Talk:Tikhon Khrennikov

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In a brief conversation with Neeme Järvi, I mentioned to him Tikhon Khrennikov. He seemed a little upset, but due to the brevity of the conversation, did not ellaborate, only saying that Khrennikov did bad things to Prokofiev and Shostokovich, but also somehow protected younger Russian composers. Dmetric 20:45, 5 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I seem to remember not-very-positive things about him in Testimony, though I may be mistaken: it's a few years since I read it, and I don't have a copy to hand. You might want to check it out if you're looking to expand the article. --Camembert

He did more good than he is credited for

Let's put his actions in prospective and look at the big picture of life under the Stalin's dictatorship.

Khrennikov acted as a moderator, or a cushion between the Stalin's political gang of censors and prosecutors, and the group of highly creative composers and other intellectuals. Could anybody else do what Khrennikov did in his position "between a rock and a hard place" - we do not know, because nobody wanted to be in that position under Stalin. In 1935 and 1936 Stalin personally attacked Shostakovich and Aleksei Dikiy, after seeing Katerina Izmailova. At that time Khrennikov was still a student who saw the attack on Shostakovich and Dikiy in Pravda in January of 1936, so he had to behave with caution under the Stalin's regime. Caution secured his stay in the office in order to protect his other colleagues during the hard times, and he did help many people. It was a thankless job, because envy was almost as bad a factor as was the fear of Stalin, many lives were ruined by false accusations and anonymous reports. A thankless and dangerous job, albeit Khrennikov did it with a much less bloody outcome, compared to what was going on in the Union of Soviet Writers.

Just imagine a young graduate in 1936 or 1937 opposing Stalin..., he would be exterminated, and we could have a much worse scenario in music life without Khrennikov, than we had with him. Let's not forget also that it was Kabalevsky (and older colleague of Khrennikov), who personally censored Shostakovich's opera with his hypocritical words: "It is about infidelity and murder" (isn't that in almost every classic opera?!). At that time Khrennikov acted as a buffer between many conflicting forces, and he managed to deal with all sorts of people and groups of interests.

Things became a bit different after Stalin's death in 1953, but the political struggle between the top communists had never stopped, and it was hurting intellectuals. A stable figure, such as Khrennikov, was better than the alternative. Envy and fear did not disappear from the Soviet reality, so Khrennikov was repeatedly "elected" as a stabilizing figure, as a steady and reliable buffer between many factions. He was the one who contributed to the Composers Union in many ways. He should be credited for many improvements and upgrades to living and working conditions of many hundreds of composers, and for helping their works being published, recorded and performed by major state orchestras (we do not have the same picture today). He also credited his good adviser, actually a circle of wise people around him, who were instrumental in complex relations with the everchanging Soviet leadership. I met Tikhon Nikolaevich in person, he was a warm and thoughtful man. Steveshelokhonov 20:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've just read this article, and your comment, and am a little stunned at how much it glosses over his misdeeds. You bring up an interesting perspective, but knowing what I know about Khrennikov from reading several books about the atmosphere for Soviet Composers during the 40's and early 50's, this smacks of whitewashing the active role he adopted in the persecution of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Yes, it was Kabalevsky who fired a shot at Lady Macbeth, but Khrennikov was first in line to attack most of the two composers' output, and actively tried to block publication of many of their greatest works. Many of the anecdotes from other composers depict him as easily swayed in this regard by jealousy, that he was quick to denounce a work of genius with one of his favorite "-ism"s. Junggai (talk) 09:16, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I would just point out that Wikipedia is not the place to decide on whether or not Khrennikov was over- or underrated. We are a clearing house for published information, not a court of judgment, and we have to maintain a neutral point of view and stick to reporting facts. It seems to me self-evident that Khrennikov's reputation is controversial, and that therefore the current article won't do - but neither will an article written from the opposite point of view. (From the very fact that his reputation is being strongly contested on this Discussion page, it follows that he is a controversial figure.) I have never read a good word about him, but I am prepared to believe that good words have been written about him; I just want to see them. In the meantime, this article has other flaws than violation of NPOV. It shows all the evidence of having been written by someone for whom English is very much a second language and Russian is the first one. At the very least, the language needs to be cleaned up and proper citations have to be provided. Lexo (talk) 01:16, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Unbalanced Article

I've added several challenges to this article's point-of-view, which I find gives undue weight to the opinion that Khrennikov was a basically magnanimous party official. The opposing viewpoint is discussed in only one sentence, that he was "viewed negatively" in biographies of Prokofiev and Shostakovich. This completely whitewashes the voluminousness of personal reminiscences by other composers and musicians who lived in that time, as well as the overwhelmingly negative view taken not just by biographers of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, but by writers on the period in general. This article needs a more robust discussion of the other side before its neutrality becomes acceptable. As it is, it reads a little like a hagiography.Junggai (talk) 09:53, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, the majority of the positive opinion of Khrennikov comes from his obituary in the Economist, which is unsigned. Obituaries are typically not the best references, and this one is no exception. One can't expect citations, but there seem to be too many unverifiable claims in it. There shouldn't be too much weight in this article on unverifiable things which Khrennikov himself claimed to be true. He also claimed late in life that Prokofiev never suffered at his hands, and that he never persecuted composers for anything other than financial crimes, both verifiably false. If anything, his claims to innocence should be limited to one sentence, not the other way around.Junggai (talk) 10:09, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

RfC:Undoing recent edits

The above-mentioned problems this page used to have seemed to have been fixed (as of this edit), but then another user came and rewrote practically the entire article, eliminating a lot of well-sourced material and adding no references of their own. As it stands, it again reads like a glowing biography of a controversial figure. I'm holding off on restoring the earlier version until I can get some input, preferably from an admin. I realize that reverting and restoring is usually an action reserved for pure vandalism, which User:TeeJay87's edits are not, but I'm unaware of what the policy is with an editor totally rewriting an article without discussing it first, especially if the result is much poorer-referenced than before. Do any future edits have to respect the article as it stands and re-add content which has been lost in the process? Junggai (talk) 20:45, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is okay to undo edits from another editor, if you have good reason to believe they degrade the quality of the article, or violate WP policies. Specifically, if the edits removed citations (footnotes) and shifted into an uncited essay format, that violates the WP:Verifiability policy. Furthermore, the editor (TeeJay87) that made those changes, as shown here has very little edit history, and edited this single article (see WP:SPA). I've taken the liberty of reverting the questionable edits. If TeeJay87 wants to make improvements to the article (and it is very possible they have some good material to contribute), the best process would be for them to propose changes here in the Talk page first, and to ensure that sources (footnotes) are supplied. --Noleander (talk) 14:47, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. This was what I suspected, but I wanted to stay on the safe side. Despite my protestations above, I'm not against there being more neutral and positive information about Khrennikov on the page. There seem however to many many editors like TeeJay87 who come and remove information about his controversial role in the Composer's Union, and add multiple paragraphs of completely uncited material asserting what a nice guy he was. Junggai (talk) 21:41, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

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