Evgenii Tikotskii

Born Dec. 14 (26), 1893, in St. Petersburg; died Nov. 23, 1970, in Minsk. Soviet composer. People’s Artist of the USSR (1955). Member of the Communist Party from 1948.

Tikotskii attended Petrograd University in 1914 and 1915 and at the same time studied in the private music school of Z. Bonch-Bruevich. From 1919 to 1924 he served in the Red Army. Tikotskii settled in Byelorussia in 1920 and was chairman of the Composers’ Union of the Byelorussian SSR from 1950 to 1963. One of the first professional Byelorussian composers, Tikotskii wrote the operas Mikhas’ Podgornyi (1939; second version, 1957), Alesia (1944; new version entitled The Girl From Poles’e, 1953; definitive version, 1967; State Prize of the Byelorussian SSR, 1968), and Anna Gromova (1970). He also wrote the heroic poem Song of the Stormy Petrel (1944), six symphonies (1927–63), the symphonic poem Fifty Years (1966), and concerti for trombone (1934) and piano (1954), as well as choral pieces, songs, and incidental music for plays and films.

Tikotskii, a deputy to the fourth and fifth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR, was awarded the Order of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.