Shostakovich and Khrapchenko: On the Problem of “The Artist and Power”

The article is devoted to the history of the relationship between Dmitry Shostakovich and Mikhail Khrapchenko, Chairman of the All-Union Committee for Arts Affairs (VKDI) under the Council of People’s Commissars of the Soviet Union (1939–1948). This department was created in 1936 under the leadership of Platon Kerzhentsev. For Shostakovich, the initial period of interaction with VKDI turned out to be quite dramatic. The first major action of the VKDI was the publication of the article Muddle Instead of Music (Pravda, 28 January 1936), directed against Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk; this was shortly followed by another entitled Ballet Falsehood (Pravda, 6 February 1936) that made accusations against the ballet The Limpid Stream. However, the appointment of Khrapchenko to the post of chairman of the VKDI in 1939 radically changed the position of Shostakovich, whose support by the new head of the department would benefit him greatly in the years to come. The article reconstructs the entire period of communication between Shostakovich and Khrapchenko based on archival documents, memoirs, letters and periodical press materials. The composer repeatedly turned to Khrapchenko for help and invariably received it in both creative and everyday matters. In 1948, Khrapchenko, like many other artists, became a victim of the anti-formalist campaign. On Stalin’s orders, an audit was conducted of the financial costs of preparing the opera The Great Friendship by Vano Muradeli. Having been designated as responsible for the failure of the opera, Khrapchenko subsequently spent several years paying a large fine to the state. At the conference of Soviet music figures, which took place at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) from 11–13 January 1948 under the chairmanship of Andrei Zhdanov, many of those whom Khrapchenko had supported during his many years of work at the VKDI spoke out against him. The only one who spoke out in defence of Khrapchenko was Shostakovich. Until the end of his life, the composer maintained communication with Khrapchenko, who again held high positions in the 1960s and always responded to the composer’s requests when he could. Keywords: Dmitry Shostakovich, Michail Khrapchenko, Joseph Stalin, Andrey Zhdanov, All-Union Committee for Arts Affairs, the composer and power, Soviet music, symphony, anti-formalist campaign of 1948