Atlanta Could Have Survived the Civil War Intact With Its Own Shostakovich — US Official
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WASHINGTON (Sputnik), Dmitri Zlodorev — Atlanta may have avoided destruction during the Civil War had the US city had such a composer as Dmitri Shostakovich, US Commission of Fine Arts Chairman Rodney Mims Cook Jr. told Sputnik. «Russia has proved it during the siege of Leningrad that culture and music can improve the situation. If my beautiful city, Atlanta … had had a person like Shostakovich, maybe it would still be in place in its historical form,» Cook said. Shostakovich, a famous Russian composer, wrote his Symphony No. 7, known as the «Leningrad Symphony,» during the Nazi siege of Leningrad in 1941. The siege of Leningrad continued from 1941 to 1944, lasting 872 days. The commissioner pointed out that the Shostakovich masterpiece was broadcast to the Nazis’ outposts near Leningrad and undermined the morale of the German soldiers. «Those young people in the German army said: if the Russians can create such astonishing music in the middle of this bombardment, we will never defeat them,» Cook said. The world premiere of Shostakovich’s «Leningrad Symphony» took place in the Soviet city of Kuybyshev (now Samara) on March 5, 1942, while the masterpiece was first performed in Leningrad under siege on August 9, 1942. Leningrad was cut off by Nazi German and axis troops on September 8, 1941. The siege was broken on January 18, 1943, but it was not fully lifted until a year later — on January 27, 1944. In October 2022, the St. Petersburg City Court recognized the actions of the Nazis during the siege of Leningrad as a war crime and genocide of the Soviet people. Those who died as a result of the blockade numbered at least 1,093,842. Atlanta was damaged by fires twice in the fall of 1864, first when the retreating Confederate forces torched the city’s military infrastructure, and later when the Union Army burnt the remaining military and commercial facilities.
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