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Monday, May 18, 2009

Mother Russia/Renaissance



A song about Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, from Renaissance's 1974 album Turn of the Cards. Following World War II, Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to a Soviet labor camp for criticizing Joseph Stalin in letters to a friend (Punished for his written thoughts/Starving for his fame, as the lyrics have it). His experiences in the camp formed the basis for his first novel, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), which served as an inspiration for the songwriters. With a running time of more than nine minutes, "Mother Russia" is a case of a short book inspiring a long song.




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