Musicology Commons^™

Shostakovich And The Memoirs, Hanna Bahorik

Musical Offerings

The life, politics, and music of Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich have been subjects of extreme controversy. Despite the turmoil of his dealings with Stalin, many people thought of him as a loyal servant of Russia and a masterful composer. It was not until the publication in 1979 of a book called Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich surfaced that debates began to take form that would eventually charge into the realm of violent disputes from many sides. This book, written by Solomon Volkov, portrayed Shostakovich as a bitter dissident. One year later, an American researcher and specialist in Russian and Soviet …