Who wrote the Soviet national anthem? (1 Viewer)

[Tim Raffey]

I just want to clear something up. I've heard that it was written by Sergei Prokofiev and Sergei Mikhalkov (the father of Nikita Mikhalkov & Andrei Konchalovski, who the imdb says wrote the lyrics).

Did Prokofiev write the music? I kind of want to know, as it's probably one of my favourite pieces of Classical music (and I guess, due to its evil connotations during the Cold War [which I just missed the brunt of], it never really became a respected piece of music in North America...or maybe it did and I just wasn't paying attention). Thanks.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

No the music was written by the founder and leader of the Red Army Band and Chorus, Alexander Alexandrov, whose son conducted the ensemble when I saw it around 1990. Sergei Mikhalkov did write the lyrics. The anthem was written at the outbreak of WWII: prior to that time the USSR had no anthem because it viewed itself not so much as a nation as instead a center of world revolution.
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