Although the Glinka "standards" such as the Overture to Russlan and
Ludmilla and Kamarinskaya have been familiar to me; and although I have
performed the Glinka piano trio a few times, his works never have seemed
to occupy a significant niche in the Russian pantheon.  This last summer,
while on a motorcycle tour in Russia, I became aware that the Russians
consider him to be the father of Russian nationalism.  The statue of Glinka
in Smolensk, his birthplace, is impressive, and the wrought-iron fence
enclosing the statue is embellished with notes representing themes from his
works although I did not have the opportunity or the time to decode those
themes.  I was told that the people of Smolensk hid the statue and the
ornamental fence during the German occupation in order to protect them
from destruction or depredation.  Glinka was not buried in Smolensk, but
he does occupy a space in the composers section of the Alexander Nevsky
Cemeteary in St. Petersburg along with Tschaikovsky, Borodin, Mussorgsky,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Arensky, Balakirev, and other shapers of the Russian
tradition.

Paul