Welcome to Pesnia!

Pesnia (the Russian word for "song") is a web site that allows students to study the text of Russian songs. The collection of music in this site features the composers Glinka, Borodin, Balakirev, Rimskii-Korsakov, Kiui, Chaikovskii, and Rachmaninov. The texts of the songs are by poets such as Pushkin, Baratynsky, Nekrasov, Fet, and Lermontov.

Pesnia was first developed in the early 1990's by Susan Hafer Richman from Informational Services and Russian Professor Thomas Hodge. The Pesnia software used Toolbook, a Windows-only application.

The creators of the Pesnia web site were Mellon interns Maren Swanson '02 and Nina Schloesser '02. They converted the original Pesnia software into a web site in summer 2000. Katie Clayton '01 joined the team in January 2001, and expanded the site until August 2001. Swanson continued to develop the site until August 2002.

While most of the Pesnia site is complete, it is still under construction. Thank you for your patience.