Shostakóvich
El arte amordazado por la autoridad
No 20th century composer’s work has been affected by political circumstances to such an extent as the work of Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich. Without Stalinism, he would undoubtedly have embarked on a different path. But it was precisely Stalin’s condemnation of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district that laid the foundations for doing away with the entire Soviet artistic avant-garde. His friends and colleagues were arrested and put in trial, deported to the Gulag or simply executed by firing squad.