Michel Krielaars’ The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin is a fascinating look at the perils of making music under the maniacal Soviet dictator. We know much about the broken lives and careers of musicians under Hitler, but a little less about those under Stalin. How did the likes of Prokofiev and Shostakovich fare?
This book looks at the outcome for those who toed the ideological line – and whose music survives as a result – and those who could have become giants but whose music was shut down. And of course, it isn’t just the music that was cast aside – some creatives who displeased Stalin ended up in gulags; others were killed.
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What Krielaars does best is portray the atmosphere of fear, suspicion and paranoia artists had to work in. Every new piece of music was scrutinised by the government for subversion. Artists went to great lengths to escape the eye of the Soviet big brother and have their works published and played. The courage of these artists was quite extraordinary and Krielaars paints the picture of their place in Soviet life with drama and great compassion.
The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the Time of Stalin by Michel Krielaars, translated by Jonathan Reeder is out now (Pushkin, £25). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.
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