Minute of Silence

Minute of Silence (Russian: Минута молчания, Minyuta Molchanya) was a joint radio and TV program in the Soviet Union broadcast on at 6:00 pm on May 9, the day of the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic war. It was first broadcast on Soviet Central Television in 1965, 20 years after the Allied victory over Nazi Germany. Aside from the minute of silence itself the main part of the program was a solemn address, commonly known as The Minute of Silence, dedicated to all those who fell fighting the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

For a sanctioned period of silent contemplation, see Moment of silence.

The idea of the program was suggested by Irana Kazakova. Other people of the team who produced the first version were Ekaterina Tarkhanova, Svetlana Volodina, Arkadi Revenko, Mesyatsev, Khazanov, Levitskaya, and other people assistants, artists, musical editors, etc.[1]

The program was started with the call signal of Radio Moscow and the announcement by the Soviet radio voice Yuri Levitan, famous for his announcements during World War II. "[2] The address was initially narrated by well-known Soviet radio commenter and actress Vera Enyutina to a choral version of Träumerei by Schumann in the background, followed by a piece from Symphony No. 6 by Tchaikovsky. The very "minute of silence" was sounded with the toll of the Moscow Kremlin bells and the clock at the Spasskaya Tower striking seven in the evening. The TV version was showing the flame on the background of a wall with the text "To the Memory of the Fallen." The program ended with pieces from Piano Concerto No. 2 by Rachmaninoff, Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major (BWV 564) by Bach, and Symphony No. 3 by Scriabin. [3][4] Due to its solemnity the address was informally known as "the prayer".[1]

After Enyutina emigrated to the United States the address was narrated by Levitan, and later by Igor Kirillov.[5] The text of the address was modified during the Brezhnev stagnation by Galina Shergova and Yevgeny Sinitsyn, under the orders of the management. In particular, a piece about Malaya Zemlya was inserted (removed after Leonid Brezhnev's death in the May 9, 1983 broadcast).[1]The text was replaced with a new one in 2015, with inserted footage from the first ever minute of silence from that year's Victory Day Parade, plus pictures of some of the many fatalities of the conflict.

Russia's Channel One and other networks (like Russia 1) still broadcast this special program today while RT broadcasts it in English, Spanish and Arabic for the benefit of its international viewers. Since 2002, it is broadcast at 6:55 pm, before that it started at around 6:45 in the evening. (Since 2014, RT only shows the minute itself.)

References
  1. "An interview with Irana Kazakova" (in Russian) (5). Journalist. 2005: 59. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  2. "Minute of Silence". Retrieved January 11, 2018.
  3. Минута молчания памяти павших (1968) [A moment of silence in memory of the fallen] on YouTube
  4. Минута молчания памяти павших (1965) [A moment of silence in memory of the fallen] on YouTube
  5. "Vera Enyutina biography" (in Russian). kino-teatr.ru.
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