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The War Within: Diaries from the Siege of Leningrad
In September 1941, two and a half months after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the German Weh....
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 6, 2017
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367 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 12, 2018
Disclaimer: Another book on the Siege, I've ended up only skimming.
An interesting concept, an exploration of the Siege through the diaries of Leningraders, but it lacked detail and certain events were left unmentioned. I think to get the most from this you'd have to already have a lot of background knowledge on the Siege and would need, simply, to fill in the blanks yourself. The introduction and conclusion were great, especially the focus on building the narrative and the reasons for the Leningrad Affair, but the main body of the book didn't work as well for me. I preferred how Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Womens Diaries Memoirs and Documentary Prose presented diary entries, extracts in their complete form. Peri presents the diaries in a very different way, using them as evidence for his arguments in an essay style. Again, I was a little confused on what he chose to focus on and what he excluded, so I didn't gain as much from this as I had been hoping.
An interesting concept, an exploration of the Siege through the diaries of Leningraders, but it lacked detail and certain events were left unmentioned. I think to get the most from this you'd have to already have a lot of background knowledge on the Siege and would need, simply, to fill in the blanks yourself. The introduction and conclusion were great, especially the focus on building the narrative and the reasons for the Leningrad Affair, but the main body of the book didn't work as well for me. I preferred how Writing the Siege of Leningrad: Womens Diaries Memoirs and Documentary Prose presented diary entries, extracts in their complete form. Peri presents the diaries in a very different way, using them as evidence for his arguments in an essay style. Again, I was a little confused on what he chose to focus on and what he excluded, so I didn't gain as much from this as I had been hoping.
June 24, 2018
Not what I expected—as in excerpts from the diaries themselves. This is more a mix of A Natural History of the Senses with a review of the literature on trauma. THAT, however, is my fault and Peri’s interpretation of the blokadniki experience through the lenses of shifting sense, identity, gender, and authorial voice made for a fascinating read.
July 7, 2018
I gave up on it. It wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought I was getting a riveting, page-turning social history, with diarists I would come to know and sympathise with. I thought I’d be moved while being informed.
But no, it’s more like a sociology textbook or an extended PhD thesis. It’s a dry academic text, written in that terrible language sociologists use to try and convince everyone they are real scientists.
Three stars because it’s my fault for misunderstanding the entire purpose of the book, but there’s not a lot here for the general reader.
But no, it’s more like a sociology textbook or an extended PhD thesis. It’s a dry academic text, written in that terrible language sociologists use to try and convince everyone they are real scientists.
Three stars because it’s my fault for misunderstanding the entire purpose of the book, but there’s not a lot here for the general reader.
November 19, 2021
The War Within by Alexis Peri is a remarkable account of the siege of Leningrad (September 1941-January 1944) from the perspective of Leningrad residents. Through examination of 125 Leningraders’ diaries previously unavailable to scholars and the public, Peri constructs an alternative narrative that traces common questions and themes, such as body, self, family, and the formation of social and cultural norms within the besieged city. (30) However, Peri maintains that her purpose is not to supplant the government’s propagated narrative, but rather to offer insight into the behaviors and beliefs Leningraders developed during the siege. (22) Instead of presenting a blanket claim about the siege, Peri fixates on how the aforementioned themes manifested in the midst of starvation and bombardment, and produces a narrow, but vigorous, analysis of Soviet ideology in the diaries and the Soviet government’s reception of the diarists’ accounts. Her book also provides a segue for historians to incorporate memory into further histories of the siege. In order to demonstrate the significance of the diaries, and therefore memory, in the wider conversation about the siege, Peri adopts a two part structure, inspired by the metaphor of the ring and the island.
Part One, entitled “Inside the Ring” includes an examination of the “three critical dimensions of identity: body, self, and family.” (30) Peri identifies how starvation and bombardment precipitated physical and emotional trauma that diminished the boundaries of gender, age, and family. In this section, Peri further pinpoints the shift in routine and work as the first element of life to be jostled by the siege, and explores how changes such as this impacted the Leningrader’s conception of time, space, and social status. (38-42) Thus Peri asserts the diary’s instrumental role in preventing or limiting confusion and/or demoralization in Leningraders.
Part Two, “Exploring the Island,” transitions from diarists’ inward examination to discussion of social and cultural transformations. Diarists scrutinized the changes in medicine, social status, and considered their role in history as well. Peri skillfully links the isolated social changes in Leningrad with histories and values spotlighted in Soviet society, while further highlighting the role of memory in history. She incorporates diary entries, in which the diarists grappled with the value of their individual experiences versus that of the collective memory, in order to shift the conversation from should historians utilize memory to when should historians utilize memory. Through this conversation, Peri brilliantly situates The War Within as a transformative moment in her field.
In addition to Peri’s theoretical expansion of her field, she also contributes an incredible analytical framework requiring close examination of grammar, spelling, and handwriting. In an attempt to glean the inner workings of the diarists, Peri relies on changes in tense to ascertain certainty, and spelling and grammar errors to indicate emotional and physical deterioration. She specifically utilizes the framework in her interpretation of Natal’ia Uskova, a philology student. Peri ascribes Uskova’s “cross-outs, misspellings, and grammatical mistakes” with the student struggling “to come to terms with life inside the ring.” (34-37) Instead of simply relying on the diarists’ words, Peri probed each entry for greater understanding in order to produce the collective memory many Leningraders sought to create, and she ultimately succeeded.
Within Peri’s construction of Leningraders’ collective memory, she seamlessly weaves gender throughout the narrative. In the first section, “Inside the Ring”, Peri explicitly discusses how traditional gender performance effectively disappeared from Leningrad as a result of starvation and pursuit of warmth. However, she does not relegate gender and expressions of it to a single chapter. Later in the second section, she explains some diarists’ conceptions of the types of people in Leningrad. Amongst them was the “blockade wife,” which diverged from the genderless language typical in Leningraders’ discussion of self. (141,156) The “blockade wife” was a person who exchanged sex for food, and sometimes was the target of bitterness among other Leningraders. Continuous investigation of where gender did and did not manifest in the isolated city lends itself to Peri’s argument that as survival became paramount, proximity to food indicated proximity to life, and thus a higher social standing.
In conjunction with Peri’s utilization of structure and focus on regularly overlooked societal elements such as gender to propel her narrative forward, her composed control over the narrative signals her expertise in Soviet history. She anticipates readers’ questions and offers insight when necessary, allowing her sources to remain the central focus of the book without exploiting the diarists’ tragic experiences. Yet her guiding hand remains throughout the book as evident in her careful consideration of each diary and subsequent analysis. The successful creation of a social history based on diaries relies on a historian who can purposefully remove their voice from the narrative, and Peri embodies this trait.
While The War Within involves the siege of Leningrad, it is not a comprehensive history of the event. In order to liberate the Leningrader’s experiences from the Soviet government’s propagandistic narrative, Peri sparingly includes military and political details outside the scope of Leningrad. Her book cannot be the sole source of knowledge on the siege. However, she emphasizes that is not her goal; she is intervening in the contemporary scholarship to stress the significance of a bottom-up approach to this history. Inclusion of political or military knowledge would make the book more palatable to those seeking a traditional history, but would detract from Peri’s reconstruction of the isolation the diarists experienced during the siege.
The War Within is the exemplification of a poignant and well-written social history. From her structure to her analysis, Peri shines as a crucial contributor to Soviet history. Her work signals a new age in the field, and is on its way to becoming a time-honored piece of history.
Part One, entitled “Inside the Ring” includes an examination of the “three critical dimensions of identity: body, self, and family.” (30) Peri identifies how starvation and bombardment precipitated physical and emotional trauma that diminished the boundaries of gender, age, and family. In this section, Peri further pinpoints the shift in routine and work as the first element of life to be jostled by the siege, and explores how changes such as this impacted the Leningrader’s conception of time, space, and social status. (38-42) Thus Peri asserts the diary’s instrumental role in preventing or limiting confusion and/or demoralization in Leningraders.
Part Two, “Exploring the Island,” transitions from diarists’ inward examination to discussion of social and cultural transformations. Diarists scrutinized the changes in medicine, social status, and considered their role in history as well. Peri skillfully links the isolated social changes in Leningrad with histories and values spotlighted in Soviet society, while further highlighting the role of memory in history. She incorporates diary entries, in which the diarists grappled with the value of their individual experiences versus that of the collective memory, in order to shift the conversation from should historians utilize memory to when should historians utilize memory. Through this conversation, Peri brilliantly situates The War Within as a transformative moment in her field.
In addition to Peri’s theoretical expansion of her field, she also contributes an incredible analytical framework requiring close examination of grammar, spelling, and handwriting. In an attempt to glean the inner workings of the diarists, Peri relies on changes in tense to ascertain certainty, and spelling and grammar errors to indicate emotional and physical deterioration. She specifically utilizes the framework in her interpretation of Natal’ia Uskova, a philology student. Peri ascribes Uskova’s “cross-outs, misspellings, and grammatical mistakes” with the student struggling “to come to terms with life inside the ring.” (34-37) Instead of simply relying on the diarists’ words, Peri probed each entry for greater understanding in order to produce the collective memory many Leningraders sought to create, and she ultimately succeeded.
Within Peri’s construction of Leningraders’ collective memory, she seamlessly weaves gender throughout the narrative. In the first section, “Inside the Ring”, Peri explicitly discusses how traditional gender performance effectively disappeared from Leningrad as a result of starvation and pursuit of warmth. However, she does not relegate gender and expressions of it to a single chapter. Later in the second section, she explains some diarists’ conceptions of the types of people in Leningrad. Amongst them was the “blockade wife,” which diverged from the genderless language typical in Leningraders’ discussion of self. (141,156) The “blockade wife” was a person who exchanged sex for food, and sometimes was the target of bitterness among other Leningraders. Continuous investigation of where gender did and did not manifest in the isolated city lends itself to Peri’s argument that as survival became paramount, proximity to food indicated proximity to life, and thus a higher social standing.
In conjunction with Peri’s utilization of structure and focus on regularly overlooked societal elements such as gender to propel her narrative forward, her composed control over the narrative signals her expertise in Soviet history. She anticipates readers’ questions and offers insight when necessary, allowing her sources to remain the central focus of the book without exploiting the diarists’ tragic experiences. Yet her guiding hand remains throughout the book as evident in her careful consideration of each diary and subsequent analysis. The successful creation of a social history based on diaries relies on a historian who can purposefully remove their voice from the narrative, and Peri embodies this trait.
While The War Within involves the siege of Leningrad, it is not a comprehensive history of the event. In order to liberate the Leningrader’s experiences from the Soviet government’s propagandistic narrative, Peri sparingly includes military and political details outside the scope of Leningrad. Her book cannot be the sole source of knowledge on the siege. However, she emphasizes that is not her goal; she is intervening in the contemporary scholarship to stress the significance of a bottom-up approach to this history. Inclusion of political or military knowledge would make the book more palatable to those seeking a traditional history, but would detract from Peri’s reconstruction of the isolation the diarists experienced during the siege.
The War Within is the exemplification of a poignant and well-written social history. From her structure to her analysis, Peri shines as a crucial contributor to Soviet history. Her work signals a new age in the field, and is on its way to becoming a time-honored piece of history.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 28, 2019
FIRST LINE REVIEW: "'We the Soviet people have a sacred date, 25 October 1917, which all of us experienced as a new era of humanity's rebirth. That is how it was until 22 June 1941.'" If you have been following me here (or elsewhere) you likely know that I have a strong interest in the Siege of Leningrad. I've written three plays on this subject and have a 4th one coming this summer. So I've read a LOT on this topic. This book represents a brand new approach based on the recent release of over 100 diaries and journals kept by Leningraders during the siege. Most of these were repressed until recently because they contained too much despair, negativity or attacks on the government for not doing more to relieve the suffering. Peri has compiled his research from these primary sources in a readable, yet still scholarly fashion. It's a fascinating picture of a truly horrific event in the history of modern warfare.
December 6, 2021
Alexis Peri presents the siege of Leningrad from the multifaceted perspectives of those who experienced it firsthand. The War Within examines an impressive number of diaries to convey how the blokadniki living through the first winter of the siege were forced to reconcile their former sense of self with the changes brought about by prolonged isolation and starvation. “The blockade,” she asserts, “emerges from their accounts not just as a destructive force but also as a constructive one.” She details the shattering of familial relationships, social norms, bodily health, and self-image while concurrently revealing a version of the “New Soviet Person” that emerged from trauma. This transformation occurred through a convergence of biopolitics, physical depravation, mental turmoil, and the act of writing itself, which allowed blokadniki to order and assign meaning to a chaotic existence inside “the Ring” of Leningrad. Her focus on inner war and personal experiences highlights not just the struggles faced by the diarists, but the ways in which they processed what they saw and felt within their minds and bodies.
Peri utilizes 125 diaries from people in different social and cultural positions; her work represents men, women, children, students, professional historians, amateur writers, healthcare workers, factory workers, and service industry employees, among others. This broad scope allows her to assess how differently people experienced the blockade across the city, and in one of her most interesting chapters, how people’s views of each other depended on one’s own position in relation to other people. She uses the example of the bread line to note how people tended to perceive those in front of them with jealousy and anger, while she says that most social psychologists claim that lines typically foster sympathy for those behind them. Widespread starvation, however, shattered the social order, and the mentality of the bread line influenced nearly every aspect of their lives. At home, apportionment of meager rations bred hostility between family members. Workers felt those in both positions of higher authority and those in different states of health were robbing them. Public bathhouses provided visible markers of those who could eat and those who could not, as anyone not resembling the androgynous and emaciated blokadniki was viewed with suspicion.
The War Within, as the title suggests, focuses not just on the social environment in Leningrad, but also the view of oneself, which Peri calls the “elusive I.” Blokadniki found themselves both physically and emotionally unrecognizable the longer they remained inside the city, hunger transforming both their bodies and their behaviors. Family members found themselves resentful of their loved ones, academics found themselves unable to maintain their mental fortitude, and loyal Soviets found themselves questioning their most deeply-held values. Evaluating one’s sense of self, she notes, consisted of both recovering who they were before the war and coming to terms with a new person foreign to the old.
Peri’s work is remarkable, and she attains what historians ought to strive for—the ability to place oneself in the shoes of their subjects. She writes with compassion but not pity, acknowledging suffering alongside the resilience of a people faced with the unimaginable. While critiques are difficult to mount because the massive scope of her work is inherently limiting, she could have expounded upon the ways in which the narrow reflects the broad, such as how conflicts over allotment of resources within the family resembled the societal debate of whether to feed the strong in hopes they would in turn take care of the weak. She is careful not to extend her conclusions beyond her sources, but this connection is one which seems to be reasonable. Organizationally, the categorization of individual experiences in the first half of the book and societal experiences in the second half works well, although the final chapter on the role of historicization in diary-writing might have served better in the beginning as an introduction to why her subjects wrote in the ways that they did. The one silence among her sources is that of Jews in the city, and it would have benefited her to acknowledge how their experiences differed from the majority, if at all. Topically, she also neglects to analyze the role of crime beyond the family unit, although it is possible that topic has already been well-researched. Any critiques, however, do not detract from the fact that The War Within is a brilliantly crafted, impressively researched, and important contribution to studies of the siege.
Peri utilizes 125 diaries from people in different social and cultural positions; her work represents men, women, children, students, professional historians, amateur writers, healthcare workers, factory workers, and service industry employees, among others. This broad scope allows her to assess how differently people experienced the blockade across the city, and in one of her most interesting chapters, how people’s views of each other depended on one’s own position in relation to other people. She uses the example of the bread line to note how people tended to perceive those in front of them with jealousy and anger, while she says that most social psychologists claim that lines typically foster sympathy for those behind them. Widespread starvation, however, shattered the social order, and the mentality of the bread line influenced nearly every aspect of their lives. At home, apportionment of meager rations bred hostility between family members. Workers felt those in both positions of higher authority and those in different states of health were robbing them. Public bathhouses provided visible markers of those who could eat and those who could not, as anyone not resembling the androgynous and emaciated blokadniki was viewed with suspicion.
The War Within, as the title suggests, focuses not just on the social environment in Leningrad, but also the view of oneself, which Peri calls the “elusive I.” Blokadniki found themselves both physically and emotionally unrecognizable the longer they remained inside the city, hunger transforming both their bodies and their behaviors. Family members found themselves resentful of their loved ones, academics found themselves unable to maintain their mental fortitude, and loyal Soviets found themselves questioning their most deeply-held values. Evaluating one’s sense of self, she notes, consisted of both recovering who they were before the war and coming to terms with a new person foreign to the old.
Peri’s work is remarkable, and she attains what historians ought to strive for—the ability to place oneself in the shoes of their subjects. She writes with compassion but not pity, acknowledging suffering alongside the resilience of a people faced with the unimaginable. While critiques are difficult to mount because the massive scope of her work is inherently limiting, she could have expounded upon the ways in which the narrow reflects the broad, such as how conflicts over allotment of resources within the family resembled the societal debate of whether to feed the strong in hopes they would in turn take care of the weak. She is careful not to extend her conclusions beyond her sources, but this connection is one which seems to be reasonable. Organizationally, the categorization of individual experiences in the first half of the book and societal experiences in the second half works well, although the final chapter on the role of historicization in diary-writing might have served better in the beginning as an introduction to why her subjects wrote in the ways that they did. The one silence among her sources is that of Jews in the city, and it would have benefited her to acknowledge how their experiences differed from the majority, if at all. Topically, she also neglects to analyze the role of crime beyond the family unit, although it is possible that topic has already been well-researched. Any critiques, however, do not detract from the fact that The War Within is a brilliantly crafted, impressively researched, and important contribution to studies of the siege.
November 10, 2018
I gave myself permission to skim and skip around in this book. It was much more academic than I thought it was going to be, analyzing the psychological effects of deprivation on Leningrad residents during the siege they endured from 1941-44. Peri explored the effects of hunger on family structure and loyalty, medical experimentation, power shifts (to those controlling the food source), and the isolation from oneself.
December 27, 2019
Scholarly, not designed for passive reading.
There are quotes from the diaries. They expose a suffering on a whole different level from citizen suffering elsewhere in WWII.
There are quotes from the diaries. They expose a suffering on a whole different level from citizen suffering elsewhere in WWII.
November 22, 2020
An interesting picture of life behind the blockade during the Siege of Leningrad.
June 29, 2025
Meticulous
April 26, 2017
Really well written and an interesting read. An excellent interpretation of how people experienced the siege and wrote again it.
August 22, 2017
This is not a light read in any sense of the word but it is wonderfully written. With great insights into the human condition under severe suffering, it's definitely a book to make you question yourself.
I gave it 3 stars just because I expected it to be more of a narrative than essay style, but once I got over my initial trepidation, it was really enjoyable
I gave it 3 stars just because I expected it to be more of a narrative than essay style, but once I got over my initial trepidation, it was really enjoyable
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews