Volume 133

   The film The Meeting on the Elbe, made in 1948-1949 at the Mosfilm studio, begins a period in Shostakovich’s work when, following the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the opera The Great Friendship by Vano Muradeli, he participated in three propaganda films: in addition to The Meeting on the Elbe directed by Grigory Aleksandrov, he also composed music to two films by Mikhail Chiaureli—The Fall of Berlin (1950) and The Unforgettable Year 1919 (1952).

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