The Siege of Leningrad: A New Perspective from Personal Diaries
by Anna Reid
GB RUSSIA SOCIETY PROGRAMME
Language: In English
Wed 25 April 2012 – 7.00pm
Talk at Pushkin House, London
‘28 December 1941 at 12.30 pm – Zhenya died. 25 January 1942 at 3pm – Granny died. 17 March at 5am – Lyoka died. 13 April at 2am – Uncle Vasya died. 10 May at 4pm – Uncle Lyosha died. 13 May at 7.30 am – Mama died. The Savichevs are dead. Everyone is dead. Only Tanya is left.’
Thus wrote a twelveyear- old girl in the pages of a pocket address book during the siege of Leningrad, the deadliest blockade of a city in human history.
When Hitler made his surprise attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, he meant to capture Leningrad before turning on Moscow. In early September he changed strategy, deciding to concentrate his tanks on the attack on Moscow, andstarve Leningrad out. Leningrad did not surrender, but for the next two winters no food was able to reach the city except by air or across Lake Ladoga. By January 1944, when the German armies finally began their long retreat, about three-quarters of a million civilians – between a quarter and a third of Leningrad’s pre-siege population – had died of hunger.
Drawing on newly available diaries and government records, Anna Reid describes Leningrad’s descent into mass death: the shrinking of the bread ration; the breakdown of electricity and water supply; the consumption of pets, joiner’s glue and face cream; the withering of emotions and family ties; looting, murder, and cannibalism – and at the same time, extraordinary endurance and
self-sacrifice.
Today, twenty years after the fall of Communism, memories of Leningrad’s suffering are still suppressed, as are those of the cruelty and incompetence of Russia’s wartime leadership. Stripping away decades of Soviet myth-making, Reid gives Tanya Savicheva and thousands like them back their voice.
Anna Reid read law at Oxford and Russian history at London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. From 1993-5 she lived in Kiev, reporting on Ukraine for the Economist and Daily Telegraph. From 2003-7 she ran the foreign affairs programme at the centreright think-tank Policy Exchange. Her previous books are The Sham an’s Coat: A Native History of Siberia, and Borderland: A Journey through the History of Ukraine.
TO BOOK FOR THIS TALK PLEASE EMAIL membership@gbrussia.org
Tickets: £5
http://www.pushkinhouse.org/en/events/the-siege-of-leningrad-a-new-perspective-from-personal-diaries
Job: Professor in Literary and Cultural Theory, University College London (Ref:1241277)
Deadline: April 20, 2012
The salary range will be negotiable on the professorial scale, but not less than £62,110 per annum.
The UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) is a world-leading multidisciplinary specialist institution for the study of Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, and Russia.
This post holder will play a key role in developing the School’s national and international reputation in the study of Russian, Central and East European literature and culture, through personal research and by catalysing existing strengths among colleagues currently working in literary and cultural theory, comparative literature, philosophy, and film and performance studies. Interdisciplinary approaches and a demonstrable interest in working collaboratively are particularly welcomed.
This appointment is available from 1 September 2012 (or at a later date as agreed).
The successful candidate will have a recognised international record of achievement in research as demonstrated through a series of publications that are world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour. The candidate will also provide evidence of a trajectory leading to further outstanding research achievement and leadership.
Potential applicants may wish to note that in addition to removal expenses a relocation supplement of £9,000 may be payable when it is necessary to relocate to take up an appointment at UCL.
Enquiries concerning the requirements of the post may be directed to Simon Dixon, Sir Bernard Pares Chair of Russian History and SSEES Head of Arts and Humanities Research (simon.dixon@ucl.ac.uk). Queries regarding the application procedure should be addressed to Rachel Port (r.port.@ucl.ac.uk).
Fourth International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine
“Violence and its Aftermath in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Context”
Zhytomyr (Ukraine), 4-10 July 2012
Program description:
“How naïve, how kindly and patriarchal the old prisons huddled on the
outskirts of towns now appeared – beside these camp-cities, beside the awful
crimson-black glow that hung over the gas ovens! You might well think that
the management of such a vast number of prisoners would have required an
equally vast army of guards and supervisors. In fact, whole weeks would pass
by without anyone in an SS uniform so much as appearing inside the
barrack-huts. It was the prisoners themselves who policed the camp-cities
(…) It seemed as though the German authorities could disappear altogether,
the prisoners would maintain the high-voltage current in the wires and go on
with their work.”
This is the way Vasily Grossman, a Soviet writer born in a Jewish family in
central Ukraine, defines in his major novel Life and Fate the level and
sophistication of violence reached in the XXth century. The novel dedicated
to the Second World War is a reflection on the management of violence in war
conditions and its ambiguity, but also on the violence experienced by
political prisoners in Stalinist camps and on the pervasiveness of violence
in all spheres of life. Having lost his mother in the Berdichev ghetto
during the war, the writer dedicated his novel to her and her shadow is
present in the author’s whole work of writing and memory.
Following Grossman’s path, not only symbolically but also physically by
installing the school near his native city, the Summer School will address
the complexity and the aftermaths of violence, not only in war times, but
also in times of peace, in the Soviet and post-Soviet context.
The Fourth International Social Science Summer School in Ukraine will
provide a unique forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest
research on violence issues, involving specialists of the topic, as well as
young promising researchers.
The School is interdisciplinary. The organizers welcome proposals from the
disciplines of history, sociology, anthropology, political science,
economics, and adjacent fields. While the primary focus will be on the
socialist and post-socialist era (in the former Soviet Union, Central,
Eastern and Southern Europe), pre-Soviet history may also be examined. The
discussions and presentations will analyze different dimensions of violence:
war and non-war situations; state management of violence, as well as
individual and collective strategies; mechanisms of violence outbreak;
violent practices and post-violence situations; perpetrators and victims;
sources and methods.
Some of the issues of particular interest to the School include:
• State monopoly of violence, implementation and resistance
(past and present)
o Soviet repressive practices
o Police: use of force and violent practices
o Justice, prison, coercion
o Terrorism and anti-terrorism
o State management of public protest
o Violence of/towards economic actors (mafia, raids)
• War and post-war, conflict situations
o Mobilization and control of violence in combat
o Civil population during war and post-conflict
o Ethnic conflicts, border conflicts, other forms of mass violence
o Return to civilian life
• Violent practices and violent behaviour
o State and non-state violence towards property or objects
o Social, domestic and everyday violence
o Gendered dimension of violence
o Violence and non-violence as a strategy for political, social and
economical actors
o Public protest practices: strikes, demonstrations
o Education and socialization to violence
• Memory and representation of violence
o Collective memory of violence
o Representation of violence in media and art
o Life course and trauma
o Veterans and veterans’ movements
The Summer School is designed to be interdisciplinary and international.
Participants are expected to present their own work and to participate in
group discussions. The School’s program consists of lectures, panel
presentations and discussions, as well field trips within the region,
followed by discussion sessions.
Location
Zhytomyr (Central Ukraine, 130 km from Kyiv) is nowadays a middle-sized city
of 278,000 inhabitants in a mostly rural area. The official founding date is
884, though this fact and has only a legendary basis. The first records of
the town date from 1240 and are linked to Zhytomyr being sacked by the
Mongols of Batu Khan. Successively Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Soviet and
Ukrainian, the town has been destroyed and rebuilt several times.
From the times of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, many Poles and Jews
lived here. The Jewish roots of Vladimir Lenin are related to Zhytomyr. His
grandfather, Mr Blank, belonged to the local town dwellers. In Zhytomyr for
a long time lived Khaim Byalik – one of the founders of the modern Hebrew
language. The Zhytomyr region is also related to the biography and writings
by authors such as Honoré de Balzac, Lesya Ukrainka, and Józef Kraszewski.
The famous musicians Svyatoslav Richter and Juliusz Zarembski are also
Zhytomyr natives.
During the Soviet years – and still nowadays - the city was more willing to
be proud of another of his children, the designer of the first Soviet space
rockets Sergey Korolev; two local museums commemorate its life and the
Soviet conquest of the space.
During the 20th century Zhytomyr has gradually lost its multicultural
nature. The predominant Jewish community was largely annihilated in the
Holocaust; the Soviet migration policy has brought there a more mixed
population. Today, Zhytomyr is a rather typical post-Soviet city, combining
in its landscape architectural traces of the old times, past conflicts
injuries, Soviet urbanization marks and post-Soviet commercial development.
Duration:
One week, Wednesday 4 – Tuesday 10 July 2012.
Eligibility
The Summer School is open to PhD students (or students enrolled in a
kandidat nauk program) and young researchers (up to six years removed from
their PhD or kandidat nauk degree). Empirically grounded proposals are
particularly welcomed.
The working language of the Summer School will be English, and it is
important that prospective participants have a good knowledge of this
language.
The selection committee will select candidates based on their responses to
this Call for Proposals. The selected candidates will be advised before the
end of May.
Program Costs
There is no program fee. Local transportation from/to Kyiv, accommodation,
meals, classes, lectures, seminars and excursions are provided by the
organizers and free of charge. The participants or their universities should
only pay the travel expenses from the participant's country to Kyiv.
How to apply?
To be considered for the Summer School, candidates must complete an
application form (that includes a 500 word project proposal) and add a CV.
They can also send an additional written sample, such as a conference paper,
a dissertation chapter, or a publication (optional). The application must be
sent by e-mail to ukrainesummerschool@gmail.com, by 15 April 2012.
The application form can be requested at Ukrainesummerschool@gmail.com or
downloaded on the following address:
http://historians.in.ua/index.php/ogoloshennya/89-summer-school-in-ukraine-2
012
For more information, please contact us at ukrainesummerschool@gmail.com
DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS 15TH APRIL 2012
Partners:
Embassy of France in Ukraine
Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Ottawa (Canada)
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales [EHESS] (France)
Internet network “historians.in.ua”
Research project “Understanding Violence in
Russia”russiaviolence.hypotheses.org
Doctoral School of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Ukraine)
French-Russian Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences in Moscow (Russia)
Zhytomyr State University (Ukraine)
Russian Library for Foreign Literature marks 90th anniversary
Andrusenko Yelena
Download radio broadcast here: http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_04_02/70397058/
On April 2nd Russia’s Library for Foreign Literature named after its founder Margarita Rudomino celebrates its 90th anniversary. Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has congratulated the library’s staff, noting that the organization is not just a library but a cultural and a language center which “promotes a deeper dialogue between nations”.
To mark the 90th jubilee the library’s publishing house released a book titled “Nearly the Entire 20th Century” authored by Margarita Rudomino`s son Adrian. The book`s title reflects ninety years of Margarita`s life, 50 of which she dedicated to the library. “It was established in the 1920s, when a young Soviet country rejected the values and traditions of the world culture”, says Adrian.
“We have our classical literature, books by Soviet writers, and we do not need foreign literature!”- Soviet leaders thought. Still, there were people among the Communists who understood that the country could not be isolated from the international and, first of all, from the West European culture. And this is what encouraged my mother”. Adrian added that books were like members of the family and always meant a lot to his parents and sister.
The library started when Margarita Rudomino took 100 German-language books to Moscow from somewhere in the provinces. The history of the library is closely linked to the history of Russia and the entire world. For example, German Marxist theorist and fighter for women’s rights Clara Zetkin provided the library with newspapers and magazines in foreign languages. Vast fiction, non-fiction and philosophical libraries, including those which once belonged to the Russian aristocracy, were also saved by library workers.
Although the Rudomino Foreign Literature Library is not that old (90 years is not the age for a library), it has very precious volumes in its funds, for example, rare books dating back tot eh 14th -15th centuries. The library is proud for having back a collection of books once moved from Russia abroad. Russian thinker and theologian Nikolai Zyornov specified in his will that he wished his library to be transferred from Oxford to the Rudomino Library in Moscow.
As of today, the Russian Library for Foreign Literature homes dozens of educational centers, offering visitors to study the cultures of France, US, Japan, Iran, Bulgaria and many others. “The library has about 5 million books in 140 languages, which makes it a valuable source of information”, the library director Yekaterina Genieva says.
http://english.ruvr.ru/2012_04_02/70397058/
