The march of Free Russia as a transnational builder of experience communities
Keywords:
popular music, migration, songs, labour movement, history of experience, Finnish Americans, communists, Russian, Russian RevolutionAbstract
This article explores the transnational trajectory of the song Vapaa Venäjä (Free Russia) into an anthem of left-wing workers but also into a popular music piece spread by gramophone records in the interwar period. By using writings to the press and oral history as source materials, the article sheds light on how Free Russia shaped communities of experience both in Finland and among Finns in North America. Free Russia was a marching song, the melody of which was taken from the Russian march Farewell of Slavianka and the lyrics of which originated presumably among Finnish red refugees in Soviet Russia. For these reasons, and for allegedly glorifying Bolshevism, the march aroused fierce criticism in Finland. However, Free Russia also became an instrument of protest for communist workers with experiences of political oppression. For some, it even offered an experiential basis for migration from Finland or North America to the Soviet Union. However, this article shows that after being recorded by the Finnish American singer Otto Pyykkönen for the Columbia company in 1924, Free Russia also sold well as a gramophone record and was spread to new settings such as the intimate sphere of home. This contributed to the transfer of the march from a strictly ideological context to that of internationally produced “Finnish” popular music.
