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World-renowned Russian classical musician and Soviet-era dissident Mstislav Rostropovich has died. The conductor, composer and cellist died early Friday, in a Moscow hospital after a long battle with cancer. He was 80. He was considered to be one of the greatest cellists ever.

Rostropovich became an anti-communist civil rights activist during Russia's Soviet rule. He became a friend of dissident author and Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Rostropovich left the Soviet Union with his family in 1974, going into exile in Paris. Four years later, Communist authorities stripped him of his citizenship. Rostropovich was the music director of Washington's National Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 1994. His Russian citizenship was restored after the collapse of the Soviet Union. After that, Rostropovich divided his time between Russia, the United States and France.