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Gender, Memory, and National Myths: Ol'ga Berggol'ts and the Siege of Leningrad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Lisa Kirschenbaum
Lisa Kirschenbaum*
Affiliation:
West Chester University, U.S.A.
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Extract

In Russia, the memory of the Second World War has been at once deeply personal and profoundly political. Largely erased from official memory until Stalin's death, the story of the war became, in the 1960s, a key means of legitimizing the Soviet state. The mythic “20 million”—more recent estimates are closer to 30 million war dead—became the heart of a lasting and state-sanctioned collective memory of shared suffering, patriotism, and redemption. As historian Nina Tumarkin has argued, the official “cult” of the war began to crumble in the mid-1980s, and what she calls “raw human memory,” personal stories untainted by the myth created from above, began to emerge. Tumarkin contends that the “winds of glasnost' and perestroika” effectively “ravaged” both the state-sanctioned “myth” and the “shared memory” of the Great Patriotic War. Personal tragedies began to replace the official tale of national triumph.

Type
Forum: Gender, Nation, and Memory
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , September 2000 , pp. 551 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. Nina Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War 11 in Russia (New York: Basic Books, 1994), p. 188.Google Scholar

2. Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944, translated by Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 11, 297–304.Google Scholar

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14. The collection “Leningrad v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine” is currently held at the branch of the Russian National Library located on the Fontanka in St. Petersburg. Matchbook covers and other labels were collected in an album, Etiketi: kollektsiia Leningrad v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine, 1941–1944 gg. V. A. Karatygina, “Rabota gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi Biblioteki nad Kollektsiei i Bibliografiei 'Leningrad v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine,”' Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Natsional'noi Biblioteki (Arkh. RNB), f. 12, T. 517/a. V. A. Karatygina, “‘Leningrad v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine’ (Kollektsia Publichnoi biblioteki),” Trudy Gosudarsvennoi-Publichnoi Biblioteki imeni M. E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, Vol. 12, 1964, pp. 253–262; Leningrad v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine: Katalog izdanii, khraniashchikhsia v fondakh Gosudarstvennoi Publichnoi biblioteki, vyp. I, Knigi i broshiury (Leningrad, 1971); vyp. 2, Listovki, plakaty, otkrytki, al'bomy (Leningrad, 1972).Google Scholar

15. Ven Vishnevskij, “‘Boevoi karandash’: Na vystavke leningradskikh khudozhnikov,” Trial, No. 242, 13 October 1943, p. 4. Politicheskoe upravlenie leningradskogo fronta, Pervaia vystavka khudozhnikov-frontovikov: katalog (Leningrad: Voennoe izdatel' stvo narodnogo komissariata obrony, 1943), pp. 6–8, and reproductions following 47. V. Saianov, “Na vystavke khudozhnikov-frontovikov,” Leningradskaia Pravda, No. 127, I June 1943, p. 4.Google Scholar

16. Andrei Zhdanov's statement that “in Leningrad there is no border between the front and the rear … every Leningrader, man and woman, finds his own place in the battle and honorably fulfills his duty as a Soviet patriot,” was widely quoted. The official press often combined stories of “Leningraders” on the approaches to the city, in the factories, and working to bring food to the old and sick.Google Scholar

17. Apparently already in the planning stages before the German invasion, Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was written in part in besieged Leningrad. Solomon Volkov, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: Free Press, 1997), pp. 425—436 (quotations, pp. 433, 429). V. Bogdanov-Berezovskii, “Triumf antifashistskoi simfonii,” Zvezda, Nos. 3–4, 1942, pp. 201–205.Google Scholar

18. Katharine Hodgson, “The Other Veterans: Soviet Women's Poetry of World War 2,” in John Garrard and Carol Garrard, eds, World War 2 and the Soviet People (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), p. 85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Govorit Leningrad,” in Stikhi—proza (Moscow—Leningrad, 1961), p. 377.Google Scholar

20. S. Kara and A. Mikhailov, “Zhivaia istoriia,” Na strazhe Rodiny, 30 April 1944, p. 2. Vystavka, “Geroicheskaia oborona Leningrada”; Ocherk-putevoditeV (Leningrad—Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1945), pp. 65–66. The museum organized in November 1945 on the basis of the exhibition was almost 40,000 m2. V. P. Kivisepp and N. P. Dobrotvorskii, “Muzei muzhestvo, skorbi i slavy,” Leningradskaia panorama, No. 8, August 1991, p. 24. Muzei oborony Leningrada: putevoditel' (Leningrad—Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1948), p. 44. Vera Inber's account of her visit to the exhibition and her reaction to the display of bread may be found in Leningrad Diary, translated by Serge M. Wolff and Rachel Grieve (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1971), p. 207.Google Scholar

21. Ginzburg, Blockade Diary, p. 31. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Iz dnevnikov,” Zvezda, No. 5, 1990, p. 190.Google Scholar

22. “To a Leningrad Woman,” quoted in Hodgson, “The Other Veterans,” pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

23. S. Gerasimov and M. Kalatozov directed a scenario by M. Bleiman. B. Babochkin played the lead role. See N. Kovarskii, “Dukh muzhestvo: O fil'me 'Nepobedimye,”' Literatura i isskustvo, No. 5, 30 January 1943, p. 2. A documentary film released in 1942, “Leningrad v bor'be” (Leningrad in Battle), emphasized the heroism of civilians who continued to work in war industry despite German shelling. It also documented the activities of the army, navy, and partisan units in the Leningrad district. See “‘Leningrad v bor'be’: Novyi dokumental'nyi fil'm leningradskoi Studii kinokhroniki,” Literatura i iskusstvo, No. 28, 11 July 1942, p. 1. N. Lesiuchevskii, “Leningrad v bor'be,” Zvezda, Nos. 3–4, 1942, pp. 198–200. A. Dymshits, “Fil'm, zovyshchii k bor'be i pobede (O dokumental'nom kinofil'me ‘Leningrad v bor'be‘),” Propaganda i agitatsiia, No. 14, 1942, pp. 15–18.Google Scholar

24. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Dnevnye zvezdy,” in Stikhi, proza (Moscow—Leningrad: Gopsudarstvennoe izdatel' stvo khudozhesvennoi literatury, 1961), p. 106.Google Scholar

25. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Avtobiografiia,” in Sobranie sochinenii v trekh tomakh (Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1988), Vol. 3, pp. 487–488. Sec also the diary entry for 15 July 1939 quoted in M. F. Berggol'ts, “Ob etikh tetradiakh,” Zvezda, No. 5, 1990, p. 180. The entry puts the number of days in prison at 171, from 13 December 1938 to 3 July 1939.Google Scholar

26. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Iz dnevnikov,” Zvezda, No. 5, 1990, p. 183 (26 March 1941). Ellipses in original.Google Scholar

27. Berggol'ts, “Avtobiografiia,” Vol. 3, pp. 487–488. A. Pavlovskii, “Ol'ga Berggol'ts,” in Sobranie sochinenii, No. 1, p. 14.Google Scholar

28. Berggol'ts, “Avtobiografiia,” Vol. 3, pp. 489—490. See also “Popytka avotbiografii,” Vol. 1, pp. 42–43.Google Scholar

29. Berggol'ts, Dnevnye zvezdy, p. 31.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 16–19.Google Scholar

31. Ibid., p. 95.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., p. 148.Google Scholar

33. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Fevral'skii dnevnik,” Proshlogo–net! Stikhi, poemy, iz rabochikh tetradei (Moscow: Russkaia kniga, 1999), p. 48.Google Scholar

34. Berggol'ts, “Fevral'skii dnevnik,” VI, pp. 48–49.Google Scholar

35. Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari (New York, 1958), p. 507.Google Scholar

36. Leningrad v blokade, 1941–1944 [handmade album] (Leningrad, 1946), RNB, JI3 3646.Google Scholar

37. A. A. Koroleva, “Blokadnoe bratstvo pod grokhom bomb i snariadov,” in Universitet v blokadnom i osazhdennom Lenin grade, 1941–1944: Sbornik ofitsial'nykh dokumentov, pisem, fotografii i drugogo fakticheskogo materiala (St. Petersburg: Too “Gippokrat,” 1996), p. 73.Google Scholar

38. K. I. Golovan' (Liubomirova), “Nam ne zabyt' surovye gody fashistskoi voiny,” in Universitet, p. 125. Further examples of the use of poetry to structure and reinforce memory can be found in E. P. Subbotina's introduction to the collection, pp. 12–37, and in a large number of the reminiscences.Google Scholar

39. E. Levinson, “Piskarevskoe memorial'nyi ansambl',” Sovetskaia arkhitektura. No. 19, 1970, p. 148. Levinson notes that the memorial to the heroes of the October Revolution on Mars Field in Leningrad served as his model. See also G. F. Petrov, Piskarevskoe kladbishche (Leningrad, 1980), pp. 13–14. Memorial cemeteries were also planned for other sites of mass graves around the city. M. E. Rusakov, “Proekty pamiatnikov na serafimovskom kladbishche,” Arkhitektura i stroitel'stvo Leningrada, November 1946, pp. 40–41. On proposed monuments “to the heroic defenders of Leningrad” see D. A., “Monumenty geroiam velikoi otechestvennoi voiny: zametki o konkurse,” Arkhitektura SSSR, vyp. 5, 1944, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar

40. On the Leningrad Affair, see Salisbury, The 900 Days, pp. 571–583. The “affair” also marked the end of active work on the Public Library's siege collection as well as the museum that had grown out of the wartime exhibition on the “heroic defense of Leningrad.” Gosudarstvennyi memorial'nyi muzei oborony i blokady Leningrada, Muzei oborony i blokady Leningrada (St. Petersburg: Agat, 1998), pp. 8–12. V. A. Karatygina, Iichnoe delo, Arkh. RNB f 10/1 (1966), 7ob. No guides to the library's “Leningrad in the Great Patriotic War” collection were published between 1949 and 1971.Google Scholar

41. Petrov, Piskarevskoe kladbishche, pp. 19–20. E. A. Levinson and A. V. Vasil'ev, “Pamiatnik na Piskarevskom kladbishche,” Arkhitektura i stroitel'stvo Leningrada, No. 4, 1957, pp. 51–52. Mikhail Dudin, “Pamiat' pobedy,” Leningradskaia pravda, No. 110, 10 May 1960, p. 3. Z. Ustinova, “Vy zhivy v nashikh serdtsakh,” in Ibid. Google Scholar

42. The area of the mass graves is 300 meters long and 75 meters wide. Petrov, Piskarevskoe kladbishche, p. 24. Isaeva, like Berggol'ts, was a survivor of the siege. She had been in Moscow when the war broke out, but returned to Leningrad, where she worked throughout the siege. Vera Ketlinskaia, “Skul'ptor Isaeva,” in Zhenshchiny goroda Lenina: Rasskazy i ocherki o zhenshchinakh Leningrada v dni blokady (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1944), p. 102.Google Scholar

43. Levinson, “Piskarevskoe memorial'nyi ansambl',” p. 150.Google Scholar

44. Ol'ga Berggol'ts, “Tekst, sozdannyi dlia memorial'nogo ansamblia Piskarevskogo Kladbishcha,” in Proshlogo–net! p. 139.Google Scholar

45. Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead, pp. 134–135. Ignatieff argues that Soviet memorials “perform a ritual of forgetting: they make it possible for some at least to forget that … there was a way to mobilize a country for war which did not require it to be dragged through the horror and dishonor of fratricide and police terror,” “Soviet War Memorials,” p. 160.Google Scholar

46. Levinson sets the date of the visit at the end of 1948. Berggol'ts‘s account mentions the already-completed “Motherland” statue, suggesting a visit in late 1959. She docs not mention the earlier visit. E. Levinson, “Piskarevskii memorial'nyi ansambl’,” Sovetskaia arkhitektura, No. 19, 1970, p. 148.Google Scholar

47. Berggol'ts, “Popytka avtobiografii,” p. 44.Google Scholar

48. Ignatieff, “Soviet War Memorials,” pp. 159–160; Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead, pp. 31–32.Google Scholar

49. Tumarkin explains the emergence of the full-blown war cult as the result of Soviet leaders' search for a national myth that could mobilize, inspire, or at least shame “increasingly disaffected, alienated, and alcohol-prone youth,” The Living and the Dead, p. 130.Google Scholar

50. Viktor Golikov, ed., Podvig naroda: pamiatniki Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941–1945 (Moscow: Izdatel' stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1980), pp. 110–112.Google Scholar

51. Hodgson, “The Other Veterans,” pp. 90–91.Google Scholar