The
national anthem of
Ukraine has this morbid name. The
lyrics come from a nationalist 1862 poem
Shche Ne Vmerla Ukrayina, written by Pavlo Chubynsky, where he describes the yearning of Ukrainians to become masters of their own land. The following year Mykhailo Verbytsky, a composer and
Catholic priest, wrote the score to accompany the poetry.
In the inter-war years when Ukraine was briefly independent, the anthem was used with a less melodramatic name: Hymn to Ukraine, but it was supressed once the Ukraine was subsumed in the USSR. It was revived in 1992 after the Ukraine gained independence.
Ukraine is not yet dead, nor its glory and freedom,
Luck will still smile on us brother-Ukrainians.
Our enemies will die, as the dew does in the sunshine,
and we, too, brothers, we'll live happily in our land.
We'll not spare either our souls or bodies to get freedom
and we'll prove that we brothers are of Kozak kin.
We'll rise up, brothers, all of us, from the Sain to the Don,
We won't let anyone govern in our motherland.
The Black Sea will smile yet, grandfather Dnipro will rejoice,
Yet in our Ukraine luck will be high.
Our persistence, our sincere toil will prove its rightness,
still our freedom's loud song will spread throughout Ukraine.
It'll reflect upon the Carpathians, will sound through the steppes,
and Ukraine's glory will arise among the people.
To modernise the lyrics several contents were organised, but so far nothing suitable has been found.
Ukraine is not yet dead, its economy just looks that way.
We may now have a homeland, but nobody wants to stay.
Inflation is rising, our currency is in trouble
and three headed cows live around Chernobyl