Writers

Solomon Volkov

Born: 1944

Quick Study: Solomon Volkov is a Russian-American historian whose work focuses on Russian cultural history and its colorful figures.

The Volkov File: Many of Solomon Volkov’s writings draw on his professional training as a violinist and musicologist, and he has written books—some structured to document conversations—about such cultural figures as Dmitri Shostakovich, George Balanchine, and Joseph Brodsky. Volkov’s most recent book to appear in English translation is Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars, which begins with the first Romanovs and ends with Vladimir Lenin. Volkov emigrated to the United States in 1976 and has served as a cultural commentator on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Psssst………: The preface of Volkov’s St. Petersburg: A Cultural History begins with a twenty-one-year-old Volkov (a violinist) and three fellow string quartet members going to perform a private concert at the dacha of Anna Akhmatova, “It was probably the most unusual concert performance of my life—for an audience of one, a seventy-five-year-old grande dame in a black kimono worn over a festive pink dress, who sat majestically in a deep armchair, her eyes half shut.”

Volkov’s Places: Uroteppa/Leninabad, Tajikistan: Born. Leningrad: Studied at Leningrad Conservatory. New York City: Lives there.

The Word on Volkov: Publishers Weekly praised Conversations with Joseph Brodsky, writing “Happily, this solid book of talks shows Brodsky at his conversational, and very Russian, best.” In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews called Shostakovich and Stalin “An eye-opening look at the intersection of art and political power.”

Volkov on Volkov and Writing: In a 2011 interview with Chayka, Volkov said he wouldn’t have written all his books without his wife, Marianna, “She has participated in absolutely all my book projects in one way or another. It’s awkward for me to dedicate books to my wife, as many writers do, but each of my books is essentially dedicated to Marianna.” Volkov went on to mention that Marianna Volkov took seventy photos in his History of Russian Culture of the Twentieth Century, and that she has published ten photography books.

Volkov Recommends: In his 2011 interview with Chayka, Volkov said he thinks Mikhail Sholokhov’s Quiet Flows the Don is a great book. He also mentions enjoying reading essays by Lev Rubinstein and says he follows the work of Viktor Pelevin and Vladimir Sorokin.

 

Photo credit: Gennady Krochik


More on Volkov

Awards & Nominations:

  • Testimony – The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich – 1980 winner, in Antonina W. Bouis’s translation, of the Deems Taylor Award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

Translations:

  • Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars (Knopf, 2011, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)
  • The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn (Knopf, 2008, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)
  • Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator (Knopf, 2004, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)
  • Conversations with Joseph Brodsky: A Poet’s Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Free Press, 1998, tr. Marian Schwartz)
  • St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (Free Press, 1997, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)
  • Balanchine’s Tchaikovsky: Conversations with Balanchine on His Life, Ballet, and Music (Anchor, 1992, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)
  • From Russia to the West: the Musical Memoirs and Reminiscences of Nathan Milstein, co-written with Nathan Milstein (Henry Holt, 1990, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)
  • Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (Limelight Editions, 1979/2004, tr. Antonina W. Bouis)

Other Selected Titles:

  • Москва / Modern Moscow: История культуры в рассказах и диалогах (Modern Moscow: A History of Culture in Stories and Dialogues), 2019
  • Диалоги с Евгением Евтушенко (Dialogues with Yevgeny Yevtushenko), 2018, with Anna Nelson
  • Большой театр. Культура и политика. Новая история (The Bolshoi Theater. Culture and Politics. A New History), 2018
  • Диалоги с Владимиром Спиваковым (Dialogues with Vladimir Spivakov), 2017

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