Muddle Instead of Music

"Muddle Instead of Music: On the Opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" (Russian: Сумбур вместо музыки – Об опере «Леди Макбет Мценского уезда») is an editorial that appeared in the Soviet newspaper Pravda on 28 January 1936. The unsigned article condemned Dmitri Shostakovich's popular opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District as, among other labels, "formalist", "bourgeois", "coarse" and "vulgar". Immediately after publication rumors began to circulate that Joseph Stalin had written the opinion. While this is unlikely, it is almost certain that Stalin was aware of and agreed with the article.^[1] "Muddle Instead of Music" was a turning point in Shostakovich's career. The article has since become a well-known example of Soviet censorship of the arts.