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ABOUT THE BOOK
NO SPOILERSSymphony for the City of the Dead tells the story of Dmitri Shostakovich, a Russian composer who grew up in St. Petersburg during some of the most violent decades in history, surviving the Russian Revolution, Stalinist purges, and the Nazi siege of his city during World War II. As Shostakovich watched friends and colleagues disappear into labor camps and faced constant government pressure to make his music conform to Communist ideals, he kept composing; his Seventh Symphony, written as bombs fell on Leningrad, became a symbol of resistance so powerful that it was smuggled out of the Soviet Union on microfilm and broadcast around the world.
Free Battle of the Books questions for Symphony for the City of the Dead
SPOILERSEvery one of these has the same answer, and that is the point. In a real battle the question is read aloud with a dozen other books in play, and students have a few seconds to place it. Here is what a battle might ask about Symphony for the City of the Dead. Use them as a quiz, a trivia round, or BOTB practice.
Where in the book they come from
- Early in the book
In what book does a strip of microfilm travel from Russia to Tehran, Cairo, Brazil, and finally the United States?
✓ Answer
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
The opening describes the ten-thousand-mile journey of the microfilm carrying Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony, smuggled across battle lines and oceans so it could be performed for Western audiences during World War II.
- First half
In what book is a marshal's railway carriage quietly decoupled at a wooded halt called "The Bandits"?
✓ Answer
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
Marshal Tukhachevsky woke alone in a stranded sleeping car surrounded by NKVD agents and silent forest. He was taken back to Moscow, tortured, and shot in the courtyard of secret-police headquarters.
- First half
In what book is a man told that his interrogator has himself been arrested, so the questioning has been canceled?
✓ Answer
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
The young composer arrived at "the Big House" expecting to be arrested. A confused guard explained that the investigator Zakovsky had been condemned over the weekend, sparing the composer in an absurdist twist of the Great Terror.
- Second half
In what book does a small boy on a train mistake drifting German paratroopers for balloons?
✓ Answer
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
On August 25, a boy cried "Look at the balloons!" as German paratroopers landed in a field near Mga. The conductor accelerated, and the train roared on, the last to escape before the encirclement closed.
- Second half
In what book is a Soviet tank force revealed to be wooden dummies built by set designers?
✓ Answer
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
General Zhukov pointed angrily at the situation map and learned the tanks were theatrical decoys nailed together by Mariinsky Theater set designers. He demanded another hundred of the fakes by morning, one of the strangest contributions of the arts to the war.
- Near the end
In what book do trucks race across Lake Ladoga's frozen surface with doors wedged open?
✓ Answer
Symphony for the City of the Dead by M.T. Anderson
The Road of Life ran from Osinovets to Kobona, with drivers competing to make multiple trips per shift. Lone figures in winter capes waved poppy-red flags warning of holes in the ice as German shells rained down.
