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

by Solomon Volkov

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

Genres: History, Music, Russia, Nonfiction, Biography, Russian History, Art

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Solomon Moiseyevich Volkov (born 17 April 1944 in Uroteppa, Tadzhik SSR) is a Russian journalist and musicologist. He is best known for Testimony, which was published in 1979 following his emigration from the Soviet Union in 1976. He claimed that the book was the memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to himself.

Reviews

[Dmitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

On his 1825 coronation visit to Moscow the new Tsar Nicholas I met with the poet Pushkin, who had been exiled for subversive activity. Pushkin promised to uphold the Tsar's rule for his freedom to return and write. Never a shill for the Tsar, Pushkin disguised criticism within allegory. In his drama 'Boris Godunov' an aristocrat passes by better claimants to become Tsar, and is rumored to have killed the rightful heir. Years pass and a pretender appears who claims to be the lost prince. The Tsar's old rivals rally against him and condemned by his court the Tsar dies in disgrace.

Central to the play is a character said to represent Pushkin. The Holy Fool was an eccentric artist who in the name of the people speaks dangerous but necessary truths to the Tsar. The thesis of Volkov’s book is that this role was adopted by Shostakovich in his interaction with the dictator Stalin. Stalin was an avid follower of literature, opera, theater and music and took an active part in state patronage as well as censorship. The works of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Gogol were well known to him as to Shostakovich and members of the intelligentsia, a closely knit group of the cultural elite.

Beyond the relationship of Pushkin with the Tsar, parallels are drawn between Stalin and Nicholas I, an autocrat who centralized administration and suppressed dissent. Principle to his rule was the trinity of orthodox religion, nationalism and autocracy. Stalin, the political philosopher Bukharin and the writer Gorky remade these ideals to embody communist ideology, social realism and the cult of the leader. Religion was anathema and ideology became the opiate of the people. Because communist goals were international, socialism replaced nationalism and Stalin became the new Tsar.

Stalin saw himself as the arbiter of Soviet culture as well as all else within Russia. To have any success in the arts would inevitably attract his attention. The results were devastating. A bad review might lead to a bullet in the back of the head. Surrounded by sycophants, artists tried to anticipate what he would approve only to be foiled by a capricious change in the criteria. Some killed themselves. Some quit or asked to leave and heard a knock on the door in the middle of the night. All around Leningrad people disappeared. The cultural sphere became a theater to forge national and world opinion.

Social realism was the measure of art in the Soviet Union and composers were held to the professed values of historic truth and revolutionary progress. Volkov notes two pivotal moments for the composer. In 1936 Stalin criticized both his opera and ballet and he was banned as a bourgeois formalist. In 1948 he was denounced and under the threat of being banished to a prison camp. By ‘suffering the fool’ Stalin avoided the mistake of underestimating the power of the people. While playing Pushkin's part to Stalin's Nicholas Shostakovich hid criticism within patriotic symphonies.

Solomon Volkov is a Russian journalist and musicologist who immigrated to the US in 1976. He is best known for his prior book 'Testimony', claimed to be memoirs of Shostakovich from interviews. A controversy since evolved over the work. Family members dispute if it is Shostakovich's words. Some confirm, others deny and then retract. Clearly Volkov had a relationship with the composer for fifteen years. He visited his home and had a book preface written by him. It is likely the combined recollections of Shostakovich and of Volkov. This 2004 book develops Volkov's views on the composer.

Foremost this is a cultural history. Shostakovich's music is not analyzed unless it relates to his personal and political persecution by Stalin. It is not a biography, except where it is needed. As a study of culture and politics within the Soviet Union Volkov is learned and thoughtful. Shostakovich has been reviled and defended by critics, either charged with inconsistent symphonies or promotion of propaganda. In one view he is a cowering conspirator and another an icon of resistance. The truth is somewhere between. Volkov presents a fascinating look at the Russian art world of the period.

[John Carter McKnight · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, opinionated, provocative examination of the interplay between Stalin and high culture over a quarter-century. Volkov was the ghostwriter of Shostakovich's controversial memoirs, and had first-hand access to the composer and his contemporaries. He contextualizes the relationship between the composer and the dictator within a tradition of Russian artists' and holy fools' access to the Tsar, particularly drawing parallels with Nicholas I and Pushkin, arguing that both Stalin and Shostakovich saw themselves in part re-enacting those roles.

Volkov provides the most interesting portrait of Stalin that I've read: far from a whitewash, yet neither resorting to easy demonization in place of detailed critical analysis. His Stalin is cunning, sophisticated, genuinely deeply attracted to and knowledgeable about the arts, but occasionally fallible, insecure, ignorant.

The one weakness for me of the book may be unavoidable: Volkov is a bit sketchy on Shostakovich's actions in his later years - joining the Communist Party, failing to adapt to changes in discourse after Stalin's death, leading him to be regarded as a Communist dupe if not outright propagandist in the West while being seen as insufficiently anti-Stalinist by the Khruschev-era Russian intelligentsia. It's as if the subtle and canny survivor lost his bearings with Stalin's passing.

All in all, one of the most outright interesting books I've read this year, building from a familiar-to-me base of Stalin-era politics and introducing me to musicology and helping me to understand something I've never really had a good feel for: why the arts, avant-garde and high-culture arts in particular, have for so long been an important Russian political battleground. Putin and Pussy Riot are no Stalin and Shostakovich, but contemporary relations between Tsar and artist are a legacy of Stalin and Nicholas, Shostaokvich and Pushkin.

[Tõnis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mõtlen üsna tihti kui raske võib praegu olla intelligentsetel ja südametunnistusega venelastel. Olen paari inimesega põgusalt suhelnud, samuti jälginud ühtteist Youtube'ist. See võib olla lihtsalt niivõrd sürr elada riigis, kus vale on tõde, sõda on rahu, vabadus on orjus, ning mis pigistab sind nagu terasest rusikas. Šostakovitši raamat räägib sellest, et vene intelligents on selles olukorras elanud juba enam-vähem sada aastat.

Huvitav oli sattuda seda lugema ajal, mil Navalnõi tapmine ja matus-meeleavaldus tõi (vähemalt sotsiaalmeedias) ilmsiks mõnede radikaalsemate eestlaste vihkamise kõigi venelaste vastu. Mitmed ütlesid, et mida nad seal viivad Navalnõile lilli, kui peaks viskama Kremli pihta molotove. Sellised inimesed tavatsevad ironiseerida "hea venelase" üle. Ma ei usu, et ma ise oleks teab mis julge, ses suhtes ma paratamatult respekteerin ka teiste inimeste enesesäilitusinstinkti. Eriti kui puudub lootus, et eneseohverdus midagi muudaks.

Šostakovitš ei tundunud mulle ka eriti julgena. Kui Stalin ta kaks korda (1936 ja 1948) põlualuseks muutis, oli see tema jaoks tohutu läbielamine. Tõsi, see oli ka reaalselt väga eluohtlik, aga kuna ta siiski molotove ei visanud, pole kindel, kas sõnakad Twitteri kasutajad teda Stalinist palju paremini kvoteeriksid. Sõda ja sotsiaalmeeedia on ses suhtes sarnased, et kumbki ei salli nüansse.

Stalin erines Putinist selle poolest, et oli tõesti suur kultuurihuviline. Lisaks muusika, teatri ja kirjanduse nautimisele harrastas ta väljavalitud loovintelligentsi esindejatega mingit perversset kassi-hiire mängu. Hiirteks olid 20. sajandi maailmakultuuri tipud nagu Bulgakov, Pasternak, Eisenstein, Šostakovitš jt. Volkovi kirjelduses eristus Šostakovitš saatusekaaslastest selle poolest, et tal vähemalt ei tekkinud piinaja vastu mingit Stockholmi sündroomi laadset imetlust.

NB! Raamatuna on sama autori Šostakovitši pseudoautobiograafia "Tunnistus" palju-palju parem.

[Brook · Rating 1 out of 5]

Could not finish. No story, not even linear movement to allow it to be read as a textbook or study, and I think the translation from Russian didn't help. As someone who was, at some point in their life, a classically-trained musician who LOVES Shostakovich (and other Russian composers), and who actually understood the musical lexicon and has heard many of the pieces, this should have been at least somewhat intelligible to me. That's as good as it got, "somewhat intelligible." I wonder how much of this is due to the translation.

The author also hops around through time, which is just fine, but when that is done in works of non-fiction and histories, it is to tie events and people together through time. This just appears to be a case of dropping the copy on the floor, messing up the chapter order, and saying "**** it, start the presses."

Picked it up, struggled through the first 120 pages or so, and then hit each chapter after that and got as far as I could without choking. Thank god for your public library, or I'd be out $20.

But hey, the title looks good on the shelf, if you're trying to impress a date who listens to the Russians.

[Bettie]

g drive

[Daniel McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing historical account of the tyranny that artists in the Soviet Union had to endure under Stalin. It wasn't just a matter of his pure despotism. He was a supreme manipulator and knew now to control someone and use them for his means despite their true desires. If you want to read about the psychology of a despot within the artistic community of a communist country this is the book for you. It's also a great account of Shostakovich's struggle as an artist under such unrelenting circumstances.

[John Ginther · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book should be classified in the fiction section as most of its material is based on anecdotal material which cannot be verified. It might be entertaining but it is almost as much a fake as 'Testimony'. For a more balanced and sourced book on Shostakovich, I recommend 'Shostakovich and his World' which includes an essay by Leonid Maksimenkov about how many contacts Shostakovich actually had with Stalin.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting and compelling, particularly because of the author's friendship with Shostakovich and other figures he writes about. At times it feels the author lacked material and spent more time talking about Pushkin and Pasternak, but ultimately that work lays the foundation for his central theme. Particularly interesting are his analyses around particular works and the issues they are addressing.

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

the repeated talk of the pushkin/tsar connection was overdone. it reminded me of me when i've written an essay, realize my thesis is actually not that relevant to my essay and to conceal this, insert my thesis everywhere. ...a horribly ineffective strategy btw.

i also think it could have spent more time on the music.

[Gramarye · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engrossing if highly anecdotal assessment of the fraught relationship between the two title characters, against the dark backdrop of Stalinist times. Even though Volkov leans very heavily on his assumptions and his narrative perspective on Shostakovich as the irritating but useful "holy fool" to Stalin's tsarist sensibilities, the real strength of this book lies in its reading of the composer's music itself, pointing out the pieces of other works incorporated into each symphony as coded messages to aware listeners.

[Paul Frandano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let's skip the heroic mountain of (fascinating) details Solomon Volkov accumulates--aiming, I think, to please the most fastidious of his critics, who will never, I'm afraid, be pleased--and cut straight to what I perceive to be the importance of this history: Volkov reminds us, albeit without being directly able to stimulate within our brains an exact sensation of feeling, of what life was among the Soviet intelligentsia in the monstrous Era of Stalin: that is, of palpable geniuses living every single day, if not every waking hour, wholly insecure in the pervasive dread of horrible punishment, not only for oneself and one's family and friends but quite possibly for one's acquaintances and even mere contacts (depending on the contact), and all for crossing political lines--at a time and place in which every line may be construed as political--that may or may not be known beforehand and that are drawn, for the genius subset of the Soviet intelligentsia, by the great Vozhd himself, for political, personal, motivational, cultural, or any of myriad other instrumental or whimsically arbitrary reasons.

Thus it was for Shostakovich, the universally acclaimed genius of geniuses: daily dread, daily insecurity, until Stalin himself was mounted alongside Lenin in his own crystal sarcophagus. And even afterward, as the aftershocks of Stalin's death played themselves out in Kremlin court politics.

As most readers of this harrowing story will know, author Volkov--who in 1979 published the "Testimony: the Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov" - is the leading figure in Shostakovich revisionism, the proponents of which take the view that the composer was a secret dissident who often composed in musical code, embedding anti-Stalin, anti-regime, and other dissenting messages throughout his work. The controversy continues to rage, with a massive and still accumulating body of work that picks over every detail of Shostakovich's life, work, and relationships, arguing over questions of Shostakovich's intent and his relationship to the Soviet regime. (For further details, see the late revisionist scholar Ian McDonald's website, and particularly the page "The Shostakovich Debate: A Manual for Beginners." And, full disclosure, I tend to side--as do Shostakovich's children and virtually everyone who was close to him--with the revisionists. At the same time, I recognize that this is a point of view as well as an argument that is unlikely, ever, to be settled. People will believe what they will believe.)

Volkov, squarely on the side of "hidden dissident," draws out from Shostakovich's life and work character aspects based on a Mussorgsky-Boris Godunov-derived taxonomy: the "pretender" (the "hidden dissident"), the "chronicler," and, perhaps most important of all, the "holy fool"--who, in seeming naiveté, speaks profound truths, often in coded words. Volkov builds his narrative around two key years--1936 and 1948--during which Shostakovich was denounced in Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party organ, for "formalist" musical errors. He also tells these stories in Testimony, but Volkov is also a scholar of Russian and Soviet culture, and broadens his narrative to included associated material from the lives and documents of other cultural icons of the Soviet era: Pasternak, Eisenstein, Akhmatova, Gorky, Mandelstam, and scores more. Moreover, Volkov decodes--and, for me, convincingly--key Shostakovich works, including (several of my personal favorites,) the Piano Quintet, the Second Piano Trio, the Tenth Symphony, and the Eighth String Quartet.

Imagine a world in which an all-powerful autocrat knows the names and appraises the works of every nationally important poet, novelist, painter, director (film, stage, opera), conductor, soloist, and, of course, composer. Imagine the pervasive sense of anxiety, of white-knuckle fear, among the entire cultural class, for whom no stamp of approval from the Leader is permanent, whose very existence is day-to-day contingent and dependent upon, literally, the whim of the leader. One might be a Stalin Prize First Class winner one day, vilified in the press the next, with perhaps internal exile the day following, and/or in many too many cases, physical elimination to follow, for crimes only the Leader might define. It's difficult to imagine subordinating so much brilliance to such arbitrary repression.

There is of course much more in Shostakovich and Stalin, including an important reminder of the continuity in Russian leadership thinking since at least Nicholas I (r. 1825-1855), which in every generation seems to embrace, in one form or another, Nicholas' program of "orthodoxy, autocracy, nationalism." (Merely consider the daily news out of Russia, the deep resonances in Volkov's history with the Russia of today under V.V. Putin, admirer of Czar Nicholas and J.V. Stalin, and of Putin's personal style as Vozhd.)

And so, yes, I count myself as a Shostakovich revisionist, and a Volkov admirer, and a devotee of the music left for us by one of the great, and most tortured, musical geniuses of the 20th century, Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich. And I'm exceedingly grateful for the record Volkov has compiled to document hidden facets of Shostakovich's greatness as an artist, musician, and human being.

[Joseph Ramsden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really useful for the relationship not just between Stalin and Shostakovich but between Stalin and all the major cultural figures of the Stalin era. I have to teach this and going into reading this, I had a lot of questions. This book answered many of them.

[RYD · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book about the artist's struggle to maintain honesty and creativity in a totalitarian society. I wouldn't recognize a single work of Dmitri Shostakovitch's, but I found this book an insightful look into how he and other intellectuals tried (and often failed) to survive the horrors of Stalin.

[Angelique · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked - will review more later! Much better than Testimony.

[Angel Pärn · Rating 5 out of 5]

How the greatest Russian composer Šostakovitš witnessed the rise and fall of Stalin and most importantly, survived, at the same time creating great masterpieces.