MOSCOW -- President Vladimir Putin, widely criticized for reinstating the Soviet anthem as Russia's national hymn, has recruited a Soviet-era literary apparatchik to rewrite the lyrics. The choice of ...

MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin wrapped up a thorny debate over Russia’s national symbols--and its post-Communist identity--by signing a package of laws Tuesday resurrecting the melody of the ...

The new nationalistic Soviet anthem (TIME, Jan. 3) was widely played in the U.S. last week. No sooner had the music been published in the U.S. press than U.S. orchestra leaders fell all over ...

Once wary Moscow Patriarchate now supports resurrecting former national anthem. After initial hesitation, the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church has expressed support for President ...

The Russian State Duma has overwhelmingly approved reinstating the Stalin-era national anthem as the country's official song -- just nine years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and seven years ...

MOSCOW — Sergei Mikhalkov, 96, an author favored by Stalin who wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems, persecuted dissident writers as part of the Soviet propaganda machine and ...

NPR's Michele Kelemen reports from Moscow that Russia looks ready to bring back the Soviet national anthem - without the references to Lenin and the indestructible union of Soviet republics, of course ...

The former Soviet satellite nation of Georgia has had four national anthems in the past 14 years. Practically no one liked, or even knew, the words to the last anthem, which was hard to memorize. But ...

Sergei Mikhalkov, who wrote the lyrics for the Soviet and Russian national anthems and also persecuted dissident writers as part of the Soviet propaganda machine, has died. He was 96. Mikhalkov, who ...

Kyrgyzstan has announced it will change its national anthem, saying the one it has is too Soviet. After Kyrgyzstan became independent following the fall of the USSR in 1991, it changed the lyrics of ...