Slav'sya

"Slav’sya!", (Russian: Славься!, romanized: Slavʹsya!) is the name of the final song in the epilogue of Mikhail Glinka's first opera A Life for the Tsar (1836) and now considered as one of Russia's greatest classical and patriotic anthems of the 19th century. The original version of the song, written by Vasily Zhukovsky and Egor Fyodorovich Rozen, praised the Tsar and the Russian Tsardom, while the latter version by Sergey Gorodetsky was one of a patriotic form and is even sometimes regarded as a patriotic anthem of the Russia in the 20th century and today. It is one of the more popular pieces from the opera, which is performed during patriotic concerts by orchestras and traditional Russian and Soviet instrumental ensembles. It has also been played by military bands and civil concert bands, using the arrangement composed by military composer Yevgeny Makarov for the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945 after World War II, and was also arranged for the Alexandrov Ensemble, which played it during their 2004 concert in the Vatican. While the modern version is the more commonly known version sung today, there have been also performances in which the original Imperial lyrics have been sung.