fronts in every direction, including the Far East,
where the Soviet Pacific Fleet was engaged against Japan. Women, children,
and the elderly took over jobs left vacant by the working-age men who were
recruited. Nearly a million women took active combat roles. Shortages and
rationing appeared in all areas of the economy to different degrees, depending
on the given stage of the war and the territory. In short, society was completely
disrupted for one targeted goal: the defense against and the defeat and destruc-
tion of the Axis forces. And no one was left untouched by this vast process.
Things were no different in the sphere of culture. Theaters were evacu-
ated; musicians left the philharmonics, theaters, conservatories, and academies
to fight. Museums, historic sites, and works of art were imperiled and often
destroyed. And yet the arts did not die; in fact, they flourished. Symphonies,
posters, plays, poetry, films, and a great many songs were produced in this trying
period. Although existing official systems in the area of culture did remain intact
and basically in control during the war, they were forced to take into account
more of the personal and individual needs of the artists and their audiences.
This in itself helped maintain morale and spirit, which was one of the main
goals of the cultural war effort. The song genre was particularly flexible and
Introduction xv
thus became a yardstick of how people were feeling, what their needs were and
how official circles could meet those desires. Such relative freedom, along with
a unity of purpose—to defeat the enemy—led to genuine creativity and real
responses from the audience. Although Stalinist/Communist ideology was still
present in many forms, it took a back seat to other ideals, both in official propa-
ganda and in the minds of citizens. These new ideals included family, feelings
of loyalty for homeland, the need to relax, the spiritual nature of human beings,
and even religion when the Orthodox church was given more official recogni-
tion by the state.
Another reason for the importance of song during the war is the prominent
place of music in Russian/Soviet culture. Music has always had power in human
culture generally. Around the world it has often been used both as a weapon and
as a remedy. On the one hand, leaders can manipulate music as a tool to inspire
people to follow their cause or achieve seemingly unattainable goals. Songs are
adept at expressing patriotism, nationalism, and other common wartime senti-
ments. On the other hand, music can calm the oppressed and soothe the suffering
of humankind. Song has held a prominent place in the lives of the Russian
people in their popular culture, from barge hauler songs on the Volga River,
to sewing circle songs in peasant villages, to the drawing room “romances” of
the French-speaking elite in the pre-Revolutionary period, to dance hall songs,
chastushki (sung limericks), and early film soundtracks in the Soviet period.
The political use of music was no less significant in military songs, prison songs
(precursors to the Revolutionary songs), and the Revolutionary and Civil War
songs. The massive publications of “official” songs and chastushki in the 1930s,
no matter how bad they were, were used for political ends. With the rise of the
Soviet Gulag (labor camp) system, a new song genre appeared: blatnye pesni
(criminal underworld songs), which used its own “criminal” language, depicted
the realities of the camps, and lasted through the end of the USSR.
A more recent example of the use of song in both a political and popular
sense was seen in the events leading to the attempted coup of October 1993.
Supporters of Khasbulatov and Rutskoi in the Parliament building sang World
War II songs to rally themselves and to symbolize their “patriotism.” Politically,
the songs fit a patriotic theme of defense against an enemy—in this case, the
Russian president—and of “true loyalty” to their nation and homeland. In
popular terms, these songs remained the favorites of the elderly who were sup-
porting the end of reform; even more important, though, the songs symbol-
ized the people’s determination to fight against all odds for what they believed
in—something they had done fifty years before with a successful outcome.
xvi Introduction
Anyone who has visited the USSR/Russia knows that Russians are far from
shy about singing in their own lives. People celebrate happy occasions, laugh
at themselves and their society, and pour out their hopes, fears, and sorrows
in music. The national popularity of the bard poets Bulat Okudzhava and
Vladimir Vysotskii, in addition to that of numerous other modern poets/
songsters, attests to this phenomenon.
By examining the four-year period of song creation and performance
during a severe crisis, this book helps illuminate the central role of music in
Russian life. The spiritual (or emotional) side of music and its importance is
perhaps the most difficult to define, but it also plays a tremendously import-
ant role in understanding individuals’ need for music and the effect that
music has on them. It is interesting to note here that, although the USSR was
officially atheistic, stressing rationalism over anything of a spiritual nature, the
wartime participants, in their memoirs, interviews, stenograms of meetings
during the war, and even official newspaper articles, frequently mentioned the
“spirituality” of songs and their effect on the soul. They also talked about the
different emotions that songs elicited from them: how music brought tears
on one occasion, laughter on another, and courage to carry out acts of war
in still other cases. Songs served a multiplicity of functions, addressing both
the sociopolitical needs of the society and the spiritual and emotional needs
of individuals—if not simultaneously, then at least in parallel. This complex-
ity has baffled thinkers and audiences alike over time and can be understood
only by realizing both the physical and emotional properties of this art form. As
Abdul Baha explained it:
In short, Melodies, although they are material, are connected with the
spiritual; therefore, they produce a great effect. . . . All these feelings can be
caused by voice and music. For through the nerves, it moves and stirs the
spirit. . . . Whatever is in the heart of man, melody moves and awakens. For
instance, if there be love in the heart, through melody it will increase until
its intensity can scarcely be borne. But if bad thoughts are in the heart,
such as hatred, it will increase and multiply.1
1 Compilation of Compilations, vol. 2, prepared by The Universal House of Justice (Mona Vale,
Australia: Bahá’í Publications, 1991), 79, quoting from A Brief Account of My Visit to Acca
(Chicago: Bahá’í Publishing Society, 1905), 11–14.
Introduction xvii
Song contained a power and a flexibility that forced those working with
it as policymakers or creators to face its dual components: its concrete form of
melody and lyric as well as its psychological and spiritual impact on listeners.
Song also created emotional bonds between audiences and performers, song
creators and soldiers, and civilians and the military. Recent research has also
shown that music can have an actual physiological effect on the human body
and its physical functioning. Heart rate, blood pressure, and other bodily func-
tions can be directly affected by music. Music also triggers memories, good and
bad, and between the mental and physical reactions may reactivate feelings and
the physical state of being experienced with that music in an earlier period. The
wartime participants’ experiences give evidence to the truth of this statement.
Song was particularly powerful in wartime culture for several reasons.
Because it is made up of both melody and lyric, multiple messages can be given
and received through even one song. The basic messages were to inspire action
and loyalty, and to remind people that life was worth living and that there truly
were better times ahead. Both music and lyrics are extremely flexible; people
could learn of the heroic deeds of someone like pilot Captain Gastello in one
moment, listen to a lyrical love letter home the next, then hear a snappy satirical
parody of the Germans. In the course of about ten minutes, an audience could
have experienced feelings of loyalty, patriotism, nostalgia, sadness at being
far from home, joy at knowing there is a home, and hatred toward the enemy
expressed in vicious biting humor.
People could also have an active part in songs. They could sing them as
they marched or change lyrics to suit their own situations. They could even
write their own new songs. The broad spectrum of possibilities for both cre-
ation and enjoyment meant that song made its way into most facets of life more
easily than other genres of music.

Songs were also particularly well-suited for wartime needs because they
could be performed in a wide variety of settings, with any number of people
listening or singing. Unlike symphonies, operas, or multipart musical works,
songs could be performed by as few as one person and as many as a huge
choir. New tunes could be learned by ear from recordings or song leaders as
well as from sheet music or melodies published in newspapers. Learners did
not have to be musically literate or even print-literate to participate in sing-
ing. Instrumental accompaniment was not even necessary in many settings.
No props were needed, although songs could be elaborately staged with multiple
harmonies, costumes, lighting, and sets when possible. Judging from the
sources, both extremes of performance genres brought equal pleasure to the
xviii Introduction
audiences. Of course, it is impossible and incorrect to generalize from specific

individuals that everyone always reacted in the same way, or even that everyone
reacted to given songs. But it is clear that music did have an effect on individuals
and groups in myriad situations.
This book, based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, is a synthesis of
three main areas of research: (1) compilation of the newly created wartime
songs and their histories, (2) study of the systems of political control over
music production and distribution, and (3) investigation of popular attitudes
about song and grassroots participation during the war and song as a legacy
from the war era. Song here is narrowly defined as a melodic tune with a text.
It does not include operatic arias, cantatas, or vocal cycles in larger classical
works. Occasionally such pieces may have gained stand-alone popularity, but
song here refers to specifically composed short works. The thematic chapters
integrate these main topics in the following sequence.
Chapter 1 examines the variety of songs present during the war, con-
centrating on those that were created during that four-year period. Chapter 2
examines the creators of the songs. Understanding their educational and
professional backgrounds as well as their common links as artists in personal,
artistic, and political spheres helps explain why they wrote the songs they did.
Also of interest are the issues and debates concerning the various professional
creative unions and the conditions facing amateur songwriters. Chapter 3
depicts the complex relationship between government, Party, and military
organizations concerned with the control, creation, and distribution of songs.
Some attention is given to international relations concerning the arts as well
as censorship. Chapter 4 examines the roles of books, music, and periodical
publishers, record and film studios, and radio in disseminating the newly cre-
ated war songs. Analysis covers the range of and reaction to each medium as
well as the weaknesses of each, given the severe wartime conditions. Chapter 5
addresses the different kinds of artistic brigades and performance situations
and depicts the conditions and concerns the performers had to endure during
their work. It also attempts to quantify the numbers of brigades, performing
artists, and concerts given at the front and at the rear. Chapter 6 makes use
of oral history interviews and memoirs to better understand the role of song
in the day-to-day lives of average people, including soldiers, children, and
workers. This chapter also considers the broader questions of what the songs
symbolized both for individuals and for society during the war and afterward.
Chapter 7 examines why the songs lasted and describes their legacy for indi-
viduals and the nation alike.
Introduction xix
Throughout the chapters the translations of titles and the excerpts from
lyrics are the author’s translation, unless otherwise noted. Definitions and trans-
lations of terms as well as song and film titles are set in parentheses after at least
the first mention. Song titles are also listed in the appendix. The transliteration
system used is the method preferred by the Library of Congress. The sources
used in this research vary widely in type and quality. Sources in English on this
topic are few but valuable. However, in some works the topic of war songs has
been treated more indirectly as a tangential component of jazz, guitar poetry, pop-
ular culture, or classical music. Some recent valuable works help to interpret the
history of the Composers’ Union and other aspects of the project here.
This project is the first full-length treatment in English focusing specifically
on Soviet World War II songs and the culture and politics surrounding them.
The published monographs in Russian cover a wide range of subjects, including
biographies of poets, composers, and performers, treatises on the musicological
aspects of war songs, and collections of song texts with commentary. Many of
these books are written more for the popular reader than for the scholar and thus
do not include footnotes, sources, or bibliographies. However, some Academy
of Science publications and several conscientious authors provide a solid base of
scholarship by which to judge the other works. P. F. Lebedev and Iu. E. Biriukov—
two authors who have spent years of painstaking scholarship reconstructing the
histories of the creation, publication, and performance of the individual songs
and their many variants—must be noted here. Their published works and their
personal consultations with the author in Moscow were invaluable.
The primary sources from the period—namely, newspapers and archival
material—have provided many valuable details, and have generated even more
as-yet-unanswered questions. To be explicit, newspapers published the texts
and scores of songs, concert reviews, and programs, as well as articles containing
information on “official” ideology. Yet complete runs of newspapers from the war
years are impossible to obtain. Even if an issue is extant, the pages often are torn
or smudged beyond readability. In addition, time and other logistical constraints
have made it impossible to see even close to all the extant runs of any given paper
for this project. Rather, information was gathered from a cross section of the
existing available copies of many different papers, including central and front
newspapers. Thus, it is not possible to develop any definitive final conclusions or
statistical analyses based on songs in newspapers, because the corpus is just too
vast. Similarly, the archival material at the Central Archive of Literature and Art
in Moscow provided some intact sets of minutes, but generally this information
was also spotty. Thus, questions raised in one or another plenum, commission,
xx Introduction
or letter may not be answered in the later documents, which appear to be missing.
This is not to say that the extant information is not extremely useful. It is simply
a caveat to the reader to recognize the incomplete body of sources.
The oral history interviews collected for this project in New York and
Moscow provide personal experience and point of view on a very broad topic.
The subjects interviewed ranged in age from four to thirty years old at the
beginning of the war, with varying involvement in music; they were composers,
poets, performers, schoolchildren, soldiers, and workers during the war. Again,
this entire set of eighteen formal interviews, with numerous other shorter com-
ments, can in no way even begin to be considered a broad selection, given the
millions of war participants. However, each individual interview tells a basically
complete story as defined and limited by memory and the passage of roughly
half a century. In every case, the emotions are manifested as if the events had
occurred just last year. In this way, the interviews add personality and fill the
gaps left by the other sources, which often stress the societal and the collec-
tive mood concerning the songs. All of the sources together provide a body of
data with which to analyze the three major areas of research given above. The
picture that is painted is a variegated patchwork of experience, emotion, knowl-
edge, hard work, and sacrifice. There are still many gaps that may never be filled
because of the passage of time, the disintegration of paper, and the inevitable
mortality of the wartime participants. Yet the story that can be told contributes
an interesting perspective to the understanding of Russian history, its political
and popular culture, and its cultural heritage as shown both in the attitudes
toward the songs and in the songs themselves.
The approach taken here to address this multifaceted topic is one of paral-
lel perspectives. Each chapter concentrates on a different facet of the world that
both contained and shaped song as a political and social phenomenon during the
war. The songs are always present at the core of each segment, so some overlap
is unavoidable. Other methods, such as a purely chronological approach, could
have been used to examine the material, which might then have lent itself more
easily to comparative analysis of the various segments. Yet, especially because
little has been written in English, this snapshot approach allows for all the stories
to stand more firmly on their own and to be linked directly with the songs that
established the basis for their being. The author is fully aware that other angles to
this topic could have and still should be taken. One area that particularly deserves
a closer look is the Communist Party ideology concerning song as propaganda.
As for the use of a more traditional “top down” analysis, some readers may find
Introduction xxi
this lacking to some degree. Yet this “song up” approach has never been taken
and, in the author’s opinion, provides a better feel for the culture of the time.
Another area deliberately excluded from this research is the study of chas‑
tushki, which were definitely present in both the political and popular cultures
of the war. The exclusion was arbitrary because of the difficulty of finding the
popular rather than political versions, because work has already been done in
this area in the West, and because of personal preference. The work concen-
trates on the full songs, which are usually much more melodic than the rep-
etitious set tunes for the verses. Yet much satire was produced in the form of
limericks; thus, examples of satire are scarcer in this work than in the wartime
concerts.
Another caveat to the reader is that this book concentrates on Russian
song. This is a product of the sources found mainly in central Soviet archives
and in the Russian language. In addition to well-developed and broadly repre-
sented national cultures, such as Ukrainian and Georgian, to name but two, the
USSR was comprised of well over a hundred ethnic minority groups, many with
their own written language and culture. This also includes minorities who use
the Russian language for their musical expression, such as Jewish music (some
of which may have been in Yiddish), prison camp music, and minorities using
Russian rather than their own native language or orthography. Information
about these groups and their participation in song creation and performance,
and official policies during the war toward such nationally colored songwriting,
is presented when available, but there is much room for further research and
interpretation in the area of policy toward an existence of non-Russian wartime
songs. The relaxation of nationality policy during the war may have allowed
more acceptance of non-Russian publications and broader participation of
ethnic minorities in the area of song production and performance. It is my

hope that this book will serve as additional motivation for such studies to be
undertaken and published.
Another note to the reader concerns the lack of musical notation, or
recorded examples of music in this book. This is a history of the wartime song
in culture rather than a musicological study. In addition, the prevalence of
Soviet wartime songs available on the internet will allow for readers to search
on their own for songs that interest them.
The vast body of songs created in the four years that the USSR was at war
is stunning in its size, its diversity, and the long-lasting popularity of many of
the songs. In fact, the author was led to this topic by the songs themselves being
sung by friends who were not even born at the time of the war, yet who sang
xxii Introduction
these “songs of the military years” with love and sometimes tears. Therefore,
this work begins with a chapter dedicated to the songs themselves—for, ulti-
mately, it is the songs that are the center. They were the inspiration for this
scholar; they were the goal of every committee and commission that dealt with
the creation of music during the war; they were the lifeblood and spirit of their
poet and composer creators; and they were the solace, comfort, and respite for
those who listened to them in live concerts, on the radio, or on record disks. It is
these songs that release the emotions and bring back the memories, both good
and bad, of friends and of a war they wish never to see repeated. And when
those who survived those years of war are no longer on this earth, it will be the
songs that remain as a legacy—a symbol of their pain, joy, struggle, and victory.
Part One
The Songs and Their Creators
CHAPTER 1
The Songs of the War Years:

Themes, Tunes, and Trends
PREWAR SONGS AND THEIR INFLUENCE
B y June 22, 1941, as the Second World War spread eastward, the Soviet
Union already possessed a rich musical heritage. Popular genres included
songs from the nineteenth-century romance tradition, folk songs from all
Soviet regions, urban “cruel romances” from the early twentieth century, Civil
War and military songs, and songs from the burgeoning 1930s film industry.
With the success of the “talkies”—motion pictures with sound—musicals
were being captured for the first time on film. Jazz, though officially frowned
on, enjoyed a modicum of freedom during this period, and performances of
jazz orchestras were preserved on film.1 Film songs were well known by the
public not only from the films themselves but also from recordings played
on pathephones, wind-up record players. Radio, introduced to the USSR in
the mid-1920s, widely broadcast jazz and other music to audiences eager for
entertainment. Well before the country entered the war, in response to mil-
itarization in Germany and the threat of Japanese aggression, songs began
to prepare the population for military conflict. These efforts were cut short,
at least on an official level, with the signing of the 1939 Nazi–Soviet Pact.
Films and songs with the themes of anti-fascism or preparation for war did
1 For a detailed description in English of jazz music, its performers, and its political fluctua-
tions in the 1930s, see S. Frederick Starr, Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz in the Soviet Union
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983).
2 Part One The Songs and Their Creators
not appear in the period between the signing of the secret pact and the out-
break of hostilities.
When war finally came, many popular prewar songs continued to have
broad appeal. Some had remained popular all along, others were brought back
into circulation, and still others reappeared featuring new lyrics adapted to
wartime situations. Both traditional and popular song styles would be invoked
for their symbolic value to a besieged population. The cinema industry formed
a vast distribution mechanism in the Soviet Union of the 1930s, giving greater
exposure of selected songs to the population at large. These songs came pri-
marily from elaborate film musicals, beginning with Veselye rebiata (The Happy
Guys) (1934), and including Tsirk (Circus) and Deti Kapitana Granta (Captain
Grant’s Children) (1936), and Volga‑Volga! (1938). Film dramas also often
featured songs. The film medium joined radio and recording as methods of
dissemination. During this period, many composers of popular songs thrived,
a number of whom—Isaak Dunaevskii, Matvei Blanter, Nikita Bogoslovskii,
Anatolii Novikov, and others—would also play a large role during the war
years. Having become household favorites in the 1930s, some tunes, later
erroneously identified as “folk songs,”2 remained popular during the war either
in their original forms or in revised versions.
Perhaps the best-known example of this type is “Katiusha” (Blanter and
Isakovskii). First written in 1938 as an eight-line stanza in response to Soviet
military action in the Far East, and later set to music by the composer and
subsequently expanded to the full song, “Katiusha” was premiered by the new
State Jazz Orchestra of the USSR in February 1939.3 It is often regarded as a
folk song of unknown origin rather than as the work of a popular composer
and poet. The girl, referred to with the endearment Katiusha, stands on a river
bank longing to send a greeting to her beloved, a soldier serving at the distant
border. “Let him remember the simple girl / let him hear how she sings to him,”
the final verse exhorts. “Let him guard the native homeland / while Katiusha
guards their love.” Set in a march tempo, the song’s mood is stirring and uplifting.
Hundreds of versions of it appeared during the war. Some renditions stayed true
to the theme of the two lovers. In one, the border guard answers the woman
2 I. Shekhonina, Tvorchestvo T. N. Khrennikova (Moscow: Muzyka, 1964), 104, 124;

E. Dolmatovskii, Rasskazy o tvoikh pesniakh (Moscow: Detskaia Literatura, 1973), 158,
173–74; Richard Stites, Soviet Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1992), 74–93.
3 Iu. E. Biriukov, Po voennoi doroge (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel′stvo, 1988), 107–9 (hereafter
cited in text as PVD).
The Songs of the War Years: Themes, Tunes, and Trends Chapter 1 3
by promising faithfulness to her and commitment to his country’s defense. In

other variants, Katiusha decides to serve more actively in the war effort and
leaves the river bank to become a nurse, fight in the ranks, or join the partisans.
Some variants depict the importance of Katiusha’s singing; whether sitting at
a campfire as a partisan, healing the wounded, or awaiting the return of her
soldier lover, her singing brings healing and symbolizes love, loyalty, and even
victory. In some sadder versions, the soldier has died and asks the falcon to go
to Katiusha with the news and the assurance that he loves her. In more uplifting
versions, the soldier returns from victory to the river bank and finds Katiusha
waiting for him.
The song took on a completely new meaning with the introduction of a
Soviet mortar rocket launcher nicknamed “Katiusha.” New versions described
how the powerful Katiusha gun was used against the Germans, and how the
soldiers loved this weapon. Whether the song gave the rocket its nickname
or the name came about independently of the song is unclear; nevertheless,
the song and the rocket were closely linked in dozens of versions during the
war. Some anthropomorphized the rocket with phrases like “She went to the
front pulling her shells behind her,” “What a song she sang!,” and, as a play on
Russian hospitality, “Oh you Katia, Katen′ka, girlfriend / Serve the uninvited
guests / Give them Ukrainian rolls and Moscow soup quite hot.” Other revi-
sions emphasized the soldiers and their victories due to the powerful rocket.4
When hostilities ceased, the original lyrics came back into popularity and
all the other versions were seldom heard, relegated to collections of wartime
folklore. “Katiusha” remains an excellent example of a prewar popular song with
a simple, singable melody that could be adapted to new lyrics suitable for differ-
ent occasions and conditions. It became one of the best-known war songs both
during and after the war due to this variability, but also because it was exported
to the West during the war where it acted as a symbol of Soviet strength in the
allied war effort. The exported Soviet versions such as the recordings of the
Red Army ensemble as well as the Western adaptations in concerts and films
meant that this song had a life abroad as well.5
Another song that took on a double meaning during the war was “Chaika”
(Seagull), with Miliutin’s lyrical tune written in waltz time and Lebedev-
Kumach’s lyrics for the film Moriaki (Sailors). The lyrics tell of a girl remembering
4 I. N. Rozanov, “Pesnia o Katiushe kak novyi tip narodnogo tvorchestva,” in Russkii Fol′klor
Velikoi Otechestvennoi Voiny, ed. V. E. Gusev (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1964), 310–25.
5 See Chapter 3 for more information on Soviet wartime songs abroad.
her sailor boyfriend who is at sea fighting a war. Premiering in 1937 or 1938,
the film itself was a thinly veiled call for the country to prepare for war. During
the war, the poet added another verse and the song was again widely published.
Although its content clearly referred to the sea and the Navy, pilots in the Soviet
Air Force appropriated the song. Just as artillerists identified their mortar rocket
with “Katiusha,” the pilots named one type of bomber “Chaika” and penned
additional verses about it.6 Here, for example, is a verse by Aleksandr Tarbeev:
Chaika bravely flew off / into the bluish smoke / bombed and returned
/ and is over me now. / Well, Chaika, answer me, / how was the flight?
/ How many Fritzes [superior Aryans] / were shot down and fell in the
bushes? / Well, Chaika, land / and take on a new load / refuel and take off
/ again into the sky. / Our Chaika flew away / up into the clouds. / OK,
Chaika, give them what for! / Give heat to the enemy!7
A song written in the late 1930s that played a role in the music of the
Great Patriotic War was “Komsomol′skaia proshchal′naia” (Komsomol fare-
well song), by Dm. Pokrass and M. Isakovskii.8 The song, inspired by the film
Podrugi (Girlfriends), tells of young men and women parting as the men go
off to fight. Although the song originally reflected events from the Civil War,
Isakovskii later recalled that it took on new meaning during World War II: “It
became like an oath, a promise of meetings after the war. Such words were
needed during that difficult time.”9 Bogoslovskii and Dolmatovskii’s “Liubimyi
gorod” (Beloved City) also features the theme of defense of the beloved moth-
erland, but it broadens the focus from two lovers to the love of a city. Written
for the film Istrebiteli (Fighter planes), it tells of pilots who must fly far from
home, but whose valiant efforts enable their beloved city to sleep peacefully. It
is perhaps the most lyrical of the earlier works.
Other songs, including “Makhorochka” (Little Cigarette) (Listov and
Ruderman), and “Tri Tankista” (Three Tankists) (Pokrass brothers and Laskin),
treat such subjects as the camaraderie of soldiers, the soldiers’ relationship to
6 Biriukov, PVD, 130–32.

7 P.F. Lebedev, comp., V boiakh i pokhodakh (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1975), 227.
This version was published in 1942 under the title “Pesnia letchikov-shturmovikov” (Song
of the bomber pilots). For another version on the same theme by guard soldier Nikolai
Tumanovskii, “Pesnia o chaike” (Song about a seagull), see ibid., 228.
8 Komsomol is the common abbreviation of the Communist Council of Youth.
their weapons, and military life in general. Appearing before World War II,
they look back at the Russian and Spanish civil wars or focus on Soviet military
events that had taken place in the Far East in the 1930s. These themes were to
remain constant in songs written during the war; some of the earlier composi-
tions, then, could be heard and appreciated in their original versions. In con-
trast, “Konarmeiskaia” (Cavalry Song), by the Pokrass brothers and Surkov,
took on a completely new meaning during the war. Originally, it described the
famous First Cavalry Army led by Semen Budennyi in the Russian Civil War.
During the Second World War, however, many military units borrowed its
melody and form and substituted new lyrics to recount their own battle histo-
ries. Once again, we observe the tendency to change, supplement, or, in some
cases, completely rewrite lyrics to suit current war experiences.
One prewar song in particular captures the mood of the times and symbol-
izes the propaganda effort to prepare the country for war, which began in the
1930s with the rise of Fascism, but was officially silenced with the signing of the
Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939. In 1937, Klim Voroshilov, the People’s Commissar
of Defense, commissioned the Pokrass brothers and Lebedev-Kumach to write
“Esli zavtra voina” (If there is war tomorrow). The song was ready in time to be
included in a film of the same name that was produced in honor of the twentieth
anniversary of the Red Army in February 1938 and extolled the capabilities of
Soviet troops. Millions of copies of sheet music were published and distributed,
and the Red Banner Ensemble recorded it. The message of the song was clear:
If there is a war tomorrow / if the enemy falls upon us / if the dark forces
threaten / Like one man, the entire Soviet people / will arise for the free-
dom of their homeland. / . . . If there is a war tomorrow / if we must go on
campaign tomorrow / then be ready for the campaign today.
The song calls upon not only all military branches but also even the sing-
ers and musicians themselves to “be prepared.” The last verse declares: “We
don’t want war, but we will defend ourselves. / We are strengthening ourselves
for a reason. / On his own territory, we will destroy the enemy / with little
bloodshed, with a powerful blow.”10 When war broke out, of course, the title
itself rendered this song’s message obsolete. Furthermore, initial terrible losses
sustained by Soviet forces disproved the lyrics’ bravado. Lebedev-Kumach,
undaunted by his song’s fate, matched the well-known marching melody with
new lyrics—“Podymaisia, narod” (Arise, people)—that encouraged broad

participation in the first days of the war.
Some prewar songs adapted for wartime use focused on personal rela-
tionships rather than military themes. Some were lyrical and romantic; others
were more humorous. Perhaps the most famous of these was “Sinii platochek”
(Blue kerchief). The Polish jazz group Goluboi dzhaz (Light blue jazz), having
fled from the battle zone in 1939, performed it for Soviet audiences, though
it is unclear in what language, if any. Having heard this version, the Russian
playwright and poet Ia. Galitskii wrote a new set of lyrics. The song was a hit
and was embraced by many Russian singers, including Vadim Kozin, Lidiia
Ruslanova, and Klavdiia Shul′zhenko. On the eve of the war it was recorded
in Leningrad by the singer E. Iurovskaia.11 In April 1942, a novice journalist,
Lieutenant M. A. Maksimov, recast the lyrics he had seen in a newspaper at
the Volkhov front at the request of Shul′zhenko. After the war, Maksimov’s
rendition and the original version were blended together to form the current
text. Whereas the first version was a lighthearted reminiscence of the narrator’s
encounters with a girl with a blue kerchief, Maksimov’s treatment relates this
memory directly to the war:
. . . And often into battle / your memory is guiding me. / I feel you are next
to me / with your loving glance / you are always with me. / How many
beloved kerchiefs / we are keeping with us. / Tender talks, girls’ shoulders
/ we remember as we are in the battle ranks. / For those dear ones / those
desired and beloved ones / the machine-gunner fires for the sake of the
blue kerchiefs / that were on our dear one’s shoulders. . . .12
The song ends with the promise of a springtime meeting under the big pine
tree when peace comes.
Two other specifically wartime versions of “The Blue Kerchief ” are extant.
One describes the first day of the war, the bombing of Kiev, and how the soldier
and the girl waved to each other as his train pulled out of the station. Another
version actually appeared on packages of dry cereal rations: “Tasty millet cereal /
is boiling in the saucepan. / As you try the cereal, / remember Natasha, / the
11 Iu. E. Biriukov (comp. and commentary), Pesni, opalennye voinoi (Moscow: Voenizdat,
1984), 213–14 (hereafter cited in text as POV); Biriukov, PVD, 237–40; A. E. Lukovnikov,
Druz′ia-odnopolchane (Moscow: Voenizdat Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1975), 61–63.
12 Lebedev, V boiakh, 24.
girl in the blue kerchief. / And again and again / ready the Fritzes for death. /
Remember, friend, the blue kerchief, / and fight for our love.”13
Another song written in the year before the war, “Moriachka” (Sailor’s
wife), recounts the story of a girl meeting a sailor who offers her his heart. She
jokingly tells him that she doesn’t know where to keep such a present:
He was probably offended / and said farewell at the gate somehow. / He

didn’t understand a girl’s joke, / the slow-witted sailor. / And in vain I waited
for the postman. / The sailor doesn’t write one word / not even his address.
/ I am sad and depressed. / Grief overwhelms me / that I didn’t say the right
thing / that I wasn’t tender. And it is even sadder / that people around town
and at home / all call me the sailor’s wife, / and it isn’t clear why.
Written by Isakovskii at the request of the composer, Vladimir Zakharov, the

lyrics were borrowed by a number of composers, including Vasilii Solov′ev-
Sedoi and Anatolii Lepin. The best-known version, by Leonid Bakalov, was
composed at the request of the singer Irma Iaunzem, who had read Isakovskii’s
poem in a newspaper while on tour in the north. Bakalov composed a melody
and gave it to a military ensemble; then, when war broke out soon after, he
forgot about it. In 1942, he was surprised to hear it performed.14 Though from
all indications this song was written in a joking spirit, its popularity at the front
during the war originated in its underlying theme. For soldiers, it served as rein-
forcement that someone back home was thinking of them; for girls left behind,
it allowed them to make amends indirectly for any less-than-tender farewells to
their sweethearts.
Any description of prewar military songs must lead the reader to conclude
that the situations and conditions depicted therein greatly distorted reality. The
Soviet military was neither well prepared nor strong. It was incapable of achiev-
ing a swift victory against a foe. Purges of upper- and mid-level military leader-
ship led to chaos in the Ministry of Defense, and development of new military
technology was slowed, if not altogether checked. On the other hand, songs
depicting relationships probably reflected reality more closely. After all, soldiers
did make friends, and men and women did miss one another even if the reali-
ties of life failed to match the unwavering loyalties romanticized in song lyrics.
13 The two wartime versions of the text are found in Biriukov, PVD, 237–40. Other sources on
this song’s history include Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 60–63; and Biriukov, POV, 213–14.
14 Biriukov, POV, 217–18; Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 57–58.
To what degree audiences were aware of the discrepancy between art and real-
ity is a more difficult question. Evidence indicates that people in some circles
recognized the propagandistic nature of these works. Musicologists and folk-
lorists have dismissed many of the songs of the thirties as “potboilers,” “fake
lore,” or pure, unadulterated propaganda. Many of those songs of the 1930s
were composed under the rubric of Socialist Realism, the official Soviet style in
literature, music and the arts, which emphasized the collective over the individ-
ual, patriotic nationalism, and an optimistic view of the present and the future
of the Soviet state. These songs also exalted heroes of the past revolution, civil
war, and proletariat labor, and were to be accessible to the masses through
simple melody, text, and uplifting tones.
Many did not endure the test of time. Perhaps war conditions were too
severe to justify the jocularity of lighthearted numbers. Perhaps songs looking
back to Civil War heroes now seemed archaic. Perhaps, when given more free-
dom of choice, audiences simply found something better to listen to.
In addition to the genres elaborated above, other widely circulated types
included the folk song—both genuine examples as well as those consciously
created in the Soviet-period romances—and patriotic songs about leaders and
the Party. Official ideology drew heavily on the symbolic connotation of folk
songs. Folklorists also found in field research immediately after the war that
many grassroots songs were based on folk songs from all eras.15 Romances,
often written and performed in a gypsy style, were officially frowned on during
the war. Their intimate nature, their emphasis on lost loves, and their tavern
settings could not—at least officially—be justified. Yet these songs were
undoubtedly loved by many, as shown by the great popularity of Vadim Kozin,
the foremost singer of this style in the late 1930s. Regardless of the official line,
romances were requested and performed both at the front and at home.
Patriotic songs flourished during prewar and war periods and were per-
formed widely—if not always enthusiastically—by professionals and amateurs
alike. Numbered among these are odes to the Party and its leaders as well as
songs in praise of the Motherland or the state. The popularity of particular
songs in this genre is difficult to trace because they were officially commis-
sioned rather than spontaneously created. Preserved in songbooks of the day,
these songs were promoted for wide performance. For example, Vadim Kozin
15 For numerous examples of folk songs used and adapted during the war, see K. G. Svitova,
comp., Nezabyvaemye gody: Russkii pesennyi fol′klor Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (Moscow:
Sovetskii kompozitor, 1985).
included one song in his repertoire about Vladimir Lenin’s birthday, but he
was criticized at the highest levels for not incorporating more “patriotic songs”
into his concerts.16 During the war, songs about earlier heroes still admired in
the 1930s remained part of the popular culture. But as discussed below, new
themes arose in World War II patriotic songs, overshadowing the older themes.
Songs from the 1930s varied widely in genre and style and reached a
broad audience, remaining popular during, and sometimes even beyond, the
war years. Later songwriters would borrow their melodies, or lyricists would
revise their words to emphasize new themes or elaborate an idea suggested in
the original. Obviously, these songs had more going for them than mere famil-
iarity. Someone—a poet, a representative of one branch of the military, or even
an entire generation—genuinely liked the songs enough to sing them, rewrite
them, or request them during the war.
BLITZKRIEG: THE EARLY WAR SONGS

By June 22, 1941, although Adolf Hitler’s attack caught the USSR by surprise and
unprepared in many respects, the country had amassed a strong reserve of songs
and song traditions to fortify national morale. Not all the songs were appropriate
for the new crisis, however, either in mood or lyric content. This was understood
by those in the musical world shortly before war broke out. Some small and
unofficially sanctioned attempts were made to create songs that would speak to
the needs of war. From interviews and memoirs, it is clear that the general popu-
lation was being prepared in a cheerful and unthreatening way for the possibility
of war, even during the period of the Nazi–Soviet pact. Some of those who were
children at the war’s outset recall seeing military bands parading and rehearsing,
with “If There Is War Tomorrow” and “Beloved City” included among the most
popular songs. War might come, but the population was assured by these upbeat
songs that it would end quickly. No urgency was implied.
Nevertheless, people were more aware of the imminence of war than the
establishment would admit. The poet Evgenii Dolmatovskii recounts that a
large group of poets and composers were enrolled in a monthlong basic training
course in the spring of 1941, despite the fact that many of them had served
in the military at Khalkin Gol or in Finland. Organized by the playwright
Vsevolod Vishnevskii, who was much involved with the military, the training
ended on June 15. Dolmatovskii recalls that upon their return to Moscow,
16 B. A. Savchenko, Vadim Kozin (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1993), 84.
the editor of the musical division of the radio called several of them in,
including himself, Lebedev-Kumach, and the poet Viktor Gusev:
The editor, a quiet, calm woman, a musicologist . . .was well respected

for her directness. She looked at us through her thick glasses and in an
unruffled manner asked, “Doesn’t it appear to you that the atmosphere is
changing and very soon war will break out with the Germans?” We were
stunned. The newspapers were countering all such rumors, so to have
such an opinion was not only unacceptable but possibly dangerous. Not
waiting for an answer, she continued, “We have to consider which songs
the Red Army will take into battle. After all, ‘If There Is War Tomorrow’
just won’t do. If in the near future you come up with some songs, bring
them here. I promise that, before any outbreak of war, your work in this
area will not be known by anyone else.”17
The unidentified woman undoubtedly was carrying out orders from above
in making this request; Dolmatovskii goes on to say that Lebedev-Kumach at
least took the request seriously and, in the week before the war started, was
already working on the lyrics to the song that would eventually become the
best-known war song of all, “Sviashchennaia voina” (The sacred war). Thus,
at the outset of the war, the double message was clear, at least in some circles.
Newspapers denied the inevitability of war and exhorted all to remain calm.
But if war did break out, it would be short and victory was assured. At the same
time, some elements of the population were being trained in combat skills,
while writers were working on new songs with martial themes.
Many composers and poets no doubt had anticipated war and created their
own form of blitzkrieg with the outbreak of hostilities. In the first weeks of the war,
songs flooded the Union of Composers and the newspapers and radio. The music
historian Boris Schwarz estimates that in the first days hundreds of songs were sung
and written down.18 The Presidium of the Orgkomitet (Organizing Committee)
of the Union of Composers met daily from June 23 to July 5, 1941; slightly less
often through July 16, when a large session was held in connection with the admin-
istration of Muzfond (the Music Foundation); then every twelve days or so into
September. From June 23 through July 1, the Presidium heard in its daily meetings
17 Dolmatovskii, Rasskazy, 183–84.

18 Boris Schwarz, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1917–1981 (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1983), 181.
approximately seventy-five songs and accepted for performance, distribution, pub-

lication, and/or broadcast about fifty of them.19 These were rigorously selected,
based on an audition procedure established on June 26. The Presidium heard only
songs already approved by the Union of Composers’ Defense Commission, which
screened an unknown number of works. The comments on rejected songs sug-
gested text revisions or pointed out that “text and music do not match.” If revised,
these songs might have been resubmitted and approved.
It is clear that poets and composers were already working hard to create
songs that would address the crisis of war. To expedite the approval process,
representatives from the musical division of the Committee on Art Affairs, the
Radio Committee, and the music publisher Muzgiz were present at the auditions
held by the Presidium.20 One of the songs heard was a melodic version of “The
Sacred War” by Matvei Blanter on June 23.21 The appearance of Blanter’s version
so soon after war was declared supports the claim that the poet Lebedev-Kumach
had already worked on, if not finished, those lyrics. From all accounts the song
was completed, gained approval, and premiered within the first week of the war.
Although Blanter’s version was reviewed first and was published by Muzgiz on
June 27, the melody that gained popularity as the anthem of the war years was
written by A.V. Aleksandrov, composer and head of the Red Banner Ensemble
of Song and Dance of the Soviet Army and eventually the composer of the new
Soviet national anthem. Aleksandrov discovered Lebedev-Kumach’s verses in the
June 24 issue of either Izvestiia or Krasnaia zvezda (the verses were also read on
the radio on that date) and had his new melody ready by the following day. On
June 26, the song was among the new works that the Red Banner Ensemble of
Song and Dance was learning.22 The song’s public debut took place soon after
this, perhaps on the same day, for troops heading west at the Belarusian train sta-
tion in Moscow. One of the members of the ensemble reports that even the first
performance of the song indicated it would become the anthem of the war and
the symbol of the strength and determination of the Soviet people:
With the first measures we felt that the song had grabbed the soldiers. By the
time the second verse started there was absolute silence in the w aiting hall.
19 These are the author’s estimates from reading the protocols of the Presidium of the
Organizing Committee of the Union of Composers of the USSR (SSK) and the Russian
State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), f. 2077, op. 1, d. 37.
20 RGALI, f. 2077, op. 1, d. 37.
21 Aleksandrov’s version, the famous melody, is not mentioned in these minutes.
22 “New Red Army Songs,” Pravda, June 27, 1941.
Everyone stood up as for an anthem. On their serious faces were worry and
tears, and this feeling was passed to us, the performers. . . . They asked for the
song again and again. We repeated it five times.23
Aleksandrov’s melody, solemn and measured in tempo and mood, crescendos

to a major key, leaving the audience with a sense of hope. Lebedev-Kumach’s
lyrics are also stern yet noble:
Arise huge country / Arise to the fatal battle / with the fascist dark force
/ with the accursed horde. / Let noble rage / build like a wave. / The
People’s War / the Sacred War / is being waged. / . . . We fight for light and
peace / and they for the kingdom of darkness. / . . . Let us go break them
/ with all of our strength, / our hearts and our souls / for our dear land /
and for our great Union. . . .
Aleksandrov’s version was published by Muzgiz on June 30 in five thousand

copies, only half the number of Blanter’s version. It was heard in a film concert
in September 1941 and was recorded by the Red Banner Ensemble in 1942.24
A different Blanter song, “Do svidaniia, goroda i khaty” (Goodbye, cities and
village huts), with text by Isakovskii, enjoyed more success than the composer’s
first effort. Blanter recalled that Isakovskii read him the text over the phone on
June 23, and he immediately sat down to compose a melody. After a few hours,
he called Isakovskii back to sing him the tune. The next day he submitted the
song to the Composer’s Union, which supported it. The music was published in
Pravda on June 29. Other composers also set Isakovskii’s text to music, includ-
ing Isaak Dunaevskii, an already well-established song and film composer and
then director of the Ensemble of Song and Dance of the Railway Workers. But
this time Blanter’s melody was the most enduring. The song is surprisingly
lilting, combining a march with solemn lyrics bidding farewell:
Come out, girls, at dawn / to send off the Komsomol unit. / You girls, don’t
be sad without us. / We shall return with a victory. / . . . The great hour of
reckoning is upon us. / The people have put the weapons in our hands. /
Farewell, cities and homes. / We are leaving at dawn on campaign.25
23 Iu. A. Emel′ianov, a veteran of the Red Banner Ensemble, is quoted in Lukovnikov, Druz′ia,
12–13.
24 Ibid., 9–14; Biriukov, POV, 195; Biriukov, PVD, 136–38.
25 Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 20–21; Biriukov, POV, 199–200; Biriukov, PVD, 142–44.
The feeling and the message conveyed by the song were in keeping with the
official stance that the war would be short and easily won. Despite the con-
tradiction between the upbeat melody of “Goodbye, Cities and Village Huts”
and the reality of immediate and severe losses, this song remained popular
throughout the war and beyond. Younger postwar audiences and war survivors
alike often recall it. The song’s durability, in contrast to the fate of others from
the earliest months, may be attributable to the lyrics that express a heartfelt
farewell. This theory will be discussed later in more detail.
Another song written in the first week of the war was “Pesnia smelykh”
(Song of the brave). The poet Aleksei Surkov wrote his first version of the text
during the Finnish War in 1940. When the USSR joined the European con-
flict, he rewrote the entire text, with the exception of one phrase, which has
entered the Russian language as a modern proverb: “The bullet is afraid of
the brave one and the bayonet does not run him through.”26 The first verses
depict war as a huge thunderstorm threatening the motherland. Subsequent
verses call the various military forces to action: “The planes raced into the air /
the tank column moved out. / The infantry platoons went into battle with a
song. / A song like a winged bird calls the brave into battle.” The new version
of the text was first published on June 25 in Pravda, where several composers
read it and were inspired to create their own melodies. Viktor Belyi’s tune is
the best known, though wartime songbooks also published others. Fridrikh
Mont’s rendition was published in November 1941 in Arkhangel′sk, and a ver-
sion by Solov′ev-Sedoi was published by Muzgiz. Despite many variants, this
song is less memorable to Russians today, except for the phrase from Surkov’s
original verse.
The titles of numerous songs written in the early weeks of the war reveal
prevalent themes, even though the full texts of the songs have not been
found.27 These include: “Za chest′ i slavu sovetskogo naroda” (For the honor
and glory of the Soviet people), by Belyi and Lebedev-Kumach; “My fashistov
razob′em” (We will destroy the Fascists), by Muradeli and Alymov; “Poidut
vragi na dno” (The enemy will go to the bottom [of the sea]), by Akulenko
and Alymov; and “Za Komsomol, za rodinu, vpered!” (For the Komsomol,
26 Songbooks for 1941 from the Russian State Library (formerly the V. I. Lenin State Library)
in Moscow: Oboronnye pesni, a collection by Arkhangel′sk composers; Za rodinu, za Stalina,
a collection of defense songs by Moscow and Leningrad composers.
27 The titles listed here have been gathered from newspapers and protocols of the meetings of
the Union of Composers. They were approved and recommended for performance, record-
ing, and/or publication.
for the motherland, forward!), “Bei vraga v pukh i prakh” (Completely rout
the enemy), and “V boi, syny naroda” (To battle, sons of the people), all three
created by Listov and Zharov. A.V. Aleksandrov noted that by July 1 he had
already written four songs, of which “Sacred War” is the best known. His
other efforts included “V pokhod! V pokhod!” (Forward, march! Forward,
march!), with lyrics by Aleksandr Prokof ’ev; “Vstavai, razgnevannyi narod”
(Arise, enraged people), lyricist unknown; and “Za velikuiu zemliu sovet-
skuiu” (For the great Soviet land), with lyrics by Lebedev-Kumach.28
Most of these early songs are patriotic anthems, odes of praise, and hopeful
calls to victory. The lyrics nearly always present the strength of the USSR in rela-
tion to the enemy (not necessarily identified as Nazi Germany) and inevitably
praise the leaders and institutions of the Soviet Union. “Za rodinu, vpered” (For
the motherland, forward!), by Dunaevskii and Lebedev-Kumach, directly links
the success of Soviet troops to the leadership and the nation: “March more con-
fidently / Keep the lines straighter / Stalin is with us / All the people are with us
/ The enemy will be destroyed forever / Forward against the enemy! / For the
sake of the motherland!” As Dunaevskii and Agranian’s “Bei po vragam” (Beat
the enemies) states, “Stalin said, ‘The victory will be ours. The Bolshevik coun-
try is unconquerable.’”29 “Pesnia muzhestva” (Song of courage) by Bruk and
Svetlov goes even further by linking a soldier’s identity to the leader’s: “Stalin is
the will of a soldier. Stalin is the heart of a soldier. Stalin is the banner and the
glory of a soldier.”30 The navy song, “Morskaia Stalinskaia” (Stalin’s sea song), by
Listov and Lebedev-Kumach, effusively proclaims the sailors’ devotion: “Under
water we remember him with love. We think of him in the air. On our breaks,
we make up songs about him as though he were our dearest relative.” The song
calls Stalin “the father and friend of the Soviet sailors” and “the wise flagman
of the country of the Bolsheviks.”31 Other patriotic songs mention Lenin, the
People’s Commissar of Defense, generals, and political commissars and instructors.

Some songs were nonspecific in nature, such as “Nash tovarishch komissar” (Our
comrade commissar), by Novikov and Lebedev-Kumach. Others were quite
specific in reference, such as “Tri Stalinskikh druga” (Three of Stalin’s friends),
by Shatrov and Vinnikov, which extolled the three generals Voroshilov,
28 Biriukov, PVD, 137; G. Polianovskii, Aleksandr Vasil′evich Aleksandrov, 2nd ed. (Moscow:
Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1985), appendix.
29 These texts can be found in Pesni Otechestvennoi voiny, a song collection published by the
Central House of the Railway Workers in 1942.
30 Krasnoflotskie pesni (Moscow: Muzgiz, 1942).
31 Pesni Voenno-Morskogo Flota (Moscow: Muzgiz, 1942).
Budennyi, and Timoshenko. These patriotic pieces were written by nationally

known poets and composers as well as by local artists.
Minutes of Composers’ Union meetings indicate that many of these early
patriotic wartime songs were first officially approved and then broadcast and
published in leaflets and song collections. Yet most do not seem to have lasted
through the war, let alone beyond it. People who lived through the war would not
refer to them, and they rarely appear in the lists of works performed by brigades
and ensembles that were published in newspapers throughout the war. There
are many explanations for these omissions and for the short-lived popularity of
the songs. Quickly produced, they may have lacked the quality that would have
made them more enduring—although some songs written just as quickly were
extremely successful (such as “The Sacred War” and “Goodbye Cities and Village
Huts”). The failure to include these patriotic works in lists of songs performed
could either mean that they were not performed at all or that they were manda-
tory concert selections that did not warrant a mention. Perhaps the population
resented the relentlessly upbeat message that failed to match their reality: the fall
of cities one after another, bombings, and mass evacuations of people and orga-
nizations from threatened areas. In addition, certain generals, such as Budennyi
and Timoshenko, lost favor and were removed from command in the latter part
of the war; hence, songs that concerned their heroism or deeds would have been
purged from performance lists. Also, as the war went on, emphasis on Stalin less-
ened—though it never fully disappeared—to be replaced by an emphasis on the
nation, the people (narod), or military collective power. In short, as the German
military blitzkrieg proved successful, the songwriters’ attack found its limitations.
Wartime songs had to be reshaped into a form that more closely matched the
wartime realities or be left trampled in the chaotic retreat.
FAREWELL TO NORMALITY: THE EARLY LYRICAL SONGS

After the first month or so, once the initial shock of the war had subsided,
a new song style emerged. Soviet musicologists call these melodic works
“lyrical songs” (in contrast to the earlier, more spirited marching music), but
the genre can be categorized more precisely. The songs are farewells, acknowl-
edging the reality of war that banished recruits and evacuees alike from all that
was familiar, possibly even to their deaths. The object of these farewells might
be a loved one—a soldier, a girlfriend, a mother sending her son to war—or a
city or region. The songs in this new genre were more popular and remained
in circulation longer than earlier offerings, often long after the war ended.
Some were more solemn or patriotic than others, but all farewell songs
expressed hope for return. “Goodbye Cities and Village Huts” was the earliest
work to express in its lyrics the sadness of farewell, though its melody still
reflected an unwarranted optimism. Most other examples of farewell songs
were softer, more tender, and sometimes even melancholic.
Some farewell songs took the form of a personal conversation between two
people. “Proshchanie” (Farewell) was first heard in a film concert produced by
Mosfilm as the Germans approached Moscow. A draft of the lyrics was writ-
ten by Fedor Kravchenko and appeared in the Mosfilm bulletin, where he was
an editor in the script department. The producer of the film concert32 asked
Kravchenko to try to work it into a song and introduced the writer to the com-
poser Tikhon Khrennikov, who was scoring part of the film. Khrennikov would
later become Chairman of the Composers’ Union and a key figure in enforcing
postwar musical policy. The song had to be completed quickly because the film
was almost finished and bombs were falling thickly in the area around Mosfilm.
The song, interpreted by Tamara Ianko in the film, is solemn and the text serious:
Go, beloved, my dear one. / The tragic day has brought separation. / The
fierce enemy has hit us with war. / The cruel enemy has raised his hand
against our happiness. / . . . There where the fierce battle is raging, / where
the whirlwind of death has loosed itself, / I will be with you, my dear
friend, with my whole heart / I will share your way as a loyal girlfriend. /
Go, my beloved. Go, dearest!
In addition to its premiere in the film, the song was published by Muzgiz in
1941.33 One song was published under two different titles, “Provozhala mat′
synochka” (A mother saw her son off) and “Materinskii nakaz” (A mother’s
instruction), by Listov and Alymov. It is unclear whether the lyrics were
intended to console mothers or sons:
A mother saw her son off. / She embraced him oh so strongly, / but didn’t
wipe her eyes with a handkerchief. / She didn’t cry bitter tears. / A terrible
32 The name of this particular “film concert” varies in the written sources. Lukovnikov calls
it Vozvrashchaisia s pobedoi (Return with victory), while Biriukov names it My zhdem vas s
pobedoi (We await your victorious return). Both sources identify the same producer and give
similar descriptions; the discrepancy in the title remains unexplained. Lukovnikov, Druz′ia,
23–24; Biriukov, POV, 198; Biriukov, PVD, 140–41.
33 See note 30.
enemy is threatening / like a black cloud approaching. / I am not the only

one / who is seeing a dear son off into combat. / . . . I am giving you a
kerchief. / Use it to wipe away sweat and blood. / I have wrapped this
kerchief / around my love.
Bravery and victory are possible, the song says, because a mother has sustained
her son, who will return victorious. The song, often uncredited, received so
much attention in the military press that it was widely believed to be an anony-
mous soldier’s composition.34
Later in the war, more songs focused on the promise to wait. The first,
“Zhdi menia” (Wait for me), is best known for its text by Konstantin Simonov.
Written as a poem in lieu of a letter home, the author delivered the verse to
his wife on a quick stop in Moscow between stints as a correspondent at the
western and northern fronts. Simonov later said that the poem was intended as
a private communication but was shared with others when they were snowed
in with nothing to do for days but recite poetry and tell stories. Yet in 1974 he
recounted something quite different: that the poem had been turned down as
“too intimate” for publication. Whatever the case, the verse was finally pub-
lished on January 14, 1942, in Pravda. Its popularity soared both as a poem and
as a basis for song lyrics.
Many melodic versions of this poem appeared. N. Kriukov composed
one version for the film Paren′ iz nashego goroda (The fellow from our town),
M. Gorbenko’s version appeared in the same year for Leonid Utesov’s orches-
tra, and Blanter’s version was recorded by Georgii Vinogradov. Other com-
posers tackling the poem included Muradeli, Krasev, Navoev, Solov′ev-Sedoi,
and quartermaster M. Rodin. Apparently, no single melody outshone any
other. Most were criticized for such failings as “not matching the text,” being
“too sappy,” or being “too complex to be widely distributed.” Because Blanter’s

melody was sent abroad to the United States, it clearly held greater official
status than the others. It is also the version found in songbooks today. In con-
trast to the melodies, the poem itself found great acceptance. It was usually
praised highly, even if the critic found fault with one of the musical versions.
The poem is widely taught and well known today, whereas the song version is
presented almost as an afterthought. This is unique in the war songs that have
remained popular. Yet certainly the piece was sung frequently during the war.
It also generated a number of response-type songs, often called “Zhdu tebia”
34 Biriukov, POV, 198–99.
(I wait for you). Serious efforts clearly were made to create a popular song from
a beloved poem.35
“Ogonek” (Little flame), by Isakovskii and originally published in Pravda
on April 19, 1943, was identified as a song, though no score was printed. The
origins of the most popular melody accompanying it remain unclear. Debates
ensued as to which melody was the most popular. Dolmatovskii reports that
dozens of melodies were sung by different people. Blanter and other profes-
sional composers set the text to music, as did amateur composers, including
sailors and soldiers. Nevertheless, Dolmatovskii claims that the most popular
version—the one still heard today—made use of an old Polish tune, “Stella,”
and was not recorded until after the war. In contrast, in the Baltic region, a ren-
dition by an amateur composer, the sailor Nikitenko, was most often heard.36
The third song, “Temnaia noch′” (Dark night), was written for the film
Dva boitsa (Two warriors) in the summer of 1942. The composer Nikita
Bogoslovskii remembers that the composition fell magically into place. His
usual collaborators were unavailable in Tashkent at the time, so a relatively
unknown poet, Vladimir Agatov, was recruited to write the lyrics. According to
the composer, both wrote nearly flawless first drafts of the work and were able
to finish completely in a matter of hours. Even the actor and singer Mark Bernes
learned the song in one night (which apparently was unusual for him).37
All three of these songs, lyrical solo pieces, affirmed the hopeful mes-
sage that someone was waiting. “You are waiting and you don’t sleep beside
35 Because of the lack of any single melodic version of this song, it is difficult to find sources
dedicated to it. The information here has been gathered from the following: L. I. Lazarev,
Konstantin Simonov: Zhizn′ i tvorchestvo (Moscow: Russkii Iazyk, 1990), 42, 44, 47;
S. Krasil′shchik, comp., Muzy veli v boi (Moscow: Agenstvo Pechati i Novostei, 1985),
52–53; V. I. Zak, Matvei Blanter (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1971), 172; G. A.

Skorokhodov, Zvezdy sovetskoi estrady (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1982), 64–66; and
Savchenko, Kozin, 73. Archives: Protocol 8, Tvorcheskaia Komissiia of the Moscow Union
of Composers, March 28, 1942, RGALI f. 2077, op. 1, d. 60; Protocol 15, Tvorcheskaia
Komissiia of the Union of Soviet Composers, Oct. 20, 1942, and Protocol 22, Nov. 28, 1942,
f. 2077, op. 1, d. 53; stenogram of plenum held in the Central House of Composers, April
6, 1943, f. 2077, op. 1, d. 61; open session of the Presidium of the Orgkom of the Union of
Soviet Composers, April 27, 1942, f. 2077, op. 1, d. 57, L. 29; stenogram of the conference
on song held by Union of Soviet Composers, June 16–19, 1943, f. 2077, op. 1, d. 83, L.
85, 246; meeting of the Tvorcheskoe Sobranie of the Soviet Union of Composers, May 18,
1942, f. 2077, op. 1, d. 61,
36 Dolmatovskii, Rasskazy, 198–99. See also Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 170–71; Biriukov, POV,
216–17; and Biriukov, PVD, 250–52.
37 Nikita Bogoslovskii, interview by author, December 1990, audio tape, Moscow, Russia (in
author’s possession).
the cradle,” says the last line of “The Dark Night,” “and therefore I know that
nothing bad will happen to me.” “Wait for Me” exhorts, “Wait for me and I will
return / but you must wait / . . . wait while it rains / . . . snows / . . . while there
is drought. / Wait even after everyone else / has given up waiting. / And don’t
you drink to my memory / when the others do.” “The Little Flame” depicts a
girl sitting by her window with a burning candle lit to help her beloved soldier
find his way home. No matter how unrealistic, these romantic notions offered
reassurance to soldiers and sailors at war that those who loved them would still
be there when they returned. The messages also served as reminders, albeit
gentle and indirect ones, to those at home that they should remain loyal. The
lyricism and expressions of hope and beauty in the songs must have given some
inner peace to fighters and those awaiting them at home.
Other songs dealt less immediately and less personally with parting. Songs
written as farewells to cities, territories, or regions were written almost exclu-
sively in the first half of the war, when people left for the front or were evacuated
from besieged areas. Sometimes lyrics would be changed after territory was
reclaimed or danger was averted. This usually meant that a final verse was added
to the original song and/or the verb tenses were changed to indicate the past. One
of the earliest songs of this genre was “Vecher na reide” (Evening on the quay),
about Leningrad. The composer Vasilii Solov′ev-Sedoi and the poet Aleksandr
Churkin wrote “Evening on the Quay” just a day or so before Solov′ev-Sedoi was
evacuated to Orenburg (then called Chkalov) in late August 1941. The theme
reflected the composer’s experience. One evening he was clearing wood to min-
imize the danger of fires from bombings. “We finished the work and listened
to the sailors’ singing in the distance for a long time,” he recalled. “I thought it
would be good to write about this quiet, lovely evening, unexpectedly falling into
the path of people who tomorrow might face going into a dangerous campaign
. . . The words came as if by themselves, ‘Farewell, beloved city,’ and the melody
came but there were no other lyrics. . .”38
Churkin finished the lyrics and also included the familiar reference to the
blue kerchief in the last line. The song, a description of a specific scene, also
serves as a tribute and farewell to the city and to the girl the sailor leaves behind.
When the work was presented to the Leningrad Composers’ Union, it was
severely criticized for its sadness and lyricism and for not directly mentioning
the war. Subsequently, the song was rejected by the composers in Chkalov as
38 V. Solov′ev-Sedoi quoted in Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 54.
well.39 Solov′ev-Sedoi disagreed with these objections and ignored the snub;
his small touring group, Iastrebok (The little hawk), performed the song at
the front near Rzhev in the spring of 1942. It caught on with the soldiers first,
only later gaining widespread popularity.40 Though written by professionals,
the song did not find approval in professional circles. At the time of its debut,
the official view on song had not yet comprehended the value of lyrical songs
and still clung to the concept of upbeat patriotic marches as the only effec-
tive fighting weapon. Rather, its initial popularity spread through concerts at
the front and by fighting men passing it on to one another and requesting it
from the radio committee and other media sources. “Evening on the Quay”
also may have entered the concert repertory through the efforts of the Central
Ensemble of the Navy from Leningrad, which obtained the work directly
from the composer soon after it was written and performed it on Moscow
Radio in 1942. This ensemble would have experienced the winter of siege in
Leningrad and more quickly grasped the song’s potency and power. Even after
the victory, this song remained intact as a symbol of the great sacrifices of the
Leningraders and their city. Other versions of the song center on the city of
Sevastopol and on the partisans.41
Another especially popular farewell song, “Proshchaite, skalistye gory”
(Farewell, rugged mountains), by Zharkovskii and Bukin, tells of the sailors of
the Northern Fleet taking leave of the rugged shores of the Kola Peninsula on
their way to battle in the Bering Sea. Zharkovskii read the verses in a frontline
newspaper and only later, after the song was finished, met Bukin in person. The
commander of the Northern Fleet, Admiral A. Golovko, relates in his memoirs
how the song was played for a visiting British delegation: “After lunch, our navy
ensemble gave a concert. They opened as usual with the wonderful song ‘Farewell,
Rugged Mountains.’ Like everyone in the fleet, I have heard this song many times,
and again and again it touches my heart, especially at the most difficult times.”42
“Pesnia o Dnepre” (Song of the Dnieper), by Fradkin and Dolmatovskii,
served as a symbol of the war for Ukraine in the same way “The Sacred War”
39 Dolmatovskii, Rasskazy, 214. There are discrepancies about who actually heard the song
and rejected it. In one place, Solov′ev-Sedoi says he didn’t present the song in Leningrad,
but only later in Chkalov. Other sources indicate that not only was the song presented in
Leningrad but it was sung there even after the composer was evacuated.
40 V. P. Solov′ev-Sedoi, Vasilii Pavlovich Solov′ev-Sedoi: Vospominaniia, stat’i, materialy, ed. S. M.
Khentova (Leningrad: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1987), 17.
41 Lukovnikov, Druzi′a, 54–55; Biriukov, POV, 206–7; Biriukov, PVD, 195–97.
42 E. Zharkovskii, Liudi i pesni: Pesnia v stroiu (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1978), 78.
stood for Russia. Dolmatovskii recounts his capture and escape from behind
enemy lines in the fall of 1941. Upon his return to Soviet-held territory, he
reported to the town of Uriupensk to submit an account of his actions (he had
been listed among the dead). Trying to write creatively about his experience,
he jotted down many verses for possible songs but lacked a composer to work
with. At about that time, November 1941, the Ensemble of Song and Dance of
the Southwestern Front came to town, with Mark Fradkin as resident composer,
and the two decided to collaborate. Finding a piano in the house of a priest, they
spent the next two days completing the song. “That night the ensemble heard
the song and was ordered to learn it by the next day,” Dolmatovskii recalls. “The
order was not that easy to fulfill. The choir members were all from Kiev and
they were all crying and could not sing.”43 The lyrics describe the battle for the
Dnieper, praising the heroes who died there and who will be remembered for-
ever. The Dnieper will be free again, the narrator promises: “The enemy is drinking
your water / . . . but the glorious hour will come / and we will go forward and
see you again. / The army and the people, like the spring river, / will wash the
fascist dogs off the Soviet land.” Throughout the war Fradkin was praised for this
song, which established his reputation as a promising composer. Though some
subsequent works were criticized, he remained a prominent figure.
Mokrousov and Zharov’s “Zavetnyi kamen′” (The cherished rock) was
special to the Crimea and to Sevastopol in particular. The song is a bit of an
exception in the farewell songs since it dated from the end of 1943 and described
events that took place much earlier. In July 1942, after many months of battle,
the city surrendered to the Germans. Mokrousov and Zharov had been working
on a ballad about the Black Sea sailors, but had not finished it before the
Crimea fell and they parted ways. Meeting again in 1943, they decided to finish
their song. They drew on the legend of a sailor who takes a piece of granite from
the shore and, before he dies, passes it on to another comrade so that someday
the rock will be returned to its rightful place.44
Songs like these were general enough to capture the imagination of a wide
audience. Their solemnity and portrayal of the soldiers’ love for their country
and people gave them a specific point of reference. They played simultaneously
on the collective sense of the war—the protection of homeland and culture—
and the personal feelings of those participating. This dual effect contributed
to their longevity, even years after survivors of the war had returned to their
homes and families.

WAR IS HERE TO STAY: SONGS ABOUT WARTIME LIFE

As weeks turned into months, as the troops retreated farther and farther east-
ward, and as the casualties mounted, any illusions that the war would be short-
lived were shattered. Only the repulsion of the Germans from the capital in fall
1941 gave some sense of hope for victory. Civilians and soldiers alike under-
stood they were in the war for the long haul, and their songs began reflecting
this new state of normality. Despite this new reality, the officially enforced style
of socialist realism demanded that optimism still be emphasized. However,
there was more flexibility now. Themes of new songs portrayed both mundane
aspects of daily life and those events that were unusual. The lyric and melodic
genres also varied from humorous to tender and sentimental, and from jazzy,
even bouncy, numbers to quiet waltz-time ballads.
There are many examples of lyrical songs that deal with personal thoughts,
soldiers’ friendships, daily life, and remembrances of home and family. Most
songs that remained popular were written in the first half of the war, before June
1943, with just a few exceptions. Some were written as personal notations in
the form of poetry or song; others were commissioned specifically for films and
plays. The text to “V zemlianke” (In the dugout), by Listov and Surkov, one of
the tenderest of songs, originated in the lines of a letter sent by Aleksei Surkov
to his wife in the fall of 1941. The following spring the composer contributed
the famous melody and the song spread throughout the USSR. Konstantin
Listov stated:
The lines gripped me with their lyric strength and sincerity, and called to
my heart. The time was worrisome, the Germans were outside of Moscow.
I was alone; my family was in evacuation . . . I wrote the song in a flash
and in a few days I sang it at the newspaper office. E. Vorob′ev asked me to

write it down . . . I left and honestly forgot about the song. I didn’t think it
would go. Quite unexpectedly, I saw it in [the newspaper] Komsomol′skaia
pravda.45
Describing a soldier hidden in his winter dugout, the song turns into a confes-
sion of love, the memory of which brings him happiness and warmth. As with
Solov′ev-Sedoi’s “Evening on the Quay,” the censors were unhappy with “In the
Dugout,” particularly objecting to the line, “It is not easy for me to reach you / but
45 A. Tishchenko, Konstantin Listov (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1987), 31.
death lies only four steps away.”46 The sentiment was considered too bleak
and depressing and therefore detrimental to morale building. Nevertheless,
judging by the soldiers’ letters requesting the song, it was exactly the hon-
esty of the sentiment and the reality depicted in the song that they appreci-
ated. This example illustrates the deviation from the official line that appeared
during the war, which would disappear again in the postwar years.
Another song, “Sluchainyi val′s” (The chance waltz), by Fradkin and
Dolmatovskii, failed to receive the glorious praise of their earlier work, “Song
of the Dnieper.” In plenums and discussions, the new lyrical waltz was attacked
for its “frivolity” and “sentimentality” and was generally dismissed as “too light-
hearted.” But its popularity among the troops outweighed official criticism. The
song was created when the two men met again on a train leaving Stalingrad in
February 1943. An episode related by Fradkin served as the inspiration. A pilot
had asked him to write a song so that Zina, a girl from a nameless village with
whom he had once danced, would be able to find him. (Dolmatovskii recalled
that a Zina later wrote to them asking how to find the pilot, but he had died by
then.) An earlier poem by Dolmatovskii, “Tantsy do utra” (Dances until morn-
ing), also helped shape the lyrics. It took the artists seven days to reach Elets,
their destination, and Fradkin played the song at every stop. Dolmatovskii
remembers that the song seemed to outrace the train. “The Chance Waltz”
was not the original title. “Ofitserskii val′s” (Officer’s waltz), the first title, was
believed to exclude the experience of soldiers of lower rank and was therefore
changed.47 Despite official criticism, this song has remained one of the favor-
ites from the war years. Perhaps it caught on so well and so quickly because
it combined the reality of wartime—the constant transient life of meeting
strangers for moments or hours in villages, train cars, or dugouts—with a pure
romanticism and peacefulness extremely rare in the chaotic days of war. Two
people far from home give each other civilized human contact and warmth for
the few tender moments of one dance.
“V lesu prifrontovom” (In the forest near the front) by Blanter and
Isakovskii is one of the most lyrical and oft-mentioned songs of this period.
Its melody was widely heard decades later; in the early 1990s, it introduced
television spots on wartime anniversaries on Moscow’s First Channel. One of
the most complex songs of the era, it was written by the same team that created
46 I have translated into English from Russian the lyrics from the song “V zemlianke,” (In the
dugout), also frequently referred to as “Zemlianka” (Dugout), by Surkov and Listov.
47 Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 179–81; Biriukov, PVD, 242–44; Biriukov, POV, 214–15.
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EXTENSION OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN
DURING FOUR YEARS OF WAR[26]
July, July, Increase or
Number of Women Working
1914 1918 Decrease
Employers or on own account 430,000 470,000 +40,000
Industry 2,178,000 2,970,000 +792,000
Domestic Service 1,658,000 1,258,000 -400,000
Commerce, etc. 505,500 934,500 +429,000
National and Local Government,
including Education 262,200 460,200 +198,000
Agriculture 190,000 228,000 +38,000
Hotels, Theaters, etc. 181,000 220,000 +39,000
Transport 18,200 117,200 +99,000
Other (including professional)
Employment and Home Workers 542,500 652,500 +110,000
Total 5,966,000 7,311,000 1,345,000
Turning aside from the increases in the total number of women workers to an
analysis of changes in the various occupations, a picture is obtained not only of what
the army of new workers did, but also of many of the alterations wrought by war on the
fabric of British industry.
First Year of War

Within a few weeks after the beginning of the war the government “came into the
market as chief buyer,”[27] with large rush orders for the equipment of troops. This
involved an “enormously multiplied demand for women’s services” in certain lines,
some time before the period of unemployment was over. Increases in the number of
women in the leather, engineering and hosiery industries were noted by October,
1914. Before the end of 1914 there was said to be an increase of 100,000 women in
the woolen and worsted industry (for khaki, flannel and blankets); in hosiery; in the
clothing trade (for military tailoring, fur coat making, caps and shirts); in the boot and
shoe trade; and in the making of ammunition, rations and jam, kit bags and
haversacks, surgical dressings and bandages and tin boxes. Yet owing to lack of the
necessary skill or because they could not be moved to the locality where their services
were in demand, thousands of “capable though untrained young women lacked
employment when other factories were overwhelmed with their contracts and girls and
women strained nearly to the breaking point.”[28] “The relative immobility of labor was
never more clearly shown,” says Miss B. L. Hutchins.[29]
An interesting account of the introduction of women into munitions work speaks of
the rush of women to register for it in May, 1915, after the battle of Neuve Chapelle,
when the public first became aware of the shortage of munitions.[30] But positions
were then “exceedingly difficult to obtain” and the use of women became general only
in September or later. An official report states that the employment of women on
munitions work was considered “tentative and experimental” as late as November and
December, 1915.[31] The success of a group of educated women placed as
supervisors in an inspection factory, who were trained at Woolwich Arsenal in August,
was said to have been the determining factor in leading to the introduction of female
labor on a large scale at Woolwich and other government establishments.
During perhaps the first six or eight months of war, however, the additional women
factory workers seldom took the places of men, but entered the same occupations in
which women had long been employed. The “new demand was to a large extent for
that class of goods in the production of which female labour normally
predominates.”[32] Women had for many years operated power machines in the
clothing trades and had been employed in the making of cartridges and tin boxes, in
certain processes in woolen mills, in boot and shoe factories and in the food trades:
The needs of the army so far merely provided more opportunities along the usual lines
of women’s work.
It was in the spring and early summer of 1915 that instances of the substitution of
women for men first began to be noted in industrial employments. The Labour Gazette
first mentioned the general subject in June, and in July stated that the movement was
“growing.” In the boot and shoe trade in Northamptonshire efforts were being made in
May to put women on “purely automatic machines hitherto worked by men.” About this
time a violent controversy broke out in the cotton trade regarding the introduction of
women as “piecers,” two of whom helped each male spinner. Boys had been used for
this purpose, and the union rules forbade the employment of women. Union officials
were strong in opposition, saying that the work was unsuitable for women, and that
they would undercut the wage rates. An agreement permitting the use of the women
was finally made with the union, but even before it was ratified women “piecers” had
become increasingly common.
The frequent use of women on work formerly done by men in the munitions branch
of the “engineering” (machinists’) trade also dates from about this time. On August 20,
1915, The Engineer, a British trade paper, stated that “during the past few months a
great and far reaching change had been effected.... In a certain factory (making
projectiles up to 4.5 inch gun size) a new department was started some time ago, the
working people being women, with a few expert men as overseers and teachers.... By
no means all of the work has been of the repetition type, demanding little or no
manipulative ability, but much of it ... taxed the intelligence of the operatives to a high
degree. Yet the work turned out has reached a high pitch of excellence.... It may safely
be said that women can satisfactorily handle much heavier pieces of metal than had
previously been dreamt of.”
Women are said to have been successful in “arduous” processes, such as forging,
previously performed by men, and in managing machine tools not even semi-
automatic. “It can be stated with absolute truth that with the possible exception of the
heaviest tools—and their inability to work even these has yet to be established—
women have shown themselves perfectly capable of performing operations which
hitherto have been exclusively carried out by men.”
But for industry as a whole the judgment of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science on the extent of substitution during the first year of war is
probably accurate. “Broadly speaking,” it was said, “the movement [of women into
trades and occupations hitherto reserved wholly or partially to men] has only just
begun to assume any appreciable magnitude.... In few industries has the position yet
shaped itself.”[33] But in a number of trades, noteworthy among which were leather,
engineering, wool, cotton, pottery and printing, women, while not yet undertaking the
most highly skilled work, were “undoubtedly slowly undertaking processes that were
previously thought just above the line of their strength and skill.”[34]
Very soon after the outbreak of war there began to be an increase in the number of
women in certain nonindustrial occupations, most important of which were clerical
work, retail trade, and the railway service. Unfortunately no estimate is available of the
actual numbers of women so employed in the first year of the war, but the increase
must have been considerable. Banks and insurance offices for the first time hired
women and girls in any great numbers, mostly for the more routine parts of the work.
The civil service took on a good many women in the lower grades of its work, and
already complaints were heard of the prejudice which confined trained women to
routine work while the “upper division” struggled on understaffed. In the postoffice
more women clerks and some postwomen were noted. There was a considerable
increase in the number of women in retail trade in various capacities, including shop
assistants in dry goods and provision stores, packers and delivery “girls.” In the
railway service women were appearing as car cleaners, ticket collectors on the station
platforms and in the railway offices. Some cities had hired women as street cleaners
and tram car conductors. The exodus of foreign waiters left openings for more
waitresses.
In these lines from the first the women took men’s places. And, as the public came
into daily contact with women clerks in banks and business offices, postal employes,
employes in shops and on delivery vans, tram conductors and ticket collectors, there
probably arose an exaggerated idea of the extent to which women did “men’s work”
during the first year of war.
The number of women in agriculture, in which the Labour Gazette first noted a
shortage of skilled labor in the early months of 1915, is reported to have risen slightly
in the spring and summer of 1915. The increases were reported in nearly all the
principal branches of the season’s work, first in potato planting, then in turnip hoeing,
next in haying and fruit picking and finally in the harvest. In almost every case the
additional women were employed on work formerly done by men. But, according to a
careful study covering this period:
Most of the press paragraphs referring to the replacement of
men by women upon farms have been calculated to give an
erroneous impression to the unknowing public. The demand for
female labor in agriculture during 1915 was not very great and a
large number of girls who offered to take up such work failed to
find employment.[35]
Moreover, statistics show that, owing to the keen demand from higher paid and
more attractive lines of work, the number of women permanently employed on the
land in Great Britain actually decreased from 80,000 in July, 1914, to 62,200 in July,
1915.[36]
Second Year of War

The next convenient date at which to note the changes in the number of women
employed and in their occupations is April, 1916, when nearly two years had passed
under war conditions. A second investigation by the British Association for the
Advancement of Science covers conditions at that period, and the first of the Labour
Gazette’s quarterly summaries of “the extension of the employment of women” is of
that date.
The total war increase in numbers in industrial occupations was put at 13.2 per
cent of the estimated number employed in July, 1914, or 287,500, by April, 1916. In
the metal trades, chemicals and woodworking, the increases were by far the largest,
being 88 per cent or 126,900, 84 per cent or 33,600, and 33 per cent or 13,200
respectively. These figures show the rush of women into the engineering branch of
munitions work, which began to be heavy in the fall of 1915, and into the manufacture
of explosives. Both patriotism and the economic incentive of high wages helped to
secure women to meet the rapid expansion in these trades. The increase in
woodworking trades likewise had a direct connection with war orders, as it involved
the work of women on aeroplanes and in making ammunition boxes. Other marked
increases, though not proportionally as large, were found in the textile and food
trades.
During the autumn of 1915 and the early months of 1916 the replacement of men
by women in industry progressed much more rapidly than in the first year of war.
During nearly every month of this period the Labour Gazette noted the increasing
shortage of male help as men were called into the army, the growing substitution of
women and the need for still further replacement. By the end of 1915, the “Principal
Lady Inspector of Factories” stated in her report for that year that though the
replacement of men of military age was still “probably very much less than is generally
supposed” the employment of women on “men’s work” in the expanding munitions
industry and in many staple trades had so “spread that an entirely new industrial
position and outlook has opened for women.”[37]
In April, 1916, it was estimated by the British Association for the Advancement of
Science that about one woman industrial worker out of every seven was replacing a
man, the total number of substitutes in industry at this time being approximately
226,000. By far the largest number, 117,400, were found in the “metal trades”
(munitions), and textiles, clothing, miscellaneous trades, food, paper and printing, and
woodworking followed in the order named. Estimates by the Board of Trade were
somewhat more conservative. A month or two later the Labour Gazette could state
that there were few industries or occupations “in which some substitution of females
for males had not taken place.”
By the spring and summer of 1916, also, the effect of extending the employment of
women had begun to be felt by those lines which, before the war, had been
considered pre-eminently “woman’s work.” The British Association for the
Advancement of Science reported in April a decline of 100,000 in the number of
domestic servants and a slight decrease in the number of women in the paper and
printing trade. In July the Labour Gazette found decreases also in dressmaking,
confectionery and the linen, lace and silk trades. By October, 1916, 40 per cent of the
firms in the textile trades, 21 per cent in clothing and 19 per cent in paper and printing
were unable to fill their demands for female help, as contrasted with 5 per cent in the
metal trades, 3 per cent in chemicals and 8 per cent in woodworking. “It is clear
therefore ...” states the Gazette, “that the process of transference from these trades
(which are ordinarily women’s occupations) to munition work or other better paid
occupations still continues.”[38]
The largest increases in the employment of women, however, both absolutely and
proportionally, were to be found in April, 1916, in the nonindustrial group. The total
increase in this group over prewar numbers was 310,000. In “commercial” work alone
the number of women had risen by 181,000. The gain in “banking and finance,” i. e.,
women clerks in banks and financial offices, was 242 per cent or 23,000, and in
“transport,” that is to say railway work was 16,000, or 168 per cent.[39]
In agriculture during 1916 the increase in employment of women was much more
rapid, both among regular workers and among such temporary workers as fruit pickers
and harvest hands. An increase of 18,700 or 23 per cent in the number of regular
women workers in Great Britain alone was reported in July. In the autumn the numbers
fell off, however, on account of the physical strength required for the ploughing and
other work carried on at that season.
Third Year of War

The next group of figures carries forward the story of the increase in women
workers more than a year further, to July, 1917. This third year of war was a period of
striking developments, both in growth in the number of women workers and in the
extent to which they filled men’s jobs.
Best known of these changes to American readers is the constant expansion in the
number of women munition makers. The number of government munition factories
had risen from four at the beginning of the war to 103 in January, 1917, and the
number of women employed in them and in docks and arsenals increased by 202,000,
or 9,596 per cent, between July, 1914, and July, 1917. At Woolwich Arsenal there
were 125 women in 1914 and 25,000 in 1917. The number of women in 3,900 of the
4,200 “controlled” establishments doing munitions work was reported to be 369,000 in
February, 1917.[40] In July, 1917, the increase in the number of women in the trades
which covered most of the munition work outside national factories, namely, metals,
chemicals and woodwork, was 358,000, 52,000 and 26,000, respectively. In June,
1917, Dr. Christopher Addison, then Minister of Munitions, told the House of
Commons that from 60 to 80 per cent of all the machine work on “shells, fuses and
trench warfare supplies” was performed by women. One shrapnel bullet factory was
said to be run entirely by women.
Part of the total gain of 518,000 in the number of women in industrial occupations
under private ownership in July, 1917, was likewise found outside munitions work in a
great variety of staple trades less directly connected with war orders, many of which
were far removed from the scope of women’s work previous to the war. For instance,
the number of women in grain milling rose from 2,000 to 6,000, in sugar refining from
1,000 to 2,000 and in brewing from 8,000 to 18,000 by July, 1916.[41] Women became
bakers and butchers and even stokers.[42] The employment of women increased in the
building trades, in surface work in mining, in quarrying, brick making and cement work,
in furniture manufacture and in the making of glass, china and earthenware. Women
were reported to be building good-sized electric motors, working in shipbuilding yards,
testing dynamos, working electric overhead traveling cranes, gauging tools to a
thousandth of an inch and less and performing the most highly skilled work on optical
instruments.[43] The British mission from the Ministry of Munitions described a former
kitchen maid who was running a 900-horsepower steam engine without assistance.
A committee of industrial women’s organizations stated, in the winter of 1916-17
that, except for underground mining, some processes in dock labor and steel smelting,
and iron founding, “the introduction of women in varying numbers is practically
universal.” And even in steel works women were sometimes employed in breaking
limestone and loading bricks, though not on the actual smelting of the metal, while in
iron foundries negotiations were going on to see where women could be used.
Meanwhile, the decrease in women workers in what, before the war, were
distinctively “women’s trades,” became more marked. For instance, in April, 1917, the
number of women was falling off in textiles and the food trades, though these were still
above prewar levels, in dressmaking and domestic service, where the decline was put
at 300,000, and in laundry work, for which exact figures were not obtainable.
The following table brings out the changes in the employment of women in several
of the more important industrial occupations between July, 1914, and January and
April, 1917:
INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE NUMBER

OF WOMEN EMPLOYED SINCE JULY, 1914[44]
January, April,
1917 1917
Metals 267,000 308,000
Chemicals 43,000 51,000
Textiles 23,000 22,000
Clothing -34,000 -37,000
Foods 26,000 18,000
Paper and Print -6,000 -7,000
Woods 19,000 24,000
Total 399,000 453,000
It had become so difficult for the London high class dressmaking and millinery
shops to secure employes that in the fall of 1916 some of the employers met with
representatives of the London County Council and the employment exchanges and
planned considerable improvements in working conditions. The changes included a
reduction of the seasonality of the trade and a shortening of the working hours. But in
July, 1917, their supply of labor was still “insufficient.”[45]
In nonindustrial occupations also during the period from April, 1916, to July, 1917,
there was a continued increase in the number of women employed and the kinds of
work they were doing. Next to “government establishments” the largest percentage of
increase (though the absolute numbers are comparatively small) were found in some
of these groups. In “banking and finance” the gain over July, 1914, was 570 per cent,
in “transport” 422 per cent and in civil service 150 per cent. The gain in numbers in the
whole group, exclusive of agriculture, was 639,000, of which 324,000 were found in
“commercial occupations.”[46]
Along with the growth in numbers the kinds of work done by women in these lines
continued to extend. On the railroads, to the women clerks, car cleaners and ticket
collectors of the first months of war were added shop laborers, engine cleaners and
porters. In several Scottish and a few English and Welsh cities, women became tram
drivers as well as conductors. Cities employed not only women street cleaners and a
larger number of women clerks and teachers but women in various capacities in
power stations, sewage farms, gas works and parks, and as scavengers. A few official
“policewomen” were appointed, and there were numerous women “patrols” or
voluntary police. There were women lamp-lighters and women window cleaners, and
the errand girl had practically replaced the errand boy.
While in July, 1917, according to the Labour Gazette, the number of women
employed permanently on the land in Great Britain had increased by 26,000 or 32 per
cent since July, 1914, the number of casual workers had increased 39,000 or 77 per
cent during the same period. The total number of women employed in farm work in
July, 1917, may therefore be estimated as 192,000, in addition to women relatives of
farmers, who are seldom counted in the returns.
As indicated by the variety of occupations, both industrial and nonindustrial, in
which their employment increased, the substitution of women for men went forward
rapidly during the third year of war. The total number of “females substituted for male
workers” amounted in July, 1917, to 1,354,000, exclusive of casual farm laborers, or to
1,392,000 if such laborers be included. In “government establishments” the number of
women on men’s work was 9,120 times as great as the whole number of women
employed in July, 1914; in “banking and finance” the number was 555 times as great;
in “transport,” 437 times, and in “civil service” 152 times as great. About one working
woman out of every three was replacing a man in July, 1917, in the occupations
covered by the tables of the Labour Gazette.
The report of the “Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops” for 1916 gives an
interesting description of the progress of substitution and of the work of women in
heavy occupations formerly carried on exclusively by men. The Principal Lady
Inspector, Miss Anderson, says, in part:
It appears that the one absolute limit to the replacement of
men by women lies in those heavy occupations and processes
where adaptation of plant or appliances can not be effected so as
to bring them within the compass even of selected women, of
physical capacity above the normal. Very surprising, however, is
the outcome of careful selection, even in fairly heavy work, in
rubber manufacture, paper mills, oil cake and seed crushing mills,
shale oil works, shipyards, iron and tube works, chemical works,
gas works and stacking of coal, tan yards, coarse ware and brick
making, flour milling and other trades. “If they stick this, they will
stick anything,” a manager is reported as saying of the grit and
pluck of the women in a gas works in the recent severe weather.
[47]
She adds, however, what may occur to many students of women’s work, that “it is
permissible to wonder whether some of the surprise and admiration freely expressed
in many quarters over new proofs of women’s physical capacity and endurance is not
in part attributable to lack of knowledge or appreciation of the very heavy and
strenuous nature of much of normal prewar work for women, domestic and industrial.”
Nevertheless, despite these increases, the amount of substitution varied widely
between different trades and even between different firms in the same trade, and
opportunities for replacement still existed. Often women had been more widely
introduced into occupations like railway trucking, for which they did not appear well
fitted, than into such work as electroplating, which seemed in every way suitable.
Women’s lack of trade training, their inferior strength, the special restrictions of the
factory acts, moral objections to having men and women in the same workshop, and
the need of increasing sanitary accommodations and providing women supervisors
had been from the first alleged as objections to putting women in men’s places.[48] But
the strongest obstacles were apparently trade union opposition, frequently expressed
in restrictions in trade agreements, and the prejudice of employers. “The progress of
substitution probably depends in many cases on the pressure exercised by military
tribunals,” said the “Principal Lady Inspector of Factories,” early in 1917. “Employers
will not experiment with women as long as they can get men, though once they do so
they are pleased with the result.”[49]
Fourth Year of the War

In the words of the Chief Woman Factory Inspector, 1917-1918, the fourth year of
the war, was as far as woman’s work was concerned “one mainly of settling down into
the new fields of work which were so rapidly marked out in the three previous years.”
Yet she enumerates several lines of work employing women for the first time during
this year, among which were ship and marine engineering, blast furnaces and forge
works, copper and spelter works, concrete and other construction work for factories
and aerodromes, electric power stations and retorts of gas works. The entrance of
women as unskilled laborers in iron and steel plants and chemical works was
proceeding steadily in November, 1918.
Another interesting indication of the extent and variety of women’s work in the latter
months of the war is a list of placements made by an employment exchange. The list
includes learners in sheet metal working, engine cleaners for a railway company;
machinists in a torpedo factory; drivers for a tramway company; gas meter inspectors;
crane drivers; insurance agents; sawmill laborers; cemetery laborers; railway porters;
painters of motor car bodies; machinists for engineering firms; plumbers in a shipyard;
bill posters; electric welders; foundry workers; armature winders; postwomen; lorry
drivers; wood cutting machinists for shipbuilding; moulders at a grinding mill;
chauffeurs; lift attendants; tinsmiths; solderers in gas meter works; telephone
repairers; hay balers; laboratory assistants for wholesale chemists; tailors’ pressers;
cinema operators; bank clerks; glass blowers; pipe plasterers; bake house assistants;
cork cutters; gardeners; core makers in an iron foundry, and mechanics of many kinds.
[50]
A Home Office report on the “Substitution of Women in Nonmunition Factories”

adds to the above classifications employment in scientific work and in management
and supervision, which a number of women entered during the latter months of the
war, though a lack of suitable candidates retarded the movement. Educated women
found places in factory laboratories where, also, intelligent working women took up the
more routine processes. Most of the women engaged in managerial work were found
in the prewar “women’s industries” like laundries and clothing factories, while the
opening of new trades provided opportunities for many forewomen.
In July, 1914, the total number of women at work for pay was officially estimated as
5,966,000. Four years later this total had risen to 7,311,000 which, as has been noted,
was a net increase of over a million and a third. An increase was found in all the major
industrial groups except domestic service, in which the numbers decreased by
400,000, or about 20 per cent, during the war period. In private industrial
establishments the number of women workers rose in four years from 2,176,000 to
2,745,000, an increase of 569 000, or 26.1 per cent, while in government industrial
establishments, only 2,000 women were employed in July, 1914, and 225,000 in July,
1918, or over a hundred times as many.
By far the greater part of the increase in the number of women factory workers was
to be found in the munition trades. Indeed, in the three trades of paper and printing,
textiles and clothing, the last two of which had been “women’s trades” even before the
war, there was an actual decrease of 86,000 in the number of women workers during
the four year period under discussion. Out of the total increase of 792,000 in this
group of occupations, 746,000 were to be found in the metal, chemical and wood
trades, which cover most of the munition work done by private firms and in
government establishments, which were mainly munition factories.
Another interesting sidelight on the contribution of English working women to the
needs of the war is brought out by the numbers employed in the manufacture of all
kinds of military supplies, including such things as uniforms, shoes and food, as well
as munitions. In April, 1918, a total of 1,265,000 women were employed by private
concerns on war orders, while government work brought the total up to 1,425,000,
about equally divided between munitions and shipbuilding.
EXTENSION OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALES

IN INDUSTRY DURING FOUR YEARS OF WAR[51]
(D)
Trade (A) (B) (C) July, July,
1914 1918
Metal 170,000 594,000 424,000 9 25
Chemical 40,000 104,000 + 64,000 20 39
Textile 863,000 827,000 - 36,000 58 67
Clothing 612,000 568,000 - 44,000 68 76
Food, Drink, Tobacco 196,000 235,000 + 39,000 35 49
Paper and Printing 147,500 141,500 - 6,000 36 48
Wood 44,000 79,000 + 35,000 15 32
China and Earthenware 32,000
Leather 23,100 197,100 + 93,000 4 10
Other 49,000
Government Establishments 2,000 225,000 +223,000 3 47
Total 2,178,600 2,970,000 +792,000 26 37
(A) = Estimated Number of Females Employed July, 1914

(B) = Estimated Number of Females Employed July, 1918
(C) = Increase (+) or Decrease (-) July, 1914-July, 1918
(D) = Per Cent of Females to Total Number of Work People Employed
The addition of orders for the Allies brought the total number of women on war
orders up to 1,750,000.
The following table gives comparisons for April, 1917, and April, 1918, for the
various classes of industry:
NUMBER OF WOMEN ENGAGED ON GOVERNMENT

ORDERS IN PRIVATE CONCERNS,
APRIL, 1917, AND APRIL, 1918[52]
April, April,
Occupation
1917 1918
Building 13,000 16,000
Mines and Quarries 4,000 6,000
Metals 388,000 502,000
Chemicals 58,000 67,000
Textiles 238,000 338,000
Clothing 83,000 130,000
Food, Drink, Tobacco 32,000 53,000
April, April,
Occupation
1917 1918
Paper and Printing 30,000 41,000
Wood 28,000 39,000
Other 55,000 73,000
Total 929,000 1,265,000
In nonindustrial employments, including commerce, banking, work for the central

and local government, transportation, hotels and theaters, agriculture and the
professions, the increase over the prewar level of July, 1914, was 871,000 in July,
1918, a rise from 1,098,000 to 1,969,000 women workers. The increase in these
occupations for the fourth year of war alone was much greater than the increase in
factory workers during the same period, being 209,000 in contrast to 68,000.
The latest figures available for commerce are for April instead of July, 1918, and
show that 850,000 women were then employed in wholesale and retail trade, about a
70 per cent increase since the beginning of the war. The new workers were employed
principally by wholesale establishments and by grocery, fish, provision and hardware
stores. In the latter months of the war a number of women were promoted to
managerial and other positions of responsibility in stores. But in spite of all the
extension of their employment, a considerable number of establishments reported a
shortage of workers in April, 1918.
INCREASE IN EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALES IN

COMMERCE, JULY, 1914-APRIL, 1918, AND
PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS REPORTING A
SHORTAGE OF FEMALE LABOR
IN APRIL, 1918.[53]
Occupation (A) (B) (C)
Wholesale and Retail Drapers,
Haberdashers, Clothiers, etc. 132,000 167,000 20
Wholesale and Retail Grocers,
Bakers, Confectioners 80,000 182,000 5
Wholesale and Retail Butchers,
Fishmongers, Dairymen 42,000 69,000 8
Wholesale and Retail Stationers
and Booksellers 34,000 47,000 12
Retail Boot and Shoe Dealers 13,500 22,500 14
Retail Chemists 10,000 24,000 10
All (including some not
specified above) 496,000 850,000 8
(A) = Estimated No. Employed July, 1914

(B) = Estimated No. Employed April, 1918
(C) = Percentage of Firms Reportinga Shortage of Female Lsbor April, 1918
The term “transportation” in the statistics applies chiefly to steam railroads, as the
employes of the many municipally owned tramways are classed under “local
government.” The number of women in the transportation group was four times as
great in April, 1918, as in July, 1914, or 68,000 instead of 17,000. A list covering the
principal lines of work in July, 1918, shows that the largest number of women were
employed as telegraph and telephone operators, porters and carriage cleaners.[54]
NUMBER OF FEMALES EMPLOYED

BY STEAM RAILWAYS.
July, July,
1914 1918
Booking Clerks 152 3,612
Telegraph and telephone operators
and other clerks 2,800 20,995
Ticket collectors .... 1,972
Carriage cleaners 214 4,603
Engine cleaners .... 3,065
Porters and checkers 3 9,980
Workshop laborers 43 2,547
Other laborers 420 580
Cooks, waitresses, attendants 1,239 3,641
Signalwomen, gatekeepers, guards 437 1,292
Machinists, mechanics 44 1,082
Painters and cleaners
(including charwomen) 698 1,177
Total (including unspecified) 12,423 65,887
In agriculture the increase was less than in most other kinds of work, the number of
permanent women workers rising only from 80,000 to 113,000 in the four years. For
the fourth year of war alone the number of permanent women workers in Scotland
showed a rise for the first time, and there was a slight increase in England and Wales,
the total gain over July, 1917, being 7,000. The number of casual workers dropped
from 88,000 in 1917 to 65,000, however. This fact is ascribed to two causes. A larger
number of male workers were available, including soldiers on furlough, war prisoners,
enemy aliens and school boys. Also there was a much lessened demand for women in
the two lines in which casual workers were most extensively employed—hops, in
which the acreage was reduced by government order, and fruit, in which the crop was
a failure in several localities.
The increase of opportunities for women in the professions was one of the most
significant of the war time changes. The number of professional women more than
doubled during four years of war, rising from 50,500 in July, 1914, to 107,500 in April,
1918. There was, of course, a much enlarged demand for nurses, and the number of
women in Red Cross and military hospitals rose from 10,000 in July, 1914, to 38,000
in January, 1918. While the number of men teachers fell off by 22,000, the number of
women teachers increased by 13,000, and they secured a larger proportion of
appointments to the higher and better paid posts. In January, 1918, the Society of
Incorporated Accountants and Auditors obtained permission to change their articles of
incorporation so as to admit women, and a few weeks later reported that very
desirable women candidates were applying for examination.
By the fourth year of the war women were also largely employed in the various
government departments. In August, 1914, there were 36,000 women and 191,000
men in government work, but in January, 1918, the balance of the sexes had been
reversed and the number of women had risen to 143,000, an increase of 296 per cent,
while the number of men had been reduced to 135,000, a decrease of 29 per cent.
NUMBER OF FEMALES EMPLOYED BY

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
August 1, January 1,
1914 1918
Admiralty (Headquarters) 98 4,101
Board of Customs 21 1,415
Food Ministry New 3,086
Board of Inland Revenue 250 4,549
Ministry of Labor 1,017 3,239
Ministry of Munitions New 9,925
Ministry of National Service New 9,811
Ministry of Pensions New 5,311
Postoffice 32,000 79,000
Board of Trade 15 1,842
War Office 156 9,665
All Others 2,715 11,961
Total 36,272 191,004
Perhaps the most direct help given by women to the progress of the war was their
employment in work for the army behind the lines in France. In July, 1915, a member
of the government, in answering an inquiry in the House of Commons as to the
number of soldiers detailed for clerical work, remarked that on the continent “obviously
neither old civilian clerks nor women clerks would be suitable.” But two years later
thousands of English women were at work there not only as clerks, stenographers,
telegraphers and postal employes, but also as army cooks and cleaners and in the
handling of supplies and various sorts of repair work. The majority were clerical or
domestic workers, however. The women employed in this way were carefully selected
and organized under semi-military discipline, as the “Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps”
(popularly known as the “Waacs”), and numbered over 50,000 before the end of the
war. They wore uniforms of different colors, according to the branch of work which
they undertook. They lived in small huts, often unheated, not far behind the battle
lines, and were constantly exposed to danger. “Waacs” were at times killed in air raids,
and a considerable number suffered from shell shock. Other smaller bodies of women
organized on similar semi-military lines were the “Wrens,” who were employed in
certain shore duties for the navy, and the “Wrafs” who did woodcutting under the
Board of Trade.
The number of women replacing men, as well as the total number of women
employed, reached its highest level during the fourth year of the war. In April, 1918,
the latest date for which these figures were available at the date of writing, there were
531,000 substitutes in industry, 187,000 in government establishments, and 1,098,000
in nonindustrial occupations, or a total of 1,816,000 women who were carrying on
work formerly done by men.[55] Ninety per cent of the women munition makers were
said to be employed on men’s jobs.[56] An index of the distribution of substitutes
among different types of factory work may be gained from the results of a special
questionnaire sent to manufacturers employing 277,000 women.[57] Fifteen per cent
were doing clerical work, 7 per cent warehouse work and packing, and 5 per cent
other nonmanufacturing work, such as sack mending in flour mills and meter
inspecting and show room work in the gas industry. Of the remaining 73 per cent, 9
per cent were engaged in “general laboring work,” and many others in work requiring
similar strength. “It is clear, therefore,” says the report, “that the employment of women
on heavy work has become an important factor in the situation. Though many of the
processes mentioned were unskilled, it was noticeable how many of the women were
engaged on skilled or semi-skilled processes.”
CHAPTER V
Organized Efforts to Recruit Women’s Labor
The increase in the number of women workers and in the scope

of their work by no means “came of itself.” It was the result of a long
process of agitation by private individuals, propaganda, organization
and negotiation by the government, and in the production of
munitions, where the need was most acute, even of legislation.
Besides parliamentary action in the munitions industry, agreements
between employers and trade unions, local committees on women’s
war employment, “Women’s County Agricultural Committees” and a
“Shops” and a “Clerical Occupations” committee of the central
government were the chief agencies promoting a greater utilization
of the services of women. In dealing with the various obstacles to an
extension of women’s employment, the wisdom of securing the
cordial cooperation of organized labor in making industrial changes
was clearly demonstrated. In the manufacturing industries a system
of local representative committees under central official control
brought much better returns than were obtained in agriculture
without such committees—which points to satisfactory wages and
working conditions as an essential addition to propaganda for
securing more women workers. And, naturally enough, such
methods as the use of photographs, personal visits by persons
familiar with local needs, and the trial of a few expert women
workers, all proved effective when general printed appeals had but
slight effect.
Munitions Work
Probably the most serious obstacle to the recruiting of women
workers was the body of trade union restrictions against their
employment. A prime purpose of the well known munitions acts,
which put a new aspect on many of the relations between
employers, employes and the state, was the abrogation of these
trade union rules.
The change thus made compulsory on the industry was known as
the “dilution” of skilled labor by less skilled—which, according to
official definition, “fundamentally means increased employment of
women with a view to releasing men.”[58] The “dilution” movement is
one of the most far reaching labor developments of the war, alike in
the industrial transformation entailed, in the change in the status of
women workers, and in its probable after war consequences. The
events leading up to the passage of the acts, and the subsequent
recruiting of women, form a fascinating chapter in English industrial
history.
The increasing demand for munitions found workmen in the
“engineering” (roughly, the machinists’) trade, thoroughly organized,
mainly in the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. This was one of
the strongest unions in the skilled crafts, having a membership of
174,253 in 1914. The A. S. E., as it is familiarly called, did not admit
women, and its rules among other things restricted the kinds of work
which could be done by women, unskilled men, and nonunionists,
limited the amount of overtime, and the number of machines to be
tended by a single worker. In December, 1914, shortage of labor and
the expanding demand caused the employers’ federation in the
engineering trades to ask the unions to give up these rules during
the war period, but the negotiations which followed were fruitless.
About this time the “industrial truce” was broken by the great strike of
engineers on the Clyde, when their demand for a raise of pay at the
expiration of their wage agreement was refused.
Labor unrest, charges that employes lost much time from work—
in many cases, it was said, because of drink—and difficulties in
getting a sufficient supply of munitions, caused the government to
appoint, on February 15, 1915, a “Committee on Production in
Engineering and Shipbuilding to inquire and report ... as to the best
steps to be taken to ensure that the productive power of the
employes in engineering and shipbuilding establishments working for
government purposes shall be available so as to meet the needs of
the nation in the present emergency.”
The second report of the committee, issued February 20, on
“Shells and Fuses,” recommended as methods of increasing
production, first, that the workers should cease to restrict earnings
and output, in return for which no attempts to cut piece rates should
be allowed, and second, that “there should be an extension of the
practice of employing female labor on this work under suitable and
proper conditions.” The third report, issued March 20, made an
analogous recommendation that, with proper safeguards to protect
union interests, a greater use should be made of unskilled and semi-
skilled labor during the war.
The “Treasury Agreement”

The next step toward “dilution” was the calling of a conference of
representatives of the chief unions doing war work, which met with
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George, and the president of
the Board of Trade on March 17, 1915. No women’s labor
organizations were represented. At the conference Lloyd George
showed that the need for munitions was greater than had in any way
been anticipated, and begged the unions to give up all restrictions on
output and to submit all disputes to arbitration during the war period.
In return, the government would take control of the establishments
affected and would limit their profits. A committee of trade unionists,
also having no women members, was then appointed to draw up
proposals embodying these principles. Their work is embodied in the
so-called “Treasury Agreement,” which was accepted on March 19,
1915, by all the union representatives present, except those of the
Amalgamated Society of Engineers.
The clauses which permitted the increased employment of
women included the following provisions: Each union was
recommended “to take into favorable consideration such changes in
working conditions or trade customs as may be necessary with a
view to accelerating the output of war munitions or equipments,”
provided the government imposed on contractors for munitions, war
equipment, or “other work required for the satisfactory completion of
the war,” certain conditions intended to safeguard the unions and
their wage rates. All changes were to be only for the war period, and
should “not prejudice the position of the work people ... or of their
trade unions in regard to resuming prewar rules or customs after the
war.” After the war also preference of employment should be given
workers who had enlisted or who were employed at the time the
agreement was made. When semi-skilled men were introduced on
work formerly done by skilled men, “the rates paid shall be the usual
rates of the district for that class of work.” Moreover, “the relaxation
of existing demarcation restrictions or admission of semi-skilled or
female labor shall not affect adversely the rates customarily paid for
the job.” A record of all changes was required to be kept, open to
government inspection, and “due notice” of intended changes was to
be given “where practicable,” with opportunity for consultation by the
workers or their representatives, if desired.
However, an agreement of this kind to which the Amalgamated
Society of Engineers had refused assent was not a little like the play
of Hamlet with Hamlet left out. Further negotiations were
immediately held with the A. S. E., and on March 25, when certain
additional safeguards had been added, they likewise accepted the
agreement. The additions pledged the government to limit profits in
the shops where union rules had been given up “with a view to
securing that benefit resulting ... shall accrue to the State,” and to
use its influence in the restoration of trade union conditions after the
war. The restrictions were to be removed solely on work “for war
purposes,” and the workers might demand a certificate to that effect
from the government department concerned. Most important of these
additions in view of the sweeping changes taking place in the
engineering industry was the clause to the effect that where new
inventions were introduced during the war, the class of workmen to
be employed on them after the war “should be determined according
to the practice prevailing before the war in the case of the class of
work most nearly analogous.”
In accordance with the terms of the agreement an advisory
committee of labor representatives was appointed, to help in carrying
out its recommendations, and several local “munitions committees”
representing employers, employes and the public were formed for
the same purpose.
But it is claimed of the “Treasury Agreement” that “except in so
far as it prepared the mind of the worker for later compulsion, the
agreement completely failed to achieve its purpose. The main cause
of this failure was a feeling on the part of the men that they were
being called upon to surrender what they regarded as their heritage,
without the employers being called upon to make any corresponding
sacrifice.”[59]
At any rate, the agreement was tried but little more than three
months before it was superseded by legislation. A coalition ministry
which the Labour party entered was formed in May. The shortage of
munitions, which hindered the spring advance and which had been
brought forcibly to general attention through the loss of life in the
battle of Neuve Chapelle, was one of the chief causes for the fall of
the Liberal party. In June a “Ministry of Munitions” was created, and
Lloyd George was made minister.
The Munitions Acts
The first munitions of war act was passed July 2, 1915.[60] Its
purpose as expressed in its title was “to make provision for furthering
the efficient manufacture, transport and supply of munitions for the
present war.” It was drafted with the active cooperation of the Labour
Advisory Committee, and was approved before passage by the
majority of a conference of representatives of unions in the munitions
industry. The radicals claim that the bill was passed primarily not so
much to give a legal sanction to “dilution” as to prohibit strikes and to
minimize the leaving of munitions work by individuals.[61]
As amended in January, 1916, the possible scope of the act was
wide. It might cover, to name the principal items, any articles
“intended or adapted for use in war,” any metals, machines, tools or
materials required for their manufacture or repair, any construction or
repair of buildings for military purposes, and even the erection of
houses intended for munition workers, and the supply of heat, light,
water, power and tramway facilities for munitions work. A
commentator has said that it included practically “all work intended to
aid the warlike operations in any way.”[62]
Whatever its primary purpose, the act contained important
sections relating to the abandonment of union rules and the dilution
of labor. The Ministry of Munitions might declare any establishment
in which munitions work was carried on, including government
plants, a “controlled establishment.” In such an establishment all
trade union restrictions were to be given up, and on the other hand
the employer’s profits were limited to a maximum of one-fifth more
than the average for the two years before the war. In February, 1917,
there were reported to be 4,285 “controlled” establishments and 103
government munition factories. The rules and safeguards relating to
the abandonment of trade union restrictions were, word for word,
those of the “Treasury Agreement.”[63] The maximum penalty for
violating the regulations was, for the workman £3 ($14.40), and for
the employer £50 (about $240). The rest of the act was for the war
period only, but the “dilution” clauses held for a year after the end of
the war, for the purpose, obviously, of tiding over the demobilization
period and making effective the government pledge of a restoration
of trade union rules and the dismissal of the women and unskilled
men. But it will be noted that there was no reference to the
provisions of the agreement with the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers supplementary to the “Treasury Agreement.” In this
omission it would seem that the unions had seriously weakened their
weapons for ensuring restoration of their rules and customs after the
war. The importance of the “new machines” clause has already been
discussed, and the specific pledge of the government to aid in
restoration might also have been of value.
Organization for “Dilution”

under the Munitions Acts

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Chronologies, Shifts, and Variations in The Wartime Songs 44

Chapter 3: Command and Control: Official Policy and Institutional

Diversity and Quantity of Performance Groups 160

Part Three—Song Reception and Legacy

T his book is truly a career-long project. It was born during my undergradu-

Bahudarian, Chris Bradbury, Natasha Bregel, John Glasscock, Frank Hall,

easily than other genres of music.

audiences. Of course, it is impossible and incorrect to generalize from specific

ethnic minorities in the area of song production and performance. It is my

The Songs of the War Years:

PREWAR SONGS AND THEIR INFLUENCE

2 I. Shekhonina, Tvorchestvo T. N. Khrennikova (Moscow: Muzyka, 1964), 104, 124;

by promising faithfulness to her and commitment to his country’s defense. In

6 Biriukov, PVD, 130–32.

campaign tomorrow / then be ready for the campaign today.

10 Biriukov, PVD, 133–35.

new lyrics—“Podymaisia, narod” (Arise, people)—that encouraged broad

He was probably offended / and said farewell at the gate somehow. / He

Written by Isakovskii at the request of the composer, Vladimir Zakharov, the

BLITZKRIEG: THE EARLY WAR SONGS

16 B. A. Savchenko, Vadim Kozin (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1993), 84.

The editor, a quiet, calm woman, a musicologist . . .was well respected

17 Dolmatovskii, Rasskazy, 183–84.

approximately seventy-five songs and accepted for performance, distribution, pub-

Aleksandrov’s melody, solemn and measured in tempo and mood, crescendos

Aleksandrov’s version was published by Muzgiz on June 30 in five thousand

People’s Commissar of Defense, generals, and political commissars and instructors.

Budennyi, and Timoshenko. These patriotic pieces were written by nationally

FAREWELL TO NORMALITY: THE EARLY LYRICAL SONGS

enemy is threatening / like a black cloud approaching. / I am not the only

“too sappy,” or being “too complex to be widely distributed.” Because Blanter’s

34 Biriukov, POV, 198–99.

52–53; V. I. Zak, Matvei Blanter (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1971), 172; G. A.

38 V. Solov′ev-Sedoi quoted in Lukovnikov, Druz′ia, 54.

43 Dolmatovskii, Rasskazy, 193–94.

WAR IS HERE TO STAY: SONGS ABOUT WARTIME LIFE

and in a few days I sang it at the newspaper office. E. Vorob′ev asked me to

45 A. Tishchenko, Konstantin Listov (Moscow: Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1987), 31.

First Year of War

Second Year of War

Third Year of War

INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE NUMBER

Fourth Year of the War

A Home Office report on the “Substitution of Women in Nonmunition Factories”

EXTENSION OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALES

(A) = Estimated Number of Females Employed July, 1914

NUMBER OF WOMEN ENGAGED ON GOVERNMENT

In nonindustrial employments, including commerce, banking, work for the central

Chronologies, Shifts, and Variations in The Wartime Songs 44

Chapter 3: Command and Control: Official Policy and Institutional