The 1879 revision of On the Dnieper was nearly the last creative act of Mussorgsky's life. Originally written in 1868, On the Dnieper (then known as Yerema's Song) was the work of a composer who had written Night on Bald Mountain the year before and who would finish the first version of Boris Godunov the next year. In 1879, he had written only one mediocre song the previous year, six songs of uneven quality the year before that, and nothing at all the year before that; he was to write only one more song before his death at the age of 42 in 1881 from alcoholism—the vile and bitter Song of the Flea from Goethe's Faust.

On the Dnieper itself is a setting of an unpleasant poem by the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko ("Let the Dnieper carry away the hated flesh and the cursed bones! In the blood of the Poles, in blood of the Jews!). Nevertheless, On the Dnieper is a dark but still essentially lyrical song in its outer sections and offers equally convincing realism and militant power in its central march-like section. While not in the same class as the Songs and Dances of Death or the songs of the Sunless cycle, On the Dnieper is at least has the distinction of being one of the strongest pieces of work Mussorgsky turned out in the last five years of his life.

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