Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (1906-1975) - composer, pianist; People's Artist of the USSR (1954); laureate of the Stalin (1941, 1942, 1946, 1950, 1952), Lenin (1958) and State (1968) prizes, Hero of Socialist Labor (1966). In 1941, in besieged Leningrad, he began to write the Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony dedicated to the city
