Vintage Siege of Leningrad postcards
Yesterday marked the 72nd anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad. The Siege was partially lifted a year before, but it wasn't until January 27, 1944 that the Nazis fully, completely pushed out.
I've written about my feelings about the Siege before, but it bears repeating. It's not just that the Siege was a tragedy. it's not just that over a million people died in bombings, from diseases, from starvation and from less savory things most people would rather not talk about. It's that it happened in my city, the city where I was born, the city where I spent the first 11 years of my life.
I was five years old when Grandma Nina first told me about what happened. She would know. She was there. We walked down Nevski Prospekt, and she pointed to the buildings that were hit when the bombs first struck. I imagined it clearly and vividly.
Those images will stay with me until the day I die.
I've written this many times before, but, again, it bears repeating. It's one thing to listen in a history class about a tragedy that happened generations ago. It's quite another to know that at those moment, Granda Nina was trapped in the city, while your other grandmother was evacuated. It's one thing to hear about desperate people resorting to cannibalism. It's quite another thing to hear your grandmother describe how she came so close to actually getting... Well.
The mass graves in St. Petersburg are striking things. Thousands and thousands of bodies are buried beneath simple-looking mounds. But it takes on a whole new significance when you know, that your grandmother's grandmother is someone in there.
I explain all of this because, early this morning (Chicago time) I came across a post by babs71 showing scans of a a collection of Siege of Leningrad postcards. The images, which were drawn by Viktor Morozov, are illustrations for "The Leningrad Year," a book by author, poet and journalist Nikolai Tihonov. It's a series of stories documenting the life in the besieged city between May 1942 and the end of April 1943.
The original post includes both the front and back sides of the cards, but if you don't know Russian, the back sides look kind of the same (the only thing that's different are the image captions). So I decided to just repost the front sides, and translate the image descriptions.
Leningrad in September 1942
Leningrad in December 1942
Leningrad in January 1943
I'm old enough to have actually been born in Leningrad, before it regained its original name. So here's to my fellow Leningradtsy, my fellow St. Peterburgians. Whether the winds of fate have tosseed us, this is our city. And the end of the Siege of Leningrad is our triumph.
За нашу победу.
I've written about my feelings about the Siege before, but it bears repeating. It's not just that the Siege was a tragedy. it's not just that over a million people died in bombings, from diseases, from starvation and from less savory things most people would rather not talk about. It's that it happened in my city, the city where I was born, the city where I spent the first 11 years of my life.
I was five years old when Grandma Nina first told me about what happened. She would know. She was there. We walked down Nevski Prospekt, and she pointed to the buildings that were hit when the bombs first struck. I imagined it clearly and vividly.
Those images will stay with me until the day I die.
I've written this many times before, but, again, it bears repeating. It's one thing to listen in a history class about a tragedy that happened generations ago. It's quite another to know that at those moment, Granda Nina was trapped in the city, while your other grandmother was evacuated. It's one thing to hear about desperate people resorting to cannibalism. It's quite another thing to hear your grandmother describe how she came so close to actually getting... Well.
The mass graves in St. Petersburg are striking things. Thousands and thousands of bodies are buried beneath simple-looking mounds. But it takes on a whole new significance when you know, that your grandmother's grandmother is someone in there.
I explain all of this because, early this morning (Chicago time) I came across a post by babs71 showing scans of a a collection of Siege of Leningrad postcards. The images, which were drawn by Viktor Morozov, are illustrations for "The Leningrad Year," a book by author, poet and journalist Nikolai Tihonov. It's a series of stories documenting the life in the besieged city between May 1942 and the end of April 1943.
The original post includes both the front and back sides of the cards, but if you don't know Russian, the back sides look kind of the same (the only thing that's different are the image captions). So I decided to just repost the front sides, and translate the image descriptions.
Leningrad in September 1942
Leningrad in December 1942
Leningrad in January 1943
I'm old enough to have actually been born in Leningrad, before it regained its original name. So here's to my fellow Leningradtsy, my fellow St. Peterburgians. Whether the winds of fate have tosseed us, this is our city. And the end of the Siege of Leningrad is our triumph.
За нашу победу.