Product Description

'Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that...' So said the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, who spent his life battling for the right to create his works under the Soviet Union's totalitarian regime. This proved dangerous under the autocratic Stalin, who perceived himself to be an erudite critic of modern culture. So when he stormed out of the performance of Shostakovich's opera 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk' in 1936, the composer feared he would be arrested and killed. Instead, the 'supreme leader' played a game of cat and mouse. He would attack Shostakovich in Pravda and ban his music from the airwaves. Then he would honour him with prestigious awards. Stalin's goal was to remain unpredictable, and thus afford Shostakovich no sense of personal security, although he continued to compose stirring symphonies that drew him millions of fans. This is a fascinating and important story told by one of the greatest authorities on Russian culture in the Soviet years.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #343358 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-25
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'A revealing portrait of the great composer Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-75), who managed to keep skin and soul intact during the worst years of the Soviet terror. Art rarely flourishes under oppression; Joseph Stalin knew this, even if some cultural historians seem not to. On surprise in Volkov's richly detailed study is just how much political licence artists such as Shostakovich, Mikhail Bulgakov and Boris Pasternak enjoyed, as did other members of the intelligentsia. (Others, of course, were not so fortunate, for Stalin thrived on keeping his subjects off balance.) A case in point: in 1936, when Shostakovich came under attack in the pages of Pravda for 'formalism', many intellectuals publicly rose to his defence. 'We are accustomed to thinking of the second half of the 1930s in the Soviet Union as a time of total fear, complete unanimity, and absolute subordination to the dictates of Party and state,' writes Volkov; yet the dissidents 'denied the right of the Party and Stalin to dictate cultural opinions to them.' Volkov offers a masterful account of the fine art of accommodation: Stalin loosening the reins now and again as long as the artists kept producing, artists such as Shostakovich - especially - Shostakovich - playing the yurodivy, or 'holy fool', to speak 'dangerous but necessary truths to the face of the tsar'. (Yet not always to his face; Shostakovich also traded in subtleties, such as insinuating Jewish motifs into his music in order to protest against official anti-Semitism.) Stalin was mercurial, of course - an actor who fluffed his lines in the leader's presence went on to win the Stalin Prize, but the relevant cultural officials were purged - and the pace of oppression actually quickened after WWII, when Soviet intellectuals dared to hope more or less openly that the West, having dispatched one despot, would take Stalin on. An eye-opening look at the intersection of art and political power.' Kirkus Review, 1 January 2004

About the Author
Solomon Volkov worked with Shostakovich on his memoirs and collected letters and is an acknowledged expert on the composer.

Customer Reviews

Intrigued and entertained
As someone who has studied Soviet history and has a love of Shostakovich's music, I had high hopes for this book which were not disappointed.

The personal biography of both men was sufficient without overwhelming me with information, while the politics and music were very well explained. The greatest insight was that of Stalin's attitude to culture - his normal image being of a brutal, ruthless tyrant who I hadn't imagined was as cultured as he turned out to be. The intense interest he took in the cultural elite, and the fates that befell many of the Shostakovich's contemporaries, were very well brought out. The cat-and-mouse style games the artists, composers and writers were forced engage in, and the intense pressure they worked under was very well evoked - Mayakovsy's suicide and its ramifications being a notable example.

Overall, for a potentially quite dry and academic subject, this was refreshingly accessible without simplifying the issue too much. The relatively small selection of Shostakovich's work that is discussed in detail means that the focus is retained well, and gives lots of scope for more detailed biographical or musicological reading.