The Evolution of a Myth
Dmitrii Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, “Leningrad”
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Dmitrii Shostakovich dedicated his 7th Symphony to the surrounded city of Leningrad. The historical setting made this work less an aesthetic entity than a political issue, whose propaganda value as a clarion call against Hitler’s Germany was addressed in the daily press – both within the Soviet Union and abroad. The Soviet and American media, as well as Shostakovich, spun an interpretive gauze around the symphony and created a myth that allowed itself to be deployed with Soviet and American characteristics amid the ideological struggle.
(Osteuropa 8-9/2011, pp. 169–193)