Farewell of Slavianka

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Farewell of Slavianka (Russian: Прощание славянки - Proshchanie Slavianki) is a Russian patriotic march, written by the composer Vasily Agapkin in honour of the Slavic women bidding farewell to their husbands who left for the First Balkan War. The march premiered in Tambov in 1912 and was subsequently released as a single. Slavianka means "Slavic woman".

The melody gained popularity in Russia and adjoining countries during the World War I, when the Russian soldiers left their homes accompanied by this music. It was also used as an unofficial anthem of Admiral Kolchak's White Army.

It was commonly believed, erroneously, that prior to its use in the award-winning 1957 film The Cranes Are Flying, the song was banned in the Soviet Union due to associations with the tsarist regime and the counter-revolutionary movements. This was not the case. This march was published in an official collection of music for Red Army orchestras^[1], and it was recorded in the early 1940s, by a military orchestra under Ivan Petrov (1906-1975). There are lyrics which are usually sung by the Red Army choir, even today.

Subsequently, several Russian and Polish composers attempted to write lyrics for this music. During the 1990s, the Yabloko party lobbied for the march to be adopted as the National Anthem of Russia, but without success. Currently, the march is recognized as the anthem of the Tambov Oblast. Ships cruising along the Volga and the Rossiya train which runs from Moscow to Vladivostok make use of the tune before departing. Train #2 (named "Ukraine" at the time) used to depart from Kiev to Moscow to the sound of this tune.

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^ Official ceremonial repertoire for orchestras of the Red Army (Russian: Служебно-строевой репертуар для оркестров Красной Армии - Sluzhebno-stroevoi repertuar dlya orkestrov Krasnoy Armii), Moscow, Voenizdat, 1945. Editor of this collection was great Soviet march composer Semen Alexandrovich Tchernetzky (1881-1950), in 1925-1949 - Head of Military Music Service of People's Commissariat of Defense, later Ministry of Armed Forces of the Soviet Union.