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Questions and answers:

Dave Hall asks: I have been listening to a piece of music called "The assault on Beautiful Gorky" by Shostakovich. Was Gorky ever attacked by the Germans in World War 2?
Expert's answer:

As it turned out this is a very interesting question! After a little investigation, I have found out that this music piece is part of the soundtrack from the movie "The Unforgettable Year of 1919" (1952, Shostakovich was the composer of the movie). The movie is about the Civil War in Russia and the defense of Petrograd (St. Petersburg).

In the list of music tracks this piece of music is called "The Assault on the Red Hill" and sometimes it is mentioned as "The Assault on Beautiful Gorky". It is the wrong translation of the original Russian name because the word "Krasniy" was translated not as Red but as Beautiful (there are some cases when it is correct but not in this one) and the second word "Gorka" meaning "hill" was not translated and remained almost the same like "Gorky". It looks like a very interesting story with all these wrong translations.

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