[Eng CC] March of the Defenders of Moscow / Песня защитников Москвы [Soviet Military Song]

March of the Defenders of Moscow (1941)
Composition: Boris Andreevich Mokrousov
Lyrics: Alexey Alexandrovich Surkov

The March of the Defenders of Moscow or the Song of the Defenders of Moscow is a Russian military march originally used by the Red Army and appeared first during the 1941 Battle of Moscow. The words to the march were written by Alexey Surkov while the music was composed by Boris Mokrousov. In early October 1941, the Wehrmacht began their offensive to take control of Moscow. In shock, Surkov composed a poem he titled Defenders of Moscow. The poems were first published in the newspaper of the Krasnoarmeiskaya Pravda on 3 November 1941. A week later, it was printed by Vechernyaya Moskva. Drawing the attention of the Central Studio of Documentary Film of USSR, the text was set to music by Mokrousov and was broadcast in a documentary on the defense of the cities of Volokolamsk and Mozhaysk. It was later performed in an orchestra setting in the 1942 Soviet film, Moscow Strikes Back. It was also used in the 1944 film Six P.M..