![]() ![]() Within this context, the authors exploit an imposing array of personal reminiscences, diaries, and letters written by women who made up the bulk of the besieged city's population and played an instrumental role in its defense and survival to shape a unique and often intimate mosaic of life during the siege and the terror and unrelenting hardships faced by these women. The book's carefully crafted foreword by Richard Bidlack provides essential context for this unique account by skillfully surveying the history of Soviet writings on the siege. Writing the Siege of Leningrad is a remarkably touching and often poetic account of everyday life in Leningrad during the German siege and the horrors of war and extreme privations to which the public at large, in particular women, were subjected on a daily basis during World War II. They also relate unexpected acts of kindness and generosity attempts to maintain cultural life through musical and dramatic performances and provide insight into a group of ordinary women reaching beyond differences in socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and profession in order to survive in extraordinary times. In simple, direct, even heartbreaking language, these documents tell of lost husbands, mothers, children meager rations often supplemented with sawdust and other inedible additives crime, cruelty, and even cannibalism. Yet their perspective on life during the siege has been little examined.Ĭynthia Simmons and Nina Perlina have searched archival holdings for letters and diaries written during the siege, conducted interviews with survivors, and collected poetry, fiction, and retrospective memoirs written by the blokadnitsy (women survivors) to present a truer picture of the city under siege. Bearing the brunt of this hardship-and keeping the city alive through their daily toil and sacrifice-were the women of Leningrad. At least one million civilians died, many during the terribly cold first winter. Silver Winner, ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year, Historyįrom September 1941 until January 1944, Leningrad suffered under one of the worst sieges in the history of warfare.
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