Shostakovich and Stalin : The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator

by VOLKOV, SOLOMON

• ISBN13: 9780375410826
• ISBN10: 0375410821
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Knopf

Summary

"Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that." So said the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose first compositions in the 1920s identified him as an avant-garde wunderkind. But that same singularity became a liability a decade later under the totalitarian rule of Stalin, with his unpredictable grounds for the persecution of artists. Solomon Volkovwho cowrote Shostakovich's controversial 1979 memoir, Testimonydescribes how this lethal uncertainty affected the composer's life and work. Volkov, an authority on Soviet Russian culture, shows us the "holy fool" in Shostakovich: the truth speaker who dared to challenge the supreme powers. We see how Shostakovich struggled to remain faithful to himself in his music and how Stalin fueled that struggle: one minute banning his work, the next encouraging it. We see how some of Shostakovich's contemporariesMandelstam, Bulgakov, and Pasternak among themfell victim to Stalin's manipulations and how Shostakovich barely avoided the same fate. And we see the psychological price he paid for what some perceived as self-serving aloofness and others saw as rightfully defended individuality. This is a revelatory account of the relationship between one of the twentieth century's greatest composers and one of its most infamous tyrants. From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

Solomon Volkov is a musicologist and the author, most recently, of <i>St. Petersburg: A Cultural History</i>. <br><br>Antonina W. Bouis<b> </b>is an award-winning translator.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Prologue Tsars and Poets	3	(34)
Chapter I Mirages and Temptations	37	(36)
Chapter II The Year 1936: Causes and Consequences	73	(46)
Chapter III 1936: Facing the Sphinx	119	(24)
Chapter IV The Tsar's Mercy	143	(26)
Chapter V War: Triumphs and Tribulations	169	(38)
Chapter VI 1948: "Look Over Here, Look Over There, the Enemy Is Everywhere!"	207	(26)
Chapter VII Final Convulsions and Death of the Tsar	233	(20)
Epilogue In the Shadow of Stalin	253	(30)
Notes	283	(16)
Index	299