The Suite on Finnish Themes or Seven Arrangements of Finnish Folk Songs (Russ.

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

 Семь обработок финских народных песен (Сюита на финские темы)) is a suite

Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...

 composed in 1939 for soloists (soprano and tenor) and chamber ensemble in seven movements by the Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n composer Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

 (1906–75). The suite does not have an opus number

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

.

In 1939, before the Soviet forces were to invade Finland

Winter War

The Winter War was a military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland. It began with a Soviet offensive on 30 November 1939 – three months after the start of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland – and ended on 13 March 1940 with the Moscow Peace Treaty...

, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov

Andrei Zhdanov

Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician.-Life:Zhdanov enlisted with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1915 and was promoted through the party ranks, becoming the All-Union Communist Party manager in Leningrad after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934...

 commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, a theme to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

 would be parading through the Finnish capital Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. Shostakovich finished composing on 3 December 1939, as the Red Army was advancing in the Finnish front and the puppet regime Finnish Democratic Republic

Finnish Democratic Republic

The Finnish Democratic Republic was a short-lived government dependent on and recognised only by the Soviet Union. It nominally operated in those parts of Finnish Karelia that were occupied by the Soviet Union during the Winter War....

 was founded three days earlier.

The only early historical source of the suite is a letter which Shostakovich sent his friend Lev Atovmyan on 5 December 1939. In the letter, Shostakovich apologizes he could not make to symphony act in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, as the Leningrad military districts commissioned a suite for Finnish folk songs. The deadline was on 2 December, but he managed to finished 3 December.

The exact commission date is uncertain, but according to the Finnish historian Ohto Manninen

Ohto Manninen

Ohto Heikki Sulevi Manninen , is a Finnish historian, PhD 1977. Manninen was 1984-95 associate professor at Helsinki University, 1995-98 professor in Finland's history at Tampere University...

, it was probably commissioned on 25 November, though not earlier than 23 November. The earlier date is not likely as Shostakovich sent telegram on 22 November to Atovmyan where Shostakovich was certain he will arrive in Moscow. The war began on 30 November, 1939.

However, the Winter War was a humiliation for the Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

, and Shostakovich would never lay claim to the authorship of this work. It was not performed until 2001.

The movements of the suite:

1. Energico (orchestral)
2. Taivas on sininen ja valkoinen (The Sky is Blue and White)
3. Lento non troppo (orchestral)
4. Tämän kylän tytöt ovat tilulilulei (The Girls of this Village)
5. Mansikka on punanen marja (The Strawberry is a Red Berry)
6. Jos mie saisin jouten olla (If I Could be at leisure)
7. Minun kultani kaunis on (My Beloved is Beautiful).