“Shostakovich read in a shaky voice before breaking off a short way through, leaving a “suave radio baritone” to finish his speech, and decided to expose the sham. Jumping to his feet, Nabokov loudly asked if the composer supported the recent Soviet vilification of his great compatriot Igor Stravinsky. Shostakovich worshipped Stravinsky as a composer, if not always as a man, but he was forced to parrot the official line. To Nabokov, this was proof enough that Shostakovich was “not a free man, but an obedient tool of his government.”