An essay on Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 “The Year 1905,” performed by the Osaka Philharmonic, connected with memories of a world history class at Sendai Daini High School. The work is discussed through Tolstoy, the Russian intelligentsia, Bloody Sunday, state power, the tragedy of the people, and the final warning bell of history.

When I think of Russia in those days, that is, of the situation before and after the revolution, I cannot help remembering my world history class in high school.
At Sendai Daini High School, my beloved alma mater, there was a world history teacher who was admired by almost all the students.
He was also an alumnus of Sendai Daini High School.
He had wanted to enter Kyoto University, but because of family circumstances, he went on to Tohoku University, which stands just above our alma mater, and eventually became a world history teacher at the very school he had once attended.
His classes were not mere memorization of dates and events.
He taught history in a way that made us feel the people behind it, the atmosphere of an age, the fearfulness of the state, and the breath of the people as if they were right before our eyes.
Many of the students of that time must still remember the name Gina Lollobrigida, which he often mentioned during class.
I have just searched her name for the first time to confirm who she was, and I was surprised.
Gina Lollobrigida was not merely a beautiful actress of a bygone age.
She was an international star who represented postwar Italian cinema, a woman once called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” and in later years she also worked as a photographer and sculptor.
Only now do I feel that I understand why that teacher so often mentioned her name in class.
For him, world history was not a dead description inside a textbook.
The Russian Revolution, Italian cinema, and the air of Europe were all alive within the same single world.
And there is one memory of that teacher that I can never forget.
When the unit on the Russian Revolution began, he said this in the classroom.
“Kisara knows more about this than I do.”
And then, twice, for a total of two hours, I was made to stand at the teacher’s desk in his place.
I was a high school student, yet I stood at the front of the classroom of my beloved alma mater and spoke to my classmates about Russia on the eve of the Russian Revolution.
This was because he knew that, while I was still in junior high school, I had already read the major works of Tolstoy, and not only that, I had already recognized Anna Karenina as the greatest novel in human history.
Why were so many members of the Russian intelligentsia of that time possessed by a desire for suicide?
Many of them were sons of great aristocratic families.
Their vast estates, stretching far beyond the horizon, were maintained by the existence of serfs.
I think he felt that I understood this more deeply than he did.
Even now, when I think back on it, it seems almost unbelievable.
But there was a teacher who allowed it, and who entrusted it to me.
I think he saw something in me.
One day, as I passed him in the corridor, he stopped me.
He knew that I had decided to go to Kyoto University.
And he said this to me.
“You must remain at Kyoto University and carry Kyoto University on your back.”
As I write this now, I am weeping uncontrollably.
What a life it has been.
As I prepare to hear Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 “The Year 1905” at tomorrow’s Osaka Philharmonic subscription concert, I first remember that world history class.
And I remember the voice of that teacher.
Russia in 1905.
Bloody Sunday.
Imperial Russia.
The people’s petition.
And gunfire by state power.
These are not mere historical terms.
Shostakovich turned them into music.
I would now like to explain this work to my readers in my own way.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 “The Year 1905” is not merely historical music.
It is a symphony that depicts the bloody memory of pre-revolutionary Russia as a vast mural of sound.
The subtitle “The Year 1905” refers to Bloody Sunday, which took place in January 1905 in Saint Petersburg, the capital of imperial Russia.
Workers and citizens marched toward the Winter Palace to petition the emperor for improvements in their lives.
But what awaited them was not an ear willing to listen, but bullets.
This event became one of the great fuses leading to the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Shostakovich depicts this event in four movements.
The first movement is “The Palace Square.”
In its frozen stillness, the anxiety and silence of the people spread out before us.
The music has not yet exploded.
Yet within that stillness, the terrifying pressure of history is already present.
The second movement is “The Ninth of January.”
Here the music suddenly begins to move.
The people’s march, cries, confusion, and massacre.
Shostakovich’s music does not merely explain the event.
It makes the listener stand at the scene itself.
This is not history viewed from afar.
It is history in which people fall before our eyes.
The third movement is “Eternal Memory.”
Here, mourning is sung for those who fell.
I believe that the essence of Shostakovich lies in movements such as this.
He does not weep loudly.
But in silence, he places the deepest grief.
This music is a funeral procession for the dead, and at the same time, the very memory of those who survived.
The fourth movement is “The Tocsin.”
Here, anger and accusation flare up once again.
The massacre has not ended.
Memory does not disappear.
And the bell that resounds at the end is not so much a bell of victory as a warning bell to human history.
Shostakovich wrote this symphony in 1957.
On the surface, it was created as a Soviet work praising the prehistory of the Russian Revolution.
But Shostakovich’s music cannot be confined within such a simple frame of political propaganda.
When we listen to this work, the fear, anger, silence, and memory born when state power tramples the people approach us across time.
That is why this music does not depict only Russia in 1905.
It is music that depicts the tragedy of the entire twentieth century, and, further still, music that speaks directly to the world today.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 has clear melodies and a dramatic structure, and among his symphonies it is one of the most immediately accessible.
But it is not light because it is easy to understand.
Rather, it is frightening precisely because it is so clear.
The marching people, the gunfire, the mourning for the dead, and the warning bell that will not stop ringing.
All of these approach the listener with an almost cinematic vividness.
There is great significance in the fact that this work is placed at the end of tomorrow’s Osaka Philharmonic subscription concert.
It is a vast music of history, fully worthy of concluding the concert.
Rather than merely listening to beautiful music, we stand at the scene of history.
I believe that is the resolve with which we should listen to this work.
And when the final bell rings, we cannot simply end with applause.
What must human beings remember, and what must they never forget?
That is the question this music thrusts before us.
And at the same time, it is somehow deeply connected with the memory of that world history class I received in my high school days.