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Composer · 1937–1992

Adnan Shakhbulatov

«The Chechen Chopin»

Founder of Chechen and Ingush popular, chamber and symphonic music. He wrote more than eight hundred works — nearly half of them after the car crash that left him bedridden for twenty years.

Adnan Shakhbulatov
800+
works — songs, suites, romances, cantatas
1989
first chairman of the republic’s Union of Composers
20
years composing without leaving his bed
2
state prizes
Recognition

Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation · Honoured Artist of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR · Laureate of the Lenin Komsomol Prize · Laureate of the Glinka Prize · Music Gymnasium No. 1 in Grozny bears his name

01

Music

The surviving recordings

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Many of these recordings were found on magnetic tape in the ruins of Grozny. The sound is as time left it.

02

Life

A path fifty-four years long

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  1. 1937
    Born

    27 December, in the village of Urus-Martan. His curiosity and many-sided gift showed from childhood.

  2. 1973
    The car crash

    29 October, in Ordzhonikidze. He would spend almost twenty years bedridden — and would not stop working for a single year.

  3. 1989
    First chairman of the Union of Composers

    In November the republic founded its Union of Composers. He turned at once to the next generation — dreaming of a boarding school for gifted children, and of a national opera, symphony orchestra and conservatory in Grozny.

  4. 1992
    His death

    More than eight hundred works: songs, suites, pieces, sonatas, romances, sonatinas and cantatas.

The wounded piano
After the war

The wounded piano

The instrument he worked at — and what the war left of it. Zaynap Shakhbulatova touches the keys that survived, in the flat on Rosa Luxemburg Street. His brother’s book takes its title from these keys.

The book “Scars on the Keys” →
03

Photographs

From family and editorial collections

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