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The melody of this song is better known as "Na sopkakh Man'tchzhurii" ("On the Hills of Manchuria") which was composed in 1906 by Ilya Alekseevitch Shatrov. The original lyrics (by Stepan Petrov) lament the defeat of the Imperial Russian army in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 [ see Wikipedia article : "On the Hills of Manchuria" ].

On this video, Dmitriy Hvorostovskiy is actually singing a different, more recent, set of lyrics, the post-WW2 lyrics by Mashistov, in praise of the courage and heroism of Soviet soldiers who fell in battle. Although there is no specific mention of "Eastern Europe", the overwhelming impression you get from Mashistov's lyrics is that this song is now about the Second World War, in which the Soviets bore the brunt of the fighting against Nazi Germany, and in which the Soviets also managed to inflict 80% of all the casualties suffered by the Germans. The word "gao-lyan" in the penultimate line (the Russian word is the approximation derived from the Chinese word "gao-liang", meaning "maize fields" or "sorghum") is the only hint of the original lyrics by Stepan Petrov. Otherwise, the post-WW2 lyrics by Mashistov make no mention of Manchuria.

A highly emotional performance, on YouTube, by the great baritone Hvorostovskiy. Not only has the guy got smouldering eyes, he's got his audience all weeping their eyes out as well !

Russians are emotional people, especially when they're reminded of national tragedies and losses. No doubt, his concert-hall audience will also be thinking of another, more recent setback on the Asian continent : the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, whose consequences, for all of us, loom larger each day.