Vasily Ivanovich Agapkin was a Russian and Soviet military orchestra conductor, composer, and author of the well-known march "Farewell of Slavianka".
Agapkin in the 1910s
"Farewell of Slavianka" is a Russian patriotic march, written by the composer Vasily Agapkin in honour of Slavic women accompanying their husbands in the First Balkan War. The march was written and premiered in Tambov in the end of 1912. In the summer of 1915, it was released as a gramophone single in Kiev. Slavianka means "Slavic woman".
The cover of one of the first editions of the Farewell of Slavianka notes