In 1973 Dmitry Shostakovich made a trip from Europe to America aboard the liner "Mikhail Lermontov." Doctors at a clinic outside Washington were to deliver their verdict on his strange illness, which he had been unsuccessfully battling for the last years—a fear of movement that deprived him not only of the ability to play, but also to write music. This ocean crossing unexpectedly became the cause of Shostakovich’s final creative surge.
"Polit.ru" publishes an excerpt from Oksana Dvornichenko’s book "Dmitry Shostakovich. A Journey," which, to date, is the most complete biography of Dmitry Shostakovich (Dvornichenko O. Dmitry Shostakovich. A Journey. Moscow: Tekst, 2006. 575 pp.). The trip to America was precisely the starting point for the book—viewing all of Shostakovich’s life through the lens of that fateful journey.
The book includes unique archival materials, letters, and interviews and articles by Shostakovich, as well as exclusive interviews given in different years to the author by Yevgeny Mravinsky, Mstislav Rostropovich, Krzysztof Penderecki, Van Cliburn, Rudolf Barschai, Boris Tishchenko, Kōbō Abe, Chingiz Aitmatov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the composer’s widow Irina, and his children Maxim and Galina.