"Bella Ciao," Italian for "Goodbye, Dear One," is probably one of the oldest continuously sung (non-religious) protest songs in the world. Okay, that's a lot of qualifiers, but it is an old song that originated in the Po Valley in the late 1800s among the female workers in the rice paddies. It later became the anthem of the Italian anti-Fascist resistance in the 1940s, and it has been adapted and translated by partisan, anti-Fascist, and leftist movements all over the world. I originally heard it in Spanish when friends in the Venceremos Brigades returned from Cuba in the 1960s. (Don't miss the Albanian and Russian clips at the bottom of this post. UPDATE: now including an Azeri clip at the end.)
The rousing tune has also made it popular among musicians and audiences who do not always place much emphasis on its origin.
This post is dedicated to BYovovich.
UPDATE: Now in Azeri:
Just wonderful!!!