[Kathy in Alaska]

Thanks, Publius, for Rachmaninov’s “The Star Spangled Banner”. ((HUGS))

[Publius]

Rachmaninov always hoped that the Russian people would develop some sanity and remove the Bolsheviks from power. He was careful about criticizing the Soviet Union from his safe perches in New York and Beverly Hills. When he finally wrote a measured letter to the New York Times in 1938 about the Soviet state, he found himself condemned back in his old country.

By World War II, he had given up hope of ever returning home, and as he was dying of cancer in 1943, he gave up any hope of being buried in the sacred soil of Mother Russia.

Three weeks before his death, he became an American citizen. It was his final political statement.

He is buried in Valhalla, NY, not too far from another Russian émigré who found her voice in America, Ayn Rand.