Essay On The Great Patriotic War Shostakovich

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The Great Patriotic War that officially took place from 22 June 1941 to 8 May 1945, and the Cold War that followed afterwards attributed to the dynamic change of Soviet foreign policy. Consequently, the change of foreign policy rendered the change of domestic policy, including the one that managed the cultural affairs. During the Great Patriotic War, the regime established the Jewish Anti- Fascist Committee (JAFC) with the famous actor Solomon Mikhoels as the Chair of the Committee. The JAFC was meant to muster the patriotism from the Jewish community in the Soviet Union. This amiable atmosphere brought a significant impact in the Soviet art world, which was the emergence of several works of arts influenced by the Jewish culture. However, JAFC then moved further towards Zionism and started to evoke resentment from the regime. The change of attitude from JAFC coincidentally happened with the onset of the Cold …show more content…

Shostakovich then asked Dolmatovsky to write the poems for the oratorio. After Dolmatovsky completed the poems, Shostakovich composed the music during the summer of 1949, and finished the oratorio on 15 August 1949. The oratorio is composed for tenor, bass, boys choir, mixed choir, and a symphony orchestra, and consists of seven songs: “When the War Was Over”, “Clothe the Homeland in Forests” (in the preface of the score: “The Call Rings throughout the Land”), “Recollection of the Past”, “Pioneers Plant the Forests”, “Young Communists Go Forward!”, “Walk into the Future”, and “Glory”. Not only did the oratorio praise Stalin’s Great Nature Transformation Plan, it was also sonically different from Shostakovich’s works that were composed around the same time. Therefore, there has been an assumption that the Song of the Forests op. 81 is a composition in which Shostakovich compromised his art to regain favors from the

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