In perhaps our most controversial episode to date, we take a look at censorship within the USSR through the lens of Dimitri Shostakovich's long struggle against Stalin's ever-pressing paranoia.  We also take a brief look at the contorted lens through which the West views the history of the USSR and the reality of its culture of censorship and punishment. The intention of this episode is to allow the listener to question whether or not art should be censored, and perhaps more importantly -- whether it can be in the first place. Dimitri Shostakovich's story is deeply fascinating and all too heartbreaking, a stark reminder to our modern-day what happens when we allow ourselves to censor the expression of others. 


Reading material mentioned:
"Muddle Instead of Music" - Jan 28th, 1936. An article rumored to be written by Stalin.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (the abridged version).
Milan Kundera, The Joke.

Mentioned works of Shostakovich:
Lady MacBeth
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 5

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