The Siege of Leningrad reflected in literature

[Klawa Thresher]

Dear Colleagues,

 

Thank you to all of you who wrote with suggestions on this topic.  Since
I got about as many requests to share this information as I got
suggestions, I am forwarding the comments I received.

 

With best wishes for a wonderful holiday season,

Klawa Thresher

 

Cynthia Simmons book, "Writing the Siege of Leningrad"?  It contains
diaries mostly, but really interesting.  And, I think it would be
accessible for the students.

 

ra Inber's journal is a wonderful, immediate account of the seige - I
team-taught a course on St. Petersburg/Leningrad during a fall semester
there (taught together with a colleague in music) - we used extensive
excerpts from Inber's book.  Unfortunately I think it may be out of
print...

 

Lidiya Ginzburg, Blockade Diary

 

"Through the Burning Steppe" by Elena Kozhina is initially set during
the siege. It is an excellent memoir.

 

Lidiia Ginzburg's memoirs, well and Olga Berggolts too, though I don't
know how much of Berggolts is available in translation)

 

I have one suggestion--a 2001 novel called "The Siege" written by Helen
Dunmore.  Though she's English, she clearly has extensive background in
Russian historical and literary culture.  Many of the translations of
Russian poetry she uses are her own and she includes a brief
bibliography, mainly historical references and memoirs, in the
afterward.

 

I don't know if this will work for your needs, but you might like
Harrison Salisbury's The 900 Days;  it is in English but not written by
a Russian.  It's a long book but a good one, I think--history
conversationally told.  You might be able to use parts of it rather than
the whole thing.

 


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