Testimony (book) - Shostakovich and Volkov

Shostakovich and Volkov

A second argument against the book is that Volkov did not meet Shostakovich often enough to have received the material. Shostakovich’s widow, Irina, has stated that Volkov met him only three or four times. His ill-health at the time meant that she rarely left him, so that she would have known about any other meetings.

However, some other witnesses support Volkov’s version. In particular, the composer’s friend Flora Litvinova recalls Shostakovich saying, in reference to an unnamed Leningrad musicologist (Volkov was from Leningrad): “We now meet constantly, and I tell him everything I remember about my works and myself. He writes it down, and at a subsequent meeting I look it over.”

Also Maxim Shostakovich has commented on Testimony and Volkov more favourably after 1991 when the Soviet regime fell. To Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov, he confirmed that his father had told him about "meeting a young man from Leningrad who knows his music extremely well" and that "Volkov did meet with Shostakovich to work on his reminiscences". Maxim emphasized repeatedly: "I am a supporter both of Testimony and of Volkov."