Katyusha's Song

"Katyusha's Song" (カチューシャの唄, Kachūsha no Uta),[1] or "Song of Katyusha",[2] is a Japanese song which was highly popular in early-20th century Japan.

It was composed in the major pentatonic scale by Shinpei Nakayama[3] with lyrics by Soeda Azenbō.

[4] The song was sung by Sumako Matsui in a dramatization of Leo Tolstoy's 1899 novel Resurrection,[5] first put on stage in the Geijutsuza [ja] theatre, Tokyo in 1914.

[6][7] The same year the Nippon Kinetophone company released a kinetophone record of Matsui Sumako's singing with the same title.

[8] Katyusha's song became a national hit in Japan from 1913 onwards,[9] selling 27,000 copies[10] and was taken on by street corner musicians throughout Japan.