Stalin was obviously surprised by the turn in conversation, but at least he didn't interrupt me. And I managed to lead the conversation out of dangerous straits. Now we were discussing whether a composer should do his own orchestrations or whether he was justified in turning to others for help. I expressed my deep conviction that a composer cannot entrust the orchestration of his works to anyone else. Strange, but Stalin agreed with me here too. I think he saw it from his point of 262
view. He certainly didn't want to share his glory with anyone, and that's probably why he decided that Shostakovich was right.
Alexandrov's "battleship" was sinking. The arranger had been saved, I had cause to be happy. Finally Stalin began finding out from all of us which anthem we had liked best. He asked me too. I was prepared for the question. I had assumed that something like that would come up and I decided that I couldn't mention mine or the joint anthem, and I probably shouldn't mention Khachaturian's, because I would be accused of praising my co-author. I actively disliked Alexandrov's song. That left only one candidate out of five-the one by Iona Tuskiya. And I said it was the best, but added that it would be hard to remember. I think that Stalin agreed with me there too, even though Tuskiya was a Georgian.
From the ensuing conversation it became apparent that the greatest judge and expert of all time on anthems considered the one by Khachaturian and me the best. But according to Stalin, a few changes were necessary in the refrain. He asked how much time we would need, and I said five hours. Actually, we could have done it in five minutes, but I thought it might seem less than solid to say that we could have done it there and then while they waited. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that my answer angered Stalin greatly. He was obviously expecting something else.
Stalin spoke slowly and thought slowly, he did everything slowly.
He must have thought, This is state business, the national anthem, you must measure seven times, cut once, and Shostakovich says he can do the corrections in five hours. This isn't serious. Such an unserious man cannot be the author of the national anthem.
This proves once more that Stalin didn't understand a thing about composing. If he had had the slightest idea of what it involved, he wouldn't have been surprised by my estimate, but it was clear that Stalin knew as much about music as he did about other subjects, and that he brought up the business of the orchestration just to show off, a gambit that hadn't worked.
Khachaturian and I weren't successful. Khachaturian later blamed me for frivolity; he said that if I had asked for at least a month, we would have won. I don't know, he may be right. In any case, Stalin 263
lived up to his threat. Alexandrov's song was proclaimed the anthem.
The battleship made it into port. But the composition wasn't lucky, and not because of the music, because of the words. As for the music, that's a tradition. A national anthem must have · bad music, and Stalin didn't break with tradition, as was to· be expected. He also liked the loyal text. But when the cult of personality was exposed, the text posed a problem. It was stupid to make people sing "Stalin raised u,s" when it had been officially announced that he hadn't raised anyone, that on the contrary, he had destroyed millions of people. People stopped singing the words, they just hummed the tune.
Khrushchev wanted to replace the anthem, but he wanted to do this and that and a hundred other things, and he did almost nothing. That was the story with the anthem. First they pursued it fervently; I was involved too, this time as an expert. And then it quieted down, and we were stuck with a hummed anthem. That's not so good.*
I might add that Alexandrov did manage to write one song that wasn't so bad, the famous "Holy War." It was sung everywhere during the war. Stalin called it a "cross-country vehicle of a song." One's a battleship, the other's a vehicle. What is this military transport lexicon? Boring, comrades, it's boring.
Actually, taking stock now, I can't call my behavior particularly heroic, there wasn't anything special about it, even though the little I did wasn't easy. And the times certainly weren't easy; not the best of all possible times. But as Zoshchenko said, citizens from future eras will hardly be able to appreciate the circumstances because they won't have enough information. If only Zoshchenko's works were studied in school! As required reading. Then the young people of the future would have some idea of our meager and unattractive life. Zoshchenko was our Nestor and our Pimen.t
I met Zoshchenko at Zamyatin's, in shameful circumstances, at the card table over a game of poker. I loved cards at that period of my life and gave in to that ugly vice. I spent days, and particularly nights, at cards. Once Beliayev managed to talk Liadov into going to the Caucasus, to enjoy the marvelous scenery, so to speak. The patron of the arts
•New words to the Soviet anthem were approved after Shostakovich's death, in 1 977. The text is that of the same poets, and the changes are few-Stalin's name is replaced by Lenin's.
tNestor was an ancient Russian chronicler; Pimen is the chronicler in Boris Godunov.
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and the composer headed south. They moved into the best hotel they could find and played nonstop for three days. Neither Beliayev nor
· Liadov even remembered the scenery outside and they never left their rooms. Then they got back into the train and returned to Petersburg.
So Liadov never did see the scenery, and he kept asking himself, "Why did I ever go to the Caucasus?" He became totally disillusioned by travel.
For the times, Zamyatin was well off and a man of substance. He had good tables and all kinds of chairs and armchairs, which were of course not the result of his literary success. Zamyatin was a famous engineer, a shipbuilder, and that's where the money came from. And the means to give small literary soirees. Young people came to them to eat something and to meet others.
Maitre._now, that's the word for Zamyatin. He really liked to put people in the right pigeonhole, and he never missed an opportunity to lecture you. I didn't like that very much. But I will admit that Zamyatin was an educated man. A pity his index finger stuck out all the time. Zamyatin looked down on Zoshchenko, and it's true you couldn't call Zoshchenko a scholar. He did like Zoshchenko's stories, from a professional point of view, but he mocked him, never missing an opportunity to remind us that a bear had stepped on Zoshchenko's ear, and that he divided all music into two categories. One was the "Internationale" and the other, everything else. And Zoshchenko had a simple test to determine which category was being played. If they stood up, it was the "Internationale." If people stubbornly remained seated, it was something from category two.
This harsh appraisal of Zoshchenko's ear was absolutely accurate, and I had ample opportunity to prove it for myself. For instance, Zoshchenko was listening to Beethoven's Ninth, and during the finale, Zoshchenko decided that the music was over. There's that tricky spot in the finale. Zoshchenko applauded and headed proudly for the exit.