Volkov, Solomon

Chronicles the friendship between Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Josef Stalin, discussing how Stalin used their friendship to exploit Shostakovich's work and mental instabilities and how Shostakovich's compositions were impacted by Stalin's totalitarian rule.

Contains translations of selected portions of conversations with Nobel prize-winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky, taped between 1978 and 1993, in which he discusses poetry, his life and travels, his friends and influences, his arrests, detentions, and ultimate expulsion from the Soviet Union, and other matters.