Man Without a Country

When he came to America in 1975, he did not apply for U.S. citizenship; he did not want to stop being a Russian. "As artists," he said, "we must be able to play what we want, where and when we want, with whom we want." That creed is perfectly acceptable in Washington, D.C., where Mstislav Rostropovich has achieved a rousing success as conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra, but last week it proved unacceptable in Moscow. In a decree signed by Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev, Rostropovich and his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, were deprived of their Soviet citizenship as "ideological renegades." "Slava" Rostropovich called the action "inhumane and unfair." U.S. officials said they would be happy to grant him refugee status whenever he requested it. But neither in Russia nor America can a piece of paper define Rostropovich's overflowing identity.

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