Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
East European Jewish Affairs
Angaben zur Quelle:
26,2 (1996) 5-26
Keywords:
Shostakovich, Dmitriĭ Dmitrievich,
;
Jews Music
;
History
;
Antisemitism
Abstract:
A response to Laurel Fay's article "The Composer Was Courageous, but Not So Much as in Myth" ("New York Times, " 14 April 1996), in which Fay claimed that Shostakovich's composing of the song-cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry" between August-October 1948 was not a courageous act because official Soviet antisemitism did not appear before the liquidation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee on 20 November 1948, and that the composer was only meeting a demand of Socialist Realism for music on folk-national themes. Argues that official antisemitism commenced in the USSR not in 1948 but at least in 1942, and a man like Shostakovich would have known of it. One of its first harbingers was the death of S. Mikhoels in January 1948, which the intelligentsia understood to be a political murder. Shostakovich was sensitive to the situation of the Jews in the USSR, and to antisemitism, related to the latter issue in his Thirteenth Symphony, and more than once defended Jews who were persecuted by the regime.
Note:
A response to an article by Laurel Fay ("New York Times", 14 April 1996) about the composer's song-cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry".
DOI:
10.1080/13501679608577827
URL:
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