Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Composer

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was a famous Russian composer, notable for his nationalistic style of classical music, which employed Russian folk song and lore, and eschewed traditional Western compositional methods. He is considered “the main architect” of what the classical music public considers the Russian style of composition. [1]
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An article in The Guardian from February 18, 2005 states the following:
Belsky originally planned that the new work would be based entirely on the life of Saint Fevroniya of Murom, but Rimsky, a devout atheist - Stravinsky later described him rather disapprovingly as having a mind "closed to any religious or metaphysical idea" - rejected such explicitly Christian subject matter and insisted that the story of Fevroniya be combined with elements of Russian history (the 13th-century invasion by the Mongols) and a strong dose of pantheistic legend, with the whole thing given a strongly nationalistic twist. [2]