The family of Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff has announced that they refuse to violate his death wishes by transferring his remains from New York to Russia.
The composer’s great-great-granddaughter, Susan Sophia Rachmaninoff Wolkonsky Wanamaker, told BBC Russia that Rachmaninoff had written in his will that he wished to be laid to rest in New York with his wife and his daughter.
The announcement came as a response to a proposal made by Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky on August 15. Medinsky stated that returning Rachmaninoff’s remains to Russia “would be a great deed.” He said that the conditions of the composer’s burial site in New York are unsatisfactory, and that the Russian Ministry of Culture is ready to help restore the Rachmaninoff family estate in Russia’s Novgorod region.
“We are not going to go against his will, and that is why his remains will stay where they were buried,” stated the composer’s great-great-granddaughter.
Sergei Rachmaninoff fled Russia, after the October 1917 Revolution. He lived in Switzerland and in the United States. He died in 1943 in California.
