Background
Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin was born on April 21, 1914, in Vitebsk, Belarus, in the family of physicians. Since childhood, he was fond of technology.
1943
Order of the Red Star
1974
People's Artist of the RSFSR
1985
Order of the Patriotic War
1985
People's Artist of the USSR
Medal For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945
Jubilee Medal In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
1943
Order of the Red Star
1974
People's Artist of the RSFSR
1985
Order of the Patriotic War
1985
People's Artist of the USSR
Medal For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945
Jubilee Medal In Commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Russian State Institute of Performing Arts
Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin was born on April 21, 1914, in Vitebsk, Belarus, in the family of physicians. Since childhood, he was fond of technology.
In the 1920s, having graduated from the technological secondary school, Mark Grigoryevich joined a clothing factory in Vitebsk. After two years there, he joined the Third Belorussian Theatre as an actor (later musical administrator). In 1934, he enrolled in the Leningrad Theatre Institute (now Russian State Institute of Performing Arts) where he started writing music. In 1938-1939, he studied in the Belorussian Conservatory under the guidance of Professor Aladov while working as an actor in the Minsk Children Theater.
In 1939, Mark Grigoryevich was mobilized into the Soviet Army. As a conductor of the Kiev Red Army orchestra, he started co-writing songs with poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsky. In 1943, still, on an endless front-line tour performing for Soviet fighters, he was awarded the Order of the Red Star.
In 1944, Mark Grigoryevich became a member of the Soviet Union of Composers and moved to Moscow. Among his popular war-time songs were "The Dnieper Song", "Chance Meeting Waltz", "A Street in Bryansk". After the war, he had a string of hits ("Welcome to Saratov", "The Waiting", "Birches", "We Were Just Neighbours", "Beyond the Factory Gate", "Komsomol Volunteers", "The Song of Tenderness", "As Years Fly By", "Farevell You Doves", "As the Volga Flows") performed by the stars of the Soviet popular music, like Mark Bernes, Lyudmila Zykina, Ruzhena Sikora, Eduard Hil, Iosif Kobzon. One of the better known Fradkin songs of the 1970s, a war-themed epic, "For Another Guy" (lyrics by Robert Rozhdestvensky), brought Lev Leshchenko the First Prize at the 1972 Sopot International Song Festival.
In 1979, Mark Grigoryevich was awarded the USSR State Prize and, in 1985, the prestigious People's Artist of the USSR status. His book of memoirs, My Biography, was published in 1974.
Mark Grigoryevich Fradkin died on April 4, 1990. He was buried at the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow.
Grigory Konstantinovich Fradkin was a doctor in Kursk, was executed by the White Army troops retreating from the city in 1920.
Yevgenya Mironovna Fradkina (nee Shagalova) was a doctor, was a victim of the Holocaust: along with many other Vitebsk Jews, she was killed by the German Nazis during World War II.
