Short answers, pulled from the story.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born on the 9th of August 1875 in Podolskaya Street, then part of the Russian Empire. His family background included Siberian roots and Polish-Lithuanian ancestry from his grandfather Szostakowicz.
The next day Pravda published an editorial titled Muddle Instead of Music describing the opera as deliberately dissonant muddled stream of sounds that quacks hoots pants and gasps. His monthly earnings dropped from twelve thousand rubles to as little as two thousand.
Shostakovich was denounced alongside other composers for formalism under the Zhdanov decree which accused them of writing inappropriate music containing non-Russian output. He was dismissed from the Conservatory entirely losing significant income and wrote film music to pay rent while keeping serious pieces like the Violin Concerto No. 1 hidden for the desk drawer.
Dmitri Shostakovich died on the 9th of August 1975 at Moscow Central Clinical Hospital after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1973. He had suffered heart attacks in 1966 1970 and 1971 plus several falls breaking both legs before his death.
The DSCH motif appears in multiple works including Symphony No. 10 and String Quartets Nos 5 8 and 11 as a defining characteristic throughout his compositions. These codes remain debated by musicologists regarding their exact meaning and intent behind each usage.