Шумел сурово Брянский лес,
Спускались синие туманы,
И сосны слышали окрест,
Как шли...
Как шли тропою партизаны.
Тропою тайной меж берез
Спешили дебрями густыми.
И каждый за плечами нес
Винто...
Винтовку с пулями литыми.
И грозной ночью на врагов,
На штаб фашистский налетели,
И пули звонко меж стволов
В дубр В дубр...
В дубравах брянских засвистели.
В лесах врагам спасенья нет.
Летят советские гранаты.
И командир кричит им вслед:
< p>"Громи...Громи захватчиков, ребята!"
Шумел сурово Брянский лес,
Спускались синие туманы,
И сосны слышали окрест.
Как шли ...
Как шли с победой партизаны.
Note: The Bryansk Oblast is located in southwestern Russia, bordering Belarus to the west and Ukraine to the south. It was the scene of fierce battles with German invaders during the Soviet Union's Patriotic War.
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In the late summer of 1942, a staff member of the political department of the Bryansk front made a special trip to Moscow to to find the composer Hi. Katz (whose songs "By the Old Oak Tree" and "The Two Maxims" were very popular at that time), and asked him to write a song for the partisans in Bryansk.
The Bryansk Front regularly supplied the partisans with weapons and food. But once from the partisan command came this message, "Guns and ammunition we will take from the enemy, but songs are not captured like trophies, please send a song."
The command forwarded the telegram to Katz and the poet Sovronov.
On the eve of the October Revolution in 1942, Katz, Sovronov (who was then a military correspondent for Kommersant) and others traveled to the House of the Red Army of the Bryansk Front in the city of Yefremov, Tula Oblast, to prepare for performances commemorating the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution. At the commanding officer's headquarters, a lieutenant-general deputy commander mentioned partisan songs with them.
Katz and Sovronov had written a brassy Cossack song, "By the Old Oak Tree," together as early as 1937, and it was a hit. Later they wrote a number of songs together: formation songs, lyrical songs, marches and ballads with fast lip-synching, but not a partisan song. Katz later wrote: "What are partisan songs like? Partisans don't march in formation, they don't need marches. Do they need marches, round dances? You can't dance in a dense forest surrounded by enemies. We thought of others - solemn, festive, sung between seats - but found them all inappropriate. Then an old folk song, "Yermak," came to mind: "Storms and gales clatter ......" And a long-forgotten song about the War of 1812 (Russia's resistance to Napoleon's invasion), "The Fires of Moscow Whistling," and so the snow-covered forests, the partisan kilns, the smoke of the campfires, and the brave warriors sitting around the campfires carrying captured autoguns before setting out on their combat missions-, all at once All at once. And thus was born the title of the future song and the initial verses and phrases."
"Bryansk Forest Clatter" was accepted by the Front Command and scheduled for a Nov. 7 performance at the Red Army House. But on Nov. 6, the composer Katz was ordered to tutor a front-line song and dance troupe; and Sopronov, a military journalist, was notified that he was to be flown immediately across the line to a partisan camp. Songs traveled with him. The crossings were made by small airplanes that were not easily detected by the enemy and had only one compartment, except for the pilot, and could not take the singers and the accordion with them. So Katz had to teach Sovronov to sing the song before his departure.
The poet later recalled, "I remember how enviously Katz sent me to the plane, which landed safely on a frozen lake in the distant Sutem region, and it was the night when I sang for the first time in the partisan's kiln 'Bryansk Forest Clatters'. The flames of the lanterns fluttered, the partisans were silent and listened intently, then began to sing softly. They asked me to sing it again, and sang it a third time. They embraced me. And so began the life of our song ........
Katz returned to Moscow, gave the song to the radio, where it was sung by Abramov, broadcast and soon spread to the front and rear.
On September 17, 1966, on the anniversary of the liberation of Bryansk, a solemn monument was erected in the center of the city, in the "Partisans' Square", on the pedestal of which was engraved the fifth verse of the song "The Forest of Bryansk is Rattling". The first phrase of the song has become the call sign of the Bryansk radio station.
The song was awarded the third prize of Stalin's Literary Prize in 1950 after the war.