The paper examines the Soviet composer Isaak Dunayevsky's role in Soviet culture on the example of the operetta Free Wind (1947). The operetta enjoyed a great popular success but was often a target of ideological objections coming from hegemonic Soviet cultural agents.
Exploring the material of Dunayevsky's diaries and correspondence and the material of period press and archival documents, the paper describes and analyses Dunayevsky's positions in confrontation with the late-Stalinist cultural politics.