In 1984, the Georgian director Tengiz Abuladze made a film called Repentance. It was quickly banned  for its truly daring allegorical depiction of Stalin’s terror and how future generations of leaders suppress the truth of the crimes of their ancestors. However, Gorbachev’s glasnost policies unearthed the film and allowed for its domestic and international release […]

Russian composers contributed greatly to the genre of programmatic symphonic works. Although many were initially attracted to it by Spanish inspirations, one reason for the genre’s eventual massive popularity was that it gave the composers a popular musical form to incorporate not only native Russian tunes and harmonic structures, but also to focus on other […]