Testimony’s “Smoking Gun”
Back to The Shostakovich Variations
Space did not permit me in my original article to elaborate on the issue of Flora Litvinova’s memoirs, which she penned in the late 1980s. She wrote then that her “last conversation (razgovor) with Dmitri Dmitrievich took place at the House of Creativity in Ruza in 1970 or 1971. He had returned from having treatment at Dr Ilizarov’s clinic [in Kurgan]. . .” (Her final talk with the composer does not appear to have been the “smoking gun” conversation, which must have taken place even earlier.) But Volkov himself claims to have begun meeting with Shostakovich for Testimony only in 1971, assisted by his friend Boris Tishchenko. Tishchenko confirms that this meeting took place in July 1971—some time after, that is, Flora Litvinova’s “last conversation” with Shostakovich, and even longer after the “smoking gun” conversation.
There are other problems. Volkov’s account of Testimony’s genesis involves a “mound of shorthand notes … growing,” with Volkov “read[ing] them over and over,” then “dividing up the collected material into sustained sections.” Finally, Volkov claims, Shostakovich would look over these sections and give his approval. (This should not be confused with the composer’s initials on the manuscript, which were allegedly inscribed much later.) The process of creating these “sustained sections” must have taken months. Yet in Litvinova’s account, Shostakovich is already looking over the material that Volkov has given him.
So what could Shostakovich have been talking about in his conversation with his old friend, Flora Litvinova? Based on the likely timing of this conversation—the late 1960s—I speculated that it could have had to do with the preface Shostakovich wrote for Volkov’s first book, Young Leningrad Composers (1971). Volkov himself claims that the original preface was autobiographical in nature, and based heavily on the composer’s recollections of his youth. Litvinova has Shostakovich referring to his “youthful compositions” (detskie sochineniia) in his conversations with the unnamed musicologist.
My theory is far from airtight. Shostakovich allegedly told Litvinova that they met “constantly” and talked about “everything.” (Volkov told me he couldn’t remember how many times he met Shostakovich for the preface to Young Leningrad Composers.) But it seems to me a more convincing explanation of Litvinova’s account than the alternatives.
Dmitry Feofanov’s letter to the editor of Lingua Franca disputes my interpretation:
With regard to the book I co-edited with Allan Ho, [Feofanov wrote] Paul Mitchinson (”The Shostakovich Variations,” May/June) delivers what he thinks is a coup de grace regarding our “smoking gun” piece of evidence, the statement of Flora Litvinova. In it, she recounts meeting Shostakovich who told her of his meetings with “a young Leningrad musicologist” (Volkov), to whom he tells “everything” he remembers about his life and works. Seems like a first-hand corroboration of the genesis of “Testimony,” which was related to and edited by Solomon Volkov.
“Not so,” says Mitchinson. “Litvinova was referring to another corroborative work—a preface Volkov wrote to a book about Leningrad composers, and, besides, she met with Shostakovich much earlier, in 1971, before the work on ‘Testimony’ had begun.” . . . .
I personally called Flora Pavlovna Litvinova and asked her whether her statement referred to a conversation with Shostakovich before work on “Testimony” had begun (1971) or after, because of her earlier statement that her last “meeting” with the composer was in 1971. Her answer—”I ran into Shostakovich here and there until his death. The conversation in question could have taken place in 1972, or 1973, or 1974.” Question: “Do you think Shostakovich was referring to “Testimony” or some other work he did with Volkov? Answer: “I understood it to be referring to “Testimony.”
My response, printed in the same issue:
Although Dmitry Feofanov has completely fabricated a quotation he attributes to me, and has seriously misquoted Flora Litvinova’s published account, it’s still possible he has accurately quoted what she told him over the phone.
Litvinova’s account, which she wrote in the late 1980s, was published in 1996. She did not write that her last “meeting” with Shostakovich was in 1971; she wrote that her last “conversation” (razgovor) with the composer took place then. Her memory was quite exact:
“My last conversation with Dmitri Dmitrievich took place at the House of Creativity in Ruza in 1970 or 1971. He had returned from having treatment at Dr Ilizarov’s clinic [in Kurgan]. . .” These details can all be independently confirmed. Several months later, Volkov’s first meeting with Shostakovich for Testimony allegedly took place.
If, under Feofanov’s cross-examination more than ten years after her initial statement, Flora Pavlovna now remembers additional “conversations” taking place between 1972 and 1974, then what we have is no longer a “smoking gun,” but rather, like almost everything having to do with Testimony, conflicting and ambiguous testimony. Lawyers traditionally place greater weight on a witness’s earlier testimony, for good reason—witnesses often incorporate into their memories what they have heard or read much later. A case in point: Litvinova allegedly told Feofanov, “I understood it [her conversation with Shostakovich] to be referring to Testimony.” She must have had great powers of foresight—Testimony was published in 1979.
