Ivan Sollertinskii

Born Nov. 20 (Dec. 3), 1902, in Vitebsk; died Feb. 11,1944, in Novosibirsk. Soviet historian of music, literature, and the theater.

Sollertinskii settled in St. Petersburg in 1906. In 1924 he graduated from the Romance and Germanic section of the department of social sciences of Leningrad University; he studied simultaneously at the Institute for the History of Arts, where he also took a graduate course in theater studies in 1929. He worked as a lecturer and critic, discussing various aspects of art, aesthetics, and psychology. In 1929 he began working at the Leningrad Philharmonic Society, where he served as artistic director from 1940 to 1944. He began working at the Leningrad Conservatory in 1936 and became a professor there in 1939.

Sollertinskii wrote articles on Western European classical music, choreography, theater arts, and literature, as well as on Soviet and contemporary foreign music. He discussed the legacy of classical music, both Western European and Russian, symphonic composition, and the importance of drama in opera and ballet. He also commented on contemporary events in Soviet music. A prominent figure in the development of Soviet opera and ballet, Sollertinskii played an important role in the musical life of Leningrad in the 1920’s and 1930’s.