David Zaslavsky

David Zaslavsky studied at Imperial University of St. Vladimir. The recorded working language is Yiddish and Russian. Employment is recorded with Higher Party School at the Central Committee of the CPSU. Distinctions recorded are Order of Lenin, Order of the Badge of Honour, Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class and Order of the Red Banner of Labour.

After his death, Zaslavsky grew infamous for his role as a staff journalist at Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and especially for his purported contribution to the anonymous editorial of 28 January 1936, "Muddle Instead of Music". The article condemned Dmitri Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for formalism, led to its removal from the stage, and even implied dire consequences for the composer unless he altered his compositional style. Already in his (probably fabricated and unreliable) Testimony (1979), the musicologist Solomon Volkov has Shostakovich say that many believed Zaslavsky was the author of the editorial, though Shostakovich himself believed it was actually written by Stalin. Although other names circulated, further evidence emerged in support of Zaslavsky's authorship. In 1991, the Russian musicologist Iosif Rïzhkin claimed that Zaslavsky had acknowledged writing the article. Later, in 2006, Yevgeniy Yefimov, drawing on Zaslavsky's archives, where drafts of the article and relevant diary entries were found, published additional proof of his authorship. Simon Morrison and Richard Taruskin have accepted this evidence as definitive.