Shostakovich's third wife
Journalist Elena Yakovich interviewed Irina Antonovna, whose accounts shed a nuanced light on the events of the composer’s final years.
This slim volume sparks interest in the final period of Shostakovich’s life, which is arguably the least well-documented. His third wife, Irina Antonovna—28 years his junior—was by his side for the last 13 years of his life. Even today, at the age of 91, she is still working on his estate. That is why it is worth reading these conversations with her, conducted by Russian journalist Elena Yakovich in 2021, which also touch on the background story in a few sections.
Irina was three years old when her father was arrested by Stalin’s henchmen and sentenced to eight years in prison; her mother died that same year. Her descriptions of her childhood in blockaded Leningrad, which was under siege for more than two years, are striking. The fact that, as a seven-year-old orphan, she came to live in the house where the composer Shostakovich resided was a strange coincidence that repeated itself twenty years later when, as a literary editor at the Soviet Composers’ Publishing House, she edited libretto texts and attended meetings where Shostakovich was also present. She was then commissioned to write the libretto for his operetta Moscow, Cheryomushki (Op. 105, 1958) and, if necessary, to correct it.
An Unromantic Marriage
Irina recounts how they got married in 1962 in a reserved manner, without romanticizing the story. For her, it was a realistic, unpoetic, and strictly professional relationship, the emotional side of which she only gradually came to realize. She attended several world premieres with him and thus also experienced the difficulties surrounding the 13th Symphony Babi Yar. For the «Thaw»—the period of Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign—was coming to an end. The years leading up to Shostakovich’s death were once again marked by Stalin-like repression. Irina was now a patient source of support to him in his daily life, which was hampered by heart attacks and falls but nevertheless burdened by public duties, travel, and performances.
Some events described in the scholarly literature are clarified through the statements contained herein—such as the forged signature on the open letter from Sakharov’s opponents. However, she never puts herself in the spotlight and, since Dmitri’s death in 1975, has been working tirelessly to organize his estate and to bring about a complete edition of his works.
Elena Yakovich: Just the Two of Us. Irina Antonovna Shostakovich – My Life with Dmitri Shostakovich, 120 pp., €20.00, Jaron, Berlin 2025, ISBN 978-3-89773-185-1
