16 days till the Victory Day

Vasily Ivanovich Lebedev-Kumach

An unprecedented number of Nazi German and allied troops broke into the Soviet Union in the small hours of Sunday, June 22, 1941.
It took poet Vasily Lebedev-Kumach two days, June 22 and June 23, to write his Holy War poem. The poem made the lyrics of a new song presented, a mere three days later, to departing troops by the song and dance company of the Red Army. Artists, as well as the troops, met its call for national unity, moral integrity and heroism.




Arise huge country arise to the mortal fight
With the dark fascist force with the damned horde
Let noble fury boil up in a wave
There is a national holy war
Let noble fury boil up in a wave
There is a people's holy war

We shall repulse the suffocaters of all ardent ideas
Those tyrants, robbers, torturers of peoples
Let noble fury boil up in a wave
There is a people's holy war
The dark wings dare not fly over our native land
The enemy dare not trample her spacious fields

Let noble fury boil up in a wave
There is a people's holy war
The rotten fascist unclean
We will drive out with a bullet to the forehead
United with mankind we will hammer out a mighty coffin

Let noble fury boil up in a wave
There is a people's holy war
Let noble fury boil up in a wave
There is a people's holy war