On the Hills of Manchuria

"On the Hills of Manchuria" (Russian: На сопках Маньчжурии, romanized: Na sopkakh Manchzhurii) is a waltz composed in 1906 by Ilya Alekseevich Shatrov.^[1] The original and orchestral arrangement is written in E-flat minor while the folk arrangement is in F minor.

The original title of the waltz was "The Mokshansky Regiment on the Hills of Manchuria" and referred to an incident during the Battle of Mukden, the disastrous final land battle of the Russo-Japanese War, when the Mokshansky Infantry Regiment was encircled by Japanese forces for 11 days, during which it sustained considerable casualties. Shatrov served in the regiment as bandmaster and composed the tune on returning from the war. While the regiment was stationed in Samara in 1906, he made the acquaintance of Oskar Knaube (1866–1920), a local music shop owner, who helped the composer to publish his work and later acquired ownership of it.

The waltz achieved colossal success and Knaube boasted of having published some 82 different editions of the piece.^[2] Soon after its publication, the poet Stepan Petrov, better known by the pen-name of Skitalets, provided the lyrics which contributed to its wider success. The original words concern fallen soldiers lying in their graves in Manchuria, but alternative words were adapted to the tune later, especially during the Second World War.