177 The Fifth Symphony as “a Soviet artist’s creative reply to just criticism”—We’re told that this phrase was not Shostakovich’s, but he acquiesced in the happy suggestion.
179 Increase in the productive capacity of Leningrad since 1913—Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 14, p. 385. However, the benchmark year was actually 1940, not 1941. I imagine that the accuracy (such as it was) of the statistic is unaffected.
179 “The critics” on Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony: “Nothing more than the recapitulation of a football match”—After Isaak Glikman, Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman 1941-1975, with a Commentary by Isaak Glikman, trans. Anthony Philips (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2001; original Russian ed. 1993), p. xxxii.
179 Definition of a family: “A socio-biological community…”—The Soviet Way of Life (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), p. 347 (ch. 8, “The Soviet Family”).
179 S. Volkov: “The feelings of the intellectual…”—Solomon Volkov, Saint Petersburg: A Cultural History, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Free Press, 1995), p. 423.
180 Description of the Eighth Symphony—Based in part on my hearing of it, and in part on the score itself: Dmitri Schostakowitsch, 8. Symphonie Op. 65, ed. nr. 2221 (Hamburg: Musikverlage Hans Sikorski, Taschenpartitur / Pocket Score; “SovMuz” [“Sowjetische Musik”] ser., n.d., 1991?; orig. comp. 1943).
180 Footnote: Great Soviet Encyclopedia: “The Communist Party and the Soviet government…”—Vol. 4, p. 334, entry on Great Patriotic War.
180 Hitler: “Skizze B: Heeresgruppe Nord…”—These maps, and the German military symbols referred to in this story and in “Opus 110,” “Breakout” and “The Last Field-Marshal” are derived from the reproductions of orders of battle in Kurt Mehner, ed., Die Geheimen Tagesberichte der Deutsche Wehrmachstführung im zweiten Weltkrieg 1939-45 (Osnabrück: Biblio Verlag, 1987).
184 A. Zhdanov: “Either the working-class of Leningrad will be turned into slaves…” —Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-45 (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1964), p. 305 (trans. from Pavlov, Leningrad v. blokade).
185 Current Biography: “Early in 1941, Shostakovich completed his Seventh Symphony…”—Vol. 2, no. 5, p. 71 (May 1941, article on Shostakovich).
185 N. Mandelstam: “The whole process of composition…”—Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope, trans. Max Hayward (New York: Modern Library, 1999, repr. of 1970 trans.), p. 71.
186 Footnote: The two-note “Stalin motif”—Described in Ian MacDonald, The New Shostakovich (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1990), p. 157.
186 Mravinsky: “Everything has been heard in advance…”—Wilson, p. 140.
187 Shostakovich to New Masses: “The first part of the symphony…”—Seroff, p. 237. I have no knowledge that Glikman wrote this, but he did compose such things for Shostakovich from time to time.
188 Party activists to Shostakovich: “You will be called to the front when you’re required” —After Seroff, p. 236 (cabled dispatch to New Masses, 28 October 1941).
188 Shostakovich to the “Party activists”: “Only by fighting can we save humanity from destruction” —Reeder, p. 255 (Shostakovich’s written application; abridged and Shostakovich-ized by WTV).
188 Shostakovich’s speech of recantation: “There can be no music without ideology, comrades! Music is no longer an end in itself, but a vital weapon in the struggle”—Abridged from Seroff, pp. 160-61 (New York Times interview, to which I have added the word comrades).
189 Shostakovich: “If they hadn’t shot Tukhachevsky…”—Loosely after Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitry Shostakovich as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov, trans. Antonina W. Bouis (New York: Limelight Editions 2004, repr. of 1979 Harper & Row ed.), p. 103.
190 “I, I, I want to write about our time…”—After Shostakovich and Volkov, p. 154.
192 Shostakovich to himself: “I am a person… with a very weak character…”—After Khentova (Mineyev); original, p. 126, Mineyev, p. 9.
194 Shostakovich to Volkov: “I wrote my Seventh Symphony very quickly…”—Shostakovich and Volkov, p. 154.
194 Shostakovich to Glikman: Composition dates for the movements of the Seventh Symphony—Glikman, p. 3 (letter of 30 November 1941). My dates for the completion of the other two movements also follow this source (see p. 6; letter of 4 January 1942).
194 G. V. Yudin: “After a short pause…”—Wilson, p. 37.
194 L. Lebedinsky: “Frightening in its helplessness”—Wilson, p. 346.
195 Reduction of the bread ration on 2 September to a fourth of its previous level—Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 14, p. 383 (entry on Leningrad).
197 Shostakovich to Glikman: “I suppose that critics with nothing better to do…” —Glikman, p. xxxiv, somewhat Shostakovich-ized.
197 “For the first time we can cry openly. Not one of us here hasn’t lost somebody…” —After Shostakovich and Glikman, pp. 136, 135.
198 Zhukov’s strategic Muse: “Stalin will be the savior of Europe”—Actually, Zhukov deplored Stalin’s military incompetence.
200 Akhmatova: “In Pushkin’s day one did not expose everything about oneself” —Chukovskaya, p. 15; slightly “retranslated” by WTV.
203 Shostakovich to S. Volkov: “Fear of death may be the most intense emotion of all” —After Shostakovich and Glikman, p. 180.
204 Shostakovich: “It’s always easier to believe what we want to believe… The mentality of a chicken.”—Ibid., p. 199.
208 Activists to Shostakovich: “… you’re waiting for the Germans”—Punin, p. 207 (entry for 30 July 1944, accusations overheard on returning to Leningrad from evacuation; slightly altered). Shostakovich was actually evacuated as early as 1 October, but because I have wanted to associate him with the beginning of a Leningrad winter, I delayed his departure for two weeks.
208 Shostakovich’s mother: “Of course Mitya…”—Seroff, p. 175 (letter from Sonia Shostakovich to her daughter Zoya, ca. 1929).
208 Various information on troop strengths, casualties, military organization, etc.—John Ellis, World War II: A Statistical Survey (New York: Facts on File, 1983). Sometimes these figures have been simplified by me for narrative purposes. For instance, when I write in reference to the Red Air Force “four regiments to a division, two divisions to a corps,” I omit to state that this was true as of 1943, and that a division might sometimes be three regiments instead of four, a corps anywhere from two to four divisions. Ellis’s data make occasional appearances not only in this story but also in “Breakout” and “The Last Field-Marshal.”
214 Doubling of Leningrad’s bread ration in February 1942—Great Soviet Encyclopedia, vol. 14, p. 383 (entry on Leningrad).
215 Olga Berggolts: “This man is stronger than Hitler!”—Harrison E. Salisbury, The Nine Hundred Days: The Siege of Leningrad (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 522.
215 The émigré Seroff: “Today the ‘average’ American…”—Op. cit., p. 3.
215 Quotations from the Seventh in the Dictionary of Musical Themes—Barlow and Morgenstern, p. 438.
215 The bourgeois critic Layton: “This naive stroke of pictorialism…”—Robert Simpson, ed., The Symphony (New York: Drake Publishers, Inc., 1972), vol. 2 (“Mahler to the Present Day”), p. 208 (article on Shostakovich).