Page "Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich)" Paragraph 16

Between 1948 and 1952 Shostakovich composed a series of works in which the Jewish idiom played a part.

These works included the First Violin Concerto, the Fourth String Quartet, the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry the 24 Preludes and Fugues and the Four Monologues on Texts by Pushkin.

The composition of these works coincided roughly with the virulent state-sanctioned anti-Semitism prevalent in Russia in those years, as part of the anti-Western campaign of Zhdanovshchina.

The Soviet people were told that the Jews had to be excluded from Soviet life because they had an innate tendency to glorify the West.

Jewish intellectuals were persecuted and Jewish institutions were shut down.

While Shostakovich's music on the whole was virtually banned during this period due to the Zhdanov decree, smaller works such as the Fourth String Quartet and From Jewish Folk Poetry became widely known to many of the composer's compatriots through play-throughs at musicians ' homes.