Братья Покрасс

Pokrass brothers (братья Покрасс) were a duo of Soviet composers Dmitry (1899–1978) and Daniel Pokrass (1905–1954), who composed various popular romances and military songs, including famous marches Red Army Is The Strongest (Красная Армия всех сильней) and Budyonny March (Марш Будённого), as well as the music for numerous feature and documentary films. They were one of the originators of the revolutionary aesthetics in Soviet music, and while critics later saw many of their works as propagandist "poster-songs" and denounced them for blatant obsequiousness to the communist regime, at the time Pokrass tunes were broadly popular all across the Soviet Union. Dmitry and Daniel praised Soviet military leaders and politicians in their songs, namely Joseph Stalin, Kliment Voroshilov, and Semyon Budyonny. In the sixties, some of their songs were censored to remove any mentions of Stalin. Dmitry and Daniel were only two of the four Pokrass siblings active in music. The eldest brother Samuel Pokrass (1897–1939) immigrated to the United States in the end of the twenties and had a fairly successful career as Hollywood and Broadway composer. Sam Pokrass was poisoned in New York in 1939. Arkady Pokrass (1898–196?) was a virtuoso pianist and accompanist for various popular artists, including Natalia Tamara (Mitina-Buynitskaya) and Vadim Kozin. Unlike his more opportunistic brothers, Arkady didn't manage to adapt to the new ideological realities of the Soviet Union. After Kozin was arrested and sent to Kolyma in 1939, Arkady Pokrass abruptly ended his career and not much is known about him ever since. In Soviet musicological literature, the names of Arkady and Samuel were practically erased, so Pokrass brothers were seen as a duo of Dmitry and Daniel.