Documents

Personal documents of Dmitri Shostakovich

As a result of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of 10 February 1948 on the Opera “The Great Friendship” by Vano Muradeli, published in “Pravda” on 11 February 1948, the “formalistic trend in Soviet music [was condemned] as being directed against the people”. The work of composers such as Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Shebalin, Popov and Myaskovsky was subjected to harsh, unfounded criticism. On 14 February, the Committee on the Arts under the Council of Ministers of the USSR issued a secret order revising the repertoire of concert organisations and removing a number of works by these composers from the list of those permitted for performance. From that moment on, all of Shostakovich’s works ceased to be performed in the Soviet Union.

Certificate of the Union of Composers of the USSR

Certificate of the Union of Composers of the USSR, membership dues payment information.

In early March 1948, the telephone rang in Shostakovich’s apartment—it was Stalin on the line. The conversation was about the composer’s trip to the United States to attend the All-American Conference for Peace as a member of the Soviet delegation. The order of the Main Committee for Control Over Performances and Repertoire was soon cancelled. Shostakovich kept an excerpt from this order and the Order by Stalin, Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, dated 16 March 1948, rescinding the Committee’s Order No. 17, in an envelope on his desk among his most important documents.

Certificate of exemption from military service. Shostakovich was declared “unfit for military service due to poor eyesight”.

Driver's license.

Driver's license for the right to drive a passenger car.

Pass to the entrance to the building of the Bolshoi Theater.

A pass to enter the Bolshoi Theater building as a “musical consultant”.

Certificate of a member of the committee for the Lenin Prizes in the field of literature and art under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

Certificate of a member of the Soviet Peace Committee.

Pass to the Mosfilm studio.

Membership card for the USSR Music Foundation (USSR Muzfond). The USSR Music Foundation (1939-1991) was a public organisation established under the USSR Union of Composers to assist composers and musicologists in their creative activities. The USSR Music Foundation organised and financed creative business trips, the building of residential houses, sanatoriums, Houses of Composers, polyclinics and pioneer camps.

The Music Foundation organised auditions of compositions, recitals, concerts, consultations, as well as the rewriting and copying of music materials. It also provided its members with financial assistance, issued reimbursable loans while they worked on new compositions, rendered medical assistance and offered spa and sanatorium treatment. The hire of sheet music (scores, orchestral and choral parts, symphonic and vocal-symphonic works) organised by the Music Foundation contributed to the promotion of Soviet music in the USSR and abroad.

Book of payment of membership fees of the USSR Music Foundation (USSR Muzfond).

Membership card of the USSR Union of Cinematographers. Shostakovich composed the music for more than 30 films and was one of the pioneers of this genre of music art in the Soviet Union.

Dmitri Shostakovich collaborated with such leading Soviet film directors as Aleksandr Dovzhenko, Leonid Trauberg, Grigori Kozintsev, Friedrich Ermler, Sergey Yutkevich, Mikhail Kalatozov, Mikhail Chiaureli, Sergey Gerasimov and others.

Permament pass to The Moscow State Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko Music Theatre.

The 5th Congress of the USSR Union of Composers opened on 2 April 1974 in the Grand Kremlin Palace: “Comrades Kirill Mazurov, Mikhail Suslov, Petr Demichev and Mikhail Solomentsev were greeted with applause” (Ogonyok magazine, No. 15, April 1974). Dmitri Shostakovich gave a speech of welcome at the congress’s first meeting.

Membership dues payment receipts.

Certificate of the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. From 1947 to 1962 D. D. Shostakovich - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of 2-5 convocations.

Shostakovich was elected from the Dzerzhinsky constituency of the city of Leningrad.

From 1962 to 1974 D.D.Shostakovich - Deputy of the Council of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 6th-9th convocations, was elected from the Gorky and Yamalo-Nenets constituencies of the RSFSR.