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

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Illustrations......Page 11
Preface......Page 13
Acknowledgments......Page 14
A Note on Transliteration and Translation......Page 15
Introduction......Page 19
Memories and Myth......Page 23
Myth, Legitimacy, and Disillusionment......Page 29
The City of Memory......Page 32
Myth, Memories, and Monuments......Page 34
Part I Making Memory in Wartime......Page 37
1
Mapping Memory in
St. Petersburg–Petrograd–Leningrad......Page 39
Through the Prism of Memory and Literature......Page 43
The Myth of the Center......Page 48
“Urban Names Are the Language of the City”......Page 53
2 The City Scarred: War at Home......Page 60
Soldiers on the City Front: Autumn 1941......Page 65
The Responses of “Heroic Defenders”......Page 70
Cold, Hunger, Darkness: The Winter of 1941–1942......Page 74
Renewal and Rebirth: Spring and Summer 1942......Page 86
Local Victories......Page 91
3 Life Becomes History: Memories and Monuments in Wartime......Page 95
At the Front of History......Page 99
The Simple Human Voice of History......Page 107
History Becomes Life......Page 113
Life after History......Page 121
Part II Reconstructing and Remembering the City......Page 129
4 The City Healed: Historical Reconstruction and Victory Parks......Page 131
Tensions Between Rebuilding and Remembering......Page 135
Wartime Damage in Leningrad: Icons and the Everyday City......Page 139
The Meanings of Historical Reconstruction......Page 142
Domestic Places in the Rebuilt City......Page 148
Victory Without Monuments......Page 151
The Leningrad Affair: Enforced Forgetting......Page 158
The Limits of Forgetting: The City Preserved in Memory......Page 165
5 The Return of Stories from the City Front......Page 169
The Thaw and the Memory of the War......Page 172
The Rehabilitation of Leningrad......Page 179
Ironic Complications: The Normalcy of War......Page 186
Ordinary Heroes......Page 189
Stagnation and the Memory of Real Horrors......Page 197
6 Heroes and Victims: Local Monuments of the Soviet War Cult......Page 204
The Unnamed Dead: Piskarevskoe Memorial Cemetery......Page 209
Mass Death and Fraternal Graves......Page 210
Designing the Memorial Cemetery: From Marking Absence to Offering Consolation......Page 211
The Cult of the War and the Construction of Piskarevskoe Memorial Cemetery......Page 213
The Meanings of Piskarevskoe Cemetery......Page 218
Finding a Location: City or Front?......Page 226
The National and the Local: Celebrating Victory, Documenting Tragedy......Page 232
A Monument on Three Levels: Nothing Is Forgotten?......Page 235
Ritual and the Persistence of Memory......Page 245
Part III The Persistence of Memory......Page 247
7 Speaking the Unspoken?......Page 249
Modes of Memory: Epic and Expose......Page 251
Cannibalism and Culture......Page 256
Stalin’s Crimes and the War on Leningrad......Page 264
The Unspeakable......Page 270
Memory in Uncertain Times......Page 276
8 Mapping the Return of St. Petersburg......Page 282
Back to the Future......Page 283
An Attack on Lenin?......Page 286
The City as Hero and Martyr......Page 287
The City as Wonderworking Saint......Page 291
Claiming the Streets......Page 297
Epilogue: No One Is Forgotten?......Page 305
Index......Page 317