4 Dmitri Shostakovich Quotes on History

Dmitri Shostakovich quotes on history

15. I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.

17. Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it, it's multifaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It is almost always laughter through tears. This quality of Jewish folk music is close to my idea of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express despair in dance music.

26. 'I shall never forget that event - a boy was brutally killed by a Cossack with his sabre.'

32. He did not write about this war and that revolution, but about war and revolution in general, the state of mind and emotion, not facts.