The battle cry of the Russians, with which they went on the attack, rushed into hand-to-hand combat at the enemy, glorified the victories and the power of Russian weapons - who does not know our "Hurray!" In all languages, a battle cry is a call, a call to go forward, but the Russian "Hurray!" the most famous. This call to be brave is filled with the determination to win. To be in a single skirmish as in the ranks, to feel the elbow of a comrade, a single gust of bayonet, lava cavalry attack … In the Swiss Alps, on the hills of Manchuria, on the ruins of defeated Berlin - who could resist the Russian "Hurray!" - only the oncoming "Hurray!"
But where did this tradition of military prowess come from - the Russian "Hurray!"
Version 1: "Hurray!" goes back to the Türkic root "yur", which means "lively", "mobile". This root penetrated into the Slavic languages even before the Mongol invasion. There is a Russian word with this root - "nimble". In Bulgarian, the word "yura" means "rush, attack".
Version 2: Russian "Hurray!" comes from the Turkic "ur", from the verb "urman" - which means "to beat". For example, in Azeri the word “vur” means “beat”. During the attacks, they shouted "Vura!", And later "Hurray!" In ancient times, joint Russian-Turkic campaigns took place, when the soldiers accepted a single battle cry (the same thing often happened in Europe).
Version 3: In the Bulgarian language there is the word "Urge", translated as "upward". Considering that the Altai mountain homeland of the Turks is “to the heights”, “to take the heights” was a widespread call that the Russians adopted.
Version 4: The battle cry was borrowed by the Russians from the Tatar-Mongols. The Mongols, going on the attack, shouted "Uragsha!", Which means "forward." But the Russian "Hurray!" originated from the Tatar battle cry "Uragh" - the battle cry of the Tatar tribe (it means everything is the same - "forward").
Version 5: "Hurray!" - an ancient Slavic battle cry. The Russian language knows expressions such as "urai" - "to paradise", "uraz" - "blow" (Novgorod and Arkhangelsk dialects), in the same place they said "fight with uroi", that is, "with a cry of hurray" … Finally, "hurray" is consonant with the ancient Lithuanian battle cry "virai", and the Lithuanians are ethnically the closest people to the Slavs.
Promotional video:
Someone said: "Russian Hurray is a call to heroism and selfless courage" - this is the most correct version!
Pushkin's lines: "Hurray burst out in the distance: the regiments saw Peter." It could be so, but rather it is fiction.
Despite the fact that the battle cry "Hurray!" was widespread in Russia, in the Russian army under Peter the Great it was banned. Tsar Peter tried to deprive the Russian army of the Russian itself. From the documents of those years ("Instructions on how to behave in battle for soldiers and especially officers", 1706) it follows:
1. So that everyone, and especially the officers, should watch that there should be no screaming during the battle (and always), but quietly, and no one, except the officers, should speak at that time under the penalty of death, but if in which company, or regiment, if a shout comes, then without any mercy from those mouths the officers will be hanged. And the officers are given such power that if a soldier or a dragoon cries out, they immediately stab him to death, but that's the whole point.
4. … And everyone, both equestrian and infantry, during the battle quietly and decently, both in shooting, and in the offensive and other actions, act and do not rush under the penalty of death."
Under Peter the Great, instead of the Russian "Hurray!" the army started to shout "Vivat!" - in the French manner (viva - it means "glory", "long live"). But in the Navy, on the contrary - the battle cry "Hurray!" Peter left (victories at sea were very much needed).
By the end of the 18th century in the Russian army, the popular "Hurray!" begins to supplant the "Vivat" adopted under Peter. Here are excerpts from the field journal of military operations of the Russian army in Prussia on August 19, 1757:
“The Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf:
… But before they had time to appoint the camp, His Excellency Field Marshal General-Field Marshal traveled around the entire army standing in the frunt and the army, praising his courage, congratulated him with a noble victory from God, while the following exclamation from the whole army was threefold to Her Majesty to Her Majesty to Her Majesty, our natural Empress and merciful mother Elizabeth Petrovna for many years: Hurray, Hurray, Hurray. (Field Marshal Rumyantsev: Documents. Letters. Memories / Compiled by A. P. Kapitonov. Moscow, 2001.)
Here is an excerpt from A. T. Bolotov, a member of the Gross-Jägersdorf: “Having finally come running to the place where their second line stood, we were ordered to stop and line up with the other regiments building here, in one line, and the whole army did not have time to get out from behind the forest and line up in one line, as they shouted "Hurray!" and threw their hats up."
From the history of P. Usov: “As soon as Suvorov saw the enemy, he immediately rushed at him, crushed him, took away two guns, and took up to a hundred people prisoner. Surprised by such extraordinary audacity, the Prussians, being nine times stronger than Suvorov, surrounded him and demanded that he surrender. Suvorov ordered to tell the Prussian general that he did not understand this word and, putting the prisoners between the rows, shouted "Hurray!", And rushed at the surprised enemy, clearing the way with a saber."
And with what other peoples went into battle?
The ancient Romans, like the ancient Celts and Germans, going into battle, shouted battle songs in one voice.
Roman legionaries went into battle shouting: "Long live death!"
English and French troops in the Middle Ages yelled: "Dieu et mon droit" (which meant "God and my right").
The Germans shouted: "Forvarts!" Which meant "Forward." Napoleon's troops - "For the Emperor!"
But since the 19th century, in the charters of the German army, a consonant with the Russian - "Hurra!" (which means "Hurray!"). The German army adopted the battle cry of the Russians after the victories of Russian weapons in Prussia in the 18th century. The German charter only fixed an already established fact.
To the French soldiers of Napoleon the Russian "Hurray!" was consonant with the French expression "oh ra!", which means "to the rat!" They shouted back to the Russians: "Oh sha!" - which meant "to the cat!".
After the victory over Napoleon, the Russian "Hurray!" penetrates both the British and French armies. The Turks also shout "Hurrah!", And this is a Turkic root word that returned from Europe (before that the Turks shouted "Allah", glorifying Allah).
At various times, foreign armies have tried to change the battle cry of their soldiers. For example, in the Nazi Wehrmacht and the National People's Army of the GDR, the statutory analogue of the Russian "Hurray!" was "Hoh" (it sounded like "Ha"!). All the same, it was consonant with the Russian "Hurray!" and this was refused - in the modern German army in the Anglo-American manner they shout: "Hurray!"
From the last Caucasian war came the following anecdote: “When a Russian goes on the attack, he shouts“Uraaa!”Which means“forward”; when an Ossetian goes into battle, he shouts “Marga!”, which means “kill”; when a Georgian goes on the attack, he shouts “Mishveleet!”, which means “help”.
Who else does not shout "Hurray!" In the world? These are the Japanese - their battle cry "Banzai!" (which means "10,000 years", abbreviated from "10,000 years of life to the emperor"), the Arabs - go into battle shouting "Allah Akbar!" (which means "God is great"), the Israelites shout "Hedad!" (this cry is very ancient, and is an onomatopoeia of the word "echo").