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For years Mark Matsov, 61, has been a dedicated guardian of an endangered treasure. Crammed into 113 sq m of a decrepit six-bedroom apartment in downtown Tallinn, capital of Estonia, are some 50,000 mostly handwritten pages of music and manuscripts, and 1,500 hours of unique audio and video recordings of music by the great 20th century Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich. This cache of riches has been piling up at the apartment, home of Matsov's father, Roman, Shostakovich's favorite conductor. The works were performed and recorded against the will of Soviet bosses, who either banned Shostakovich or suspected him of "formalism" and other anti-Communist sins.

The persecution is commonly thought to have succeeded in breaking him, but as the recordings prove, the composer resisted with the help of Russian pianist Maria Yudina and Matsov's father. "This collection gives the lie to the myth of Shostakovich being cowed into abject submission by Stalin," says Matsov. "Shostakovich, my father and Yudina waged their own campaign of cultural resistance — and won." Beyond Shostakovich's daring work, this trio also organized public performances of over 400 mostly religious pieces, including works by Bach, Wagner, Haydn and Mahler that were banned in the U.S.S.R. The archive is an extraordinary resource on cultural life in the old Soviet Union.

Now it is in danger. In 1993 the house was restored to its lawful owners in the wake of the de-Sovietization of Estonia. Matsov, a Muscovite, cannot afford to spend much time in Estonia, and has been having increasing problems scraping together the $400 monthly rent. He expects to get through this summer on donations, but, he says: "Come the fall, the entire archive just might have to go. The landlords have been nice enough, but the market is the market, and this apartment may yield a better rent." Prominent Russians, such as writer Yevgeny Pasternak, son of Boris Pasternak, and Irina Arkhipova, president of the International Music Union, have called upon the public to help, but no financial savior has yet emerged. "No memory survives without the material evidence," says Matsov, gravely.

• YURI ZARAKHOVICH
• The race is on to preserve the legacy of Shostakovich