'Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad'' by M.T. Anderson

Anderson, M.T. Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad. Somerville, MA, Candlewick Press, 2015. Print.

Truth is stranger than fiction sometimes.  Sometimes, the truth is so bizarre, so out in left field, so deliciously weird that even Muldar and Scully would have to investigate.

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Our tale begins with a spy-worthy journey, as a mysterious microfilm makes its way from Soviet Russia to Tehran, then on to Cairo, through northern Africa, where it crossed the Atlantic Ocean, landing in Recife, Brazil, where it was picked up by a U.S. Navy plane and flown to Florida, finally landing in Washington, D.C.  What is on this mysterious microfilm?  Battle plans?  Spy reports?  Wait, what?  A symphony?  All that for a symphony? You bet!

The following pages present a multi-layered biography, not just of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich, but also of the establishment of the Soviet Union and its often bloody and terrifying history under Joseph Stalin.  A dual biography is important for context here.  It's impossible to understand Shostakovich and his works unless you understand the circumstances under which he composed.  For this particular book, M.T. Anderson uses Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony -- the Leningrad Symphony -- as the lens through which he views not only Shostakovich, but the Soviet Union.  One of the most remarkable things about the Seventh Symphony is that Shostakovich composed most of it while living in Leningrad during the brutal Nazi siege (September 1941-January 1944) in World War II.  The Seventh Symphony became synonymous with the Soviet war effort during World War II, and was key in gaining material support from Western allies.  The symphony humanized the Soviets to Western audiences and was often played as part of fundraising efforts on behalf of Soviet civilians.

Anderson presents a well-researched book about one of the most well-known 20th century composers, who wrote music under unimaginable circumstances (the Russian Revolution, the purges under Stalin, the off-and-on repudiation of Shostakovich by people he considered friends, the middle of a siege). He also refuses to condescend to his intended audience, and never sugarcoats the torture under the Stalin regime or the privations in Leningrad under the siege.  Anderson doesn't dwell on it, either, but he offers more than enough detail to get the point across without gratuitous lingering over some of more gruesome aspects. (The torture of the theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold during one of the Purges in 1938 stands out in particular.) Anderson is also mindful of his subject.  The Soviet Union was not a place where one could necessarily freely exchange ideas.  Every so often, Anderson reminds his readers that quotes attributed to Shostakovich might genuinely be Shostakovich's ideas, but there is a good chance Shostakovich spoke under duress.  After all, it wasn't uncommon for the Soviet government to allow artists to travel outside the Soviet Union, but keep their family home as "insurance" that the artist in question would not only toe the party line, but return home.  Anderson uses Shostakovich as a sort of shorthand to illustrate the raging paranoia that infiltrated every aspect of a person's life under Stalin, to the point where an artist of Shostakovich's caliber can be praised to the heavens by the critics on Tuesday, but then end up vilified and shunned on Thursday.

Anderson provides several photographs of Shostakovich, Leningrad during the siege, and production photos from the Soviet performing arts scene of the 1920s. In several photographs, Anderson's captions offer more information about the arts in the 1920s and 1930s or a little more background on a person in the photograph.  He also helpfully provides maps that outline the Nazi siege of Leningrad, delineating German and Soviet held territory.  Anderson also includes his extensive bibliography of works he consulted while he wrote the book.  There's also a table of contents and an index.  Anderson also sprinkles in a few footnotes to clarify certain topics, like the difference between "Bolshevik," "Communist," and "Socialist."

This book would be a great resource if you're studying World War II, and would like a different perspective.  To be honest (and I was a history teacher for many years before I earned my library degree), the Soviet side of things is somewhat forgotten in the larger narrative of World War II.  It would be also a good idea to track down some of Shostakovich's recordings and listen to them after you've read the book.  Google "Shostakovich Seventh Symphony," and you ought to find several recordings on YouTube.  You don't have to watch the video, just listen.  Shostakovich's symphonies really are as Anderson describes them: film scores without the film.  After reading Symphony for the City of the Dead, you don't really need a film to appreciate Shostakovich's music.

M. T. Anderson is the author of the award-winning books Feed and The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing.  Symphony for the City of the Dead  was a longlist finalist for the National Book Award and was also a finalist for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction.  Symphony for the City of the Dead has also been awarded a Horn Book Honor for 2016 in nonfiction.  NPR's program Here & Now interviewed Anderson about the book.  It's worth a listen.

*On a side note, if you look on a map of Russia today, you won't find a city called Leningrad.  You will find St. Petersburg, and Anderson traces how St. Petersburg became Petrograd, then Leningrad under Soviet rule.  It wasn't unusual for cities to have their names changed under Soviet rule, and they sometimes changed when almost as soon as a new leader came to power.  If you'd like, to look into things like this more in depth, you can research ways that new leaders of the Soviet Union tried to change historical records to remove people who had been executed during one of the Purges, especially other Party leaders who had fallen out of favor.  One of Stalin's methods was to remove former colleagues from photographs -- pre-digital Photoshop, if you will.