National Anthem of Russia (1991-2000) - Патриотическая Песнь Глинки (Instrumental Version)

"The Patriotic Song (of Glinka)" (Russian: Патриотическая Песнь Глинки, tr. Patrioticheskaya Pesn' Glinki; also translatable as "A Patriotic Song") was the state and national anthem of the Russian SFSR and of the Russian Federation from 1990 to 2000. The song originally was not a song but a composition for piano without lyrics, written by Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857) and entitled (in French) Motif de chant national. The song has been confused with the closing chorus of Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar, probably because both begin with the same word ("Slav'sya"), but the two compositions are unrelated (though the operatic music, too, has been suggested as a candidate for the Russian national anthem). The melody of the "Patriotic song" resembles the melody of the Lenten hymn Christe, qui lux es et dies, by the Polish composer Venceslaus Samotulinus (1526–1560) - which is not surprising because of the Polish roots of Glinka's family. In the early 1990s Boris Yeltsin chose the tune of this instrumental anthem. Also favored by the Russian Orthodox Church, the music went without lyrics for several years. In 1999 Viktor Radugin won a contest to provide suitable words for the anthem with his poem Славься, Россия! ("Slav'sya, Rossiya!" - "Be glorious, Russia!"). Glinka's anthem was replaced soon after Yeltsin's successor as President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, first took office on 7 May 2000. The federal legislature established and approved the music of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, with newly written lyrics, in December 2000.