Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas: jgo.e-reviews 3 (2013), 1 Rezensionen online / Im Auftrag des Instituts für Ost- und Südosteuropastudien in Regensburg herausgegeben von Martin Schulze Wessel und Dietmar Neutatz
Verfasst von: Johannes Due Enstad
Bitva za Leningrad. Diskussionnye problemy. Po materialam meždunarodnoj konferencii „Blokada Leningrada: spornoe i besspornoe“. Sentjabr’ 2007 goda. Pod red. Nikity A. Lomagina. S.-Peterburg: Evropejskij dom, 2009. 307 S. ISBN: 978-5-8015-0257-1.
The siege of Leningrad has in recent years been subjected to much scholarly attention by historians and others, both inside and outside Russia. Details of the fate that befell this great city during the German-Soviet war first came to the attention of the larger European and American public with Harrison Salisbury’s “900 days” (first published in 1969). In later years, and especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, many attempts have been made to come to grips with the realities and mythologies – military and political as well as social and cultural – of the siege. The ambition of the conference out of which this volume emerged was to create “a common scholarly space” (p. 5) for discussing the historical events. Even though the book is valuable, it is only in a limited way that such a common space has been realized.
According to the introduction, the texts selected for publication include papers presented at the conference as well as articles submitted in its wake, “relating to the questions that gave rise to the most controversial discussions” (p. 5). However, the reader is left in the dark as to which questions were hotly debated and what the different positions were; the sparse three-page introduction offers little but a brief summary of the articles, and there is no conclusion at the end providing any over-arching discussion. In other words, one is left with many loose ends.
The ten articles themselves are of varying quality and originality. The opening article by former Soviet diplomat Feliks Sutyrin discusses the Winter War. Offering little in the way of original analysis, the author basically defends the view that the Soviet Union did not want war but was forced to attack Finland because of the latter’s intransigence and failure to appreciate Soviet strategic interests. Stalin, the author holds, demonstrated “great patience” with the Finns during autumn 1939 in his attempts to “legitimately” achieve a strategic buffer protecting Leningrad (pp. 21–22). In this way, the Finns are ultimately held responsible for the Soviet aggression that led to the Winter War. Needless to say, from an academic point of view this analysis is one-sided and untenable.
A useful overview of the German historical literature on the siege is presented by Gerhart Hass, who notes that, compared to the battles of Moscow, Stalingrad, and Berlin, the battle and siege of Leningrad has occupied a rather modest place in German history-writing. Given the enormity of the suffering caused by the German blockade (the estimated civilian death toll, 1.1 million, resembles that of Auschwitz), this fact is striking. Hass fails to note, however, the appearance of Jörg Ganzenmüller’s monograph (Das belagerte Leningrad, 1941–1944. 1941 – 1944. Die Stadt in den Strategien von Angreifern und Verteidigern. Paderborn 2005), which offers a thorough treatment of both German and Soviet strategy as well as civilian life in the besieged city. Notably, Ganzenmüller closely examines the decision-making process in the German military and political leadership in 1941 and concludes that the siege should be viewed as a genocidal strategy in line with the long-term visions presented in the so-called Generalplan Ost rather than a conventional military operation.
Sergei Iarov’s original and interesting contribution delves into the emotional relations of everyday family life in the besieged city during 1941–1942. Based on diaries, personal letters, and memoirs, Iarov’s study is one of humanity in the midst of suffering. In his sensitive reading of the documents, the author manages the difficult task of conveying the depths of compassion, bitterness, and love that pervade the texts of the blokadniki. The ethics of family bonds remained strong, Iarov contends, noting how mothers and children, sisters and brothers, wives and husbands offered each other words and deeds of comfort and consolation, striving to somehow alleviate the pain of their loved ones. Iarov ultimately holds that within the family, Leningraders remained human, refusing to submit to base animal instincts of survival.
Three more articles also deal with conditions inside Leningrad during the siege. First, Richard Bidlack looks into the question of socio-political mood and opposition to the Soviet authorities, finding that while anti-Soviet attitudes and utterances certainly rose during the blockade, this was never transformed into any organized form of opposition. According to Bidlack, no evidence has been found of any anti-Soviet conspiracy taking place in wartime Leningrad, raising doubts about the NKVD’s assertion that 625 “counter-revolutionary groups” were “discovered and destroyed” during the war (p. 188). Second, Nikita Lomagin’s contribution is a descriptive account of the “phobias” (p. 215) of Soviet security services and their methods of political control. In contrast to Bidlack, Lomagin argues that the extent of popular discontent in the winter of 1941–1942 reached the point of representing “a real danger to the authorities” (p. 205). Finally, Jeffrey K. Hass looks at diaries and finds that the narratives constructed by blokadniki were commonly structured according to “a unifying logic [of] sacred versus profane” (p. 249). Building on this insight, Hass provides an enlightening discussion about how the war impacted the relationship between state and society in the Soviet Union.
Reflecting the enormous scholarly interest of recent years in various kinds of memory studies, this book also features an article by Steve Maddox about how the memory of the blockade was utilized in the post-blockade and post-war restoration of Leningrad. Soviet authorities recognized the identity-building potential of commemorating the siege as a story of heroic persistence in spite of great suffering. As Maddox convincingly argues, the official efforts to harness and use the memory of the wartime travails “for productive and socially useful work” (p. 296) seem to have been rather successful.
Additionally, the book contains an article by Johannes Hürter on the military and occupation policies of the Wehrmacht south of Leningrad (which is an abridged version of an article published in Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 49 [2001], 3), an article by two Finnish historians about German and Finnish military strategy, and a contribution by the veteran Iurii Basistov describing the methods of Soviet counter-intelligence along the Leningrad front directed at Germans as well as Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch, French, and other volunteer soldiers fighting alongside the Germans.
In sum, this volume contains several original and interesting pieces that enhance our knowledge of the Leningrad siege. The articles by Iarov, Hass, and Maddox on emotions, experiences, and the role of memory in post-war reconstruction stand out by their clarity and original quality, and should be read by historians and other scholars interested in the Soviet war experience. However, to create the “common scholarly space” that the introduction promises, the editor should have included a more thorough-going introductory or concluding discussion, informing readers on the state of research and on how the texts contribute to our knowledge, how they engage current scholarly debates.
Zitierweise: Johannes Due Enstad über: Bitva za Leningrad. Diskussionnye problemy. Po materialam meždunarodnoj konferencii „Blokada Leningrada: spornoe i besspornoe“. Sentjabr’ 2007 goda. Pod red. Nikity A. Lomagina. S.-Peterburg: Evropejskij dom, 2009. 307 S. ISBN: 978-5-8015-0257-1, http://www.oei-dokumente.de/JGO/erev/Enstad_Lomagin_Bitva_za_Leningrad.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)
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