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

by Lisa A. Kirschenbaum

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, the book contributes to understandings of both the power of Soviet identities and the de-legitimizing 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.

Genres: History, Russia

309 pages, ebook

First published August 31, 2006

Reviews

[Imi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. An accomplished exploration into the "Leningrad epic" and the myth of the "heroic defenders" during the Siege of Leningrad in WWII. Discusses what "memory" and commemoration means through the local example of Leningrad and details how the myth has been constructed, co-opted, and entirely vital to different eras of Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia. Kirschenbaum makes sense of all the contradictions and ironies. I've come away with a much better understanding not only of the specific example of trauma in Leningrad, but also how important memory is to both the individual and society.

[Shrike58 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The basic problem with this monograph, which examines the conflicts between the expression of personal experience versus the demands of myth-making in the Soviet state, is that with a publication date of 2006 this book already feels a bit dated. At the very least the imperative to see that "no one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten" seems to have, sadly, degenerated into the aggrandizement of all the periods of state predominance in the Russian past under the Putin regime; further pushing back the need to settle accounts with the crimes of the Stalinist era. This is not a trivial matter as the lack of a shared understanding of those experiences have probably helped to contribute to the current Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

Originally written: July 16, 2015.

P.S. And the crimes in the name of Russian Imperialism keep accruing (March 30, 2024).