The War Within: Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad

378 Pages·2017·14.18 MB·English

by  Professor Alexis Peri

The War Within

The War Within
Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad
Alexis Peri
Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts
London, Eng land
2017
Copyright © 2017 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
First Printing
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Peri, Alexis, author.
Title: The war within : diaries from the Siege of Leningrad / Alexis Peri.
Description: Cambridge, Mas sa chu setts : Harvard University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2016018187 | ISBN 9780674971554 (cloth)
Subjects: LCSH: Saint Petersburg (Russia)— History— Siege, 1941–1944—
Personal narratives, Rus sian. | World War, 1939–1945— Russia (Federation)—
Saint Petersburg— Personal narratives, Rus sian. | Russians— Diaries.
Classifi cation: LCC D764.3.L4 P46 2017 | DDC 940.54/217210922— dc23
LC rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2016018187
For my parents, my greatest teachers

Some day thousands of diaries will lie on the historian’s
t able, and then we s hall see how much t here was that was
remarkable in the unremarkable biographies of simple
Rus sian people.
— Nikolai Tikhonov

Contents
Maps of Leningrad xi
Directory of Diarists xiv
Abbreviations and Acronyms xix
Introduction: Year Zero 1
Part I. Inside the Ring
1. The Ring Takes Shape 21
2. Becoming New People 37
3. The Elusive I 67
4. Family Life and Strife 89
Part II. Exploring the Island
5. The Hierarchy of Lives 129
6. The City as Medical Laboratory 162
7. In the Mirror of History 201