The story of a song that touched millions

“The mother has grown old over the years,
“And there’s no news of her son.
“But she still waits,
Because she believes, because she’s a mother.”

The story of a song that touched millions

In 1966, poet Andrei Dementiev wrote the poem “Ballad of a Mother”. One day he heard the story of an elderly Georgian woman whose son went missing during the war, years later she saw him in newsreel footage – as young as she remembered.

“I heard about it and was so shocked that I couldn’t calm down all day. And for a long time this story was kept in my memory until one day I wrote a poem…” – poet Andrei Dementiev

This story later touched composer Yevgeny Martynov, who, being a graduate of the conservatory, wrote music to the poem in just a month.

The song was first heard on the TV program “Hello, we are looking for talents!” – and soon it was known and loved by the whole country.

In the photo: the monument “To Mothers and Wives of Defenders of the Fatherland”, installed in 2016 by the Russian Military Historical Society

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