Classical Literature

Aram Ilyich Khachaturian (June 6, 1903 – May 1, 1978) was a prominent Soviet Armenian composer. Khachaturian’s works were often influenced by classical Russian music and Armenian folk music.

He was born in Tiflis, Imperial Russia (now Tbilisi, Georgia) to a poor Armenian family. His father was a bookbinder. In his youth, he was fascinated by the music he heard around him, but at first he did not study music or learn to read it.

In 1920, when Armenia was declared a Soviet republic, Khachaturian joined a propaganda train touring Armenia, populated by Georgian-Armenian artists. The following year he travelled to Moscow to join his brother, the stage director of the Second Moscow Art Theatre. Although he had almost no musical education, Khachaturian showed such great talent that he was admitted to the Gnessin Institute where he studied cello under Sergey Bychkov, and later Andrey Borysyak. In 1925 Mikhail Gnessin started a composition class at the Gnessin Institute which Khachaturian joined.

In 1929, he transferred to the Moscow Conservatory where he studied under Nikolai Myaskovsky (composition) and Sergei Vasilenko (orchestration), graduating in 1934. In the 1930s, he married the composer Nina Makarova, a fellow student from Myaskovsky’s class. In 1951, he became professor at the Gnessin State Musical and Pedagogical Institute (Moscow) and the Moscow Conservatory. He also held important posts at the Composers’ Union, becoming deputy chairman of the Moscow branch in 1937, then appointed vice-chairman of the Organizing Committee of Soviet Composers in 1939. In 1939 he composed his ballet Happiness, which was later reworked into the ballet Gayane.

The composer joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1943. However, he temporarily fell from official favour in 1948. It was the Symphonic Poem, later titled the Third Symphony, that officially earned Khachaturian the wrath of the Party. Ironically, Khachaturian wrote the work as a tribute to communism: “I wanted to write the kind of composition in which the public would feel my unwritten program without an announcement. I wanted this work to express the Soviet people’s joy and pride in their great and mighty country.” Perhaps because Khachaturian did not include a dedication or program notes, his intentions backfired.

Andrei Zhdanov, secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, delivered the so-called Zhdanov decree in 1948. The decree condemned Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and other Soviet composers as “formalist” and “anti-popular.” The three named composers had by then already become established as the so-called “titans” of Soviet music, enjoying worldwide reputation as some of the leading composers of the 20th century. Nonetheless, all three accused composers were forced to apologize publicly.

The decree affected Khachaturian profoundly: “Those were tragic days for me… I was clouted on the head so unjustly. My repenting speech at the First Congress was insincere. I was crushed, destroyed. I seriously considered changing professions.”

Despite this mortifying episode, Khachaturian returned to official favour. He received numerous state awards both before and after the Zhdanov decree: for example, four Stalin prizes (1941, 1943, 1946 and 1950), one Lenin prize (1959), a USSR State Prize (1971), and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1973). Khachaturian went on to serve again as Secretary of the Board of the Composers’ Union, starting in 1957, and was also a deputy in the fifth Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (1958–1962).

Khachaturian died in Moscow on May 1, 1978, just short of his 75th birthday. He was buried in Yerevan, Armenia, along with other distinguished Armenians who made Armenian art accessible for the whole world. In 1998, he was honored by appearing on Armenian paper money (50 dram).