Master cellist, conductor, and accomplished pianist, Mstislav "Slava" Rostropovich died yesterday in Moscow. Here the master performs near Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall on November 12, 1989. . . A fierce crusader of artistic freedom during the Cold War, his many friends called him by "Slava," which means Glory in Russian.
“Explain to me, please, why in our literature and art so often people absolutely incompetent in this field have the final word . . . Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him.”
__Mstislav Rostropovich, letter to PRAVDA,Soviet State Newspaper,1970
Photo Credit: Reuters
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