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Prokofiev had since become involved with Mira Mendelson. He
separated from Lina in 1941, although he never formally divorced her. Meanwhile, Lina had endured
terrible hardships during and after the war. Separated from Sergei for several years
and forced to raise Oleg and Sviatoslav on her own, Lina endured in
war-torn Moscow. She was stricken with diphtheria towards the end of the
war. To pile insult on top of tragedy, the Supreme Soviet decreed in
February 1947 that Soviet citizens were forbidden from marrying foreigners.
The law was one in a series of increasingly draconian measures passed by
Stalin and his henchmen in the years following the war. The law was applied
retroactively, thus nullifying Prokofiev's marriage with Lina. Times were desperate
for her. Many other spouses and friends of prominent Soviet citizens at the time
were exiled or executed on phony charges. It was in this climate that Lina tried
to leave Russia with her sons.
It is not known how much Prokofiev tried to help Lina in her attempts to flee the Soviet Union. For certain Prokofiev had much to fear from attempting to assist his wife. Thousands of military and cultural leaders suspected of disloyalty were executed in Stalin's brutal purges after the war. Prokofiev married Mira in 1948, barely a year after the decree nullified his marriage with Lina. A month after Sergei and Mira were married, Lina was arrested on phony charges of espionage and sent to a labor camp in Komi. There she remained for eight years. Lina was eventually released from prison and lived in Moscow until 1972, when she returned to the West. Meanwhile, Prokofiev, in spite of his deteriorating health, continued to compose. His work ethic, which is to say his propensity to overwork, complicated his health problems. Even long spells in the hospital did not deter his composing. In commemoration of the end of the war, he wrote the Ode to the End of the War for a mixed ensemble including 8 harps, 4 pianos, wind, percussion and double basses. Among major works completed after the War, Prokofiev wrote the Symphony No. 6 (1945-4), the magnificent Violin Sonata No 2 in D Major (1947), the ballet the Tale of the Stone Flower (1948-50), and two striking works for Cello: the Sonata for Cello and Piano Op.119 (1949) and the Sinfonia Concertante for Cello and Orchestra (1950-51.) Both of the cello works were composed with the collaboration of Prokofiev's friend Mstislav Rostropovich. Rostropovich and Richter premiered both pieces. More characteristic of pieces in the last years are either revisions to earlier works, or works which were never completed. In the latter category, Prokofiev returned to one of his vaunted forms, the piano sonata. He started early sketches for the Tenth Piano Sonata, but never completed it. He planned an Eleventh Piano Sonata and a concerto for two pianos and string orchestra, but never put notes to paper. The last of his complete Piano Sonatas, the Ninth, was completed in 1947 and premiered by Richter. Complicating life was the increasing cultural repression of paranoid Soviet leaders. With the onset of the Cold War, Stalin further isolated his people from the countries of the West, reaffirming the superiority of Communist orthodoxy in culture and ideology. Chief architect of the return to Soviet orthodoxy in the arts was Andrei Zhdanov, then a member of the newly reformed elite Politburo. Zhdanov systematically went through works of literature, film, and art, publically denouncing works with any reputed tie to the West. This orgy of government denouncements, censorship, and intimidation became known as Zhdanovshchina ('Zhdanov's Terror'.) Prokofiev became the target in early 1948. Zhdanov denounced Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Khatchaturian among other composers, as too cosmopolitan and formalist.
The effect on Prokofiev, weakened by illness, was demoralizing. He made
a few half-hearted attempts to defend himself and his music. Now out
of official favor, Prokofiev struggled to balance his inner artistic
desires with his love of country. To appease Zhdanov and the cultural
apartchiks, Prokofiev churned out a series of unspectacular and bland
patriotic works, including the Festive
Poem "Thirty Years" for Orchestra (1947), the opera Story
of a Real Man (1947-48), Winter Bonfire (1949-50),
and the oratorio On Guard for Peace (1950).
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Further compounding Prokofiev's worsening conditions were the deaths
of many of his dearest friends. Miaskovsky's death in August of 1950
culminated this low point in his life.
Down but not beaten, Prokofiev still managed to compose works of import. Perhaps Prokofiev's final substantive work is his somber Symphony No. 7, composed in 1951 and 1952. Composed for young listeners and in such a dark period of tragedy and cultural repression, the Seventh Symphony is variously viewed as overly simplistic or banal by its critics, but with dark emotions beneath the surface it endures as one of his more oft-played symphonies today. The public debut of the Seventh Symphony was to be Prokofiev's last public appearance. The end was tragically ironic. Sergei Prokofiev died on the same day as Stalin -- 05-March-1953. In fact, his death went unpublished and unknown to anyone but close friends for days. He had died of a massive brain hemmorage about an hour before Stalin. The excess of state-ordered mourning after the death of Stalin cast one final, disgraceful shadow over Prokofiev. Because of the official mourning for Stalin, only about 40 people were able to attend a civil funeral the next day at the Composers' Union. David Oistrakh played the first and third movements from the First Violin Sonata in F minor. Richter also attended the ceremony. Prokofiev's body was later buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
Prokofiev was posthumously awarded the Lenin Prize in 1957 for
his Seventh Symphony.
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