Boris Yarustovsky
Boris Yarustovsky was a Soviet musicologist, educator, and public figure in music. He was born in Moscow on May 15, 1911, and died there on July 12, 1978. He earned a Doctor of Arts degree in 1952 and was named an Honored Artist of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic in 1966.
Yarustovsky graduated from the history and theory faculty of the Moscow Conservatory in 1937 and continued his studies there as a postgraduate student. Under the supervision of V. E. Ferman, he wrote a dissertation on Tchaikovsky’s operatic dramaturgy, which he defended in 1941. From 1948, he taught the history of Russian music and operatic dramaturgy at the conservatory; he became a professor in 1956.
From 1959, Yarustovsky served as acting director of the Institute of Art History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, later becoming a senior research fellow there. He was secretary of the board of the Union of Soviet Composers from 1968 to 1974, vice-president of UNESCO’s Executive Board from 1969 to 1973, and a member of the International Music Council at UNESCO from 1972 to 1978.
His research covered classical and modern musical theater and symphonic music. He wrote monographs on Tchaikovsky, studies of operatic dramaturgy, and books and articles on Soviet and international music. His works include Tchaikovsky: Life and Works, The Dramaturgy of Russian Opera Classics, Igor Stravinsky: A Brief Outline of His Life and Work, and Essays on the Dramaturgy of Twentieth-Century Opera. He also served on the editorial board of, and contributed to, the five-volume History of the Music of the Peoples of the USSR.