Anatoly Chernyaev’s 1972 diary (6)

Shostakovich's tragedy

In his 1972 diary, Anatoly Chernyaev records visiting his friend, the Soviet poet Boris Slutsky [*], and his wife Tanya at their home on 16 April. During the visit, Slutsky shared an intriguing anecdote about the Soviet sculptor Sergey Konenkov (1874-1971) and the composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975):

Boris also told us about Konenkov and Shostakovich, who in the last fifteen years not only did not write their articles, but also did not read them.

Boris Slutsky

The two figures mentioned by Slutsky were not only giants of Soviet culture, but also towering presences in the cultural life of the wider world. Konenkov was a distinguished sculptor, often dubbed ‘the Russian Rodin’, while Shostakovich was among the greatest composers of the 20th century, producing remarkable works, particularly in the realm of symphonic music.

Sergey Konenkov

Undoubtedly, Shostakovich and Konenkov’s refusal to read these texts -published in the Soviet press under their own names yet written without any input from them- after their appearance (and quite possibly making this stance felt by the Stalinist bureaucracy) amounted to a passive form of protest. It appears they wished to place a distance between themselves and such articles -issued in their name but whose content they partially, or more often entirely, disapproved of- without entering into open confrontation with the regime.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Could the practice -employed by Stalinist regimes, and indeed by any repressive regime- of publishing under the name of a great artist or cultural figure texts they did not write (including those they did write, but which were altered against their will) be described as ‘reverse plagiarism’? To the best of my knowledge, no established universal term exists for such cases. On reflection, the following alternatives suggest themselves: ‘forced attribution’, ‘signature coercion’, ‘fabricated authorship’, or -though a little longer- ‘identity exploitation through propaganda’…

Naturally, within the confines of a brief blog post, it is hardly possible to give a fully satisfactory answer to the question of how this repugnant practice ought to be named.

Let us now turn to the tragedy that Shostakovich continued to endure in Turkey at the hands of the Stalinist Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) and its predecessor organisations. In the early 1990s, the groups that preceded today’s TKP -particularly under their leader Kemal Okuyan (also known as Cemal Hekimoğlu)- sought to promote Shostakovich’s official and loyal communist image. This formed part of their attempt to hold their cadres together in the face of the shock brought about by the collapse of the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

At that time in Turkey, Solomon Volkov’s book Testimony - The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, first published in English in 1979, was little known. [**] In 1992, Volkov’s work appeared in Turkish, published by Pencere Publications under the title Tanıklık Tutanağı (Şostakoviç’in Anıları), in a translation by Halim Spatar. [***]

Shortly after the book’s publication, Okuyan and his organisation abandoned their tactic of frequently parading Shostakovich as one of the great champions and defenders of the “achievements of real socialism”, effectively consigning the matter to the deep freeze. Indeed, a friend of mine, who was then a member of this organisation, told me that after reading Volkov’s book, Okuyan was bitterly disappointed, flew into a rage, and hurled profanities at Shostakovich.

However, in time, Okuyan concluded that, rather than backtracking on his stance on Shostakovich -effectively eating his own words- it would be more expedient to mount a counter-offensive by drawing on the Stalinist regime’s fabrications and distortions. There can be little doubt that the international debates over the authenticity of Volkov’s book emboldened Okuyan in his determination not to let Shostakovich be claimed by the opposing camp. [****]

Publications of the organisation that preceded the TKP once again began carrying articles stressing Shostakovich’s supposed staunch loyalty to the Stalinist regime. In December 1999, Gelenek Publishing House brought out the Turkish translation of a book -first published in 1981 by the USSR’s renowned Progress Publishers- purportedly comprising the composer’s “own writings and speeches”: Shostakovich: His Life and Work [Şostakoviç Hayatı ve Eserleri]. [*****] The back cover of this volume stated:

In this book, Shostakovich’s outlook on life and art is conveyed in his own words. (Emphasis added.)

In the years that followed, publications associated with the TKP continued to carry articles depicting Shostakovich as both a brilliant creation of the regime and a steadfast supporter of it. Meanwhile, in 2010, the book was republished by the TKP’s publishing house, Yazılama Yayınları, in a new translation by Volkan Terzioğlu, under the revised title Bir Sovyet Sanatçısı Olarak Tarihe Tanıklığım (My Testimony to History as a Soviet Artist). [******] The publisher’s website offers the following description of the work:

In this book, through Shostakovich’s own words, you will witness how he bore the identity of a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with pride and honour -an answer to those who, through systematic propaganda and falsehoods, peddle the slander that he was in fact an anti-communist. In time, history lays bare all lies in their full nakedness.

Let Shostakovich’s experience, in his own voice, be a beacon to us, lighting our way forward… (Emphasis added.) [******]

I cannot know whether Volkov’s book truly rests on notes that Shostakovich dictated to him between 1971 and 1974, subsequently reviewing and approving them section by section, as the author claims. As long as significant, unresolved questions and suspicious circumstances persist regarding Testimony, it is of course impossible for me to vouch for Volkov or his work.

Yet thanks to Chernyaev’s 1972 diary, we know that from the latter half of the 1950s onward, the composer did not himself write the articles bearing his signature, and that he categorically refused to read these repugnant fabrications of the Stalinist regime.

[*] Boris Slutsky (1919–1986) was a Soviet poet and WWII veteran. Counted among the “frontline generation” of poets, he was known for works that conveyed the experience of war in a stark, direct language. Although regarded as a loyal Soviet writer during the Stalin era, some of his poems published posthumously provoked controversy for containing criticism of the system.

[**] First published in English; the book has since been translated into more than 30 languages.

[***] Solomon Volkov, Tanıklık Tutanağı (Şostakoviç'in Anıları), trans. Halim Spatar, Pencere Yayınları, 1992, Istanbul.

[****] Serious doubts have been voiced about the authenticity of Volkov’s Testimony. Numerous musicologists and historians have argued that Shostakovich neither directly approved the text nor that the narrative accurately reflects his stance, instead portraying him as a more systematic opponent of the regime than he truly was. Some maintain that interpretations of his works as containing implicit criticism of the regime stem from Volkov’s own ideological perspective, reducing Shostakovich’s complex position to one of outright dissent. For example, Alan B. Ho and Dmitri Feofanov’s Shostakovich Wars identifies numerous blatant distortions and factual inaccuracies in Volkov’s account. Moreover, Volkov’s statements that the original handwritten notes were “lost,” while the typescript -photocopied by publisher Harper & Row- was “kept in a Swiss bank” before being “sold to an unnamed private collector in the late 1990s,” have only deepened doubts about the text’s reliability. For a fuller discussion of these controversies, English-speaking readers may consult Fred Mazelis’s 2000 article on the World Socialist Web Site: Clarifying a Confused Debate: The Legacy of Dmitri Shostakovich.

[*****] Dimitriy Şostakoviç, Şostakoviç: Hayatı ve Eserleri, trans. Hakan Güçlü ve Mehmet Kıvanç, Gelenek Yayınları, Istanbul, 1999.

[******] Dmitri Shostakovich, Bir Sovyet Sanatçısı Olarak Tarihe Tanıklığım [My Testimony to History as a Soviet Artist], trans. Volkan Terzioğlu, Yazılama Yayınevi, Istanbul, 2010. [The inclusion of the word “testimony” (tanıklık) in the title of the new translation is hardly accidental: it pointedly sets Shostakovich’s “authentic” testimony against Volkov’s false one. Notably, the original English translation published by Progress Publishers carried a markedly different title from Terzioğlu’s version: Dmitry Shostakovich: About Himself and His Times.]

See also: 

Anatoly Chernyaev’s 1972 diary (1): The poverty of bureaucratic planning

Anatoly Chernyaev’s 1972 diary (2): Selling off Siberia to the imperialist powers

Anatoly Chernyaev’s 1972 diary (3): The Soviet automotive industry through the eyes of a Renault executive

Anatoly Chernyaev’s 1972 diary (4): Famine, cholera, and the summer retreats of the Stalinist bureaucracy

Anatoly Chernyaev’s 1972 diary (5): The little-known Hungarian uprising of 1972