ABSTRACT
Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975) was the most prominent and influential composer of the Soviet era. This essay examines his relationship with the Soviet regime through the prism of the composer’s interest in, and musical and journalistic representations of, sport – and particularly the sport of football, a game depicted by the composer in the propaganda ballet The Golden Age (1930) and in the second movement of his Russian River Suite (1944). It begins by contextualizing the composer’s ‘sports works’ by placing them alongside other such musical pieces that began to appear from 1913 onwards. It then discusses Shostakovich’s interest in sport, his musical depictions of it and his State-encouraged writings on football in the Soviet press. The essay shows that the Soviet authorities deployed the composer’s iconic status as well as his passion for football for propaganda purposes.
