Leningrad Quotes

“No one is forgotten. Nothing is forgotten.

Let no one forget. Let nothing be forgotten.

Никто не забыт и ничто не забыто.”
― Olga Berggolts

“Gradually, like the emigration of an insidious, phantom population, Leningrad belonged more to the dead than to the living. The dead watched over streets and sat in snow-swamped buses. Whole apartment buildings were tenanted by them, where in broken rooms, dead families sat waiting at tables. Their dominion spread room by room, like lights going out in evening.”
― M.T. Anderson, Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad

“In those years only the dead smiled, Glad to be at rest: And Leningrad city swayed like A needless appendix to its prisons.”
― Anna Akhmatova, Akhmatova: Poems

“Наш "комендант" - ленинградец, и об этом говорят как о его личном качестве. И его вежливые "вы" ко всем, даже подросткам, и застенчивая молчаливость, готовность длинно и сложно объяснять то, что другой командир решил бы одним "да" или "нет" - все сливается для нас с понятием "ленинградец", окрашено им и окрашивает его.”
― Ales Adamovich, Khatyn

“Unlike other dictators, Stalin and his satraps never made the mistake of believing themselves beloved -- on the contrary they saw plots under every stone.”
― Anna Reid, Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944

“Out in the palace gardens, groundskeepers buried statues in the dirt. As Justice and Peace were entombed together, a workman wrote on one flank "We'll come back for you." The grave was covered with leaves to conceal it.

- Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad”
― M T Anderson

“And so the Red Army, squeezed between two of the most brutal dictators in human history, fought on.

- Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad”
― M T Anderson

“Nie do wiary, ale dzięki oddanym współpracownikom Wawiłowa jego bank nasion przetrwał ponad dwadzieścia osiem miesięcy oblężenia Leningradu. Władze nie zatroszczyły się o zabezpieczenie dwustu pięćdziesięciu tysięcy nasion, jednak pracownicy Instytutu zajęli się tą sprawą. Wyselekcjonowane nasiona przenieśli do dużej skrzyni i ukryli w piwnicy, gdzie na zmianę trzymali straż. Ani jeden z pilnujących nie uległ pokusie zjedzenia nasion, chociaż dziewięciu z nich zmarło z głodu przed zakończeniem oblężenia w 1944 roku.”
― Erika Fatland, Sovietistan: A Journey Through Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

“In addition, he had a rare first edition of Krylov’s Fables, with Krylov’s own notes handwritten on many of the pages, inserted into Gardiner’s package. The volume had been requisitioned from the private collection of a recently arrested Jewish member of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad.”
― Jerzy Kosiński, Being There