War and march · Protest and freedom · c. 1914 · Europe

Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow

Ой, у лузі червона калина / Oi u luzi chervona kalyna

A Ukrainian marching song named after the red viburnum, a national symbol. In 2022 people all over the world sang it.

Words: traditional; three verses by Hryhoriy Trukh
Music: traditional; arranged by Mykhailo Kossak (1914)
Culture: Ukrainians; the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen
Language: Ukrainian
Place: Marianivka, Kherson Governorate (recorded 1875); Lviv and Stryi, Eastern Galicia (1914)
Date: rooted in a song of the mid-17th century; recorded 1875; march of 1914
Type: War and march · Protest and freedom
The words: Public domain (traditional words, recorded in 1875, with three verses added by Hryhoriy Trukh in 1914)

The story

"Oi u luzi chervona kalyna" ("Oh, the Red Viburnum in the Meadow") is a Ukrainian patriotic march. Its text derives from a folk song, "The Steep Banks Overflowed", which dates from the Khmelnytskyi Uprising of the mid-17th century. The best-known variant was recorded in 1875 by the historians Volodymyr Antonovych and Mykhailo Drahomanov during their ethnographic studies in the village of Marianivka, then in Yelysavethrad county of the Kherson Governorate. The red viburnum (kalyna) has been part of Ukrainian culture since ancient times: in many ballads its berries stand for Cossack blood spilled in battle and for untimely death. It is a national symbol of Ukraine.

The song became popular through Stepan Charnetskyi's stage performance Sun of the Ruin, based on a play by Vasyl Pachovsky, which premiered in early 1914 with the melody arranged by the conductor Mykhailo Kossak and was played in Lviv's Ruska Besida theatre and across Eastern Galicia. In September 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, Hryhoriy Trukh, an officer of the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen, heard it in Stryi. He wrote three new verses, and it became the anthem of the Riflemen, the first ethnic Ukrainian military formation of the 20th century. According to Ivan Bobersky, its hopeful verses, which named the liberation of Ukraine as the Riflemen's aim, set it apart from the mostly sad military songs of the time.

Between the world wars Alexander Koshetz and Filaret Kolessa arranged it for choir, and it became popular across Galicia as more than a soldiers' song. Mykhailo Zozuliak, a Metropolitan Opera singer of Ukrainian origin, recorded it in the United States in 1925, and a second recording, in Koshetz's arrangement, was issued in 1944. Feodor Chaliapin also sang it. During and after the Second World War it was used by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Because it was tied to the hope of Ukrainian independence, singing it was banned in Soviet Ukraine (1919–1991); it was passed on mostly in families and among dissidents, although a version of its text was printed in a collection of historical songs in Kyiv in 1961. In the late 1980s it was sung openly at protest meetings, and the dissident Nadiya Svitlychna wrote a modified version of the text.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022, Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the band BoomBox, who had cut short a tour of the United States to return and join the armed forces, recorded himself singing the first verse unaccompanied, in army fatigues near Sophia Square in Kyiv. He posted the video on Instagram on 27 February, and it spread widely. In early March the South African musician The Kiffness made the first remix of it; many others followed. At the end of March the Ukrainian ice dancers Oleksandra Nazarova and Maksym Nikitin performed to the song at the 2022 World Figure Skating Championships in protest at the invasion. In April 2022 Pink Floyd used Khlyvnyuk's voice in "Hey, Hey, Rise Up!", a single released in aid of Ukrainian humanitarian relief. On 28 June 2022 more than 1,000 singers from over 50 countries sang it together online, which Guinness World Records counted as the largest online performance.

In Crimea, after the Russian annexation of 2014 and again after the invasion of 2022, singing such "nationalist anthems" was treated as discrediting the Russian army and punished with fines and imprisonment. In September 2022 the Russian occupation authorities jailed and fined members of a wedding party for playing the song, and Sergey Aksyonov, the Russian leader of the peninsula, warned that people singing such songs would be punished harshly.

What it says

A marching song of hope and resolve, built around the red viburnum, an old Ukrainian symbol of the blood of fallen fighters. Its soldiers' verses declare that they will fight to free Ukraine, and its mood is confident rather than mournful.

The words

Ой у лузі червона калина похилилася,Oj u luzi červona kalyna poxylylasja,Oh, in the meadow the red guelder rose has bent down low,

Чогось наша славна Україна зажурилася.Čohosʹ naša slavna Ukrajina zažurylasja.For some reason our glorious Ukraine has grown sorrowful.

А ми тую червону калину підіймемо,A my tuju červonu kalynu pidijmemo,And we shall raise that red guelder rose up,