Yelena Bogatyreva

Yelena Bogatyreva (3rd of June 1917, Petrograd, Russian Republic – 20th of April 1982, Riga, Latvian SSR) – a musicologist and a professor. For many years she had been one of the most respected professors and music scientists of the Latvian State Conservatory.

She was born into a family of musicians: her father, Semyon Bogatyrev, was an outstanding Soviet musicologist and composer, Doctor of Arts, and professor at the Kharkiv and Moscow Conservatories; her mother was a music teacher.

E. Bogatyreva received her professional musical education at the Kharkiv Conservatory, where she studied at the performance faculty (piano) as well as at the faculty of history and theory of music. After graduating, she taught music theory subjects at the Kharkiv Music College. During World War II, she was evacuated and taught at higher educational institutions in Krasnoyarsk and later in Sverdlovsk. From 1943 to 1947, she had been living in Moscow, where she pursued postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory under Professor Lev Mazel and defended her Candidate of Sciences (PhD equivalent) dissertation in 1947.

In 1948, Bogatyreva was invited to work at the Latvian State Conservatory, where she remained until the end of her life. From 1979, she served as Acting Professor in the Department of Music Theory. She delivered lectures on various issues of music theory and also led a specialized class that produced many well-known Latvian musicologists.

Among her students were:
Igor Yakovlev (1955), Regina Bukhova (Yurovetsky) (1957), Kira Erdman (1960), Aria Kogan (1964), and Ilma Grauzdiņa (1971).

In her research, she focused primarily on the study of musical form.

Marina Mihailetc