By Keira Galan
How Soviet politics impacted Dmitri Shostakovich’s life as a composer.
“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” Victor Hugo’s words may as well have been an understatement. Music is the voice for the mute. Melodies are the colours for the blind. It lifts spirits and sparks revolutions. With such power that it wields, it is also feared.
This fear led Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), the communist dictator of the USSR, to implement complete restrictions on the creativity and freedom of musicians during the 1930s and onwards (Dolce, 2021). One such victim was composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose timid, quiet character inspired his expression through music.
Shostakovich was born in 1906 in the city of Petrograd, now named St. Petersburg. (Taruskin & Brown, 2024) His prodigal talent for music was clear from a young age and he studied piano in the Petrograd Conservatory. He would compose fifteen symphonies, six concerti, and world-famous operas and ballets. (Jones)
The progression of his career as a composer coincided with Stalin’s leadership, who assumed authority over the USSR in 1924. Since the beginning, Stalin’s power was dependent on eliminating political rivals, purging, manoeuvring and marginalising any obstacle. In 1928, Stalin launched his First Five-Year-Plan, seeing Russian culture’s authoritarian control and censorship. Stalin’s regime was an extremely rigid and nationalist indoctrination of a Marxist-Leninist ideology. ‘Fearing’ the bourgeoisie and foreign influences of the West, avant-garde and jazz styles were officially banned in 1932. In Stalin’s eyes, cultural influences, such as music, threatened the state’s control over the minds of its citizens and soiled the ideological ‘purity’ of the Soviet Union.
Over the decade, Stalin’s idea of conserving and maintaining Soviet society became more and more particular. Works that were too traditional were seen as a nod to the previous Tsar’s regime. Such composers included Tchaikovsky, who had had a close relationship with the last Tsar. Works that were too experimental were deemed ‘revolutionary’ and ‘Anti-People’. One of Shostakovich’s most controversial works was that of his opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. The story and music presented themes of dark human desire, sexuality, violence and moral ambiguity. Early on, the opera was a critically acclaimed success, and very popular among the people. However, once it rose to fame, it fueled the progressive denunciation of Shostakovich’s music. Stalin feared that the work’s experimental nature undermined the Soviet Union’s authority by exposing values and themes that did not align with the communist agenda. The thematic darkness and sexual elements of the opera also contrasted with the regime’s push for nationalistic, patriotic and uplifting art. Furthermore, the supposed ‘radical’ art posed as a personal offence to the authority of the regime, which sought to eliminate any sort of popularity or influence among the people that wasn’t their own.
The opera was featured in an anonymous article titled “Muddle Instead of Music”, published in Pravda, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The article described the opera as ‘formalist’, ‘bourgeoisie’, ‘coarse’ and ‘vulgar’ (Moynahan, 2013). As per Stalin’s dictatorial regime, Shostakovich and his career were publicly disgraced, and the opera was banned shortly after. This marked the start of a speedy decline in his popularity among the public. He appeared in another article on Pravda titled “Ballet Falsehood”, denouncing his ballet The Limpid Stream as the works of a ‘musical charlatan’, and a ‘peddler of aesthetic formalism’. Some did come forward to support Shostakovich, including his friends Isaac Babel, Abram Lezhnev and Vsevolod Meyerhold, who were all subsequently shot in the later purges. The ballet’s librettist, Adrian Piotrovsky was also arrested and executed. (Clark, 1995)
These attacks took a toll on Shostakovich’s morale. Due to Pravda’s harsh criticisms, Shostakovich limited himself to composing within styles of socialist realism. He was also instructed to withdraw his fourth symphony. However, his career does not end on that note. Despite the denunciations that, in most cases, would have resulted in Shostakovich’s swift execution, the dutiful composer was able to make a resurgence in his career. His 5th Symphony, premiering in 1937, earned a surprising amount of success, with some of his previous critics officially retracting their denunciations. His latest and most notable success was that of the ‘Leningrad Symphony’, composed during the German invasion of Russia in 1941. Although evacuated from the city before the emergency, Shostakovich dedicated the Symphony to the people of his city, who suffered an 872-day-long siege by the Germans. Thousands of civilians and soldiers died from starvation, disease or bombardment. Despite the suffering, Leningrad civilians will always remember hearing Shostakovich’s symphony, lifting spirits and urging the people to keep fighting.
The story of Dmitri Shostakovich captures the struggle between artistry and authoritarianism. Through his music, Shostakovich challenged the regime’s control and became a symbol of artistic defiance. We can also use his story to reflect on the modern-day censorship of music in Russia. In the past few years, hundreds of performances have been cancelled for official reasons, in many cases for the accusations of spreading ‘gay propaganda’. Some bold enough to address the Russo-Ukrainian war in their music have faced consequences, including the popular electronic duo IC3PEAK, who were arrested in 2019 on the way to a performance and have had many shows cancelled. (Kim, 2019) With the upcoming Russian elections of 2024, who knows how many more crackdowns the government will make?