text: You did it. You finished your studies. You have established yourself as one of the finest pianists in the newly established Soviet Union. Your first Symphony has premiered in Germany and the United States. You are on your way to becoming one of the most famous composers of the 20th century.
  
  It is in this period of optimism you are visited by two agents of the government, waiting for you when you arrive home.
  
  "Mr. Shostakovich. We are here on behalf of the federal government. You have made quite the name for yourself and while we admire your individual achievement, ultimately you publicly represent the Soviet Union. We understand that you failed you exam on Marxist methodology, we want to make sure you don't embarrass yourself or us with your music. Art is political as I'm sure you understand."
  
  You do understand. Everything is political, especially anything creative. However, letting them know you understand won't help you. You need to play the game.
  
  "It's just music, comrade. I'm a composer, I'm no politician." you reply.
  
  "We both know that isn't just isn't true anymore comrade. Be careful, I'd hate to see the Union lose such a talented composer."
  
  The man who didn't speak offers you a handshake. You accept and then they leave without another word.
  
  Shaken by this experience you become reclusive. You start on your second symphony. You make it as patriotic as you can bear to.Sadly it is not praised as highly as your first symphony. Your third symphony suffers the same fate, and you take a break from symphonic work to work on operas.
  
  For the next few years all is well for you, the communist party has not bothered you and your compositions continue to provide you with a living. You even manage to find a wife in Nina Varzar and sow a daughter. This is until one night when you are informed that Joseph Stalin will be watching a performance of one of your operas. Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was an opera you had premiered two years prior, based on the story of a murderous wife in love with the employee of her husband. It had been quite successful and you felt pride in the fact that Stalin would want to see it, even if you didn't have any positive feelings towards Stalin himself. As the performance went on, the pride you had felt turns to dread as Stalin walks out mid performance. You understand this to be an omen of forthcoming denunciation.
  
  Within a week your fears are confirmed. Other musicians will not speak to you, the critics that had once praised your works now changed their minds. No one was commissioning your works. Trying to make the best of a bad situation you begin working on your fourth symphony. Little would you know this would be a mistake. A short while after rehearsals begin you receive a letter from the communist party asking you to publicly denounce the symphony. It was "too western" and :"formalist" to be performed in any capacity in the Soviet Union. You are only a little surprised at this turn of events. In the past year artists in all fields and their families were disappearing, with rumors circulating that they were either killed or sent to labor camps in Siberia. This music is your life's work, if you were a younger man you would have told the government to fuck off, but you have your family to think about now.
  
  > Oblidge
  You know what would happen if you said no to the party. You had no reason to believe the rumors of the Gulags. You withdraw your fourth symphony, as much as it pains you. You are still a struggling composer, the last year of work being reduced to nothing. Driven by your will to have your work listened to again you start a new symphony. This time you will abide by the Party's rules. It will be conservative, it will be neither too western nor too bourgeoisie. You don't like the constraints enforced upon you, but through sheer force of will you manage to make you best work yet within these limitations. At first you cannot find a concert hall that will have you, but once you show the music to the right people they realize what you have made. It is a masterpiece. With one symphony you have gone from a public enemy to a national hero. You are offered a position at the Leningrad conservatory where you begin to teach composition, entrusted to teach the next generation of Soviet composers how to compose Soviet music.
  
  Two years after the public release of your fifth symphony the Soviet Union gets involved in the second world war. Unlike countless able-bodied Soviet men you are not drafted to fight. This brings you great relief.and you spend the war composing wartime symphonies.
  
  Shortly after the Allied Forces victory in the European stage you are covertly contacted by an American spy. He offers you and your family an escape from the Soviet Union,he promises a land of opportunity where you could compose without fear of an authoritarian government. The offer is tempting, but Russia is your home.
  
  > go to America
  One summer night you, your wife, and your two children board an American plane. You land, nearly a full day later in Washington D.C. It is explained to you that while the Soviets made a convenient ally in the war, the spread of communism was a plague on the world. You are inclined to agree. In the immediate future you are to talk to journalists about your experiences in the Soviet Union and how happy you are to be an American. You accept this task, even though you don't see yourself as an American.
  
  When the media tour is done you begin working on your tenth symphony. Out of name recognition and interest in a Soviet defector alone you manage to premier the symphony to quite a large audience, however it becomes abundantly clear to you that classical music is not appreciated in the United States as it was in Russia. Your works become increasingly experimental, as you no longer have to appease any censorship bureaus. You become one of America's most famous composers, but never enjoy the fame you had in the Soviet Union. The bittersweet feeling will last for the rest of your life.