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From “Europe Central”
Chapter title Opus 110
“In 1946... Comrade Zhdanov .. announced to the Leningrad Union of Soviet writers: Leninism proceeds from the fact that our literature cannot be politically indifferent, cannot be "art for art's sake". They got quiet then; they knew what was coming. In truth the only wonder was that it hadn't come sooner... Folding his arms across his massive breast like one of our KV tanks, Comrade Zhdanov forthwith demanded that there be no further deviation from the task at hand on the literary front - namely to create art to light the way with a searchlight.
P 625
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(Shostakovich encountering Rabbi Luria in a dream)
Chapter title Opus 110
“In 1946... Comrade Zhdanov .. announced to the Leningrad Union of Soviet writers: Leninism proceeds from the fact that our literature cannot be politically indifferent, cannot be "art for art's sake". They got quiet then; they knew what was coming. In truth the only wonder was that it hadn't come sooner... Folding his arms across his massive breast like one of our KV tanks, Comrade Zhdanov forthwith demanded that there be no further deviation from the task at hand on the literary front - namely to create art to light the way with a searchlight.
P 625
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(Shostakovich encountering Rabbi Luria in a dream)
Somehow he knew this individual was Comrade Luria and that Comrade Luria was angry with him.
"Because you betrayed us all with that facile Seventh Symphony which wears its meaning on its chest like an idiotic medal…"
"Well, well, well, then I must beg you to forgive me, replied Shostakovich, almost asphyxiated by dreaming dread. You see I wanted to inspire people, and- well I mean to say I though I could make myself useful-"
"Useful? Said Comrade Luria in a rage. You know all to well that utility’s the merest pimp for whom true art gets prostituted! Moreover…. He took a step closer. Shostakovich trembled. …Moreover, It’s high time we talked about form. Another step. And now Shostavovich was touched by the odor of burned hair.
I’m sure you’ve noticed, continued Comrade Luria, how much aestheticians like to prate about the impotence of form without content or content without form. But in music, perfect form and content together can remain as stillborn as a law without the seal of Heaven upon it. There has to be emotion….
"Excuse me, excuse me; but isn’t emotion the same as, er, content in this case? Naturally I understand that it is not equivalent to form no matter what our social realists preach. For example in the right hands an allegro in a major key can convey anything, not just happiness –
"Exactly, said Comrade Luria, taking another step.
"……Thank you. But, if I may ask, what is musical content if not the feeling of the music?
Comrade Luria smiled, took three more rapid steps and touched him.
That touch! It was like entering a darkened room and suddenly getting assaulted by soft silent, hideous moths whose scales flaked off as they brushed in their dozens across nose, forehead, cheek and eyes, dryly flapping and dying, blindly disintegrating, polluting, attacking, asphyxiating. ……
Comrade Luria was a charred skeleton. Comrade Luria knowingly said: "After somebody’s been cremated (no matter weather he was living or dead), his form’s his image in your memory. His feeling, his emotional value if you will, is nothing more or less than the feeling you have when you remember him. So what is his content?
"I don’t know.
Is it a handful of ash? Demanded Comrade Luria, breathing in Shostakovich’s face that terrible breath which stank of roasted flesh.
"No, no-
What’s your content?
"I….I have no content; I’m empty.
"Then say so in your music.
P. 629, 630.
