[[File:Modest Musorgskiy, 1870.jpg|thumb|upright|212px|{{center|Mussorgsky, c. 1870]] Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as "The Five". He was an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.