Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin: biography, personal life, creativity, photo

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin is a famous Russian composer and military conductor. Author of dozens of popular essays. The "March of the Slav" brought him the greatest popularity. In this article we will talk about his biography and work.

Childhood and youth

Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin was born in the village of Shancherovo in the Ryazan province. He was born in 1884. Grew up in a poor peasant family.

His father Ivan Iustinovich, in search of a better life, moved to Astrakhan, where he got a job as a loader. The mother of the hero of our article died about a year after his birth. Then Ivan Iustinovich married a second time to the laundress Anna Matveevna, who worked in the port of Astrakhan. She raised Vasily.

When the boy was ten years old, his father passed away. He finally undermined his he alth at hard work. Anna Matveevna, who received a meager salary, understood that she alone would not have enough money to feed the boy as well. Therefore, she sent Ivan, along with her two daughters, to askcharity.

Son of the regiment

For several years the child survived thanks to the alms of kind people. The decisive episode in the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin was the episode when he met a military brass band on the street. He nailed the musicians. They treated him like the son of a regiment, enrolling him as a student in the orchestra of the Tsar's reserve battalion. It turned out that he has a near-perfect ear for music.

At the age of 14 he was already the regiment's best cornetist-soloist. After that, his whole fate was connected exclusively with military bands.

Tambov period

In 1906, Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin was called up for military service. He went to the dragoon regiment, which was stationed near Tiflis. When his service ended three years later, the hero of our article came to Tambov.

In early 1910, he enlisted in long-term service, having received an appointment as a trumpeter in a reserve artillery regiment. Here Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin arranged his personal life. He got married and has been a family man ever since.

Already starting in the autumn of 1911, Agapkin, without interruption from military service, began studying in the class of brass instruments at the local music school. His mentor was the teacher Fedor Mikhailovich Kadichev. At that time, the hero of our article and his wife lived on Gimnazichnaya Street.

Writing a march

Telling a brief biography of Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin, it is necessary to mention the First Balkan War, which began in 1912. It was a confrontation between Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia against the Ottoman Empire.

At that time, the Russian leadership decided to support the Slavs who participated in the conflict. For this, volunteers were sent to the front. Under the influence of these events, Agapkin writes the march "Farewell of the Slav". The product quickly becomes popular. This is the most famous creation of the hero of our article, thanks to which almost everyone knows his name today. In Tambov, on the occasion of this significant event, a memorial plate was even preserved, which once again confirms the importance of this event in the biography of V. I. Agapkin.

There is another version of the creation of this melody. According to some researchers, it was written on the territory of Armenia in the town of Gyumri, when the composer served there. In this case, the creation of the work is associated with the rise of the national liberation movement in Bulgaria. Allegedly, Agapkin was inspired by these events when he wrote "Farewell of the Slav".

The meaning of the march

The march "Farewell of the Slav" by Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin was of great importance, becoming a national melody, symbolizing the farewell to war or a long journey. Abroad, she is one of the most recognizable of those associated with Russia.

On the photo - the sculptural composition "Farewell of the Slav" in Minsk.

Such fame and popularity of V. Agapkin's "Farewell of the Slav" is due to its maximum simplicity and melodiousness. Hermelodiousness, smoothness and clear functional certainty are inherent. It is important that the traditional genre features are preserved in the march. The main theme has connections with Beethoven's Egmont Overture.

According to some musicians, Agapkin took as a basis a folk song from the times of the Russo-Japanese war, which was popular among soldiers, and processed it pretty well. With a recognizable and easy to remember chant, the march quickly spread.

It became especially popular after the October Revolution. First of all, in the white movement. This is explained by the fact that during the First World War, the song "You made us drunk and fed …" was set to the motive of the march. It has come down to us in three different versions. The march "Farewell of the Slav" by Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin in the version of the White Guard was put on other words. In particular, they mention the Perekop rampart.

The march was repeatedly published in the Soviet Union. Most witnesses and contemporaries claim that it was played at the parade on Red Square in 1941. At the same time, there is a version that in reality the work was prohibited at that time, therefore it simply could not be performed. Allegedly, an exhaustive list of works performed at the parade has been preserved in the archives, but "Farewell of the Slav" is not among them. Being banned, the march could not actually be heard anywhere in 1941. It began to be performed only from the 43rd.

The march was finally rehabilitated only in 1957, when Mikhail Kalatozov used it inhis military drama "The Cranes Are Flying". It sounds in the scene of seeing off volunteers to the front at the very beginning of the film. Veronica rushes around the schoolyard, she can't find Boris, who is somewhere here. The tragedy of the moment is especially emphasized by the music playing at this moment.

It is believed that this choice was not easy for Kalatozov, especially if he also decided to go against the historical truth.

Since 1955, under the march "Farewell of the Slav" began to regularly send trains from the stations of Simferopol and Sevastopol. Later, this work was repeatedly performed and recorded by Soviet orchestras. Recordings made in the 60-70s by the team of the Ministry of Defense of the Soviet Union under the direction of M altsev, Nazarov, Sergeev, as well as the recording of the orchestra of the headquarters of the Leningrad Military District in 1995 under the direction of conductor Ushchapovsky are considered to be reference performances of the march.

Currently, the march is the official anthem of the Tambov region. In 2014, a sculptural composition by Vyacheslav Molokostov and Sergey Shcherbakov was unveiled in a solemn ceremony at the Belorussky railway station in Moscow.

In the ranks of the Red Army

After the October Revolution in 1918, the hero of our article volunteers to join the Red Army. In the red hussar regiment, he organizes a brass band.

In Tambov after that, he returns two years later in the midst of the Civil War. Agapkin gets a job under the new government. Heads a music studio, at the same time leads the orchestra of the GPU troops.

At the end of the summer of 1922, he, along withorchestra gives a farewell concert in Tambov, after which he goes to permanent residence in Moscow.

Moscow period

In 1924 Agapkin's orchestra takes part in the farewell ceremony during the funeral of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The hero of our article continues to build his career, trying to meet the ideals of modern Soviet society.

For example, in 1928 he organizes an orchestra of homeless children, for many of them this becomes the beginning of their musical career.

In the 30s, the photo of Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin was already well known to many, he is a prominent metropolitan composer. The hero of our article leads the orchestra of the Higher School of the NKVD, with which he records a number of musical works.

The Great Patriotic War

When the Great Patriotic War begins, 57-year-old Agapkin is appointed senior bandmaster in the Dzerzhinsky motorized rifle division, which was formed under the NKVD troops. He is given the rank of quartermaster of the first rank.

November 7, 1941, during the legendary parade on Red Square, Agapkin conducts a combined orchestra. Eyewitnesses recall that on that day there was a severe frost in Moscow, the troops marched along the square in formation, and the soles of the boots that Vasily Ivanovich was wearing froze to the paving stones. As a result, a comical situation came out when the orchestra stepped aside to let the mechanized column pass, but Agapkin could not do it. He continued to stand until some military man came to his aid. Seeing the comingmilitary equipment, he tore it off the paving stones and literally took it to the side.

The hero of our article was a member of the combined orchestra and at the Victory Parade, which took place after the Great Patriotic War on June 24, 1945.

At the end of life

After the war, Agapkin moved to the suburbs in the small town of Khotkovo. The house in which he spent the last years of his life has survived to this day. It is located opposite the Abramtsevo Museum on Beregovaya Street.

Agapkin retired at the age of 72. In the autumn of 1964 he died. The composer was 80. He was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

The name of Agapkin today is a children's art school in the Ryazan region in the city of Mikhailov. In 2014, in the village of Shancherovo, where he was born, a bronze bust of the composer was unveiled, which was made by the sculptor Oleg Sedov. It is noteworthy that the funds for its installation were collected by crowdfunding. In the same year, when the 50th anniversary of the death of the hero of our article was celebrated, a memorial sign was installed on Mount Orlyonok in Khotkovo.

In 2015, a monument to Agapkin and another Russian composer Ilya Shatrov, who wrote the w altz "On the Hills of Manchuria" was opened in Tambov.

Private life

Agapkin was married twice. His first wife's name was Olga Matyunina. They had two children - son Boris and daughter Aza.

The second wife of the hero of our article is Lyudmila Vladimirovna Kudryavtseva. In 1940, she gave birth to his son Igor.

Artworks

During his career, the composer wroteseveral dozen melodies, many of which were popular. Among the works of Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin were mainly w altzes, marches, plays.

In addition to the "Farewell of the Slav", he owns the "Cavalry March" and the march "Lieutenant".

He wrote a lot of w altzes: "Blue Night", "Night over Moscow", "Magic Dream", "Musician's Love", "Orphan", "Dawn over Moscow", "Early Morning", "Ston of Warsaw".

Agapkin's work included many instrumental pieces: "On the Black Sea", "Daughter of the Street", "DneproGES", "Emotional Wounds", "Chinese Serenade", "Blacksmiths", "Neapolitan Nights", "Lucins" eyes", "My fantasy", "Hello VKP", "Old w altz", "Tricks", "Flight into the stratosphere".