Venedikt Pushkov was a Soviet composer, film composer, and music teacher. He was born in Saratov on October 19 (31), 1896, to a teacher's family.
Pushkov entered the Barnaul Music School in 1920 and studied composition with L. M. Rudolf at the Saratov Conservatory from 1922 to 1925. He graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1929, where he studied composition with V. V. Shcherbachyov.
He taught at the Second Music Technical School from 1926 to 1929, the Central Music Technical School from 1927 to 1931, and the preparatory workers' faculty of the Leningrad Conservatory from 1930 to 1931. He also taught at the conservatory during 1935–1938, 1946–1953, and 1962–1969, serving as an associate professor from 1935. In 1942–1943, while evacuated, he led music theory classes for retraining courses for composer-songwriters in Dushanbe.
His major works include the opera The Storm, based on the play by Alexander Ostrovsky, a violin concerto, a piano trio, romances, and songs setting poems by classical and Soviet poets. He also wrote the vocal-symphonic cycle In the West and the symphonic suite Lermontov. His suite Masquerade for symphony orchestra drew on music he had written for the film of the same name.
Pushkov composed music for more than 40 films, including Peasants (1935), Seven Brave Men (1936), Golden Taiga (1937), The Teacher (1939), The Fourth Periscope (1939), The Rout of Yudenich (1940), A Large Family (1954), My Dear Man (1958), and Hot July (1965). He was named Honored Artist of the RSFSR in 1957.
He died in Leningrad on January 25, 1971.