Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, a renowned Russian cellist and conductor, was born on March 27, 1927, in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR, to Leopold Vitoldovich Rostropovich, a celebrated cellist, and Sofiya Nikolaevna Fedotova-Rostropovich, a talented pianist. His father was born in Voronezh to Witold Rostropowicz, a composer of Polish noble descent, and Matilda Rostropovich, née Pule of Belarusian descent. Mstislav's mother was the daughter of musicians, and her elder sister Nadezhda married cellist Semyon Kozolupov, who was thus Rostropovich's uncle by marriage.
Rostropovich spent his youth in Baku and later moved to Orenburg and Moscow due to World War II. He began learning the piano at the age of four with his mother and the cello at the age of 10 with his father. In 1943, at the age of 16, he entered the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied cello with his uncle Semyon Kozolupov, and piano, conducting, and composition with Vissarion Shebalin. His teachers also included Dmitri Shostakovich.
Rostropovich came to prominence as a cellist in 1945 when he won the gold medal in the Soviet Union's first-ever competition for young musicians. He graduated from the Conservatory in 1948 and became a professor of cello there in 1956. He gave his first cello concert in 1942 and won first prize at the international Music Awards of Prague and Budapest in 1947, 1949, and 1950. In 1950, he was awarded the Stalin Prize, considered the highest distinction in the Soviet Union at the time.
Rostropovich was internationally recognized as a staunch advocate of human rights and was awarded the 1974 Award of the International League of Human Rights. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and had two daughters, Olga and Elena Rostropovich.
