The four-volume collection of historical songs, published in 1960-1973 in the academic series "Monuments of Russian Folklore", ends with songs about the Crimean War. The collection of Russian historical songs, published in 1987 in the Large series "Libraries of the Poet", adds several songs about the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Judging by the most authoritative publications of recent decades, the appearance of folk historical songs in Russia has ended there.

Such ideas are not unfounded. But they relied only on understanding the material that was "on the surface" at that time, having been included in the orbit of research aspirations of Soviet folklore studies for a relatively long time. Meanwhile, even after 1878, historical songwriting continued, especially in the traditional forms of military songs proper. Leaving aside for now a series of works about conflicts that are more or less private or secondary - and even about the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905-let's see how the great war of 1914-1917 was reflected in Russian historical songs. Until recently, printed historical songs about it were counted in units. These are fairly well-forgotten publications of recordings made during the fighting and managed to get into print even then. After the revolution, it became undesirable to record the recent folklore of the "tsarist army", and even more so to publish it. The war itself, which in Russia until October 1917 was called the Great and Second Patriotic War, was officially called "imperialist", and the displays of patriotism shown in it turned out to be an inconvenient object for folklore publications. It is to be hoped that over time records of soldiers 'historical songs of this war will be found and published in the archives - in addition to the relatively few that were discovered quite recently in the self-recordings of the soldiers' handwritten songbook and are now published in a fairly authoritative publication, but not folklore, but historical and archival.

The songbook went to the publisher from its compiler M. A. Kruglov, a participant in the war. While being treated in a hospital in early 1918, M. A. Kruglov "reproduced almost the entire song repertoire of the Russian trench soldier-peasant of the First World War" - so

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The content of the notebook was perceived by the folklorist A. L. Nalepin, to whom it was presented (Soldatsky pesennik / Publication of A. L. Nalepin, O. Yu. Shcherbakova / / Russian Archive: History of the Fatherland in the testimonies and documents of the XVIII-XX centuries. Moscow, 1995. Vol. 6. p. 473). The collectors of a small collection of soldiers 'songs published with sheet music during this war were not inclined to think that they had "exhausted the repertoire of our army", since "according to the conditions of service" they had to "face only some parts of the troops" (Songs of our Army: 18 songs recorded in the army in the period 1914-1915).P. Orlov and F. N. Shcheglov. M., B. G. S. 4). It is significant that only one song was represented by variants in both of these sources. So, Kruglov's songbook does not exhaust the repertoire of soldiers ' songs of the Second World War. This is evidenced by the songs that were not included in it, which appeared in the periodicals of that time.

The first echoes of the war that began, as usual, were the textual adaptations to its realities of songs that already existed. Soldiers traditionally "sang" in the XVIII-XIX centuries the beginning of military operations with Sweden, France, Turkey, reworking the song, which apparently originated in the 40s of the eighteenth century. Germany declared war on July 19, 1914, after Emperor Nicholas II left unanswered an ultimatum presented to him by Emperor Wilhelm II's ambassador. This made it possible to correlate the beginning of a very old soldier's song with modern times, changing the geographical names and designations of the enemy's nationality in it.:

Writes, writes the German tsar, Writes to the Russian tsar:

"I'll ruin all of Russia, I'll go live in Russia myself." The great tsar has closed his eyes, and he himself is walking around Moscow. Don't be a fool, great tsar, We won't give up Russia. We will gather a lot of troops and go to war with the Germans. We will cross the Carpathian Mountains and spend the winter wintering. When we were fighting the Germans, Everyone shouted "hurrah!" Oh, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! To the Sovereign, honor and praise! Our mother Russia is the head of the whole world.

(Songs of our army. p. / 5). Collectors noted the variation

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realia in the performance of the song by soldiers: "German" - "Turkish", "Carpathians" - "Balkans". This was obviously due both to the entry of Turkey into the war on the side of Germany, and to the memories of previous wars with Turkey, to which the song had previously responded.

Another similar song reworking, the closest analogy of which is in one of the songs about the Crimean War, correlates with the real situation of 1914 on the Russian shores of the Baltic. The German fleet had to concentrate on fighting the British fleet, and the Germans did not dare to land troops in Russia without strong support from the sea, but we needed to have a significant military force ready to repel the enemy:

We were standing on the beach,

On the German bank,

We looked at the seaside,

How a wave waves.

Isn't there a fog coming up from the sea -

Then a heavy rain makes a noise.

The tsar of the German Empire promised

Russian army to win.

You're lying, you're lying, you German enemy,

You can't beat the Russians.

Russia has a lot of troops,

Russian likes to treat:

TREAT ME to a lead bullet, a steel bayonet as a snack. A four-grain steel bayonet will pierce the German chest.

(Soldier's songbook. No. 6; by" German coast " the song means the Russian coast facing Germany).

But soon the songs began to respond directly to the military actions of the Russian troops, who were fighting heavy battles in East Prussia in early August 1914. The song below, although it uses poetic techniques that are traditional for folklore, is not a reworking of any of the well-known songs of an earlier time. It combined the motives of the recruit's parting with his family and his possible death on German soil - in the form of a letter from a soldier, as if already buried, but, at the same time, ready to go to Berlin. I quote this text with abbreviations (Soldier's songbook. N4):

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The last day has passed for us, brothers:

Tomorrow I'm going early-I'm going, I'm going, friends, with you, I'm leaving my native land. I'll say goodbye to you early at dawn tomorrow, my wife;

I'll say goodbye to the fields And my native land.

Here is our comrade killed here

In a foreign country,

In a foreign country

Yes, on German land.

We will collect, brothers, the dead

And we'll write a little letter,

We will send you this email

To my father and mother.,

To my father and mother.

And to zhenki molodoy -

Let them all read it

And they will know how they suffer.

How to suffer in war

Yes, on the German side.

German bullets are flying towards us,

Our buckshot will meet them,

The Germans are running around in the trenches

"Where they'd better lie down."

We don't need to lie down,

We're on our way to Berlin.

The song that follows conveys the general uplift of spirits caused by the great successes of the Russian troops in the Battle of Galicia, which began on August 13, 1914, after the unsuccessful attempt of the Austro-Hungarian offensive. Having overturned the enemy, our troops launched successful operations on a wide front, soon took Lviv and besieged Przemysl, and in early September they occupied all of Galicia and part of Austrian Poland, threatening to invade Hungary and Silesia. General N. V. Ruzsky, mentioned in the song, commanded one of the two armies advancing in Galicia (the second was commanded by General A. A. Brusilov). In the newspaper publication "novaya soldatskaya pesnya" (Old Vladimirets. 1915. N 285. 30 Dec.) it is mentioned that it is performed "to the accompaniment of harmonics and balalaika" - that is, obviously, it belongs to the repertoire of amateur soldiers. Here is an abridged version of this song:

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Germans, Hungarians, Austrians, Braggarts and bullies,

Fights in words! They lived in peace with us for a long time, and kept sharpening their teeth on us -

Envy took them, That we have enough of everything, And we live freely

In holy Russia...

So they wanted to blow us up in three weeks,

To pick up everything:

Revel, Riga and Libava, Vilna, Kiev and Warsaw

And other cities. The Kaiser decided to have lunch, try Russian porridge, cabbage soup

In St. Petersburg with us. He boasted of his power And went on a campaign against us,

Declared war. The tsar immediately sent a village to the border of the Cossacks,

To calm it down.

Our brave General Ruzsky Showed them his Russian fist,

He began to smash them... "You are threatening everyone with your fist, And now look at it,

What a fist we are!"

They were overtaken near Lviv... And pretty battered...

"Here you go, braggarts!"

The newspaper states, quite rightly, that "this song, like most folk songs of the last half - century, is rhymed." Having a considerable length (66 lines), it is known to me only from this newspaper publication. It is possible that the text was edited. The folklore analogue was reported by the publisher himself:

"This song is sung to the tune of an old soldier's song:

Beyond the mountains, beyond the valleys of Akhaltsikhe ... etc."

The song mentioned here refers to the event of November 12, 1853, when the victory at Akhaltsikhe was won over the Turkish army that invaded Georgia (Collection of Caucasian military songs/Collected by M. P.

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Colotilin. Tiflis, 1907. N 32). It has the same size, but is much shorter and is not the original text of the new song: there are only echoes between them in separate motifs and images.

On September 24, 1914, German troops launched an offensive in the direction of Warsaw. A fierce defensive battle on the outskirts of the city began on September 28 and lasted until October 1 (when the Russian troops went on the offensive). The song below appears to have reflected these episodes, but it was obviously composed much later - as a response to the preparation of already rested units for new battles.

Come on, guys, get ready for a hike,

Take crackers and underwear for yourself;

Together we will go to war with the German,

Let us lay down our lives for the faith, for the King. Our superiors have been in battle

And they shed their blood for their homeland;

Our banners have been in battle,

We'll take them to war again. Remember, brothers, how our regiment fought

Near the city of Warsaw in the German War;

For three days and three nights our regiment fought

And he lay down all broken under Warsaw. The ranks are heavy and our regiment is broken,

And the banner fell, the banner-bearer was killed. One recruit was so brave,

One of the Germans he beat off the banner.

"The text of this song," the collectors reported, " has several versions. We didn't manage to record all of them. In one of them, after verse 5, it is sung as follows: "The Sovereign himself came to us there,/With his own words, the soldier encouraged" " {Songs of our Army, p. 77).

Not tied textually to any particular fact (and therefore only conditionally related to historical ones), the short "bayonet song" published in the Petrograd newspaper Den (1914. N 326. 3 Nov.), reflected, as can be assumed, the mood of the soldiers who went on the offensive in October of this year:

Bayonets, guys, boldly,

Bayonet charge go ahead,

For the right stop cause,

For Russia and for the people.

For the right stop cause,

Go, don't be a coward!

Go ahead, guys, boldly

For Mother Russia!

This publication, entitled "Soldier's Poetry", contains, in addition to the above song, two ditties composed explicitly by soldiers and reflecting their front-line everyday life.

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Undoubtedly, the fruit of a soldier's creativity, which in this case does not go back to any song prototypes, is also the next song, which I convey with abbreviations due to episodes that express a general pessimistic mood, but do not correlate with specific facts. Its actual content requires a comment, which will be given after the text {Soldier's Songbook. N 1):

It's good for you to be free, Listen to gentle words - You would sit in the trenches, Experience what I do!

There were battles for many days, But the soldier did not lose heart, He was always thinking about victory And talking about peace. We went through the Carpathian Mountains-We went to get glory, But the success changed, We had to retreat. A lot of our brothers have fallen, a lot of blood has been shed -Because the authorities were all German. General Sukhomlinov did not introduce us to the shells;

He was a minister in Russia, and he learned a lot of luxury. And his faithful comrade Myasoedov was a spy, he spied a lot there, But was later hanged. And when we surrendered Warsaw, There was a German general-He filled his pockets And fled to Germany. And there was a small fortress, This fortress - Osovets, We stayed in it for a long time:

The commandant was good;

We were hoping for a fortress,

Osovets forts

"We only found out two days later,

That they gave it away without a fight.

We can't wait for joy,

The world can't wait for us:

Shells are flying through us

And in the trench it's bad for us.

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The song reflected the impact on the soldiers of newspaper propaganda inspired by the enemies of Russia in order to discredit the government and demoralize the Russian army. The "German authorities" were not more responsible than others for the difficulties in supplying ammunition and in the retreat of our troops: generals and officers who bore German surnames - mainly descendants of Baltic knights who had long been Russified - served their homeland, Russia, as faithfully as those who bore Russian surnames. The press campaign against the Minister of War, General V. A. Sukhomlinov, which led to his resignation, was mainly based on fictitious accusations. Executed for espionage on March 17, 1915, Colonel S. N. Myasoedov, as it turned out later, was innocent (see, for example, G. M. Katkov, February Revolution, Moscow, 1997, pp. 135-147).

But the song also deals with the real failures of the Russian army in 1915. However, the German offensive in East Prussia was first stopped at the Kovno-Osovets line. In the Carpathian Mountains, Russian troops were successful, took the fortress of Przemysl, but the offensive stopped due to lack of forces and ammunition. And in April, the enemy managed to develop an offensive here, and the Russian army left Galicia occupied in 1914. In July, I had to surrender Warsaw. In August, Russian troops managed to eliminate the breakthrough in the Vilna direction, but the result of the 1915 campaign was the abandonment of Wormwood and Lithuania. However, the goal of the German command, which concentrated the bulk of its forces on the Russian front - to withdraw Russia from the war in 1915 - was not achieved: in October, the front stabilized.

The last of these songs seems to be the result of a soldier's oral creativity; but it was undoubtedly influenced by a song that had a literary source. This is the "Death of the Varyag", which had already become truly popular by that time and is still widely known today. Oral versions of it, noticeably different from the original author's text by E. M. Studenskaya, were recorded even among the Cossacks and published even before the First World War (see, for example: Collection of Cossack songs / Collected and published by S. A. Kholmsky. Kursk, 1910. N249).

But here we are not looking at a textual reworking of a well-known song, but the result of creative use of its images while maintaining the overall heroic mood.:

The mortar roars and rumbles in the distance, The shell explodes deafeningly, And the brothers lay down with their bones on the ground, And the groan rushes over the fields. Monsters rush one after another, People like garbage sweeping away, The ground Takes off and swirls like smoke,

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And the roar goes on and on.

But the living stand silent before death

And their banner is raised proudly;

Our great Russian soldier will not flinch

And the onslaught of the enemy will meet firmly.

Blood flows in torrents and bodies are torn apart

Into small pieces by projectile,

Death mows and mows down people without number -

The earth felt like hell.

But the command to the soldiers "forward!"is heard.

And they moved in orderly rows

Russian army in heavy campaign

And in a merciless battle with the enemies.

And the enemy doesn't spare any shells for us,

He doesn't spare any rifle bullets;

Fly for a land mine in the air land mine

And the sky turns red with anger.

Our last time has come,

We don't want to be captured.

Go ahead, comrades, with God, " hurrah!"

We are dying for our homeland.

We went into battle for a just cause,

But our fate was inevitable...

Let the whole world say that we went to bed with honor

For the glory of great Russia.

(Soldier's songbook. N II}. Reflecting the vocabulary of front-line life, the song calls large-caliber shells "monsters". Its actual content may be due to the incredibly difficult conditions of the offensive at Lake Naroch on March 5-15, 1916, which was planned thoroughly, but was launched three months before the appointed date - at the urgent request of the French, who were exhausted from the German onslaught at Verdun.

These are not all well-known songs about the Second World War, but the most characteristic ones. There are also recordings of songs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicated to protecting Russia's borders from attacks from Afghanistan, protecting the Russian railway in Manchuria, defending Port Arthur, and the battle of Mukden. It is often difficult to separate historical songs from "non-historical" ones, which depicted particular episodes of military service of soldiers and Cossacks. However, this also applies to the works of the previous time.

The appearance of folk historical songs did not stop with the end of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878. Their tradition did not change significantly over the next four decades. But this is confirmed by records that were partly unknown and partly ignored. The fact is that most of the historical songs recorded by collectors are second-hand.

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half of the XIX and early XX centuries - these are regimental songs that were common in the army, the performance of which was not widespread. Cossack songs are like a single whole with soldiers ' songs not only in terms of historical content: many of these historical songs also existed locally - in this or that Cossack army or even regiment.

In the works of the middle and second half of the XIX century, the patriotism of soldiers ' and Cossack songs of the previous time is preserved, but there is often a kind of forgiveness of previous artistic achievements. In the mass of songs created by soldiers, Cossacks, and sailors, more and more often there are those that deviate to one degree or another from the stylistic traditions characteristic of an earlier military song. These are the results of a" semi-professional " creative style that uses not only folklore, but also literary samples. This is one of the manifestations of a process that is generally characteristic of oral creativity of the New Time. There is no reason to doubt the natural origin of such new patriotic songs, and there is no reason to suspect their artificial introduction into the oral repertoire.

The material of works that actually existed in the military environment should, of course, be fully taken into account in the preparation of future consolidated editions of historical songs of the Russian people. This applies not only to the songs quoted here, which responded to the war of 1914-1917. Many of the historical songs of the previous half-century were also not included in such publications, for the reasons just mentioned.

Saint-Petersburg

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