composer educator Radio music director choir conductor
Gregory Pukst was born in 1900 in Gomel, in the family of a railway worker, Konstantin Sigizmundovich Pukst, and Marfa Yakovlevna Khoruzhenko. The family included ten children—six sons and four daughters—all of whom possessed notable musical abilities.
From early childhood Pukst demonstrated a strong fascination with music. He spent hours listening to folk songs, balalaika and guitar playing, and later attended rehearsals of an amateur string quartet and the railway community choir and folk orchestra.
At the age of twelve, after his father’s tragic death, he had to support the family and enrolled in the Gomel Technical School, becoming a railway worker. He worked as a mechanic, assistant driver, and later as a locomotive driver.
Despite his heavy workload, Pukst independently learned to play the balalaika and cello, mastered notation, and studied musical theory.
In 1921 he began teaching music in Gomel schools. After a year of intensive preparation, he was admitted in 1923 to the Moscow State Conservatory, where he studied composition under Georgy Eduardovich Conus.
Beginning of Musical Activities
In his youth, Pukst organized a family orchestra, wrote his first compositions, including the popular “Railway Workers’ March,” and became active in local amateur musical groups. He also served as a political education instructor, creating and developing musical circles at the Gomel railway junction, which humorously became known as the “oil-and-grease philharmonic.”
After the Conservatory
Upon graduation, Pukst was assigned to teach at the Omsk Music College. In 1932 he returned to Belarus with his wife, pianist Natalia Latysheva, and their son Vadim. Their daughter Nina was born in 1933.
By the early 1930s Pukst had developed his own musical language. He wrote songs and romances, including works based on poems by Ivan Bunin, Alexander Blok, and Yakub Kolas, composed instrumental suites, and began working on a symphony.
World War II
During the war, his wife and children were evacuated to the Urals, while Pukst joined the frontline performing brigade of the Belarusian State Philharmonic. He gave concerts for soldiers, officers, wounded soldiers in hospitals, and workers at defense plants.
Postwar Years
In 1944 Pukst reunited with his family in Minsk, a city devastated by war. He resumed composing and teaching. He taught at the Belarusian State Conservatory, music schools, and colleges, and from 1952 worked as a choir conductor and later as artistic director of music broadcasting at Belarusian Radio.
He died in 1960 and was buried at the Moscow Cemetery in Minsk; his wife rests beside him.
Several generations of the Pukst family continued the musical tradition. His grandchildren include professional musicians and artists, and his great-grandchildren show notable talent as well. His romances remain expressive and emotionally resonant today, and his larger works are valued as reflections of the musical spirit of mid-20th-century Belarus.
Pukst was married to Natalia Mikhailovna Latysheva, a pianist and music teacher.
Children:
Vadim Pukst, art historian.
Nina Pukst (b. 1933), music educator.
Evgeny Pukst (1946), pianist and pedagogue.
