Shostakovich's Music for Salute, Spain! Discoveries and Perspectives

Abstract

In this article I examine the theatre production of Salute, Spain! by A. Afinogenov, in Leningrad, 1936, with music by Shostakovich. Afinogenov's heroic and romantic piece was a response to the struggle of the Spanish people against fascism, and was perceived by the ideologues of Soviet culture as a gift to the Extraordinary VIII All-Union Congress of Soviets of the USSR, which approved the new (‘Stalin’) constitution. I show how the play was then removed for ideological reasons in connection with the persecution of Afinogenov and his exclusion from the Party. Inspired by the ideological attitudes of the political system, this work about the opposition of the Spanish people to fascism was banned and never returned to the stage. Finally, I examine the fate of Shostakovich's musical score, returned to him from the Drama Theater upon his request in 1964, and suggest that his revived interest in his music, written 30 years earlier, coincided with a wave of information in the Soviet press about political events in Spain in the mid-1960s.