Editing Sergei Prokofiev (section)

=== Death ===
[[File:Novodevicij Cemetery Sergei Prokofiev (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright|Prokofiev's grave in [[Novodevichy Cemetery]]. His wife Mira's gravestone is at the bottom.]]
Prokofiev died of [[Hypertensive crisis]] at age 61 on 5 March 1953, the same day as [[Joseph Stalin]]. He had lived in a [[communal apartment]] on [[Chamberlain Lane]] next to the [[Red Square]], and for three days throngs [[Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin|gathered to mourn Stalin]], making it impossible to hold Prokofiev's funeral service at the headquarters of the [[Union of Russian Composers|Soviet Composers' Union]]. Because the hearse was not allowed near Prokofiev's house, his coffin had to be moved by hand through back streets in the opposite direction of the masses of people going to visit Stalin's body. About 30 people attended the funeral, Shostakovich among them. Although they had not seemed to get along when they met, in the later years their interactions had become far more amicable, with Shostakovich writing to Prokofiev, "I wish you at least another hundred years to live and create. Listening to such works as your Seventh Symphony makes it much easier and more joyful to live."{{sfn|Ross|2007|pp=282–283}} Prokofiev is buried in Moscow's [[Novodevichy Cemetery]].<ref>{{harvnb|Morrison|2009|p=388}}</ref>

The leading Soviet musical periodical reported Prokofiev's death as a brief item on page 116<ref name="hp_death">{{cite web|url=https://www.houstonpress.com/music/how-josef-stalin-stole-sergei-prokofievs-flowers-6522832 | title=How Josef Stalin Stole Sergei Prokofiev's Flowers |date=25 April 2011 |access-date=26 November 2018|last1=Rouner|first1=Jef|website=Houston Press}}</ref> (the first 115 pages were devoted to Stalin's death).<ref name="hp_death" /> Prokofiev's death is usually attributed to [[Intracerebral hemorrhage|cerebral hemorrhage]]. He had been chronically ill for eight years.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hingtgen |first1=CM |title=The tragedy of Sergei Prokofiev |journal=Seminars in Neurology |date=1999 |volume=19 |issue=Suppl 1 |pages=59–61 |pmid=10718530 }}</ref>

Prokofiev's wife Mira Mendelson spent her final years living in the Moscow apartment they had shared.{{sfn|Mendelson-Prokofieva|2012|pp=577–579}} She occupied her time organizing her husband's papers, promoting his music, and writing her memoirs, having been strongly encouraged by Prokofiev to embark on the latter. Work on the memoirs was difficult for her; she left them incomplete at her death.{{sfn|Mendelson-Prokofieva|2012|page=573}} Mendelson died of a heart attack in Moscow in 1968, 15 years after Prokofiev.{{sfn|Morrison|2009|page=311}} Inside her purse a message dated February 1950 and signed by Prokofiev and Mendelson instructed: "We wish to be buried next to each other." Their remains are buried together at Novodevichy Cemetery.{{sfn|Mendelson-Prokofieva|2012|p=26}}

[[Lina Prokofiev]] outlived her ex-husband by many years, dying in London in early 1989. Royalties from his music provided her with a modest income, and she acted as storyteller for a recording of her husband's ''Peter and the Wolf'' (released on CD by [[Chandos Records]]<ref>{{cite web
 | title = Sergei Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf
 | publisher = Chandos
 | url = http://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHAN%208511
 | access-date = 7 August 2014
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071029211449/http://www.chandos.net/details06.asp?CNumber=CHAN%208511
 | archive-date = 29 October 2007
| url-status = dead
}}</ref>) with [[Neeme Järvi]] conducting the [[Scottish National Orchestra]]. Their sons Sviatoslav (1924–2010), an architect, and [[Oleg Prokofiev|Oleg]] (1928–1998), an artist, painter, sculptor and poet, dedicated much of their lives to promoting their father's work.<ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3588909/My-father-was-naive.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220111/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/3588909/My-father-was-naive.html |archive-date=11 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live | work=The Daily Telegraph | location=London | title=My father was naïve | first=Geoffrey | last=Norris | date=23 January 2003 | access-date=29 May 2014}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite news| url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-oleg-prokofiev-1174110.html|last=Mann|first=Noelle|date=26 August 1998 | title=Obituary: Oleg Prokofiev |journal=The Independent|access-date=7 June 2013}}</ref>