Samuel Yakovlevich Pokrass (Самуил Яковлевич Покрасс) (1894 in Kiev – June 15, 1939 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

composer of Ukrainian and Jewish origin. In 1920, during the

Russian Civil War {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Russian Civil War , partof = the Russian Revolution and the aftermath of World War I , image = , caption = Clockwise from top left: {{flatlist, *Soldiers ...

, he and the poet P. Grigoryev wrote fighting songs for the Red Army, including " White Army, Black Baron." That song's melody was used for the song ''Die Arbeiter von Wien'' ("The Workers of Vienna") in

Red Vienna Red Vienna ( German: ''Rotes Wien'') was the colloquial name for the capital of Austria between 1918 and 1934, when the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria (SDAP) maintained almost unilateral political control over Vienna and, for a sho ...

. Pokrass later emigrated to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, where he worked as a composer in Hollywood from 1934 to 1939, and was known primarily for the musical film ''

The Three Musketeers ''The Three Musketeers'' (french: Les Trois Mousquetaires, links=no, ) is a French historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight ...

''.

References

*A. V. Shilov, Из истории первых советских песен (1917–24), М., 1963 *A. Sokhor, Как начиналась советская музыка, "МЖ", 1967, No 2.

External links

* * Samuel Pokrass in the Russian Wikipedia 1894 births 1939 deaths Musicians from Kyiv People from Kievsky Uyezd Jewish Ukrainian musicians Jewish composers Soviet composers Soviet male composers 20th-century composers People of the Russian Civil War Soviet emigrants to the United States {{Russia-composer-stub