Fear and the Muse Kept Watch: The Russian Masters from Akhmatova and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein Under StalinIn this dazzling exploration of one of the most contradictory periods of literary and artistic achievement in modern history, journalist Andy McSmith evokes the lives of more than a dozen of the most brilliant artists and writers of the twentieth century. Taking us deep into Stalin's Russia, Fear and the Muse Kept Watch asks the question: can great art be produced in a police state? For although Josif Stalin ran one of the most oppressive regimes in world history, under him Russia also produced an outpouring of artistic works of immense and lasting power—from the poems of Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam to the opera Peter and the Wolf, the film Alexander Nevsky, and the novels The Master and Margarita and Doctor Zhivago. For those artists visible enough for Stalin to take an interest in them, it was Stalin himself who decided whether they lived in luxury or were sent to the Lubyanka, the headquarters of the secret police, to be tortured and sometimes even executed. McSmith brings together the stories of these artists—including Isaac Babel, Boris Pasternak, Dmitri Shostakovich, and many others—revealing how they pursued their art under Stalin's regime and often at great personal risk. It was a world in which the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, whose bright yellow tunic was considered a threat to public order under the tsars, struggled to make the communist authorities see the value of avant garde art; Babel publicly thanked the regime for allowing him the privilege of not writing; and Shostakovich's career veered wildly between public disgrace and wealth and acclaim. In the tradition of Eileen Simpson's Poets in Their Youth and Phyllis Rose's Parallel Lives, Fear and the Muse Kept Watch is an extraordinary work of historical recovery. It is also a bold exploration of the triumph of art during terrible times and a book that will stay with its readers for a long, long while. |
Contents
| 1 | |
| 13 | |
| 32 | |
3 The Master | 54 |
4 Corrupting Gorky | 74 |
5 The Stalin Epigram | 95 |
6 Babels Silence | 116 |
7 Pasternaks Sickness of the Soul | 130 |
10 Pasternak in the Great Terror | 184 |
11 Sholokhov Babel and the Policemans Wife | 200 |
12 Altering History | 222 |
13 Anna of All the Russias | 243 |
14 When Stalin Returned to the Opera | 262 |
15 After Stalin | 276 |
Notes | 291 |
| 321 | |
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Fear and the Muse Kept Watch: The Russian Masters--from Akhmatova and ... Andy McSmith Limited preview - 2015 |
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Alexander Alexandrov Alexei Anna Akhmatova arrested artists asked audience authorities Averbakh Berlin Boris Pasternak Bukharin Bulgakov cinema Clark and Dobrenko Communist Party composer Cossack critic Culture and Power death Dmitri Shostakovich Doctor Zhivago exile Fadeyev film Gorky’s gulag Harvill I.V. Stalin Isaac Babel Ivan KGB’s Literary Archive knew Kremlin later Lenin Leningrad letter literature living London Maxim Gorky Mayakovsky Memoirs Meyerhold Mikhail Mikhail Bulgakov Molière Molotov Moscow Nadezhda Mandelstam named never Nikolai NKVD novel Old Bolshevik opera Osip Mandelstam people’s commissar Pilnyak play poem poet poetry police Politburo political Pravda Prokofiev published RAPP Red Army regime revolution revolutionary Russian Sergei Eisenstein Shentalinsky Shklovsky Sholokhov shot Shumyatsky Sinclair someone Soviet Culture Stalinist Stavsky story Symphony theater thought told Tolstoy trans Trotsky tsar turned University Press Upton Sinclair USSR Victor Serge Vladimir Voronsky wife writers wrote Yagoda Yezhov York young Zamyatin Zhdanov