A New Year's Message from Dmitri Shostakovich

Abstract

SEER,Vol.8o, No. 2, Apr7l2002 MARGINALIA A New Year'sMessagefromDmitriShostakovich DAVID CONWAY INthe springof I999 the authorwas sharingan officein the building of the Literaturnaya Gazeta in Moscow. A Russian colleague invited him to attend the auction of books and manuscripts which was held there every few weeks in a ground floor room. At this auction, for a very modest sum, he acquired the Shostakovich holograph which is the subjectof this note. In fact the lot consisted of three items: the manuscript, which is written in blue ballpoint on a piece of notepaper 14.5 cm x I9 cm, perforatedat the top whereit hasbeen detachedfroma pad (seeFigs Ia and b);a typed transcripton a sheet of paper 2Icm x 30 cm; and a copy of Pravda for the IstJanuary I963, in which the item is printed in the top right-hand corner of page 3. It may be deduced that these items, which bear the imprint and discolouringof the same rustypaper-clip, were 'liberated' from the files of Pravda.The published version bears the headline 'To Friendship!To Creative Activity!' and reprints the manuscript verbatim, save for omission of the date '20.XII.i962' (which in the typescripthad been altered to '3o.XII.i 962'). The text, for which no stylistic grace or musical interest may be claimed, translatesas follows: I962 has been a yearof greatachievements in all fieldsof buildingour culture.Newandsignificant workhasappeared inliterature andart.Soviet science amazed the world with huge achievements.With a feeling of legitimatepridewe enter I963. It is to be hopedthata communityof all our creative unions will have begun with the New Year. Up to now there has been no genuine intercourse between writers, artists, architects, composers and workersin the theatreand cinema. And yet we all have a common aim in our work. We are all building Soviet culture.And to build it we must all be together. Forthis, we must of necessity associate with each other, to be conversantwith all the successes and failuresof our comrades in allied arts. The Party summons us to create works worthy of our people, who are building a communist society. Creative friendship, creative contacts David Conway is presently studying for an MPhil at University College London, researching the topic 'Jewry in Music I 750- I850'. A NEW YEAR S MESSAGE FROM SHOSTAKOVICH 289 amongst all representativesof literature and art, will help us achieve this honourable aim. To friendship,to creativeactivity! To the New Year!' Fl|||i g ia 1 1 :>8 4 ?f 's":~~4 prrai oef Sotkvic asa cnistn opoet of th Soit system 1 Manuscrpt in possession.of, h a,uto:r. Indeed ~so eue sem th tex tat thswo suscrbetoth prri of Shostakovich...} as .: conisen opoet of the Sovie.. i.t:.: system I Maucrpi;posesioofthathr 290 DAVID CONWAY T, - | _ | | | | 1 _ _ | |- Fig . ib may be inclined to consider it a deliberateparody of its house style. It is just what one might expect from a dutiful senior apparatchik Shostakovich had finallybecome a Partymember in i 96i and had in i1962been elected as a Leningraddeputyto the Supreme Soviet. There is, of course, substantial controversy over Shostakovich's attitude to the Soviet regime, in print (initially fuelled by Volkov's A NEW YEAR S MESSAGE FROM SHOSTAKOVICH 29I 'revisionist'book Testimony2) and, increasingly, on many sites on the internet.3 Whether Shostakovich's relationship to the regime was characterized by naivety, expediency, fear, cunning, patriotism or clandestine revolt is beyond the scope of the present note. (Although for the record the author believes that all of these played theirpart, as they did for virtuallyevery other Soviet citizen.) What the manuscript under consideration does indicate, however, is that there is an alternative to the scenario put forward by many of the 'revisionist' school, in which the composerwas constantlyforcedto put his name to all sorts of declarations and letters written by Communist authorities and organizationson pain of professionalor personalpenalty. That this was sometimes, or even often, the case, is not contested. MstislavRostropovichrecountsfindingthe composerpractisingwriting his signatureupside-down: '"It's for 'my' articlesin the newspapers," Shostakovich explained, "It's so that I can sign them when they push them acrossthe table to me without having to turnthem round to read them...