Fyodor Semyonovich Vasilyev

Fyodor Semyonovich Vasilyev was a Chuvash Soviet composer, educator, associate professor, Honored Art Worker of the Chuvash ASSR (1960), laureate of the K. V. Ivanov State Prize of the Chuvash ASSR (1976), member of the Union of Composers of the USSR (1953), Honored Art Worker of the RSFSR (1968), and a participant in the Great Patriotic War. He was born on 4 October 1920 in the village of Osipkasy, Yadrinsky Uyezd.

In 1940 he graduated from the Cheboksary Music School, specializing in choral conducting. While still a student, he worked as the musical director of the Cheboksary House of Pioneers, conducted a choir and a folk-instrument orchestra, and wrote several songs. At the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, Vasilyev, despite poor eyesight, managed to get to the front by presenting his 'Voroshilov Shooter' awards to the military commission. He served in the musical platoon of the 3rd Motorized Rifle Division, took part in battles near Moscow and Orel, as well as in the liberation of Ukraine, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and in the assault on Berlin.

Returning home with the rank of sergeant major, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star and twelve medals, among them 'For Courage' and 'For Combat Merit'. From 1946 to 1949 Vasilyev headed the musical section of the Chuvash TYuZ (Young Spectator's Theatre), composing music for the theatre. In 1949 he entered the Kazan Conservatory in the faculty of theory and composition, which he graduated from with honors. From 1970 to 1981 he taught at the Chuvash State Pedagogical Institute, chaired a department and held the rank of associate professor. From 1977 to 1982 he was chairman of the board of the Union of Composers of the Chuvash ASSR. The core of his creative output comprises works for musical theatre and choral ensembles, as well as numerous compositions for solo and choral singing and for symphony orchestras. Fyodor Semyonovich Vasilyev died on 23 May 2000 in Cheboksary.