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Shostakovich had been in the city of Leningrad and had been enduring the brutal Siege of Leningrad as the German forces tried to starve the city into submission. Shostakovich wrote the symphony during 1941. Shostakovich and his family were evacuated from the city due to their celebrity status, but the symphony's premier was held in the battered city. The city's emaciated orchestra, many of whose members had already died in the siege, gave a rousing performance that was broadcast across Russia and later in the west as well. The symphony's American premier was conducted by Arturo Toscanini in New York. It became very popular in the United States as the embodiment of the fighting Russian spirit, but it has been little heard since. It is often considered overly bombastic and little more than Soviet propaganda. In recent years it has become more popular, along with the rest of Shostakovich's work, and the piece has become viewed as a condemnation of both Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism.
The symphony is Shostakovich's longest. The symphony is best known for one episode, in which a jaunty, somewhat sinister march is repeated over and over, getting louder each time, in the manner of Maurice Ravel's Bolero. The march lasts for twenty-minutes and was traditionally viewed as a clear representation of the fascist invaders. Bela Bartok parodied this movement in his Concerto for Orchestra. In modern times scholars have argued the march actually shows Russia's destruction emanating from within.