Time to Face the Music: Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony and the Siege of Leningrad

Authors

Muhanna Al Lawati, University of TorontoFollow

Abstract

It was in his music that Shostakovich expressed his thoughts and feelings about the radically evolving political landscape of the 20^th century. Bolshevism and Stalin’s subsequent inheritance of the USSR promulgated a refashion of the arts, forcing Shostakovich to be an instrument of the state in order to avoid being a victim. It was during Hitler’s Siege of Leningrad where Shostakovich, ironically, did not feel like a victim, but the custodian of a powerful weapon that dared to defy forces beyond his comprehension. In response to Hitler’s Bolshevik crusade, Shostakovich would launch an ideological crusade of his own, composed through the medium of a symphony.

First Page

28

Last Page

46

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Al Lawati, Muhanna (2023) "Time to Face the Music: Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony and the Siege of Leningrad," Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 3.
DOI: 10.20429/aujh.2023.130103
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol13/iss1/3