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Local Memory and National Myth: Commemorating the Siege of Leningrad

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, Associate Professor, Department of History, West Chester University, and former Title VIII-Supported Short-Term Scholar, Kennan Institute

Date & Time

Thursday
Jan. 6, 2005
1:30pm – 3:30pm ET

Overview

At a recent Kennan Institute talk, Lisa Kirschenbaum, Associate Professor, Department of History, West Chester University, and former Title VIII-Supported Short-Term Scholar, Kennan Institute examined the ways in which local memory interacts with national mythmaking in St. Petersburg, focusing on the Monument to the Historic Defenders of Leningrad.

The monument commemorates the defense of the city in a 900-day siege during World War II. The official death total from the siege is 632,253; but, according to Kirschenbaum, other estimates put the total closer to 1 million, or one-third of the city's pre-war population.

Kirschenbaum noted that plans for commemorating victory in the war were underway in the city during the siege itself—it was, she contended, a method of coping with loss. The plans were a local, even individual effort to shape memory of the event. Following the war, however, the plans were instantly politicized. During the late 1940s, commemoration plans, even the maintenance of war graves, were stopped on orders from above. Stalin, Kirschenbaum stated, wanted to move the country past dwelling on loss, and especially wanted to quash the idea of Leningraders enduring losses and winning victory apart from the rest of the country. Following Stalin's death, memorial planning (and grave maintenance) eventually went back on track, which was also a political decision to rebuke Stalin's record.

Kirschenbaum detailed the history of the design of the moment and the debates over where to locate it. She showed a series of pictures of the monument to illustrate how the monument serves three purposes—memory, myth, and forgetting.

The monument preserves memory in certain conscious directions, while also allowing for multiple reactions. For example, the dates on the monument's facade are for the entire war (not the siege of the city), but the interior of the monument explicitly commemorates the "900 Days" of the blockade. The figures on the monument are depicted in almost a documentary style (several scenes were purportedly witnessed by one of the sculptors), yet they also forget a great deal. Myth was as important as memory in designing the monument. Traditional Russian symbols took the place of official party ideology (no Soviet leaders were prominently featured) to give the monument a lasting air of legitimacy. The statuary around the monument, while "documentary" in style, reinforces a message of strength and resistance. The monument was situated on the outskirts of the city on the front, instead of the center of the city, to emphasize victory in battle rather than enduring the siege. Finally, the monument is important for forgetting certain aspects of the war. Most of the casualties in the siege died of starvation; that is only hinted at in the monument. The fact that huge number of civilians, including children, was not evacuated from the city in time is not a subject that was explored in depth by monument designers.

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Kennan Institute

The Kennan Institute is the premier US center for advanced research on Russia and Eurasia and the oldest and largest regional program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Kennan Institute is committed to improving American understanding of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the surrounding region though research and exchange.  Read more

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