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Anna Reid, LENINGRAD: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941-44, Bloomsbury, 2011<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n
27 January 1944 is a sacred date in the memory of most Leningraders. On this day, seventy-seven years ago, the siege of Leningrad was finally lifted after 872 days of total blockade imposed on the city by the Axis powers during the Second World War.<\/p>\n
This year marks 80 years since the outbreak of the deadliest of human tragedies of the 20th<\/sup> century, which took the lives of over 800,000 people. Anna Reid dedicated several years to her research about the siege, placing the focus on personal encounters of its witnesses and survivors. Her publication \u201cLENINGRAD: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941-44\u201d tells a moving story of \u201cthe depths and heights of human behaviour\u201d in unprecedented circumstances. This year will be the 10th<\/sup> anniversary of its first publication. Anna kindly agreed to talk to us about her work, share her personal encounters from the meetings with the blokadniki <\/em>and their families and other insights into her extensive research in Russia.<\/p>\n \u201cThe siege\u2019s most eloquent victims \u2013 the diarists whose voices form the core of this book \u2013 are easy to relate to. They are not faceless poor-world peasants but educated city-dwelling Europeans \u2013 writers, artists, university lecturers, librarians, museum curators, factory managers, bookkeepers, pensioners, housewives, students and schoolchildren; owners of the best coats, gramophones, favourite novels, pet dogs \u2013 people, in short, much like ourselves. Some did turn out to be heroes, others to be selfish and callous, most to be a mixture of both. As a memoirist puts it of the Party representatives in the wartime military hospital, \u201cThere were good ones, bad ones, and the usual”. “Their words are their best memorial.\u201d (Anna Reid)<\/p>\n Anna Reid presents her book \u201cLENINGRAD: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941-44\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Leningrad is magnificent living history: all life and death is in these burning pages (The Guardian Review, 2011)<\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n WHEN:<\/strong> Friday, 5 March 2021, 19:00 (GMT) Please\u00a0register in advance<\/a>.\u00a0After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.<\/p>\n About the speaker<\/strong><\/p>\n Anna Reid<\/p><\/div>\n Anna Reid<\/strong> is an English journalist and author whose work focuses primarily on the history of Eastern Europe. She read law at Oxford University and studied Russian History at the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies. After working as a consultant and business journalist, she moved to Kiev, where she acted as the Ukraine correspondent for the Economist from 1993 to 1995. From 2003 to 2007 she worked for the British think-tank Policy Exchange, editing several of their publications and running the foreign affairs programme.<\/p>\n Her first book,\u00a0Borderland: A Journey through the History of the Ukraine<\/em>, was published to wide acclaim in 1997.\u00a0<\/em>She is also the author\u00a0<\/em>of\u00a0The Shaman’s Coat: A Native History of Siberia (Bloomsbury, 2003) <\/em>and is currently working on The Russia Stunt<\/em>\u00a0which is forthcoming from John Murray.<\/p>\n \u201cLENINGRAD: Tragedy of a City Under Siege, 1941-44\u201d is currently available on amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n CamRuSS held an art exhibition \u00a0“Elena Marttila: Art and Endurance in the Siege of Leningrad,”<\/a> at Darwin College, Cambridge, accompanied by a series of talks and film screenings in 2017. Video recordings of the talks are available in the\u00a0programme section\u00a0of the exhibition’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n On the theme of Russian WWII Poetry, you can view the presentation<\/strong> slides<\/strong><\/a> of a talk by Dr Maria Bloshteyn<\/strong> (22 October 2020) with some of the poems included in the bilingual book of poetry “Russia is Burning: Poems of the Great Patriotic War.” Dr Bloshteyn’s edited volume can be purchased from its publisher Smockestack Books<\/a>\u00a0or from various bookshops:\u00a0Blackwell\u2019s (Heffers)<\/a>,\u00a0Waterstones<\/a>,\u00a0Poetry Book Society<\/a>, or\u00a0Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can also read two book reviews “Comrade, Shed No Tears” in magazine Literary Review<\/em> by Robert Chandler<\/a> and “Russia’s Great Patriotic War” in The Postil Magazine<\/em> by N. Dass<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 27 January 1944 is a sacred date in the memory of most Leningraders. On this day, seventy-seven years ago, the siege of Leningrad was finally lifted after 872 days of total blockade imposed on the city by the Axis powers … Continue reading
\nWHERE:<\/strong>\u00a0Zoom
\nLANGUAGE:<\/strong>\u00a0English<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.camruss.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Anna-Reid_photo-200x300.jpg\")
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