Analyzes the Russian royal family's distorted relationship with art throughout three centuries, providing coverage of such topics as how the poet Pushkin shared a power struggle with Alexander I and how Dostoevsky transitioned from a monarchy supporter to the tsarist cause.
"In a sweeping cultural history of Russia from the rise of the house of Romanov in 1613 to its downfall at the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1917, Solomon Volkov effortlessly unwinds the twisted relationship between art and the royal family. Throughout the Romanov dynasty, Russia'…
"In a sweeping cultural history of Russia from the rise of the house of Romanov in 1613 to its downfall at the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1917, Solomon Volkov effortlessly unwinds the twisted relationship between art and the royal family. Throughout the Romanov dynasty, Russia's…
"Music illuminates a person and provides him with his last hope; even Stalin, a butcher, knew that." So said the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, whose first compositions in the 1920s identified him as an avant-garde wunderkind. But that same singularity became a liability …
Presents the often tumultuous relationship between Shostakovich and Stalin, with Shostakovich striving to remain true to his musical ideals, at the same that he had to deal with the machinations and instability of Stalin.