Musicology Annotation << Back On the 90th Anniversary of the Creation of the Greatest Masterpiece of the Sowiet Era: about the Meaningful Concept of Dmitry Shostakovich’ Fourth Symphony Devutsky Vladislav The Fourth Symphony in the work of Dmitry Shostakovich marks a turning point, after which there is a sharp change in both the composer’s style and, to some extent, his entire worldview. The analysis of the contentious concept of this work is conducted in two directions: 1) as an indisputable culmination of the modernist stage in the development of Russian musical art; 2) as the direct refl ection of the country’s socio-political life, which would eventually become a crucial feature of Shostakovich’s music (‘war” symphonies, “thaw” symphonies, and compositions dedicated to the country’s “socialist achievements”). The false, pain-fi lled C major apotheosies of the fi nale, the endless funeral procession, and the multitude of malicious and sarcastic images that reflect the terrible mirror world of our country in the 1930s become the semantic markers that capture the tragic essence of Stalin’s political course in the Fourth Symphony. Keywords: Dmitry Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony, a crossroads between Soviet modernism and socialist realism, refl ects the tragic perception of the new realities of the time. DOI: 10.25791/musicology.7.2026.1494 Pp. 03-12.