Konstantin Makarov-Rakitin
Konstantin Makarov-Rakitin was a Soviet composer and music teacher. He was born on 20 May (2 June) 1912 in Aleksandrovsk-Grushevsky, now Shakhty, in Rostov Oblast. He grew up in an orphanage and was adopted by the teacher N. Rakitina.
From 1928 to 1930, he studied piano at the music school in Rostov-on-Don with his adoptive mother. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1935, having studied composition with Nikolai Myaskovsky, and continued as Myaskovsky's postgraduate student. After completing postgraduate study in 1937, he served as Myaskovsky's assistant until 1939. In 1940 he performed with the Song and Dance Ensemble of the Moscow Military District.
Makarov-Rakitin wrote the opera The Soldier's Bride (1940), based on a story by Valentin Kataev; a symphony (1936); a piano concerto (1937); chamber-instrumental ensembles; and two piano sonatas (1932). He also composed romances to poems by Alexander Pushkin, Margarita Aliger and Ilya Selvinsky, wrote music for drama-theatre productions and films, and arranged folk songs. The Musical Encyclopedia described his works as melodic and vivid.
In 1937 he married the poet Margarita Aliger. Their children were Dmitry, who died in infancy, and Tatyana, later a poet and translator. After the start of the German-Soviet war, Makarov-Rakitin volunteered for the front and was killed in battle near Yartsevo on 3 September 1941. His name was later inscribed on a memorial plaque at the House of Composers, alongside other musicians killed in military service. Surviving manuscripts, including the piano concerto, The Soldier's Bride, the piano piece Don Quixote and Dulcinea, and a student string quartet, were subsequently recovered.