Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five". He was an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.
The aristocratic Mussorgsky brothers—Filaret (also known as "Yevgeniy", left), and Modest (right), 1858
Monument on the site of the Mussorgky family house in Karevo, Pskov Oblast
Young Mussorgsky as a cadet in the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guard, 1856
Alexander Dargomyzhsky
The Five, also known as the Mighty Handful or The Mighty Five, were five prominent 19th-century Russian composers who worked together to create a distinct national style of classical music: Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin. They lived in Saint Petersburg and collaborated from 1856 to 1870.
Vladimir Stasov (1824–1906)