Live, fight and create - Anatoly Vasilyevich Bogatyrev

18 june 2024

Interesting

Anatoly Bogatyrev was born on August 13, 1913 in Vitebsk in the family of a teacher. The Bogatyrevs' house was visited at different times by famous people: conductor M. Malko, composer D. Shostakovich, painters M. Chagall and K. Malevich. He was engaged in music from the age of 8. He studied at the Belarusian State Music College (today the Minsk State Music College named after M. I. Glinka) at the piano department, specializing as a pianist and composer. The young man combined his studies with concertmaster's work in the Belarusian Opera and Ballet Studio and on the radio. In 1937 he graduated from the Belarusian State Lunacharsky Conservatory (now the Belarusian State Academy of Music) in the class of composition of Professor V. Zolotarev.

Bogatyrev entered the great art with the cantata "The Tale of the Bear" to poems by A. S. Pushkin. In 1939 the opera "U Pushchakh Palesya" (based on the story "Drygva" by J. Kolas) appeared, which was staged at the State Opera and Ballet Theater of the BSSR in 1939 and was shown at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR during the First Decade of Belarusian Art and Literature in Moscow (1940). In 1941 the composer was awarded the USSR State Prize.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Anatoly Bogatyrev was evacuated and worked as deputy director at the Sverdlovsk Conservatory (now the M. P. Mussorgsky Ural State Conservatory). At this time the composer wrote choirs, cantatas "The Leningraders" (1942) on poems by Dzhambul, "To the Belorussian Partisans" (1942) on poems by Y. Kupala. The continuation of the military theme was the oratorio "Battle for Belarus" written in honor of the victory over Nazi Germany, which is one of the significant achievements of Belarusian music on heroic and patriotic themes.

The post-war years for Bogatyrev were the time of fulfillment of creative plans and the blossoming of composer's activity. From 1948 to 2003 Anatoly Bogatyrev worked at the Belarusian State Academy of Music (as rector until 1962). There he taught the composition class and during this time he trained more than 30 famous composers, among them Y. Semenyaka, G. Wagner, E. Glebov, D. Smolsky, I. Luchenok, S. Cortes, A. Mdivani, V. Voytik, V. Soltan, O. Khodosko, E. Thirmond, V. Budnik, L. Zakhlevny, M. Litvin, L. Murashko and others. Murashko etc.

Anatoly Bogatyrev is the author of more than 80 vocal works. The composer's works are included in the golden fund of Belarusian music.

Based on the materials of the National Library of Belarus

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