October 29: Remembering composer Vasily Agapkin
In Moscow in 1964, an 80-year-old man died Vasily Agapkin. Military composer and conductor. Author of the music for the march "Farewell of Slavianka."
Vasily Agapkin: Childhood in Astrakhan
Born in 1884 Astrakhan. At just over a year old, he lost his mother, and at nine, his father: he overexerted himself working as a stevedore at the port. His stepmother raised three more daughters, and Vasily and them begged on the church porch. The family lived on handouts.
One day, he heard a military brass band playing on the street and went to see it off, humming and marching to the beat. He was placed as an apprentice in the local military band, and by the age of 14, Vasily had become its best soloist.
He entered military service, first in the Caucasus, then in Tambov, a staff trumpeter. He also studied wind instruments at the Tambov College of Music.
March "Farewell of Slavianka"
In 1912, at 28, after the start of the First Balkan War (Slavs of Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and Greece against the Ottoman Empire), he wrote the music “Farewell of Slavianka”.
The march was written by me on the eve of the First World War, influenced by the preceding events in the Balkans, when Türkiye aggressively attacked the peaceful Balkan states.
The cover of the original edition of the march's score depicts a young woman bidding farewell to a soldier against the backdrop of the Balkan Mountains and a detachment of soldiers. The inscription reads:
Dedicated to all Slavic women
The march was first performed publicly in Tambov during a parade of the 7th Reserve Cavalry Regiment in the autumn of 1912 (this melody is now the anthem of the Tambov region).
Both the composer and the march quickly became popular thanks to their catchy melody. The piece became a symbol of farewell to military service (and later, to long journeys), gaining worldwide fame.
In 1914, women across Russia saw off their men to the First World War to the sounds of the march.
Vasily Agapkin during the Revolution
In 1918, after October After the coup, Agapkin voluntarily joined the Red Army. He organized a brass band in the Warsaw Hussar Regiment, but never took up arms.
During these years, "Farewell of Slavyanka" was very popular in the White Army—as a result, the march was rarely performed in the USSR for a time. Its nationwide "rehabilitation" occurred thanks to the cult film "The Cranes Are Flying" (1957) and the scene of the volunteers' farewell to Agapkin's music.
In 1922, he moved to Moscow with his military orchestra attached to the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (VChK). The group played in Sokolniki Park, became known as the orchestra of the OGPU School of Transport, and participated in Lenin's funeral.
Agapkin himself was one of the teachers and organizers of the brass band for street children in the famous 1st labor commune in Bolshevo.
In the 1930s, he led the orchestra of the Central (later Higher) School of the NKVD of the USSR. He regularly performed with it in the Hermitage Garden in Moscow, on a specially constructed indoor shell-shaped stage, and at celebrations in the Kremlin.
Performed a funeral march at the farewell to Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva.
Dad recalled seeing Stalin's tears in GUM.
(from the memoirs of Aza's daughter)
Vasily Agapkin during the Great Patriotic War
At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, he was appointed senior bandmaster (military conductor) of the Dzerzhinsky Motorized Rifle Division of the NKVD troops. During the famous parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941, he conducted the combined orchestra.
That day, a funny thing happened to him: as the troops marched across the square, the soles of his boots froze to the conductor's stand. The orchestra was supposed to move aside to make way for a mechanized column, but Agapkin couldn't move, nor could he give the orchestra the command to move—his lips were frozen. Ultimately, his assistant saved the day by running up to him shortly before the mechanized column arrived and helping him move.
In 1942-1943 he lived in evacuation in Novosibirsk. He led the orchestra of the Military Technical School of the NKVD.
On June 24, 1945, at the Victory Parade, he conducted the drummers and fanfare players as part of the combined orchestra.
After the war, he directed the Model Brass Orchestra of the USSR Ministry of State Security. He also accompanied them to Stalin's final farewell.
At 72, he retired with the rank of colonel. He lived at a dacha in the Moscow region.
He wrote dozens of other works, but none of them ever surpassed the popularity of “Farewell of Slavianka.”
The notes of the first bars of this march are carved on his tombstone.
