It was a freezing January day in the city of Archangel, Russia. A man named Dmitri Shostakovich picked up the latest issue of Pravda at the newsstands, which were unusually full today. "Wow, that's really tough!" “Are Pravda's expectations that high?” people whispered to each other. After reading it briefly, Shostakovich had a fit of frustration and anger. This newspaper called his music “degenerate and decadent” (Stevens)! There is no way Pravda could destroy his music so badly. In fact, the article was written on the orders of a distraught Josef Stalin. These two Russian titans influenced Russian culture between 1930 and 1950. They absolutely hated each other! The tension between the two radiated throughout Shostakovich's music and Stalin's iron-fisted attitude towards his symphonies. Stalin manipulated composers to the point of committing suicide for defying his wishes, and he was not afraid to do so with Shostakovich. Somehow, Shostakovich dared to resist Stalin's evil ways and became a “brilliant and internationally famous composer. Shostakovich was not the first to be exploited by malevolent leaders. Tsar Nicholas I “cruelly manipulated Alexander Pushkin” (Dmitri) and St. Petersburg, as depicted by Russian poets and writers, was “a place of “doubles” and ruined lives.” (Volkov, Testimony xx) In the Russian biographer Solomon Volkov eyes, “this is what happened to artists in a cruel age.” (Dmitri) During Stalin's reign of terror, influence over the people was a crucial thing, so he wanted to have a firm grip on the liberal arts in Russia. A good example of his manipulation of artists in Russia was when it was said that Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of The Master and Margarita, would leave the Soviet Union... in the middle of paper... or multimedia history. , Volume 2 (1999). Long Island University, October 22, 1999. Web. December 17, 2013. Schalks, Arnold. "Arnold Schalks, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, confusion instead of music." Arnold Schalks, Lady Macbeth of the Mcensk District, confusion instead of music. Np, 31 January 2013. Web. 15 December 2013. Shostakovich, Dmitriĭ Dmitrievich and Solomon Volkov. Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Print. Stevens, David. "Shostakovich's Revenge on Stalin." The New York Times. The New York Times, December 23, 2004. Web. December 17, 2013. Volkov, Solomon, and Antonina W. Bouis. Shostakovich and Stalin: the extraordinary relationship between the great composer and the brutal dictator. New York: Knopf, 2004. Print.