Boris Fomin

Boris Ivanovich Fomin (, ; 12 April 1900 – 25 October 1948) was a Russian and Soviet musician and composer who specialized in the Russian romance.

Several of Fomin's songs became popular in 1920s, most notably "Dorogoi dlinnoyu" ("", "By the long road"), commonly known for its English version "Those Were the Days", made world-famous in 1968 by Mary Hopkin and credited to Eugene Raskin, who in 1962 wrote the English lyrics for the tune and claimed the song for his own. It was composed by Boris Fomin in 1924, first interpreted and recorded by Tamara Tsereteli (1925) and Alexander Vertinsky (1926); it was the latter who popularized it abroad.

Biography Early life Boris Ivanovich Fomin was born in Saint Petersburg. His father Ivan Yakovlevich (1869–1935) was a high-ranking army official serving at the State Military control office, who counted Mikhail Lomonosov among his distant relatives. His mother Yevgenia Ioannovna Pekar (1872–1954), a daughter of Alexander II's lady-in-waiting, was of Austrian origins; she married (but soon divorced) an Italian man, and it was the latter's musical talents that were considered to be inherited by his grandson who by the age of four played well the accordion even if having obvious difficulties holding it. Boris had three sisters, Valentina (a year older), Lydia and Olga, 8 and 12 years younger, respectively. "Dorogoi Dlinnoyu" – a wistful nostalgia for the 'old times' – had been banned earlier, in 1927.

As the Great Patriotic War broke out, Fomin stayed in Moscow. Supported by the Interior ministry, he organized the Yastrebok (Young Hawk) theatre – which for almost a year remained the only functioning one in the Soviet capital – and performed regularly for the frontline Red Army fighters. The sense of urgency and being in demand again gave him the energy to fight back the disease. He wrote more than 150 war-themed songs; at least three of them were recorded and released in 1945 by Klavdiya Shulzhenko.

As the War ended and officials started to return to Moscow, Fomin again became a 'forgotten' author. His name was 'remembered', briefly, as the Zhdanov-inspired 'anti-poshlust' campaign of 1946, and Fomin found himself in the list of 'ideological aliens', topped by Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova.