Sergey Mikhalkov

• 1. Introduction

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  Sergey Mikhalkov wrote the words that hundreds of millions of Soviet citizens heard every morning, every sporting event, every state occasion for decades. He was, for most of his life, Russia's most beloved children's poet. Yet he was also a man who worked, at times, alongside the KGB. He lived through the entire Soviet century and outlasted it, dying in Moscow on the 27th of August 2009 at the age of 96. How did a writer who made children laugh about a friendly giant policeman end up in the room where national anthems were born? And how did that same man, at 87 years old, pick up his pen one more time to write the anthem of a new Russia?

• 2. Uncle Styopa and the Children

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  Moscow was Mikhalkov's birthplace, and he came from the noble Mikhalkov family. From the 1930s onward he stood alongside Korney Chukovsky, Samuil Marshak, and Agniya Barto as one of the most read poets writing for Russian-speaking children. His most enduring creation was Uncle Styopa, whose name in English translates as Uncle Steeple. Uncle Styopa is an enormously tall, friendly policeman, always ready to rescue a cat from a tree or perform some other helpful deed. The poems built Mikhalkov's reputation with young readers across generations, and that reputation would still be alive decades later when younger Russians knew him less as a poet and more as the father of filmmakers Nikita Mikhalkov and Andrei Konchalovsky.

• 3. Stalin's Commission

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  In 1942, Mikhalkov was 29 years old when his work came to the attention of Joseph Stalin. The Soviet Union was deeply embroiled in World War II, and Stalin wanted a national anthem with a more patriotic feel to replace The Internationale. Stalin commissioned Mikhalkov directly. Working with the writer El-Registan, who was born in 1899 and died in 1945, Mikhalkov set words to a musical score by composer Alexander Alexandrov, born in 1883 and died in 1946. The new anthem was presented to Stalin in the summer of 1943 and officially introduced as the State Anthem of the Soviet Union on the 1st of January 1944. For that work, and for earlier writing, Mikhalkov received three Stalin Prizes: in 1941, 1942, and 1950.

• 4. De-Stalinization and Revision

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  Stalin's death in 1953 created an immediate problem for the anthem Mikhalkov had written. The lyrics mentioned Stalin by name, and as the Soviet state began purging his legacy the words were quietly dropped. The anthem played on, but instrumentally, without any text, for years. Mikhalkov wrote new lyrics in 1970, though they sat unsubmitted for years. It was not until the 27th of May 1977 that they were formally put before the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. The revised text, which removed every reference to Stalin, received approval on the 1st of September that year. The new lyrics became official when they were printed in the new Soviet Constitution in October 1977.

• 5. The KGB Connection

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  Alongside his public role as a celebrated writer, Mikhalkov and his wife Natalia Konchalovskaya sometimes worked for the KGB during the Soviet era. One documented example involves French ambassador Maurice Dejean, who was compromised by the KGB in the 1950s; the Mikhalkovs helped by presenting undercover KGB staff officers to foreign diplomats. His younger brother Mikhail Mikhalkov was a notable writer as well as a KGB agent in his own right. The relationship between Soviet literary prestige and state intelligence was not unusual in the era, but for a man whose public face was whimsical children's verse, the dual life was a striking contrast.

• 6. A Third Anthem at 87

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  Boris Yeltsin retired the Soviet anthem in 1991 after the USSR dissolved. Mikhalkov was long since retired when Vladimir Putin, taking over from Yeltsin in 2000, began pushing to restore Alexandrov's original music. At 87, Mikhalkov decided to write new lyrics to accompany that score one more time. The result was adopted as the National Anthem of Russia on the 30th of December 2000. Three years later, on Mikhalkov's 90th birthday in 2003, Putin personally visited him at his Moscow home to present the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 2nd class, citing his contributions to Russian culture. The career that had spanned Stalin's commission, Soviet revision, and post-Soviet restoration had now produced a third anthem for a third political era.

• 7. A Life in Full

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  Mikhalkov's personal life covered equal spans of change. In 1936 he married Natalia Petrovna Konchalovskaya, granddaughter of painter Vasily Surikov. They remained married for 53 years, until her death in 1988. In 1997, Mikhalkov married physics professor Yulia Valeryevna Subbotina. His awards over a lifetime stretched from the Order of Lenin, which he received first in 1939, to the Order of St. Andrew on the 13th of March 2008, the highest honour Russia can bestow. His funeral was held at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery with full military honours, the Order of the Red Banner among his decorations, that particular medal awarded on the 28th of February 1945 for exemplary performance in command assignments at the front.