MUSIC

The Soviet government newspaper Izvestia has urged authorities to restore citizenship to cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, more than a decade after his passport was taken away. The newspaper on Monday published an interview from Paris with Rostropovich detailing his ill treatment by Soviet authorities in the 1970s and added a demand by its correspondent for his full rehabilitation. “To restore Soviet citizenship to Rostropovich and Galina Vishenevskaya (his wife) means to restore justice,” Izvestia said. Rostropovich, 61, left the Soviet Union with Vishenevskaya, an opera singer, in 1974, saying authorities had prevented him from playing. They were stripped of their citizenship in March, 1978, amid accusations they had ignored repeated warnings to return home and carried out work for anti-Soviet organizations.