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Tuesday, December 4, 2012

The Internationale Essay

Essay on The Internationale

From the day the human race appeared on this planet it learned to put their emotions and feelings in sounds. At first the sounds were indistinct and bobbled and could not be interpreted. Though, later the sounds evolved into songs with which it was easier for people to deliver the message that was hard to be described in words. With every century song had been obtaining more and more importance and setting a very significant place not only in the heart of an individual, but also groups and even nations. Songs have become so vital for us and they represent so much that today we cannot imagine a country without an anthem, an organization without a call or a couple without a special song that means a lot to them.
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In this paper I would like to talk about the song, or better to call it a hymn, that has been famous for about one and a half centuries already and had been translated into more than thirty languages. This song is the Internationale (L ‘Internationale in French) written in 1870 by Eugene Pottier.  The original was written and sang to the tune of La Marseillaise.  It is the most famous socialist song, one widely recognized around the world.  In my paper I would like to mention two occasions when this song was by people and what it meant to them. The occasions I would like to cover is the Russian October Revolution and a more recent example that is a protest of the students and workers at the Tiananmen Square in 1989—China.

The Internationale is one of the most widely-recognized songs of the world. It is sung by people in all the countries and it came to mean the socialist, communist, social-democratic and anarchist symbol of those oppressed. The author of the song had become the workers’ poet much earlier than the song was written. He himself had suffered from the oppression of the working class and he himself lost the faith in what he believed (Gluckstein). With the help of his song he was willing to restore this faith by starting to believe in new ideas. He alleged that very soon there would be changes made in the situation of the working class. The aim of his song was to imbue the people not to be afraid to stand up and speak out for who they are and what they represent (Halsall).

The Internationale means sets a very important place is the Russian Communist History. The song was initially translated by Arkady Yakovlevich Kotsin in 1902. At that time only three stanzas out of original six were translated and some grammatical changes were made in order to fit the song to the taste of the Bolsheviks (Busky, p. 159).   The song became the anthem of the communist party at the October revolution and continued to be so until 1944 when the Soviet Union adopted the Hymn of the Soviet Union as its national anthem.  At that time this song was sang by the working class, the Russian peasants who were willing to throw off the fetters of czarists and other bourgeois.  With this song people went after soviet authorities not knowing what they would have not bare from them later (Busky, p. 159).

The song, translated in Chinese was also the hymn of Chinese workers and students at Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in Beijing.  The protests were caused by the caused by the death of a democratic official, Hu Yaobang, whom protesters wanted to mourn.  The protesters lacked organization and strong leadership, the amount of those protesting had reached 100,000 people (Gluckstein). The people protesting were against the current governmental regime in the country and demanded changes from communist to democratic rule the way it was done in many other countries that year. For them the Internationale was a call for freedom, however then from the communist government and not for it the way it was in Russia (Halsall).

In conclusion, it is important to once again mention that the Internationale is a masterpiece recognized in many countries all over the world. It sets a very special place in the hearts of many people and links all of us to a long and proud tradition. This is so even if sometimes those singing this song and believing that the change they were fighting for would be for the better were wrong.

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Warning!!! All free online essays, sample essays and essay examples on The Internationale topics are plagiarized and cannot be completely used in your school, college or university education.

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