Testimony

I apologize for the quote. "In the ranks of one part of the Communists there is still a condescending disdain for trade in general and for Soviet trade in particular. These Communists, if they can be called that, see Soviet trade as a second-rate, unimportant thing and workers in trade as lost people . . . . They don't understand that Soviet trade is our own, Bolshevik business and workers in trade, including workers behind a counter; if they work honestly, are champions of our revolutionary Bolshevik work."

And "our" hereditary worker behind the counter turned out to be a champion of "our" work (Stalin liked using the plural for himself).

The story about Khrennikov is this. As head of the Composers'

Union, Khrennikov had to submit the composer candidates to Stalin for the annual Stalin Prize. Stalin had the final say and it was he who chose the names from the list. This took place in his office. Stalin was working, or pretending to work. In any case, he was writing. Khrennikov mumbled names from the list in an optimistic tone. Stalin didn't look up and went on writing. Khrennikov finished reading. Silence.

Suddenly Stalin raised his head and peered at Khrennikov. As the 253

people say, "he put his eye on him." They say that Stalin had worked out this tactic very well. Anyway, the hereditary worker behind the counter felt a warm mass under him, which scared him even more. He jumped up and backed toward the door, muttering something. "Our"

administrator backed all the way to the reception area, where he was grabbed by two hearty male nurses, who were specially trained and knew what to do. They dragged Khrennikov off to a special room, where they undressed him and cleaned him up and put him down on a cot to get his breath. They cleaned his trousers in the meantime. After all, he was an administrator. It was a routine operation. Stalin's opinion on the candidates for the Stalin Prize was conveyed to him later.

As we see, the heroes in both stories do not emerge very well. Both fouled their pants, yet both would seem to be grownups. Moreover, both men recounted their shame with rapture. To shit in your pants in front of the leader and teacher is not something that everyone achieves, it's a kind of honor, a higher delight, and a higher degree of adulation.

What vile, disgusting toadying. Stalin is made out to be some sort of superman in these stories. And I'm sure that both men tried very hard to make sure the stories got back to him so that he would appreciate their toadying zeal, their fear and loyalty.

Stalin liked hearing such things about himself, he liked to know that he inspired such fear in his intelligentsia, his artists. After all, they were directors, writers, composers, the builders of a new world, a new man. What did Stalin call them? Engineers of human souls.

You might say, Why are you discrediting worthy people with your unworthy petty complaints? We'd like to know how you, you old soand-so, would behave with Stalin? You'd probably soil your pants with a big load.

I reply: I saw Stalin and I talked to him. I didn't soil my pants and I didn't see any magical force in him. He was an ordinary, shabby little man, short, fat, with reddish hair. His face was covered with pockmarks and his right hand was noticeably thinner than his left. He kept hiding his right hand. He didn't look anything like his numerous portraits.

You know that Stalin was very concerned with his appearance and wanted to look handsome .. He liked watching Unforgettable 1919, where he rides by on the footboard of an armored train with a saber in 254

his hand. This fantastic picture, naturally, had nothing to do with reality. But Stalin watched and exclaimed, "How young and handsome Stalin was. Ah, how handsome Stalin was." He talked about himself in the third person and gave an opinion on his looks. A positive one.

Stalin was very picky about portraits of himself. There's a marvelous Oriental parable about a khan who called for an artist to do his portrait. That seemed to be a simple enough order, but the problem was that the khan was lame and squinted in one eye. The artist depicted him that way and was immediately executed. The khan said, "I don't need slanderers."

They brought a second artist. He decided to be smart and depicted the khan in perfect shape: eagle eyes and matching feet. He was immediately . executed too. The khan said, "I don't need sugar-coaters."

The wisest, as it should be in a parable, was the third artist. He painted the khan hunting. In the painting the khan was shooting a deer with a bow and arrow. His squinty eye was shut, and the lame foot rested on a rock. This artist was awarded a prize.

I have a suspicion that the parable doesn't come from the East, but was written somewhere closer to home, because this khan sounds just like Stalin. In Unforgettable 1919 Stalin was played by the actor Gelovani, who had a personal make-up man who specialized in Stalin make-up and nothing else. And Stalin's famous field jacket that Gelovani wore was kept in a special safe at Mosfilm so that not one mote of dust should fall on it. Heaven forbid that someone should report that Comrade Stalin's field jacket was dusty. That was almost like saying that Comrade Stalin himself was . . . you know, dusty.

Stalin had several painters shot. They were called to the Kremlin to capture the leader and teacher for eternity, and apparently they didn't please him. Stalin wanted to be tall, with powerful hands, and he wanted the hands to be the same. Nalbandian fooled them all. In his portrait Stalin is walking straight at the viewer, his hands folded over his stomach. The view is from below, an angle that would make a Lilliputian look like a giant. Nalbandian followed Mayakovsky's advice: the artist must look at his model as a duck looks at a balcony. And Nalbandian painted Stalin from the duck's point of view. Stalin was very pleased and reproductions of the painting hung in every office, even in barbershops and Turkish baths.

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.And Nalbandian used the money he received to build himself a luxurious dacha near Moscow. A huge place, with cupolas looking at once like a train station and St. Basil's Cathedral. One of my students dubbed it Savior-on-the-Mustache [Spas-na-Usakh, a pun on the church Spas-na-Peskakh, or Savior-on-the-Sands, in Moscow], referring to Stalin's mustache, which Akhmatova called "roach whiskers."

My meeting with Stalin took place under the following circumstances. During the war it was decided that the "Internationale" was not fit to be the Soviet anthem. The words were deemed inappropriate, and really, words like "no one will give us release-not God, not Tsar, not hero,'' were wrong. Stalin was both god and tsar, so the words were ideologically impure. They wrote new lyrics: "Stalin raised us"-you know he was a great gardener. And anyway the "Internationale" is a foreign composition, French. How could Russians have a French anthem? Couldn't we create our own? So they threw together new words and passed them out to composers: write a new national anthem. You had to participate in the contest whether you wanted to or not, otherwise they would make an issue of it, they'd say that you were shirking an important duty. Of course, this was the chance for many composers to stand out, to climb into history, so to speak, on all fours. Some composers tried hard. One of my friends* wrote seven anthems, that's how much he wanted to be the national composer. Actually, this world-famous composer wasn't particularly hard-working, but in this case he manifested wonders of diligence.

All right, I wrote an anthem too. Then began the endless auditions.

Stalin appeared sometimes, and he listened and listened and then commanded that Khachaturian and I write an anthem together. The idea was extremely stupid; Khachaturian and I are very different composers, with different styles and different ways of working. Our temperaments are different too. And anyway, who ever wanted to work in a composers' kolkhoz? But we had· to obey.

Naturally, we didn't work together, we didn't turn into Ilf and Petrov. Either I hindered him or he hindered me. I don't make any secrets out of my work. I don't need any special conditions and I don't pretend to be lost in another sphere. There was a time when I could

• Aram Khachaturian.

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compose anywhere, with any amount of noise around me, with just a corner of a table to write on. Just as long as people didn't shove too much. But now it's much harder for me. And now I'm less eager to make broad announcements about my plans, for instance that I've thought of an opera on a contemporary theme-on mastering virgin lands and fallow ground-or a ballet on the struggle for peace, or a ·

symphony about cosmonauts.

When I was younger, I did make such imprudent remarks, and people still ask me when I am going to complete my opera The Quiet Don. I'll never finish it because I never started it. It was just that, to my great regret, I had to say so to get out of a difficult situation. This is a special form of self-defense in the Soviet Union. You say that you're planning such-and-such a composition, something with a powerful, killing title. That's so that they don't stone you. And meanwhile you write a quartet or something for your own quiet satisfaction. But you tell the administration that you're working on the opera Karl Marx or The Young Guards, and they'll forgive you your quartet when it appears. They'll leave you alone. Under the powerful shield of such "creative plans" you can live a year or two in peace.

I think that every composer must answer for his own work. That doesn't mean that I'm opposed to collaboration in principle-it certainly works in literature-but I just don't know of any successful attempts in music. And Khachaturian and I did not become the exception to the rule, particularly since we were ordered to become coauthors. Therefore I certainly didn't treat the matter too seriously.

Maybe I let him down as a result, I don't know.

Meeting Khachaturian means, first of all, eating a good, filling meal, drinking with pleasure, and chatting about this and that. That's why, if I have the time, I never turn down a meeting with him. So we got together. We ate and drank, discussed all the latest news. We didn't write a single note, we didn't even bring up the subject of work.

And then it turned out that Khachaturian was really in the mood to work that day, but you see, I (0 mysterious Slavic soul!) led him off the path of righteousness.

We set another date. This time I was full of the desire to work, it was like a sports competition. I thought, Let's create a huge canvas called the National Anthem. We got together, and it turned out that 257

Khachaturian (0 mysterious Armenian soul!) was saddened by something. He didn't want to write, he felt philosophic and said that his youth was gone. In order to convince Khachaturian that it wasn't gone completely, we had to drink a bit. Next thing we knew, it was evening, time to go. And we still hadn't written a single note of our joint anthem.

We had to do something, so we made a decision worthy of Solomon.

Each would write his own anthem and then we would get together and see who had done a better job. The best bits from mine and the best from Khachaturian's anthem would go into our joint one. Naturally, there was the chance that we would write two anthems that could not possibly be combined, so we showed each other our work as we went along.

Each wrote his sketch at home, then we met, compared, and went home again. But now we had each other's version in our minds, as well. It went quickly, even though there were some difficulties. We had to make some critical remarks to each other, and Khachaturian is a very touchy fellow. It's better not to criticize him.

When he wrote the Concerto Rhapsody for Cello for Mstislav Rostropovich, • the cellist handled the situation very well. He wanted Khachaturian to make some improvements, but how could he tell him that? He would be mortally off ended. So this is what Rostropovich did. He said, "Aram Ilyich, you've written a marvelous work, a golden work. But some parts are silver, they need to be gilded." Khachaturian accepted criticism in that form, but I don't have Rostropovich's poetic gift.

In general, Rostropovich is a real Russian; he knows everything and he can do anything. Anything at all. I'm not even talking about music here, I mean that Rostropovich can do almost any manual or physical work and he understands technology.

I know a few things myself; for instance, I can still light a campfire with one match, in any wind. Well, at most, with two matches. I was taught the art in my youth and I'm proud of it. My favorite chore as a child was lighting the stove. I still can feel the coziness, the sense of

•Mstislav Lcopoldovich Rostropovich (b. 1 927), cellist and conductor. Shostakovich dedicated two cello concertos to him. Rostropovich has been living in the West since 1974. In 1978 he was deprived of his Soviet citizenship by special decree (see footnote p. 108). Rostropovich is tl(e'

musical director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

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safety and security it gave me. It was a long time ago. I was a nimble youngster, I had the Russian knack. But I have a long way to go to be like Rostropovich, and naturally I lack his poetic and diplomatic gifts, so I had a harder time with Khachaturian.

Nevertheless, we combined our anthems into a single wonder of art.

The melody was mine, the refrain his. Let's not talk about the music; in fact, I wouldn't have dwelt on this at all if not for the tragicomic circumstances of its conception. But we almost got into an argument over its orchestration. It would have been silly trying to combine two orchestrations. It would have been faster to choose his or mine, and even faster to just have one of us do it and both of us sign it. But which ? Neither of us wanted to do it, for our own reasons.

I settled the argument. I remembered a guessing game I played with my sisters to get out of unpleasant household chores. You had to guess which hand had the pebble. If you couldn't guess, you lost. I didn't have a pebble handy, so I asked Khachaturian to guess which hand held a matchstick. Khachaturian guessed and the loser, I, had to do the orchestration.

The auditions of the various anthems went on for a long time. Finally the leader and teacher announced that five anthems were in the finals. They were the ones written by Alexandrov, the Georgian composer Iona Tuskiya, Khachaturian, me, and Khachaturian and myself jointly. Now a more important round came up, held at the Bolshoi Theater. Each anthem was performed three times-without orchestra, orchestra without chorus, and chorus and orchestra. That way they could see how it would sound under different circumstances. They should have tried it under water, but no one thought of it. The performances, as I recall, weren't bad. Good enough for export. The chorus was the Red Army Chorus. The orchestra was the Bolshoi's.

Too bad you couldn't dance the anthem, because then the Bolshoi Ballet would have done it. And they would have done a good job, since the orchestration was precise and parade-like, accessible to ballet folk.

Alexandrov, who directed his own chorus, bustled about madly, beside himself with excitement. His entry in the anthem race was a song now called "Anthem of the Bolshevik Party." Stalin liked the song.

Alexandrov, choking with delight and the saliva of a faithful retainer, told me how Stalin had "singled out" the song among others. The Red 259

Army Chorus under the direction of Alexandrov sang it ,for the first time at an official concert. It was before the war. Alexandrov was called up to Stalin's box in the intermission and the leader and teacher ordered them to do the song once more at the end of the concert, for him personally. It was then called "Song About the Party," and Alexandrov and his ensemble performed it in the rhythm of a march. Stalin ordered them to sing it in a slower tempo-like an anthem, Having heard it, he called it "a battleship of a song," and gave it a new name, and it was called "Anthem of the Bolshevik Party" from that moment on.

The audition continued, the composers were anxious. Many came with their wives. Khachaturian brought his and I brought mine. Everyone peered cautiously over at the state box, trying to be inconspicuous about it. Finally the noise on the stage ended, and Khachaturian and I were taken to the box, to see Stalin. We were searched on the way. There was a small antechamber to the box and that's where we were brought. Stalin was in there. I've described him already. I'll be honest and tell you that I felt no fear upon seeing Stalin. I was nervous, of course, but not afraid.

You feel fear when you open the paper and it says that you're an enemy of the people, and there's no way you can clear yourself, no one wants to listen to you, and there's no one to say a word in your defense. You look around and everyone else has the same newspaper, and they're all looking at you in silence, and when you try to say something they turn away. They don't hear you. Now, that's really frightening. I've often had that dream. The most frightening thing of all is that everything has been said and decided, and you don't know why it's been decided that way, and it's useless to argue.

But here what was there to fear ? Nothing had been decided, you could still say something. That's what I was thinking when I saw the chubby man. He was so short that he didn't allow anyone to stand next to him. For instance, next to that stormy petrel of a man Maxim Gorky, Stalin looked ridiculous, like Double Patte and Patachon. *

That's why they were always photographed sitting down.

Stalin stood alone here, as well. Everyone else of high rank was

•Popular silent-film comedy actors, one very tall, one very short.

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crowded together in the back. Besides Khachaturian and me, there were also the two conductors, Alexander Melik-Pashayev, who conducted the orchestra, and Alexandrov, who led the chorus. Why had we been called in? I still don't know. Probably Stalin suddenly felt like having a talk with me, but the conversation didn't flow.

First Stalin made a profound statement on what the national anthem should be like. A commonplace, the typical Stalin truism. It was so uninteresting that I don't even remember it. His intimates agreed, carefully and quietly. For some reason, everyone spoke softly. The atmosphere was appropriate to a sacred rite, and it seemed that a miracle was about to occur-for instance, Stalin would give birth. The expectation of a miracle was on every toady's face. But there was no miracle. If Stalin did give birth, it was only to some unintelligible snippets of thought. It was impossible to keep the "conversation" going. You could either say yes-yes or say nothing. I preferred to be silent. After all, I wasn't going to get into a theoretical discussion on writing anthems. I don't stick my nose into theoretical discussions. I'm no Stalin.

And suddenly the wan conversation took a dangerous turn. Stalin wanted to show that he was well versed in orchestration. Apparently he had been briefed that Alexandrov didn't orchestrate his own song.

He had given it to a professional arranger, something many of the contestants had done. Several dozen anthems had been arranged by one very experienced hand. In that sense Khachaturian and I were in a glowing minority, for we did our own orchestration.

Stalin decided that he couldn't lose in bringing up orchestration with Alexandrov. It was better not to start with us, we were professionals after all, what i( he made a mistake? But using Alexandrov as an example, the leader and teacher could demonstrate his wisdom and sagacity. That's the way Stalin always behaved, and in a sense the conversation on anthems was very typical. It proves that Stalin always prepared carefully for these talks, he prepared his wise pronouncements.

He wasn't too sure that they were adequately wise, these sickly pronouncements, and like a provincial theater director, he prepared an effective entrance for each of them. The provincial director knows his audience. He may confuse Isaak Babel with August Behel, but he also 261

knows that no one will catch him, because the audience is stupid and will buy anything. Stalin was surrounded by coarse, profoundly ignorant people, who read nothing, who were interested in nothing. It was easier for Stalin to make an impression against such a background.

Particularly since he was the director and could determine the course of the conversation. He could change the topic at any moment, he could stop the conversation; in other words, all the cards wei::e in his hands, the deck was stacked. And with that bunch of aces up his sleeve, Stalin still played a rotten game.

Stalin began asking Alexandrov why he had done such a poor arrangement of his song. Alexandrov had expected anything but this-a conversation with Stalin on orchestration. He was pulverized, confused, destroyed. You could see that he was bidding farewell not only to the anthem, but to his career and perhaps to something more. The composer of that "battleship of a song" turned purple and broke out in a sweat. He was a pitiful sight. And it's in moments like that that people reveal themselves. Alexandrov made a base move. In an attempt to defend himself, he blamed the arranger. That was unworthy and low.

The arranger could have lost his head as the result of such a conversation.

I saw that things could end badly; Stalin was interested in Alexandrov's pathetic justifications. It was an unhealthy interest, the interest of a wolf in a lamb. Noticing the interest, Alexandrov began laying it on thicker. The poor arranger was being turned into a saboteur, who had purposely done a bad arrangement of Alexandrov's song.

I couldn't take any more. This vile spectacle could have meant a lot of trouble for the arranger, the man would have died for nothing. I couldn't allow that and said that the arranger in question was an excellent professional and added that it wasn't fair to take him to task.

Stalin was obviously surprised by the turn in conversation, but at least he didn't interrupt me. And I managed to lead the conversation out of dangerous straits. Now we were discussing whether a composer should do his own orchestrations or whether he was justified in turning to others for help. I expressed my deep conviction that a composer cannot entrust the orchestration of his works to anyone else. Strange, but Stalin agreed with me here too. I think he saw it from his point of 262

view. He certainly didn't want to share his glory with anyone, and that's probably why he decided that Shostakovich was right.

Alexandrov's "battleship" was sinking. The arranger had been saved, I had cause to be happy. Finally Stalin began finding out from all of us which anthem we had liked best. He asked me too. I was prepared for the question. I had assumed that something like that would come up and I decided that I couldn't mention mine or the joint anthem, and I probably shouldn't mention Khachaturian's, because I would be accused of praising my co-author. I actively disliked Alexandrov's song. That left only one candidate out of five-the one by Iona Tuskiya. And I said it was the best, but added that it would be hard to remember. I think that Stalin agreed with me there too, even though Tuskiya was a Georgian.

From the ensuing conversation it became apparent that the greatest judge and expert of all time on anthems considered the one by Khachaturian and me the best. But according to Stalin, a few changes were necessary in the refrain. He asked how much time we would need, and I said five hours. Actually, we could have done it in five minutes, but I thought it might seem less than solid to say that we could have done it there and then while they waited. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that my answer angered Stalin greatly. He was obviously expecting something else.

Stalin spoke slowly and thought slowly, he did everything slowly.

He must have thought, This is state business, the national anthem, you must measure seven times, cut once, and Shostakovich says he can do the corrections in five hours. This isn't serious. Such an unserious man cannot be the author of the national anthem.

This proves once more that Stalin didn't understand a thing about composing. If he had had the slightest idea of what it involved, he wouldn't have been surprised by my estimate, but it was clear that Stalin knew as much about music as he did about other subjects, and that he brought up the business of the orchestration just to show off, a gambit that hadn't worked.

Khachaturian and I weren't successful. Khachaturian later blamed me for frivolity; he said that if I had asked for at least a month, we would have won. I don't know, he may be right. In any case, Stalin 263

lived up to his threat. Alexandrov's song was proclaimed the anthem.

The battleship made it into port. But the composition wasn't lucky, and not because of the music, because of the words. As for the music, that's a tradition. A national anthem must have · bad music, and Stalin didn't break with tradition, as was to· be expected. He also liked the loyal text. But when the cult of personality was exposed, the text posed a problem. It was stupid to make people sing "Stalin raised u,s" when it had been officially announced that he hadn't raised anyone, that on the contrary, he had destroyed millions of people. People stopped singing the words, they just hummed the tune.

Khrushchev wanted to replace the anthem, but he wanted to do this and that and a hundred other things, and he did almost nothing. That was the story with the anthem. First they pursued it fervently; I was involved too, this time as an expert. And then it quieted down, and we were stuck with a hummed anthem. That's not so good.*

I might add that Alexandrov did manage to write one song that wasn't so bad, the famous "Holy War." It was sung everywhere during the war. Stalin called it a "cross-country vehicle of a song." One's a battleship, the other's a vehicle. What is this military transport lexicon? Boring, comrades, it's boring.

Actually, taking stock now, I can't call my behavior particularly heroic, there wasn't anything special about it, even though the little I did wasn't easy. And the times certainly weren't easy; not the best of all possible times. But as Zoshchenko said, citizens from future eras will hardly be able to appreciate the circumstances because they won't have enough information. If only Zoshchenko's works were studied in school! As required reading. Then the young people of the future would have some idea of our meager and unattractive life. Zoshchenko was our Nestor and our Pimen.t

I met Zoshchenko at Zamyatin's, in shameful circumstances, at the card table over a game of poker. I loved cards at that period of my life and gave in to that ugly vice. I spent days, and particularly nights, at cards. Once Beliayev managed to talk Liadov into going to the Caucasus, to enjoy the marvelous scenery, so to speak. The patron of the arts

•New words to the Soviet anthem were approved after Shostakovich's death, in 1 977. The text is that of the same poets, and the changes are few-Stalin's name is replaced by Lenin's.

tNestor was an ancient Russian chronicler; Pimen is the chronicler in Boris Godunov.

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and the composer headed south. They moved into the best hotel they could find and played nonstop for three days. Neither Beliayev nor

· Liadov even remembered the scenery outside and they never left their rooms. Then they got back into the train and returned to Petersburg.

So Liadov never did see the scenery, and he kept asking himself, "Why did I ever go to the Caucasus?" He became totally disillusioned by travel.

For the times, Zamyatin was well off and a man of substance. He had good tables and all kinds of chairs and armchairs, which were of course not the result of his literary success. Zamyatin was a famous engineer, a shipbuilder, and that's where the money came from. And the means to give small literary soirees. Young people came to them to eat something and to meet others.

Maitre._now, that's the word for Zamyatin. He really liked to put people in the right pigeonhole, and he never missed an opportunity to lecture you. I didn't like that very much. But I will admit that Zamyatin was an educated man. A pity his index finger stuck out all the time. Zamyatin looked down on Zoshchenko, and it's true you couldn't call Zoshchenko a scholar. He did like Zoshchenko's stories, from a professional point of view, but he mocked him, never missing an opportunity to remind us that a bear had stepped on Zoshchenko's ear, and that he divided all music into two categories. One was the "Internationale" and the other, everything else. And Zoshchenko had a simple test to determine which category was being played. If they stood up, it was the "Internationale." If people stubbornly remained seated, it was something from category two.

This harsh appraisal of Zoshchenko's ear was absolutely accurate, and I had ample opportunity to prove it for myself. For instance, Zoshchenko was listening to Beethoven's Ninth, and during the finale, Zoshchenko decided that the music was over. There's that tricky spot in the finale. Zoshchenko applauded and headed proudly for the exit.

Then he realized that he was alone, that the rest of the audience was seated, because the music was still on. He had to go back to his seat, his neighbors hissing him as he stepped all over their feet.

Another time Zoshchenko both touched me and distracted me from my worries. It was at the end of 1 937. I came to the Philharmonic Hall for the first performance of my Fifth Symphony. The atmosphere 265

at the premiere was highly charged, the hall was filled-as they say, all the best people were there, and all the worst too. It was definitely a critical situation, and not only for me. Which way would the wind blow? That's what was worrying members of the select audiencepeople in literature, culture, and physical culture. That's what had them in a feverish state. In the first part of the program, Mravinsky played Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. My Fifth was in the second half of the program. I felt like the gladiator in Spartacus or a fish in a f rypan. I remembered Oleinikov's ditty "Tiny little fishie, fried little smelt, where's your smile from yesterday, remember how you felt?"

Romeo and Juliet was over. Intermission, and Zoshchenko ran in all smiles, dressed nattily as usual. He headed over to me and congratulated me on the success of my composition.

It turned out that Zoshchenko liked my new work, it was melodious. "I just knew that you weren't capable of writing anti-people music," Zoshchenko praised me. I was flattered, of course, and had a good laugh, and even forgot about the second half and the fact that the Fifth was yet to come.

I was always drawn to Zoshchenko, I found him very simpatico. We were very different men, but we had the same point of view on many things. It sometimes seemed that Zoshchenko left all his anger on paper; he liked to appear gentle, he liked to pretend shyness. You see that sometimes, the humorist trying to be sad, a gentle person trying to be cruel. It's easier to live that way.

Zoshchenko tried to create a distance between himself and his works. Actually, he was very good at being mean and ruthless in life, just as in his stories. He was cruel to women, there were many around him, and why not: he was nationally famous, he had money, and he was handsome in a way that women liked.

His good looks always seemed suspect to me. They were too pretty, I guess. If he had behaved more obnoxiously, he could have passed for a pimp. But he was quiet and modest, and he told his passionate and persistent lovers horrible, vile things in a quiet and modest voice.

Zoshchenko didn't have a drop of sentimentality, luckily. We agreed on that. He once told me laughingly that he had to write a paper in high school on "Liza Kalitina as the Ideal Russian Woman." What could be more nauseating than Turgenev? Particularly when on the 266

subject of women? I was happy to hear that Zoshchenko got a 1 [F] for the composition. I told him that Che1chov didn't like Turgenev's maidens either. He said that all those Lizas and Elenas w�re intolerably false, and that they weren't Russian girls at all, but unnatural python-esses with pretensions above their station.

·

Zoshchenko wrote marvelously about himself and his relations with women and women in general. This is the final truth, the way he wrote. It's hard to imagine that one could write more truthfully. It is very crude prose. Pornography is often sugary, but there isn't any sugariness here. It's crystalline Zoshchenko. Some pages of Before Sunrise are hard to read, they're so cruel. And most important, there's no fanfare, no cynicism, no pose. Zoshchenko treats women with detachment.

Zoshchenko published Before Sunrise during the war and his selfanalysis drove Stalin mad. He felt that it was wartime and we should be crying "Hurrah!," "Go to hell!," and "Long live!," and here people were publishing God knows what. So the pronouncement was made: Zoshchenko was a vile, lustful animal, just like that, word for word.

Zoshchenko had no shame or conscience.

That's how incensed our leader and teacher was by Zoshchenko's incorrect attitude toward women. And he rushed to women's defense.

It was a topic that interested Stalin deeply. For instance, it was decreed from on high that my Lady Macbeth praised lust among the merchants, which naturally had no place in music. Out with lust.

Now, why would I want to praise merchant lust? But the leader and teacher knew better than we did. "Does Stalin know?" and "Stalin knows" were the two favorite sentences of the Soviet intelligentsia in that period. And I must stress that this wasn't from the lectern, and not at meetings, but at home, with the wife, in the bosom of the Soviet family.

Stalin placed great hopes in the family. At first Stalin tried to destroy it with every means available to him. Son denounced father, wife informed on husband. The papers were full of announcements like "I, So-and-so, announce that I have nothing to do with my father, enemy of the people So-and-so. I broke off with him ten years ago." Everyone had grown accustomed to such announcements, they didn't even pay attention. So you broke off with him. It was like reading "Selling my 267

furniture" or "French lessons, also manicure, pedicure, and electrolysis."

The hero of the era was little Pavlik Morozov, who informed on his father. Pavlik was sung in poetry, prose, and music. Eisenstein took part in the praises, working long and hard on a great art film that glorified the little snitch.

In Lady Macbeth I depicted a quiet Russian family. The members of the family beat and poison one another. If you looked around, you'd see I wasn't exaggerating in the least. It was just a modest picture drawn from nature. The exceptions were rare; one was Tukhachevsky's mother, Mavra Petrovna. She refused to brand her son ar enemy of the people, she was adamant. And she shared his fate.

Having destroyed the family unit, Stalin began resurrecting it, that was his standard pattern. It's called dialectics. He destroyed barbarically, and he resurrected barbarically too. Everyone knows the shameful laws on family and marriage promulgated by Stalin. And it got worse. A ban on marrying foreigners, even Poles and Czechs, who were our own people, after all. Then the law on sexual segregation in schools. Boys and girls separated, in order to maintain morality, and so that they wouldn't ask teachers stupid questions about "things" and

"holes."

We still haven't shaken ourselves free of that struggle for a healthy Soviet family. I was on a suburban train once and my neighbor, a buxom woman, was telling her girlfriend about a film she had seen, Lady with the Dog, based on the Chekhov story. She was incensed. He has a wife, she said, and she has a husband, and you should see what they do. It's too shameful to tell you, she said. It's propaganda of moral decay through films, and they teach Chekhov in the schools, too! Stalin is dead, but his work lives on. When the Dresden Museum exhibit was in Moscow, schoolchildren didn't see it, because it was restricted to those over sixteen to protect that Soviet family. Otherwise the children might see some naked women, by Veronese or Titian. And then they would become incorrigible and move on to really dangerous behavior.

One thing leads to the next. They cover plaster figures with bathing suits and cut out kissing scenes from movies, and watch out, artist, if you plan to exhibit a nude. You'll be showered with threatening letters, and not all of them from above. The simple folk will be incensed, 268

saying that the depiction of naked women is offensive to our simple Soviet worker-peasant point of view.

One simple man wrote a really wonderful put-down of such shamelessness in the representational arts. He said, ''Such depictions arouse extraordinary lust and lead to the destruction of united family life."

He ended with, "The artist should be put on trial for such moral decay!" This isn't something that Zoshchenko or I invented, it actually happened.

All art is under suspicion, all literature. Not only Chekhov, but Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. That chapter from The Possessed will never be published,* they are worried about its effect on the Soviet citizen. Soviet man has withstood everything: hunger, and destruction, and wars-one worse than the other-and Stalin's camps. But he won't be able to take that chapter from The Possessed, he'll crack.

And so Stalin suspected Zoshchenko of wanting to undermine the Soviet family. They hit him, but not fatally. They decided to give him the final blow later, and for the same reason that they hit me. The Allies set us up.

Actually, to be accurate, there are three versions. When you think of it, it's amazing-why did they pick Zoshchenko and Akhmatova, why those two as the main target? They put them out naked and threw stones at them. One version goes like this: Akhmatova and Zoshchenko were the victims of a struggle between two of Stalin's toadies, that is, between Malenkovt and Zhdanov. Allegedly Malenkov wanted to become Stalin's main ideological adviser, a rather important position, right below Stalin's top executioner, Beria. He would be the executioner on the cultural front. Malenkov and Zhdanov fought to prove themselves worthy of that honored position. The war with Hitler was won and Malenkov decided to stress public relations and to glorify the homeland, so that the entire enlightened world would gasp and see that Russia was the "homeland of elephants."

Malenkov worked out grandiose plans, one of which was a series of

•A refc. .:nce to the chapter "At Tikhon's" (also known as "Stavrogin's Confession"), deleted by Dostoevsky under pressure from the censors from the edition of The Possessed published in his lifetime. In the Soviet Union, "Stavrogin's Confession" was not printed for over fifty years, although it was known that Dostoevsky valued the chapter highly.

tGeorgi Maximilianovich Malenkov (b. 1902), a Communist Party leader who was chairman of the Council of Ministers after Stalin's death. In 1957 Khrushchev removed Malenkov from power as a member or' an "anti-Party group."

269

deluxe editions of Russian literature from antiquity to the present. I think the series began with The Lay of Prince Igor and ended, believe it or not, with Akhmatova and Zoshchenko. But Malenkov's idea didn't work and Zhdanov outguessed him. He knew Stalin better and considered that laudatory editions were fine, but steadfast struggle with the enemy-vigilance, so to speak-was more important.

With the aim of getting rid of Malenkov, Zhdanov attacked Malenkov's ideas and proved to Stalin, like two plus two, that it was vigilance that Malenkov had lost. Zhdanov, unfortunately, knew what and how Akhmatova and Zoshchenko wrote, since Leningrad was Zhdanov's own turf.

This was Zhdanov's argument: The Soviet Army is victorious, we are advancing on Europe, and Soviet literature must be an aid in this, it must . attack bourgeois culture, which is in a state of confusion and decay. And do Akhmatova and Zoshchenko attack? Akhmatova writes lyric poetry and Zoshchenko writes derogatory prose. Zhdanov won, Stalin took his side and Malenkov was removed from leading the cultural front. Zhdanov was empowered to strike a blow at harmful in ..

ftuences, at "the spirit of negative criticism, despair, and nonbelief."

Zhdanov later announced, "What would have happened if we had brought up our young people .in the spirit of despair and nonbelief in our work? What would have happened was that we would not have won the Great Patriotic War." Now, that scared them. Just think, one short story by Zoshchenko, and the Soviet regime might have toppled.

Another symphony by Shostakovich, and the country would fall into the slavery of American imperialism.

The second version is that Stalin pointed out Zoshchenko personally and for personal reasons. You see, the leader and teacher was hurt.

Years ago Zoshchenko had written a few stories about Lenin to make some money, and one of the stories depicted Lenin as a gentle and kind man, a luminary. For contrast, Zoshchenko described a crude Party official, as an exception, just for contrast. The crude man, naturally, was not given a name, but the story made it clear that the boor worked in the Kremlin. In Zoshchenko's story the boor had a beard and the censor said that the beard had to go because people might think he was Mikhail Kalinin, our president. And in their hurry, they made a horrendous mistake. Zoshchenko removed the beard, but left the mus-270

tache. The crude Party official had a mustache in Zoshchenko's story.

Stalin read it and took offense. He decided that it was about him.

That's how Stalin read fiction.

Neither the censor, nor certainly Zoshchenko, could have foreseen or imagined such a turn of events and so they didn't think about the fatal consequences of removing the beard.

I think that both versions have some truth in them, that is, both did take place. But I still think that the main cause, for both Zoshchenko and me, was the Allies. As a result of the war, Zoshchenko's popularity in the West grew considerably. He was published frequently and discussed readily. Zoshchenko wrote many short stories that were perfect for newspapers, and they didn't even have to pay, since Soviet authors were_n't protected by copyright law. It was cheap and satisfying for the Western press. And it turned out to have tragic consequences for Zoshchenko.

Stalin kept a close eye on the foreign press. Naturally, he didn't know any foreign languages, but his flunkies reported to him. Stalin weighed other people's fame carefully and as soon as it seemed to be getting a little too heavy, he threw them off the scales.

So they let Zoshchenko have it, they used every four-letter word they could think of about him. Zoshchenko's morals were disgusting, and he was rotten and putrid through and through. Zhdanov called him an unprincipled, conscienceless literary hooligan. Criticism in the Soviet Union is a wondrous thing. It's construed along the famous principle: they beat you and don't let you cry. In antediluvian times it wasn't like that in Russia. If you were insulted in the press you answered in another literary forum, or your friends took your part. Or if worst came to worst, you vented your spleen in your circle of friends.

But that was before the flood. Now things are different, more progressive.

If you are smeared with mud from head to toe on the orders of the leader and teacher, don't even think of wiping it off. You bow and say thanks, say thanks and bow. No one will pay any attention to any of your hostile rejoinders anyway, and no one will come to your defense, and most sadly of all, you won't be able to let off steam among friends.

Because there are no friends in these pitiable circumstances.

People shied away from Zoshchenko on the street, just the way they 27 1

had from me. They crossed the street, so that they wouldn't have to say hello. And they smeared Zoshchenko even more at hurriedly arranged meetings, and it was his former friends who did it the most, the ones who yesterday had praised him the loudest. Zoshchenko seemed surprised by it all, but I wasn't. I had gone through it at a younger age and the subsequent storms and 'bad weather had hardened me.

Akhmatova was undercut by Stalin for the same reason: envy of her fame, black envy. Sheer madness. There are many losses and blows in Akhmatova's life: "my husband is in the grave, my son in prison." And yet the Zhdanov episode was her hardest trial.

We all had different destinies, yet we shared some common traits.

Strangely enough, for Akhmatova, as for me, it was easiest during the war. During the war everyone heard about Akhmatova, even people who had never read poetry in their lives. While Zoshchenko had been read by everyone always. It's interesting that Akhmatova was afraid to write prose and considered Zoshchenko the highest authority in the field. Zoshchenko told me about that later, with a laugh but with some pride.

After the war an evening of readings by Leningrad poets was given in Moscow. When Akhmatova came out, the audience rose. That was enough. Stalin asked, "Who organized the standing up ?"

I had met Akhmatova a long time before, in 1 9 1 9, that "unforgettable year," or perhaps in 1 9 1 8, at the home of Dr. Grekov, the surgeon, a famous man and a friend of our family. He ran the Obykhovskaya Hospital. Grekov is worth telling about; he did many things for us, for my father and for me. When Father was dying, Grekov spent the night at our house, trying to save him. It was Grekov who removed my appendix, even though he often said, "It's not much fun cutting up someone you know." Grekov was a large man and he smelled of tobacco. Like all surgeons, he was gruff-that's a professional trait.

I hated Grekov. Every time I left his house, I found food for my parents in my coat pocket. I choked with anger,--was I a beggar, were we beggars? But I couldn't refuse. We really did need the food, desperately. But I hate handouts, and I don't like to borrow money. I always wait until it's urgent and then I pay it back at the first opportunity. That's one of my major faults.

Grekov liked to boast, of course. I remember one famous operation 272

of his. He had to do something with a girl who wasn't growing. Grekov decided that if he widened her hips, everything would proceed normally. He moved her hipbones and the girl grew broader and taller, and even had a child.

Grekov's wife, Elena Afanasyevna, dabbled in literature. She was a talentless scribbler who would probably have died from her unrequited love for literature. But from time to time, Grekov, who had money to burn, published some work of his wife's at his expense, and thereby prolonged her life. The Grekovs also had a sort of literary salon. They gave receptions, the table groaned with food. Writers and musicians came to eat. I saw Akhmatova at their house. She grazed there periodically. She came to the salon for the spread, of course. It was a hungry time.

The Grekovs had a grand piano, and I was part of the entertainment, working off the food in my pockets. But I don't think that Akhmatova was too interested in music then. She created a field of majesty about herself, and you had to freeze within two yards of her. Her behavior was worked out to the smallest detail. She was very beautiful, very.

Once my friend Lenya Arnshtam and I dropped in at a writers'

bookshop. Akhmatova came in and asked the clerk for one of her books. I don't remember which, either White Flock or Anno Domini.

The clerk sold her a copy, but Akmatova wanted to buy ten copies.

The clerk grew angry and said, "No, that's unheard of. The book is selling very well, and there might be a request for it at any moment. I have to satisfy my customers and I won't sell ten copies to just anyone.

What will I say to my other customers? Hah ?"

He was rather impolite and Akhmatova looked at him in amazement, but she didn't seem to want to speak up. Arnshtam spoke up.

Don't you know this is Akhmatova herself? Why be impolite to the famous poetess? Especially since it's her own book you're talking about?

Akhmatova gave us a dirty look, meaning that we were sticking our nose in her business, destroying her majesty, blowing her regal incognito, and she immediately left the bookstore.

Later on, Akhmatova attended the premieres of my works and she must have liked them, since she wrote poems about them. Basically I can't bear having poetry written about my music. I also know that 273

Akhmatova expressed her displeasure over the "weak words" I used for the vocal cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. I don't want to argue with the famous poetess, but I think she didn't understand the music in this instance, or rather, she didn't understand how the music was connected to the word.

I was always put off by conversation with Akhmatova, because we were such different people. Yet we both lived in the same dty and were equally devoted to it, we had the same world view, and common acquaintances, she seemed to respect my music, and I esteemed her work highly, both her early poems and her late ones, and of course, the Requiem. Particularly the Requiem; I honor it as a memorial to all the victims of the years of terror. It's so simply written, without any melodrama. Melodrama would have ruined it.

I would greatly love to set it to music, but the music exists already.

It was written by Boris Tishchenko, and I think that it's a marvelous work. Tishchenko brought to the Requiem what I think it lacked: protest. In Akhmatova, you feel a kind of submission to fate. Perhaps it's a matter of generations.

And so, despite our mutual likes, I had trouble talking with Akhmatova. I bring this up apropos of "historic meetings." A special historic meeting with Akhmatova was arranged for me in Komarovo, near Leningrad, and it turned out to be quite embarrassing. We were all tieless out there-it's the country, after all. They tried to talk me into dressing more appropriately for a meeting with the celebrated poetess, and I just said, "Come off it. A fat old woman is coming, that's all." I was very light-hearted about the whole thing. I didn't put on a good suit or a tie. When I saw Akhmatova, I felt nervous. She was a grande dame, quite regal. The celebrated poetess, dressed with great thought.

You could tell that she had paid attention to her clothes, prepared for the historic meeting, and behaved in a manner commensurate with the occasion. And there I was, tieless. I felt naked.

We sat in silence. I was silent and Akhmatova was silent. We said nothing for a while and then parted. I heard that she later said, "Shostakovich came to see me. We had such a good talk, we talked about everything."

That's how most historic meetings go, and then the rest comes in the memoirs. I said to him, and he said to me, and then I said . . . It's all 274

lies. I wonder if the public knows how historic photographs are taken.

When two "celebrities" are seated next to each other and they don't know what to talk about. The traditional method is to say to each other with a smile, "What do we talk about, when we have nothing to say?" Flash. The other method, which I myself. invented, is to say,

"Eighty-eight, eighty-eight." You don't even have to smile, because the words stretch your lips into a smile and you give the impression of having a lively conversation. The photographers are happy and leave quickly.

No, I can't go on describing my unhappy life, and I'm sure that no one can doubt now that it is unhappy. There were no particularly happy moments in my life, no great joys. It was gray and dull and it makes me sad to think about it. It saddens me to admit it, but it's the truth, the unhappy truth.

Man feels joy when he's healthy and happy. I was often sick. I'm sick now, and my illness deprives me of the opportunity to take pleasure in ordinary things. It's hard for me to walk. I'm teaching myself to write with my left hand in case my right one gives out completely. I am completely in the hands of the doctors, and I obey their orders with extreme submissiveness. I take all the medicine they prescribe, even if it nauseates me. But there is no diagnosis, they won't make one. Some American doctors came and said, We're amazed by your courage. And nothing else. They can't do a thing. Before, they bragged that they would cure me without question, they had made such great progress in the field, etc. And now all they talk about is courage.

But I don't feel like a superman yet, supercourageous. I'm a weak man. Or are things so bad with me?

They've come up with a tentative diagnosis: something like chronic poliomyelitis. Not infantile polio, of course. There are a few other people in the Soviet Union with the same mysterious illness. One film director walks around, they say, dragging his leg. And no regimen, no treatment seems to help. When I'm in Moscow, I feel worst of all. I keep thinking that I'll fall and break a leg. At home I can even play the piano. But I'm afraid to go out. I'm terrified to be seen, I feel fragile, breakable.

No, every new day of my life brings me no joy. I thought I would find distraction reminiscing about my friends and acquaintances.

275

Many of them were famous and talented people, who told me interesting things, instructive stories. I thought that telling about my outstanding contemporaries would also be interesting and instructive. Some of these people played an important role in my life and I felt it was my duty to tell what I still remembered about them.

But even this undertaking has turned out to be a sad one.

I have thought that my life was replete with sorrow and, that it would be hard to find a more miserable man. But when I started going over the life stories of my friends and acquaintances, I was horrified.

Not one of them had an easy or a happy life. Some came to a terrible end, some died in terrible suffering, and the lives of many of them could easily be called more miserable than mine.

And that made me even sadder. I was remembering my friends and all I saw was corpses, mountains of corpses. I'm not exaggerating, I mean mountains. And the picture filled me with a horrible depression.

I'm sad, I'm grieving all the time. I tried to drop this unhappy undertaking several times and stop remembering things from my past, since I saw nothing good in it. I didn't want to remember at all.

But for many reasons I went on. I forced myself and went on remembering, even though some of the memories were difficult for me. I decided that if this exercise helped me to see anew certain events and the destinies of certain people, then perhaps it wasn't completely futile and perhaps others would find something instructive in these simple tales.

And besides, I reasoned this way: I've described many unpleasant and even tragic events, as well as several sinister and repulsive figures.

My relations with them brought me much sorrow and suffering. And I thought perhaps my experience in this regard could also be of some use to peo�le younger than I. Perhaps they wouldn't have the horrible disillusionment that I had to face, and would go through life better prepared, more hardened, than I was. And perhaps their lives would be free of the bitterness that has colored my life gray . .

276

DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

1 906- 1 975

MAJOR COMPOSITIONS, TITLES,

AND AWARDS

1 924-25

First Symphony, opus 1 0

1 926

Piano Sonata no. 1 , opus 1 2

1 927

Ten Aphorisms for Piano, opus 1 3

Second Symphony ("Dedication to October"), for orchestra and chorus, to poem by Alexander Bezymensky, opus 1 4

1 927-28

The Nose, a n opera based on Gogol, opus 1 5

1 928

Orchestral transcription of "Tea for Two" by Vincent Youmans, opus 1 6

1 928-29

Score for film New Babylon (directors, Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg), opus 1 8

1 928-32

Six Romances for Tenor and Orchestra, to poems by Japanese poets, opus 21

1 929

Music for Vladimir Mayakovsky's comedy The Bedbug (directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold), opus 1 9

Third Symphony ("May First"), for orchestra and chorus, to poem by Semyon Kirsanov, opus 20

1 929-30

The Golden Age (ballet), opus 22

1 930-31

Bolt (ballet), opus 27

1 930-32

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, an opera based on Nikolai Leskov, opus 29

1931-32

Music for Hamlet (directed by Nikolai Akimov), opus 32

1 932-33

Twenty-Four Preludes for Piano, opus 34

1 933

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, opus 35

1 934

Sonata for Cello and Piano, opus 40

277

1 934-35

Bright Stream (ballet), opus 39

1 934-38

Scores for films Maxim 's Youth, Maxim 's Return, and The Vyborg Side (directors, G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg), opuses 41 , 45, 50; film trilogy received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 941

1 935

Five Fragments for Orchestra, opus 42

1 935-36

Fourth Symphony, opus 43

1 936

Four Romances for Voice and Piano, to poems by Alexander Pushkin, opus 46

1 937

Fifth Symphony, opus 47

1 938

First String Quartet, opus 49

1 938-39

Score for film The Great Citizen , two parts (director, Fridrikh Ermler), opuses 52, 55; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1941

1 939

Sixth Symphony, opus 54

1 940

Piano Quintet, opus 5 7; Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 941

Orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, opus 58

Music for King Lear (director, G. Kozintsev), opus 58a Order of the Red Banner of Labor

1 941

Seventh Symphony, opus 60; Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 942

1 942

Piano Sonata no. 2, opus 61

Six Romances for Bass and Piano, to poems by Walter Raleigh, Robert Burns, and William Shakespeare, translated by Samuel Marshak and Boris Pasternak, opus 62 (version for bass and chamber orchestra, 1 970, opus 1 40)

Honored Artist of the R.S.F.S.R.

1 943

Eighth Symphony, opus 65

Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters

1 944

Score for film Zoya (director, Leo Arnshtam), opus 64; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 946

Piano Trio, opus 67; Stalin Prize Second Grade, 1 946

Second String Quartet, opus 68

1 945

Ninth Symphony, opus 70

1 946

Third String Quartet, opus 73

Order of Lenin

1 947

Score for film Pirogov (director, G. Kozintsev), opus 76; film received Stalin Prize Second Grade, 1 948

1 947-48

Score for film Young Guards, two parts (director, Sergei Gerasimov), opus 75; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 949

First Violin Concerto, opus 77

278

1 948

Score for film Michurin (director, Alexander Dovzhenko), opus 78; film received Stalin Prize Second Grade, 1 �49

From Jewish Folk Poetry, vocal cycle for soprano, contralto, tenor, and piano, opus 79

Score for film Meeting at Elba (director, · Grigori Alexandrov), opus 80; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 950

People's Artist of the R.S.F.S.R.

1 949

Song of the Forests, oratorio to poems by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, opus 8 1 ; Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 949

Score for film The Fall of Berlin, two parts (director, Mikhail Chiaureli), opus 82; film received Stalin Prize First Grade, 1 950

Fourth String Quartet, opus 83

1950-5 1

Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for Piano, opus 87

1 951

Ten Choral Poems by Revolutionary Poets, opus 88; Stalin Prize Second Grade, 1 952

Score for film Unforgettable 1919 (director, M. Chiaureli), opus 89

1 952

Four Monologues for Bass and Piano, to poems by Alexander Pushkin, opus 91

Fifth String Quartet, opus 92

1 953

Tenth Symphony, opus 93

1 954

Festive Overture, opus 96

People's Artist of the U.S.S.R.

International Peace Prize

Honorary Member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music 1 955

Corresponding Member of the Academy o( Arts of the German Democratic Republic

1 956

Sixth String Quartet, opus 101

Order of Lenin

Honorary Member of the St. Cecilia Academy of Arts, Italy 1 957

Second Piano Concerto, opus 1 02

Eleventh Symphony, opus 103; Lenin Prize, 1 958

1 958

Moscow, Cheryomushki, operetta, opus 1 05

Member of the British Royal Academy of Music

Honorary Doctorate, Oxford University

Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, France

International Jan Sibelius Prize

1 959

Orchestration of Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina, opus 1 06

First Cello Concerto, opus 1 07

Silver Medal, World Peace Council

Member of the American Academy of Sciences

279

1 960

Seventh String Quartet, opus 1 08

Satires, cycle for voice and piano, to poems by Sasha Cherny, opus 1 09

Eighth String Quartet, opus 1 1 0

1 961

Twelfth Symphony, opus 1 1 2

1 962

Thirteenth Symphony, for bass, bass choir, and orchestra, to poems by Y evgeny Yevtushenko, opus 1 1 3

Orchestration of Mussorgsky's vocal cycle Songs and Dances of Death

1 962-75

Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R.

1 963

Katerina Izmailova (new edition of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District), opus 1 1 4

Overture on Russian and Kirkhiz Folk Themes, opus 1 1 5

Honorary Member of International Music Council of UNESCO

1 963-64

Score for film Hamlet (director, G. Kozintsev), opus 1 1 6

1 964

Ninth String Quartet, opus 1 1 7

Tenth String Quartet, opus 1 1 8

The Execution of Stepan Razin, for bass, choir, and orchestra, to poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, opus 1 1 9; State Prize of the U.S.S.R., 1 968

1 965

Five Romances for Voice and Piano, to texts from the satirical magazine Krokodil, opus 1 2 1

Honorary Doctorate i n Music, U.S.S.R.

Honorary Member of Serbian Academy of Arts

1 966

Eleventh String Quartet, opus 1 22

"Preface to the Complete Collection of My Works and a Brief Meditation on This Preface," for bass and piano, opus 1 23

Second Cello Concerto, opus 1 26

Order of Lenin

Hero of Socialist Labor

Member of International Music Council of UNESCO

Gold Medal of the British Royal Philharmonic Society 1 967

Seven Romances for Soprano, Violin, Cello, and Piano, to poems by Alexander Blok, opus 1 27

Second Violin Concerto, opus 1 29

Grand Decoration of Honor in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria

1 968

Twelfth String Quartet, opus 1 33

Sonata for Violin and Piano, opus 1 34

Corresponding Member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts 280

1 969

Fourteenth Symphony, for soprano, bass, and chamber orchestra, to poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Vilgelm Kukhelbecker, and Rainer Maria Rilke, opus 1 35

Mozart Memorial Medal of the Mozart Society in Vienna 1 970

Fidelity, cycle for male chorus, to poems by Yevgeny Dolmatovsky, opus 1 36; State Prize of the R.S.F.S.R., 1 974

Score for film King Lear (director, G. Kozintsev), opus 1 37

Thirteenth String Quartet, opus 1 38

March of the Soviet Police, for band, opus 1 39

Honorary Member of the Society of Composers of Finland 1 97 1

Fifteenth Symphony, opus 141

Order of the October Revolution

1 972

"Great Star of the Friendship Among People" in gold (German Democratic Republic)

Honorary Doctorate in Music, Holy Trinity College (Dublin) 1 973

Fourteenth String Quartet, opus 1 42; State Prize of the R.S.F.S.R., 1 974

Six Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva for Contralto and Piano, opus 1 43 (version for contralto and chamber orchestra, 1 974, opus 1 43a)

The Sonning Prize (Denmark)

Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Northwestern University (Evanston, Ill.) 1 97 4

Fifteenth String Quartet, opus 1 44

Suite for Bass and Piano, to poems by Michelangelo Buonarotti, opus 1 45 (version for bass and symphony orchestra, same year, opus 1 45a)

1 975

Four Poems of Captain Lebyadkin (from Dostoevsky's novel The Possessed), for bass and piano, opus 1 46

Sonata for Viola and Piano, opus 1 47

Honorary Member of the French Academy of Fine Arts 281

INDEX

In subentries the name of Shostakovich is abbreviated as S.

Abendroth, Hermann, 71

Beria, Lavrenti Pavlovich, 1 41 , 1 5 1 , 269

Akhmatova, Anna Andreyevna, xvi, xxxvi,

Bezymensk, Alexander, xxiv

56, 1 36, 1 37, 1 52n, 202-204, 21 7-2 1 8,

Bizet, Georges, Cannen, 108

256; persecuted, 269-270, 272-273

Bolshakov, 1'.finister of Cinematography,

Akimov, Nikolai Pavlovich, Hamlet produc-

251 -252

tion, 84-90

Boris Godunov, see 1'.fussorgsky

Alexandrov, Grigori, 250, 259-264

Borodin, Alexander Porfirievich, 121n, 1 60-

Andersen, Hans Christian, xxiv

1 62, 229n; Prince Igor, 1 62, 241

Andronikov, Irakli Luarsabovich, 38

Braga, Gaetano, "A 1'.faiden's Prayer," 224

anti-Semitism, xxxv, xxxviin, 1 28, 1 3 1 , 1 57-

Brahms, Johannes, xxxii, 20, 173

1 58, 1 66-1 67

Brecht, Benoit, 1 09n

Apollinaire, Guillaume, 1 82-1 84

Brezhnev, Leonid, xx

Apostolov, Pavel Ivanovich, 1 84

Britten, Benjamin, xxx

Arkhangelsk, 1 1 3

Bruckner, Anton, 173

Amshtam, Leo Oskarovich (Lenya), 80, 273

Budyonny, Semyon 1'.fikhailovich, 100

Asafiev, Boris Vladimirovich, xxvi, 41 -42

Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich, 80n

and n, 45, 6 1 , 1 2 1 n , 146, 1 82, 227, 230, Bulgakov, 1'.fikhail Afanasievich, xvii, 83

240, 241

Burns, Rohen, 1 4

Ashrafi, 1'.fukhtar, 175

Chaliapin, Feodor Ivanovich, portrait of, 1 8

Babi Yar, 1 58-1 59; see also Yevtushenko

Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich, xiii, 10, 3 5 , 43,

Bach, Johann Sebastian, xxii, 5, 54, 60, 1 25

46, 82, 1 1 0, 149, 1 78- 1 80, 1 94, 195, 223-

Balakirev, 1'.fili Alexeevich, 1 64, 229n, 236,

225, 240, 242, 267-269

238

Chekhov, 1'.fikhail, 85

Balmont, Konstantin, 223n

Cherny, Sasha (Alexander 1'.fikhailovich

Bartl>k, Bela, xxiv, 53, 219

Glikberg}, 78, 1 7 1 , 252

Beethoven, Ludwig van, xxxii, 52, 7 1 , 1 26-

Chiaureli, 1'.fikhail Edisherovich, 1 5 1 , 250

1 28, 141

China, People's Republic of, 1 53

Bekhterev, Vladimir, 192

Chukhovsky, author, 75

Beliayev, 1'.fitrofan Petrovich, 1 65, 264-265

Chulaki, 1'.fikhail, 1 42

Belinkov, Arkady, 76n

Churchill, Winston, 1 33n

Benkendorf, Alexander Kristoforovich, 248n

Communist International of Youth (KI1'.f),

Berg, Alban, 42-45; Wozzeck, 35, 42-44,

1 50-1 5 1

1 08

Communist Pany, S in, xxxix

283

Composers' Union, xxxix, 57, 1 1 5, 1 20n,

Gauk, Alexander Vasilyevich, 38n, 39

1 1 4, 1 50, 1 72- 175, 220, 249, 253

Gelovani, actor, 255

Cui, Cesar Antonovich, 229n, 236

Gerdt, Elizaveta, 39

Czechoslovakia, Soviet invasion, xxxx

Germany, pact with Soviet Union, 1 28, 1 3 1 ,

229n

Dadaists, xxvi

Gladkovsky, Arseny, 102

Daniel, Yuli, xxxix-xxxx

Glazunov, Alexander Konstantinovich, 20-

·

Danilyevich, Lev Vasilyevich, 1 22n

22, 27-30, 40, 67-75, 1 20, 227-228, 230;

Dargomyzhsky, Alexander, 234

character, 162-171; compositions, 1 63-

Davidenko, Alexander, 1 1 2n, 248

1 64; drinking problem, 47-50, 59, 1 62;

Debussy, Claude, 62-63

Raymonda (ballet), 45-46, 1 63; relation

Delson, Viktor Yulyevich, 1 22n

ship with S, 45-51 , 1 64; Suite from the

Diaghilev, Sergei Pavlovich, 1 29-1 30

Middle Ages, 1 63; as teacher, 58-63, 65

Dmitriev, Vladimir, 1 9

Glazunova, Elena Pavlovna, mother of the

Dostoevsky, Feodor Mikhailovich, xvii,

preceding, 70, 1 63, 1 65

xxviii; The Possessed, xlin, 237n, 269

Glebov, Igor, see Asafiev

Dostoevsky Reform Colony for Handicapped

Gliasser, Ignatiy Albertovich, 5

Children, 206

Gliasser, 0. F., 5

Dovzhenko, Alexander, 141

Gliere, Reinhold Moritzovich, The Red Pop

Dranishnikov, Vladimir, 44

py, 42

Dubelt, Leonti Vasilyevich, 248n

Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich, 67, 1 29, 1 74,

Durov, clown, 1 5

207; A Life for the Tsar (Ivan Susanin) ,

Dzerzhinsky, Felix Edmundovich, 248n, 248

1 34, 1 9 1 , 240-241

Dzerzhinsky, Ivan, 60, 1 39

Gnessin, Mikhail Fabianovich, 1 65, 207

Dzhabayev, Dzhambul, 209-21 1 , 222

Godowsky, Leopold, 73

Gogol, Nikolai Vasilyevich, xvii, xix, xxiv,

Ehrenburg, Ilya, xxxiv

66, 1 80, 1 84, 1 9 1 , 1 94, 205, 206, 2 1 0, 2 1 6, Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich, xxvii, 30n,

222-223, 235, 242; grave, 1 6; The Inspec1 24n, 1 52n, 248, 250; and The Valkyrie, tor General, 205, 207, 222; The Nose,

1 31 - 1 33

xxvii, 207-208

England: Glazunov in, 74-75; S's music in,

Gorky, Maxim, 1 06, 202, 203n, 224n, 260

xxxiv

Gorodetsky, Serge Mitrofanovich, 191

Experimental Studio of Chamber Opera,

Great Friendship, The, see Muradeli

Leningrad, xiii

Grekov, Dr., 192, 272-273

Grekova, Elena Afanasyevna, 273

Fadeyev, Alexander Alexandrovich, 1 83n

Griboyedov, Alexander, 81n

family life and morality, 267-269

Gulag Archipelago, xxix, xxx

Fefer, Itsik, 198-199

Gumilyov, Nikolai Stepanovich, 202-203n

Feuchtwanger, Lion, 200

gypsy music, 5-6, 224-225

Fiddler on the Roof, 1 58

films: as propaganda, 148- 1 5 1 ; Stalin's authority over, 149, 248-252; Unforgettable Haydn, Franz Joseph, xxxii, 5, 60

1919, Stalin portrayed in, 254-255

Hindemith, Paul, xxiv, 42, 53, 72, 224-225

Fleishman, Veniamin, 31n, 225; Rothschild's

Hitler, Adolf, 99, 103, 1 55, 1 56; relations

Violin, xiii-xiv, 225

with Soviet Union, 1 28, 1 3 1 , 1 87, 229n

folk music, 219; imitations of, 216-217; Jew

Hoffmann, E. T. A., 232

ish, 1 56-1 57; Ukrainian singers shot, 214-

housing arrangements, 90-92

2 1 5

food distribution, 92-93

Ilf, Ilya (Ilya Amoldovich Fainsilberg) and

formalism, xxix-xxx, xxxvi, xxxvii, xxxviii,

Petrov, Yevgeny (Yevgeny Petrovich Ka36n , 1 1 5, 1 39, 142, 1 44, 1 52; as conspirtaev), xvii, 35n, 83, 94, 142, 1 97n, 202, acy, 145-147; definition of, 83n

221 , 250

Frunze, Commissar, 102

Ilyinsky, Igor, 246

"Internationale," 256, 265

Gabrieli, Andrea, 60

Ionin, Georgi, 205-207

Gachev, Dina, 1 22

Israel, 1 58

Garbo, Greta, 202

Ivan the Terrible, Tsar, 1 24; 1 92

284

Jewish folk music, 1 56-1 5 7

Leningrad (Continued)

Jews, 1 56-1 58, 1 66; persecution of, 1 57; see

191; Shidlovskaya Gymnasium, 5, 7, 9;

also anti-Semitism

Theater of Young Workers (TRAM), 31n,

Josquin des Pres, 60

109, 1 1 2; in World War II, xxxiii, 1 03

Lermontov,. Mikhail Yuryevich, 46n, 83, 1 64

Kabalevsky, Dmitri Borisovich, 1 46n

Leskov, Nikolai Semyonovich, xxvii, 1 8n, 19,

Kaganovich, Lazar Moiseyevich, 81

37, 242; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District,

Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich, 270

1 8-19, 106, 107, 1 10

Kalmykov, Beta!, 151

lezghinka, 1 43-1 45

Karajan, Herbert von, 1 88

Liadov, Anatol, 50, 264-265

Karavaichuk, Oleg, 228

Liszt, Franz, 51 -52, 7 1 , 1 29

Karapetian, singer, 41

Literatumaya gazeta, 1 85

Karms, Daniil Ivanovich (Yuvachev), 9n

Litvinov, Maksim Maksimovich, 1 28

Kemal Ataturk, 1 1 2

Lopukhov, Fyodor Vasilyevich, 42n

Khachaturian, Aram, xxxvi, 148, 219, 242n;

Lunacharsky, Anatoly Vasilyevich, 95, 1 tOn,

and national anthem, 256-261 , 263

1 67

Khrennikov, Tikhon Nikolayevich, 1 20n,

1 38-1 39, 1 42, 146, 149-1 50, 1 53, 212n,

Mahler, Gustav, xxxii, 38, 42, 69, 173

248-254; Into the Storm, 1 38- 1 39, 142n

Malashkin, Sergei, Moon from the Right, 109

Khrushchev, . Nikita, xxxvii, xxxviii, 33n,

Malenkov, Georgi Maximilianovich, 269-

1 52, 1 53, 264, 269n

270

Khubov, Georgi Nikitich, 1 53n

Malko, Nikolai Andreyevich, 53

Kirov, Sergei Mironovich, 95, 1 5 1

Malraux, Andre, 199

Klemperer, Otto, xxiii

Mandelstam, Nadezhda, 191n

Klimov, choirmaster, 32

Mandelstam, Osip, xxii, 1 31 n

Komsomolskaya pravda, 2 1 2

Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich, xxvii,

Korneichuk, Alexander, 1 52-1 53

30n, 44, 82, 2 1 2, 2 1 6, 245-248, 255; The

Koussevitsky, Serge, xxxiv

Bedbug, 3n, 82, 228, 246-247; monument,

Koval, Marian Viktorovich (Kovalev), 142n,

30

1 53

Melik-Pashayev, Alexander, 261

Kozintsev, Grigori Mikhailovich, 84n

Mendeleyev, Dmitri, xxi

Krasnaya Nov', 1 89

Mendelson-Prokofieva, Mira Alexandrova,

Krenek, Ernst, xxiv, 42, 53, 95

37

Kronstadt Uprising, 1 5n, 97

Meyerbeer, Giacomo, 1 29

Krylov, Ivan, 247

Meyerhold, Vsevolod Emilyevich, xxvii, xxix,

Ksenofontov, I., 212n

3-4 and n, 17, 30n, 57, 88, 97, 1 05, 109,

Kubatsky, Viktor, 1 1 3

1 1 5, 1 37, 1 56, 205, 207, 2 1 3, 230, 245-

Kurbsky, Prince Andrei Mikhailovich, 192

247; conflict with Nemirovich-Danchenko,

Kustodiev, Boris Mikhailovich, 1 6n, 17-20,

63-65; last work in theater, 1 32-1 33; pro1 10; portrait of S, xxiii, 1 6-17

ductions, 81-83; relationship with S, 77-84

Meyerhold, Zinada, see Raikh

Lamm, Pavel Alexandrovich, 121n, 230

Miaskovsky, Nikolai Yakovlevich, xxxvi, 31,

Landrin, George, 205

148; correspondence with Prokofiev, 37-38

Lasso, Orlando di, 60

Mighty Five (composers), 229n

Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, xxii, 7, 24, 37, 49,

Mikhoels, Solomon Mikhailovich, 87n

1 04, 1 1 3n, 1 49, 270; as character in op

Milhaud, Darius, 42

eras, 142n; musical tastes, 94-95; "political

Mission to Moscow, film, 201

will," 23n, 80n

Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, 128,

Leningrad, xx-xxi; Bolshoi Dramatic The1 47n

ater, 19; Bolshoi Theater, xxix, 36-37,

Moscow: Conservatory, 31n, 121, 1 72, 173;

1 1 1 , 1 1 4, 1 1 9, 1 28, 1 3 1 , 1 32, 1 42, 1 45, Stanislavsky Opera Theater, 1 32; Theater

259; Bright Reel Theater, 9-1 1 ; Conservaof Meyerhold, 64-65, 77-79, 81, 83, 247

tory, xxii, xxiii, 6, 20n, 28-30, 50-51 , 55-

Moscow An Theater, 19n, 64, 87, 90, 92

61, 65, 67, 69-70, 1 65-1 67, 1 69; festival of

Mosfilm, 250-251 , 255

S's music xii-xiii; Finland Station, march

Moskvin, actor, 64

to, xxii, 7; Kirov Theater, 32, 42, 95n, 228;

Mozan, Wolfgang Amadeus, xxxii, 5, 60,

Maryinsky Theater, 18, 44, 95n, 1 28, 1 29,

1 25, 1 26; Jupiter Symphony, 62

285

Mravinsky, Yevgeny Alexandrovich, xi,

Pechkovsky, Nikolai, 1 1 5-1 1 6

xxxiii-xxxiv, 22n, 183n, 266

Petersburg (Petrograd), see Leningrad

Muradeli, Vano Ilyich, 142-1 45; The Great

Petipa, Marius, 45-46

Friendship, 24n, 142- 1 45; resolution

Petri, Egon, 71

against, xxxvi, 142-144, 1 5 1 , 1 52; second

Petrov, Yevgeny (Yevgeny Petrovich Kataev),

resolution on, 1 52-1 53

see Ilf

music: composers exiled to provinces, 213,

Plutarch, 27

21 5-217; contemporary Russian attitudes'

Pogrebov, musician, 37

on, 173-177, 21 9-222; folk, see folk music;

Poland, S's background in, xxi, 34

government supervision of, 1 38-147; gyp

Popov, Gavril Nikolayevich, xxxvi,, 146n, 148

sy, 5-6, 224-225; Mighty Five (compos

Popov, Sergei, 121

ers), 229n; and national culture, 214, 216,

Poskrebyshev, Stalin's secretary, 252

21 9-222; Nepman (pop), 224n; plagiarism,

Potsdam conference, 57

172-1 75; taste of Soviet leaders, 125-1 34;

Pravda, xxix, 99, 1 5 1 , 1 85; "Balletic Falsisee also Stalin; Western, prejudice against, ty," 1 19; "Muddle Instead of Music,"

173

xxviii-xxix, 36, 65, 76n, 98, 1 1 3-1 14, 1 19;

musicians persecuted by government, 1 20-

second article against S, 1 14-1 1 5

123

Preis, Alexander Germanovich, 106. 1 1 1 ,

Mussolini, Benito, 214

205-206, 208

Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich, xxv, xxvi, xi,

Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeevich, xxiv, xxxii,

8, 54, 121n, 1 29, 1 30, 1 56, 1 67, 1 94, 2 1 8, xxxvi, 6, 7, 27-28, 34-38, 66, 72, 1 20n,

226-244; Biron, 229; Boris Godunov, 1 82,

121n, 1 30, 142n, 144, 1 48, 1 53, 2 1 9, 224,

1 83, 1 92, 226-227, 229-234, 240; death,

228n, 248; correspondence with Mias239; Khovanshchina, 1 10, 240; Songs and kovsky, 37-38; as formalist, 146, 1 47; Love

Dances of Death, orchestration by S, 1 08n,

for Three Oranges, 208; Scythian Suite, 27;

1 82, 235, 240; Without the Sun, 240

Semyon Kotko, 1 32-1 33

Psalms of David, 184

Nalbandian, painter, 255-256

Pshibyshevsky, Boleslav, 121-122

Narodniki, 7n

Punin, Nikolai Nikolayevich, 202, 203n

national anthem, Soviet, planned, 256-264

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeevich, xx, xxiv,

nationalistic campaign, inventions made in

xxvii, 30-31 , 34, 45, 46, 66, 1 5 1 , 1 94, 201 ,

Russia, 173n

222, 232, 248

Nekrasov, Nikolai, 235

Pushkin, Natalya Nikolayevna, 40

Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir Ivanovich,

1 9n, 63-65, 1 1 1 , 201

Radek, Karl Berngardovich, 80n

Nepman music, 224n

Raikh, Zinaida Nikolayevna, wife of Meyer-

New Babylon, film, 149n, 1 50-1 5 1

hold, 78-80, 85, 88-89, 207

New Economic Policy (NEP), xxiv, 224n

Red Army chorus, 23, 1 90, 259-260

Nicholas I, Tsar, 1 53, 192

Repin, Ilya Efimovich, 1 82-1 83

Nikolayev, Leonid, xxii, 5 1 , 52, 57, 58, 188

revisionism, 1 53

Novy mir, xxxix

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 1 28

Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai Andreevich, xxiii,

Oberiu Circle, xxvi

28, 34, 60, 6 1 , 63, 65, 68, 1 59, 1 60, 1 62, Oborin, Lev, 1 1 3

1 63, 1 69, 172, 216, 220, 229n, 240; Boris

Oistrakh, David, 1 1 3

Godunov edited by, 226-227, 231 , 233-

Oleinikov, Nikolai Makarovich, 128n, 266

235; hostility to Tchaikovsky, 66-67, 218;

Olesha, Yuri Karlovich, 76

Pskovitianka, 241 ; Sadko, 1 29-1 30; Tale of

oprichniki, 1 24n

the City of Kitezh, 1 1 On

Ordzhonikidze, Grigo (Sergo) Konstantino

Robeson, Paul, 198-199

vich, 24n, 102, 142-143

Rodzinski, Artur, xxviii, xxxiv

Ormandy, Eugene, xxxiv

Rolland, Romain, 1 22, 200

Ostrovsky, Alexander Nikolaevich, 83

Romm, Mikhail, 250, 251

Rostropovich, Mstislav Leopoldovich, 108n,

Palestrina, Giovanni, 60

258, 259

Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich, xi, 30n, 54, 87,

Rozanova, music teacher, 6

1 1 3n, 1 88, 217-2 1 8

Rubinstein, Anton, 7 1 , 238

Paul I, Tsar, 192

Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians

Pazovsky, Ari, 191

(RAPM), 1 1 2

286

Russian Association of Proletarian Writers

Shostakovich, Dmitri (Continued)

(RAPP), 1 1 2

music, 196-198; torture, 1 23-1 25; tyranny,

Russian Revolution of 1905, 8

1 34-137, 1 55-1 56; tyrants as patrons of

arts, 1 23, 1 25, 1 28; Western humanists,

Sabinsky, Cheslav, 1 10

199-205; Western journalists, 196-1 97;

Sakharov, Andrei Dmitriyevich, xi, 243n

women's movement,

.

161-162; work, 20,

Shchedrin, N. (Mikhail Evgrafovich Salty-

195

kov), 242

Works: The Bedbug, music for Maya

Schnabel, Artur, 71

kovsky's play, 3n, 82, 246-247; The Black

Schreker, composer, 63

Monk, unwritten, 223-225, 240; Bolt (bal

Schubert, Franz, 1 25

let), 42n, 85n, 1 1 1 ; Bright Stream (ballet),

Schuman, William, 1 73

1 14; The Golden Age (ballet), 1 1 1 ; Eighth

Schumann, Robert, 57, 173

Quartet, xi, xii, 1 56; Eighth Symphony,

Scriabin, Alexander Nikolaevich, 40, 45, 61-

xxxiii-xxxv, 22n, 1 36, 138-140, 1 55, 1 8 1 ,

62

197, 240; Eleventh Symphony, xi-xii,

Serebriakov, Pavel Alexeyevich, 55-56

xxxii, 8, 240; The Execution of Stepan Ra

Shakespeare, William, 86-87, 194; Hamlet,

zin, 1 52, 1 55, 1 85, 240; Fifteenth Sym

Russian productions, 83-90; King Lear,

phon!.,

Symphony, xxxi-xxxiii,

84-87, 131n; Macbeth, 86

XXXVll,

1 35, 1 36, 148, 1 56, 183-

Shaporin, Yuri Alexandrovich, 44n

184, 224, 265-266]"irst Piano Sonata, xii;

Shaw, George Bernard, 200

First Symphony, xxiii-xxiv, 1 1-12, 45,

Shcherbachev, composer, 35

53n, 75, 80, 1 56; First Violin Concerto,

Shchukin, Boris, 89-90

xxxvii, 1 57; "Four Poems of Captain Leb

Shebalin, Vissarion Yakovlevich (Ronya),

yadkin," 237n; Fourteenth Symphony,

xxxvi1 31, 1 1 2, 1 2 1 , 148

xxx, xii, 1 52, 181-184, 240, 242; Fourth

Shneyerson, Grigori Mikhailovich, 34n

Quartet, 1 57; Fourth Symphony, xxx,

Sholokhov, Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 60, 212n

xxxix, 23, 39, 1 19, 1 55, 1 58, 2 1 2; From

Sholom Aleichem (Solomon Rabinowitz), 72

Jewish Folk Poetry Uewish Cycle), xi,

Shostakovich, Boleslav, grandfather of Dmi-

xxxvii, 1 57, 274; "Funeral March in

tri, xxi

·

Memory of the Victims of the Revolution,"

Shostakovich, Dmitri:

xxii, 7; The Gamblers, 222-223; The Gold

Biography: birth, xx; childhood and earen Age (ballet), 228n; The Gypsies, 66; ly life, xxi-xxiii, 4-1 1 , 1 3-16; composing

Hamlet, music for, 83; Katerina lzmailova

techniques in old age, 228; death, xviii, xii;

(second version of Lady Macbeth), xxviii,

end of his life, xi-xii; family, xxi, 5-8; and

xxxix, 19, 43, 107, 1 1 1 , 1 54; King Lear,

films, 1 48-1 51; as formalist conspirator,

music for, 84n; Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

145-147; later years, xxxvii-xli; marriages,

District, xii, xxvii-xxix, 1 6n, 1 8-19, 36,

xxx, xxxvii, xi; meets Stalin, 254, 256,

82, 85n, 98, 106-108, 1 10-1 1 2, 1 1 4, 1 1 9,

260-263; and national anthem, 256-264;

1 56, 1 8 1 , 200, 206, 267-268; "Luminary,"

obituaries, xix-xx, xii; Pravda attacks him,

xxxxin; "March of the Soviet Police,"

1 1 3-1 1 5, 1 19; see also Pravda; Stalin's rexxxixn, 179; "McPherson Before Execulationship with him, xxviii-xxxi, xxxiii, tion," 1 4; Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov

xxxvi, xxxvii, 140-1 42, 147-1 50, 197, 198,

edited, 226-227, 229-234, 240; Mus256; in Turkey, 1 1 2-1 13, 147-148; in sorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, or

United States, xxxvii-xxxviii, 147-148,

chestration, 108n, 1 82, 235, 240; Ninth

169, 198

Symphony, xxxvi, 22n, 140-142, 1 46, 1 53;

Ideas and Opinions: childhood, 6, 8-9,

The Nose, xxvii-xxviii, 1 8, 19, 43, 78, 82,

240; communal apartments, 91-92; com95, 1 1 1 , 205-208, 238; "Preface to the posers asking for help, 170-171; death, 14-Complete Collection of My Works and a

16, 1 80-1 82, 241 , 243; depression and

Brief Meditation on This Preface,'' xxxix;

anxiety, 1 1 6-1 1 9; eternity, 1 59-160; fear,

Rothschild's Violin, Fleishman's work, fin14-16, 1 1 6- 1 1 9; Jews, 1 56-1 58; new life ished, xiii-xiv, 225; Satires, 108n, Second

style in music, 93-94; old age,. 240, 275-

Piano Sonata, 53; Second Symphony, 7,

276; pessimism, 241-243; plagiarism, 1 72-

53n; Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony,

175, 212n; praise and criticism, 236-238;

xxxii-xxxv, 25, 66, 1 36-1 37, 1 39-140,

public appearances, 237; religion and su1 54-1 56, 1 83, 184, 200, 224, 240; Sixth perstition, 187-1 88; rudeness, 23-27; sav

Symphony, 22n, 39n, 1 1 9, 230; The Story

iors of mankind, 1 86-1 87; talking about

of the Priest and His Worker Balda, 1 9;

287

Shostakovich, Dmitri (Continued)

Stalin, Joseph (Continued)

The Story of the Silly Mouse, 19; "A Symxxxviii; mental condition, 192-1 93; and p�onic Dedication to October," xxiv-xxv;

Muradeli, 142-143, 145; musical taste,

'"fea for Two," transcription from You100, 126-1 28, 1 34, 143, 1 90, 232, 241 ; and mans, 53n; Tenth Symphony, xxxviii, 22n,

national anthem, 256-264; "On the Bases

141; Thirteenth Symphony, xilxviin, 151-

of Leninism," 212n; portraits of, 254-255;

1 52, 1 55, 185, 240; Twelfth Symphony, 7,

praise and flattery of, 210-21 1 , 214, 218,

141; vocal suite on poems of Michelangelo,

248, 253-254; public reaction against,

xxxxin

134-135; relationship with Hitler, 1 28,

Shostakovich, Dmitri Boleslavovich, father of

131, 133-1 34, 1 87, 229n; rela�ionship with

Dmitri, xxi, xxii, 5-6, 48-49, 224, 272

S, xxviii-xxxi, xxxiii, xxxvi, xxxvii, 140-

Shostakovich, Galya, daughter of Dmitri, xxx

142, 147-1 50, 197, 198, 256, 260-263;

Shostakovich, Irina Supinskaya, wife of Dmi

Rome as influence on, 214; rudeness, 23-

tri, xi

24; and Tukhachevsky, 98, 99, 102-104;

Shostakovich, Margarita Kainova, wife of

Western impressions of, 200

Dmitri, xxxvii

Stanislavski, Konstantin, 90, 92, 1 26

Shostakovich, Maria, sister of Dmitri, xxii,

Stasov, Vladimir Vasilievich, 226, 236, 243

20

Steinberg, Maximilian Oseyevich, xxiii, 28n,

Shostakovich, Maxim, son of Dmitri, xii,

29, 66-68, 121

xxx, xxxim

Steinberg, Nadezhda Nikolaycvna, 66

Shostakovich, Nina Varzar, wife of Dmitri,

Stiedry, Fritz, 1 20

xxx, xxxvii, 8Sn, 108

Stokowski, Leopold, xxiii, xxxiv

Shostakovich, Pyotr, great-grandfather of

Stolypin, Peter Arkadycvich, 1 66

Dmitri, xxi

Strauss, Johann, 63

Shostakovich, Sofia Vasilyevna, mother of

Strauss, Richard: Death and Transfiguration,

Dmitri, xxi-xxii, 5, 6

182; Salome, 63

Shostakovich, Zoya, sister of Dmitri, xxii

Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorivich, xxiv, xxxii, 6,

Shvans, Y cvgeny, 190

8, 32-34, 36, 42, 52, 1 30, 1 84, 191, 197-

Simeonov, Konstantin, 107

198, 218, 219; life, 33n; works, S's opinion

Simonov, Konstantin, 210

of, 32-33, 62

Sinyavsky, Andrei, xxxix-xxxx

Strelnikov, Nikolai, 43

Six, Les, xxiv

"Suliko," 143n, 216

Skuratov, Malyuta, 1 24, 192

Szigcti, Joseph, 71

Smolich, Nikola Vasilycvich, 1 1 1n, 207

Sofronitsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 44n,

Taneyev, Sergei lvanovich, 68

57, 72

Tarkovsky, Andrei Arsenyevich, 1 Sn

Sokolovsky, Mikhail Vladimirovich, 31

Tchaikovsky, Peter llich, xxxii, 5, 108, 235;

Sollcninsky, Ivan lvanovich, xxxii, 2Sn, 25-

18 12 Overture, 140; Eugene Onegin, 41 ,

26, 38-42, 69, 108, 198, 239n

1 29; The Queen of Spades, 57, 81, 88, 1 1 5,

Sologub, Fyodor Kuzmich, 12-14

182, 237n; Rimsky-Korsakov's hostility to

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr lsaycvich, xxxix, xii,

him, 66-67, 218; Romeo and Juliet, 266;

1 87n, 199n, 212n, 242n

Voyevode, 121

Sovetskaya muzyka, xvii, 56, 1 42n, 1 53

Tinyakov, poet, 176-177

Stalin, Joseph, 1 Sn, 1 8n, 24n, 30n, 37, 56n,

Tishchenko, Boris lvanovich, 218, 274

57, 64, 67, 80n, 81n, 9Sn, 98, 100, 1 12n,

Tolstoi, Alexei, 1 36, 224

152, 153, 155, 1 56, 204, 212; and Boris

Tolstoy, Leo, 10, 269; Anna Karenina,

Godunov, 232-233; Brief Biography, 189;

American film version, 201-202; War and

censorship of writers, 270-272; character

Peace, 8

and temperament, 1 37-1 38, 1 87-194, 198,

torture, 123-1 25

199; control of culture and creative ans,

Toscanini, Anuro, xxiv, xxviii, xxxv, 24-25

xxx-xxxi, xxxv-xxxvi, 36n, 95-96, 1 1 3-

Trctyakov, Sergei Mikhailovich, 109n

1 14, 120n, 1 39, 146, 147; death, xxxviii,

Trotsky, Leon, 80

192, 194; dislikes Shakespeare, 86-87; and

Truman, Harry S, 57

family relations, 267-268; in film, Unfor

Tsekhanovsky, Mikhail, 19

gettable 1919, 254-255; films controlled,

Tukhachcvsky, Mikhail Nikolaycvich, xxix,

149, 248-252; hatred of Allies, 1 38, 142;

1 Sn, 17, 121, 1 37, 1 5�; death, 1 1 6; mother

"historical resolutions" after World War of, 268; relationship with S, 96-1 OS; in

II, xxxv-xxxvi; Khrushchev denounces,

World War II, 103-104

288

Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich, 266-267

White Sea Canal, 199, 202

Turkey, S in 1 1 2-1 1 3, 147-148

Willkie, Wendell, 1 37

Tuskiya, Iona, 259, 263

Wood, Sir Henry Joseph, xxxiv

Tynyanov, Yuri, Lieutenant Kije, 21 1

World War II, 103-104, 134-136, 1 55, 1 56,

Tyshler, Alexander Grigoryevich, 131

229; Stalin's hatred of Allies, 1 38, 142

Ukraine, blind folk singers, 214-215

Yagodkin, Vladimir, xx

United States, 151; radio broadcasts in Rus

Y akobson, Leonid V eniaminovich, 228n

sian, 185n; S in, xxxvii-xxxviii, 147-148,

Y arustovsky, Boris Mikhailovich, 34n

1 69, 1 98; S's attitude toward, xxxviii; S's

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, xxxviin, xxxviii, 1 52,

music in, xxxiv-xxxv

1 85, 203; "Babi Yar," t 5 t n , 1 58-1 59, 185

Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich, 210

Vasilycva, Raya, 151

Yudina, Maria Veniaminovna, 44n, 51-58,

Verdi, Giuseppe, Otello, 1 1 5, 182

72, 188, 193-195

Vishinsky, Andrei Yanuaryevich, 133-1 34

yurodiuy, xxv-xxvii, xxxvi, xxxviii, xxxx, 22,

Vishnevskaya, Galina Pavlovna, 108n

55, 192, 194, 233, 235

Volkov, Solomon, associated with S, xii-xviii

Yuvachev, see Karms

Volynsky, Akim Lvovich (Flekser), 10- 1 1 ;

memorial service for, 1 1-14

Zamyatin, Yevgeny Ivanovich, t8n, 19, 179,

Voronsky, Alexander Konstantinovich, 189-

206, 264-265

190

Zaslavsky, David Iosifovich, 1 1 3-114

Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich, 100

Zhdanov, Andrei Alexandrovich, 56, 100,

Vygodsky, Nikolai, 121

145-147, 1 59, 191, 203, 204, 269-272

Zhilayev, Nikolai Sergeevich, t 7n, 121

Wagner, Richard, 1 30-131, 173, 238; popu

Zhukovsky, Vasili Andreevich, 46

larity in Soviet Union, t 28-t 29, t 34; Ri

Zinoviev, Grigori Evseyevich, 80n, 95

enzi, 129; The Ring of the Nibelung, 128;

Zoshchenko, Mikhail Mikhailovich, xvii,

The Valkyrie, 63, 1 28, 131-134

xxvi, xxxvi, xxxixn, 9n, 1 3-14, 48, 91, 94,

Wallace, Henry, 202

180, 202-204, 237, 242, 264-267, 269;

Walter, Bruno, xxiii

character and ideas, 14, t 16-1 18, 266-267;

Warsaw, 104

persecuted, 269-272

Weingartner, Felix, 71

289

SOLOMON VOLKOV

Solomon Volkov was born in Leninabad, Central Asia, in 1 944, received his diploma with honors from the Rimsky

Korsakov State Conservatory in 1 967, and continued graduate work in musicology at the Conservatory until 1 97 1 .

His principal research has been in the history and aesthetics of Russian and Soviet music, and in the psychology of musical perception and performance. He published

numerous articles in scholarly and popular journals, wrote a well-received book, Young Composers of Leningrad, in 197 1 , was a senior editor of Sovetskaya muzyka, the journal of the Composers' Union and the Ministry of Culture of the U.S.S.R., and was the artistic director of the Experimental Studio of Chamber Opera. He became a member of the Composers' Union in 1 972.

Mr. Volkov came to the United States in June 1 976.

Since then he has been a Research Associate at the Russian Institute of Columbia University in New York City. In addition to preparing Testimony for publication, he has published articles on various musical subjects in The New York Times, The New Republic, Musical America, The Musical Qµarterly, and other periodicals in the

-µnited States and Europe. He has presented papers at La Biennale in Venice and at the Twelfth Congress of the International Musicological Society in Berkeley, California.

He and his wife, Marianna Volkov, a pianist and photographer, live in New York.

T H E M E M O I R S O F

DMITRI

SHOSTAKOVICH

Recipient of an ASCAPIDeems Taylor Award in 1980

"An extremely powerful , gri m . gripping book and one that will set the record traight

. . . These are not the remarks of a man who was flung out of the party. A ide from two collisions with the authorities, Shostakovich was in favor until the very end . The memoirs are a serious indictment of past and present Russia, as well as the recollections of a life apparently spent in fear and despair .. . Obviously the final text, with its attack on the Stalin period and the Soviet musical bureaucracy, could not be published in the Soviet Union . Mr. Volkov ' took measures' to get the manuscript to the We t. Sho takovich stipulated that the book not be published until after hi death . . .'Te timony ' is indeed the testimony of a major creator in music . B ut it is much more than that. The book could have been subtitled 'The Life of the Russian Intellectual Under Stalin'."

-Harold C . Schonberg, New York Times Book Review

"Pithy, lean , incisive, and blunt memoirs . . . contain a scathing indictment of the conditions under which artists struggle in the Soviet Union , yesterday and today . "

-Christian Science Monitor

"An unexampled picture of some fifty-five years of Soviet musical life . . . . Now that the memoirs have been published, not one episode of the composer's career can be viewed in the same l ight as before, not one work of music heard in the same way ."

-Patricia Blake, Time

"The man and musician whose per onality beams from these pages is full of the contradictions of flesh and blood and the will to survive . Nobody who gets to know Shostakovich through his Testimony will ever again hear his music in the old naive way . "

-Karen Monson . Chicago Sun-Times

" No single ac.count portrays so nakedly , so brutal ly, the crushing hand of Stal in on Russia's cultural and

life as that of Shostakovich in Testimony. Thi is a gripping, even by one of the world' great compo ers to lay bare the torment of his times . "

-Harrison Salisbury

"Testimony is a book of immen5e power, full of bitterness and heroism, and I do not know of a musician who will not read it with compassion and admiration . These memoirs have afforded me an insight into Shostakovich's thoughts which would otherwise have been quite impossible . "

-Andre Previn

"The book of th·e· year. "

-The Times

Cover Design: Paul PerloN

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ISBN 0-87910-0291-4

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