War Songs Tour
This feature article was written for the Hvorostovsky/Orbelian Songs of the War Years concerts commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II. The commemorative concerts took place in May/June 2005 at Moscow’s Kremlin Palace and in seven “Hero Cities” throughout Russia. These Hero Cities’ — Tula, Smolensk, Volgograd (Stalingrad), Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg and St. Petersburg (Leningrad) — figured prominently in the pivotal battles and heroic victories of World War II.
SONGS OF THE WAR YEARS
I
In the life of any human being there is an event dividing his or her existence into “Before” and “After.” Such events occur in the history of a country as well. The Second World War (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War) of 1941-45 divided the life and memory of several generations into two periods: before and after the War. And between “Before” and “After” were four terrible and heroic years: the red of blood, the din of screams and death-rattles — illuminated by missile explosions and crowned with the tear-washed exclamation: “Victory!”
Memory compresses these four years into a single fiery line. Memory permanently returns us to it — to the fiery line that represents the unity of our past and future; that is the source of our courage, and of our hope to hold out and to emerge victorious in a critical situation. And, too, Memory takes us back to our relatives and fellow countrymen, who “were knocked breathless in the mortal snowstorm.” Memory reawakens our grief over their losses and our immense gratitude for their heroism.
And I
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