The Legacy of the Siege of Leningrad, 1941–1995 : Myth, Memories, and Monuments

The siege of Leningrad constituted one of the most dramatic episodes of World War II, one that individuals and the state began to commemorate almost immediately. Official representations of 'heroic Leningrad' omitted and distorted a great deal. Nonetheless, survivors struggling to cope with painful memories often internalized, even if they did not completely accept, the state’s myths, and they often found their own uses for the state’s monuments. Tracing the overlap and interplay of individual memories and fifty years of Soviet mythmaking, this book contributes to understandings of both the power of Soviet identities and the delegitimizing potential of the Soviet Union’s chief legitimizing myths. Because besieged Leningrad blurred the boundaries between the largely male battlefront and the predominantly female home front, it offers a unique vantage point for a study of the gendered dimensions of the war experience, urban space, individual memory, and public commemoration. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Title......Page 5 Copyright......Page 6 Dedication......Page 7 Contents......Page 9 Illustrations......Page 11 Preface......Page 13 Acknowledgments......Page 14 A Note on Transliteration and Translation......Page 15 Introduction......Page 19 Memories and Myth......Page 23 Myth, Legitimacy, and Disillusionment......Page 29 The City of Memory......Page 32 Myth, Memories, and Monuments......Page 34 Part I Making Memory in Wartime......Page 37 1 Mapping Memory in St. Petersburg–Petrograd–Leningrad......Page 39 Through the Prism of Memory and Literature......Page 43 The Myth of the Center......Page 48 “Urban Names Are the Language of the City”......Page 53 2 The City Scarred: War at Home......Page 60 Soldiers on the City Front: Autumn 1941......Page 65 The Responses of “Heroic Defenders”......Page 70 Cold, Hunger, Darkness: The Winter of 1941–1942......Page 74 Renewal and Rebirth: Spring and Summer 1942......Page 86 Local Victories......Page 91 3 Life Becomes History: Memories and Monuments in Wartime......Page 95 At the Front of History......Page 99 The Simple Human Voice of History......Page 107 History Becomes Life......Page 113 Life after History......Page 121 Part II Reconstructing and Remembering the City......Page 129 4 The City Healed: Historical Reconstruction and Victory Parks......Page 131 Tensions Between Rebuilding and Remembering......Page 135 Wartime Damage in Leningrad: Icons and the Everyday City......Page 139 The Meanings of Historical Reconstruction......Page 142 Domestic Places in the Rebuilt City......Page 148 Victory Without Monuments......Page 151 The Leningrad Affair: Enforced Forgetting......Page 158 The Limits of Forgetting: The City Preserved in Memory......Page 165 5 The Return of Stories from the City Front......Page 169 The Thaw and the Memory of the War......Page 172 The Rehabilitation of Leningrad......Page 179 Ironic Complications: The Normalcy of War......Page 186 Ordinary Heroes......Page 189 Stagnation and the Memory of Real Horrors......Page 197 6 Heroes and Victims: Local Monuments of the Soviet War Cult......Page 204 The Unnamed Dead: Piskarevskoe Memorial Cemetery......Page 209 Mass Death and Fraternal Graves......Page 210 Designing the Memorial Cemetery: From Marking Absence to Offering Consolation......Page 211 The Cult of the War and the Construction of Piskarevskoe Memorial Cemetery......Page 213 The Meanings of Piskarevskoe Cemetery......Page 218 Finding a Location: City or Front?......Page 226 The National and the Local: Celebrating Victory, Documenting Tragedy......Page 232 A Monument on Three Levels: Nothing Is Forgotten?......Page 235 Ritual and the Persistence of Memory......Page 245 Part III The Persistence of Memory......Page 247 7 Speaking the Unspoken?......Page 249 Modes of Memory: Epic and Expose......Page 251 Cannibalism and Culture......Page 256 Stalin’s Crimes and the War on Leningrad......Page 264 The Unspeakable......Page 270 Memory in Uncertain Times......Page 276 8 Mapping the Return of St. Petersburg......Page 282 Back to the Future......Page 283 An Attack on Lenin?......Page 286 The City as Hero and Martyr......Page 287 The City as Wonderworking Saint......Page 291 Claiming the Streets......Page 297 Epilogue: No One Is Forgotten?......Page 305 Index......Page 317 "The siege of Leningrad constituted one of the most dramatic episodes of WorldWar II, one that individuals and the state began to commemorate almost immediately. Official representations of 'heroic Leningrad' omitted and distorted a great deal. Nonetheless, survivors struggling to cope with painful memories often internalized, even if they did not completely accept, the state's myths, and they often found their own uses for the state's monuments. Tracing the overlap and interplay of individual memories and fifty years of Soviet mythmaking, this book contributes to understandings of both the power of Soviet identities and the delegitimizing potential of the Soviet Union's chief legitimizing myths. Because besieged Leningrad blurred the boundaries between the largely male battlefront and the predominantly female home front, it offers a unique vantage point for a study of the gendered dimensions of the war experience, urban space, individual memory, and public commemoration."--Publisher's description "Tracing the overlap and interplay of individual memories and fifty years of Soviet mythmaking, this book contributes to understanding of both the power of Soviet identities and the delegitimizing potential of the Soviet Union's chief legitimizing myths. Because besieged Leningrad blurred the boundaries between largely male battlefront and the predominately female home front, it offers a unique vantage point for a study of the gendered dimensions of the war experience, urban space, individual memory, and public commemoration."--Jacket The World War II siege of Leningrad constituted one of the most dramatic and tragic episodes of the war. Since 1941, the remarkable story of the blockade has been retold in countless memoirs, interviews, diaries, histories, films, monuments, poems, and museum exhibits. This book follows these stories