Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ramsey Hardin
The music you hear is
Leningrad, Dmitri Shostakovichs Requiem.
Seventh Symphony
The Leningrad premiere, on Aug.
9, 1942, was performed by
starving musicians and broadcast
over loudspeakers at the front to
defy the Nazis and hearten
Russian troops.
Abroad, it provided moral
redemption for Stalin and the
Soviet regime.
Shostakovichs music was not
merely a cry against the Nazis but
also against Stalinism: A
requiem for a noble city beset by
the twin monsters of the century.
Horrific.
The siege of Leningrad (the modern-day St.
Petersburg) lasted almost two and one-half
years.
An estimated 1,000,000 city residents died.
Began on September 8, 1941 when German
troops completed their encirclement of the
city.
Leningrad:
The City of Peter and Lenin