Introduction

Chapter I. "Leningrad turned out to be the first strategic object on the way of the Wehrmacht, which he could not take"

Chapter II. "Let the bravest man be equal to Leningraders in the future!"

Chapter III. "The country, whose artists in these harsh days create works of immortal beauty and high spirit, is invincible!"

Chapter IV. “Forward, eagles! Break the blockade, its iron ring! "

Conclusion

INTRODUCTION

Its appearance is incomparable, its history is unique.

It became a "window to Europe" and the capital of the gigantic Russian Empire, barely appearing to the world.

He was called the Great Pushkin "Peter's creation" and is sung in the works of Russian classics. Baptized "Venice of the North", it was built and decorated by the largest Russian and foreign architects: Vasily Bazhenov, Mikhail Zemtsov, Giacomo Quarenghi, Bartolomeo Carlo and Bartholomew Rastrelli, Carl Rossi, Ivan Starov, Andrey Zakharov, Andrey Voronikhin and many others.

Straight wide streets and avenues, magnificent squares and embankments, openwork bridges across, it seems, an innumerable number of canals and the full-flowing Neva. Isaac's Cathedral, the royal Smolny and the Hermitage are looming majestically against the sky; the spiers of the Admiralty and the Peter and Paul Fortress stretch upward. The spreading crowns of age-old trees of Krestovsky Island, the Summer Garden, the old parks of Pushkin, Gatchina, Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Lomonosov shelter townspeople and tourists in their shadows.

All this ─ now, and all this ─ about St. Petersburg, a city that is rightfully one of the most beautiful in the world, and a city that tried to destroy German fascism.

But then, in 1941, everything was different: another name is Leningrad, another country is the Soviet Union, another state system is socialism, and therefore, it is true, other people are valiant Leningraders who fearlessly fought on the battlefield against the hated enemy on the front.

For hundreds of thousands of women, children and old people who remained in the walls of the city of Lenin, as it was called in Soviet times, the front was everywhere: in the room of a communal apartment, at the machine in the workshop, at a desk in an institution, on the street, in a bomb shelter.

Speaking about the Great Patriotic War, we are used to associate with a feat, when a completely “green” boy from the village who has barely reached adulthood, at the cost of his own life, rushes into the attack, almost without weapons, to finish off a dozen “Fritzes” and thereby avenge his homeland and his house, which was burned by some some impudent German sergeant-major, where there were an old mother and older sisters. Or when, clenching his teeth against inhuman pain, the partisan silently endures the sadistic tortures of the enemy and dies a brave death without betraying any of his comrades. No one will argue: this is a feat.

But isn't it a feat when the mother of a large family, finding some lost bread cards, overcoming fatigue and weakness from hunger, goes to the other end of the city to pass them on to her brethren, the big Leningrad misfortune, who would simply die without these cards ?! Isn't it a feat when in an agricultural research institute, where there are sufficient quantities of all kinds of rare agricultural crops brought from all over the world, the only surviving employee saves them all, without eating a single grain, saves not for a rainy day, but for the science of the future ?! Isn't it a feat when the smartest and most intelligent specialists of the Hermitage, world-famous scientists, after an air attack on the enemy, climb the roof and patch holes in the walls with numb, weak hands so that the snow or rain does not spoil the exhibits ?! Is it not a feat when an emaciated and cold woman with a temperature over forty does not want to hear that she needs to lie down for one day and come to her senses, and, giving all her strength to work, overfulfills the plan by 200-220 percent ?! And here no one will contradict: this is a feat.

Such feats in besieged Leningrad were innumerable, and they became possible thanks to such people with great fortitude who lived and worked in the city on the Neva and throughout the great Soviet country.

The Great Patriotic War to this day is a toy topic, the study of which is occupied by many historians and writers. Multivolume reference books and encyclopedias are constantly reprinted. Various kinds of illustrated publications devoted to both the entire war and its individual battles, give the most complete picture of the hostilities and the state of the civilian population.

There are also special series of publications, united by a common theme or general meaning. In the series "Hero Cities" there is a volume that reveals to the reader the whole history of the heroic struggle for Leningrad: from the summer months of 1941, when the city was preparing to meet the enemy with dignity, to the long-awaited currency in honor of the complete lifting of the blockade.

However, the most interesting is the literature about ordinary people ─ witnesses of that terrible "blitzkrieg" perpetrated by the Nazis, which lasted for almost four years. "Essays on the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" tells not only about all the main events, offensives and retreats of the opposing sides, starting with the defense of the Brest Fortress and the surrender of Japan. This book is valuable for providing a general panorama of what was hidden behind the dry reports of the Sovinformburo, and how even the most insignificant, at first glance, successes of the Red Army were achieved.

"The Great Patriotic War in faces" can be called such a book as "The Broken Ring" by I. Tsybulsky in co-authorship with V. and O. Chechins, which tells about people and actions that took place in reality. "Broken Ring" - about the drivers who transported cargo across the Ladoga ice; about the pilots who defended the only thread connecting the besieged city with the mainland; about bakers literally giving life to hungry townspeople. In general, about those who provided life for the huge Leningrad, the breakthrough and lifting of the blockade.

There is no doubt about the authenticity of what is written in the book "Report from the Blockade", because its author is a well-known radio journalist in the past Lazar Magrachev. All episodes of "Reporting" are the words of Leningraders who spoke on the radio during the war, translated into paper. This is not only evidence of those who survived the difficult days of siege, but also their memories and, as it were, a glance from the past. "Report from the blockade" is not for fans of memoirs, although the personal memories of Magrachev himself are present there (Olga Berggolts's speeches on Leningrad radio, an unexpected meeting by a correspondent of the British BBC, and so on). Rather, this little book will help you to plunge into the atmosphere of a city cut off from the whole country, but unwilling to give up.

A small but capacious book by D. Zherebov and I. Solomakhin "Seven January Days" introduces such an important part in the study of the defense of Leningrad as breaking the blockade. This is a detailed description of the preparation and implementation of Operation Iskra, which allowed Leningrad, after a year and a half after the city was anchored by fascist troops, to begin a new chapter in its life and hope more than ever that "the enemy will be defeated, victory will be ours!"

872 days of the blockade ... This is a piece of bread smaller than a palm, which was divided into three or four parts ... These are frozen walls of a house, where you can’t get warm in any way ... This is the rumble of a falling bomb outside the window ... This is a brother or sister, mom or dad, who could not stand the tests that you are carrying in the cemetery nasankah ...

Who knows what a blockade is? Everyone who survived it has its own, uniquely tragic, uniquely ruthless.

Those who are lucky enough not to know what a blockade is, there is only one thing left: to rely on a variety of data, read a variety of statements and ask themselves the question "What is a blockade, what was it like?"

Here's how I managed to answer this question ...

Chapter I. "LENINGRAD PROVED TO BE THE FIRST STRATEGIC OBJECT ON THE WAY OF THE VERMACHT THAT HE COULD NOT TAKE"

Peacefully sleeping inhabitants of the Land of Soviets awakened from the first sounds of the impending war at dawn on June 22, 1941: Nazi Germany, violating the provisions of the Non-Aggression Pact, invaded the USSR. Unfriendly aviation bombed many large cities, ports, railway junctions, airfields, naval bases, army barracks, summer camps. The invasion was carried out by the ground forces of the Wehrmacht.

The Nazis acted according to a specially developed project for conducting military operations against the Soviet state ─ the Barbarossa plan. Moscow was undoubtedly the main target of the German command; however, due to its enormous political, economic and strategic importance, it was first supposed to capture Leningrad.

The military leaders of the Third Reich not in vain counted on the capture of the city on the Neva: the seizure of Leningrad, Kronstadt and the Murmansk railway will automatically entail the loss of the Baltic by the Soviet Union, lead to the death of the Baltic Fleet (which means that the general defensive capabilities of the Soviet armed forces will be much lower), communications leading inland from the ports of the Barents and White Seas, as well as allow the Germans to establish direct contacts with their Finnish colleagues. Having Leningrad and the surrounding area at its disposal, the Wehrmacht would acquire not only very convenient sea and land routes to provide other troops of Army Groups "North" and "Center", but also advantageous positions for a strike in the rear of the Soviet armed forces, covering Moscow. This is how one of the developers of the Barbarossa plan, Field Marshal F. Paulus, wrote about it: "Several military objectives were pursued by the capture of Leningrad: the liquidation of the main bases of the Russian Baltic Fleet, the withdrawal from the military industry and the liquidation of Leningrad as a point of concentration for a counteroffensive against the German troops advancing on Moscow." .one

In the Leningrad direction, Army Group North operated (16th and 18th armies, 4th Panzer Group ─ a total of 29 divisions, including 6 tank and motorized divisions) under the command of Field Marshal V. von Leeb, supported from the air 1 -m air fleet (760 aircraft). In addition, part of the forces of Army Group "Center" (3rd Panzer Group and venerable 9th Army) should have participated in the initial strike on the troops of the Baltic Special Military District. All of the above formations included 42 divisions, where about 725 thousand soldiers and officers were counted, over 13 thousand imino guns, at least 1500 tanks. In addition, Germany was supported by the Finnish armed forces, which concentrated on the borders of the USSR in the number of 14 divisions with the assistance of 307 aircraft of the Finnish Air Force.

The capture of Leningrad was as follows. The main forces of Army Group "North" were to strike with a swift blow across the river. Meadow on Krasnogvardeysk (now ─ Gatchina) to defeat the Soviet troops on the approaches to Leningrad and capture the city. The Finnish military formations had to take the offensive on the Karelian Isthmus, as well as between the Onega and Ladoga lakes, in order to unite with the German fascist armies on the river. Svir and in the Leningrad region. At the same time, it was planned to implement a wider bilateral coverage of the area: by the forces of the 16th Army across the river. Staraya Russa bypassing Lake Ilmen and the Finnish army through Petrozavodsk on the river. Swir.

Thus, the German command intended to capture Leningrad with a combined strike: from the north-west ─ with Finnish troops, from the south and south-east ─ by the German Army Group North.

The enemy at that time was opposed by the armed forces of the North-Western Front (Major General P.P. Sobennikov; 8th, 11th and 27th armies, 31 divisions and 2 brigades in total) and the Northern Front on the Karelian Isthmus and in Karelia (General - Lieutenant MM Popov; 7th and 23rd armies; a total of 8 divisions). However, Army Group "North" outnumbered the Soviet troops of the North-Western Front in infantry ─ 2.4; for guns ─ at 4; mortars ─ 5.8; pots ─ 1.2; by aircraft - 9.8 times. 1 The offensive of the Wehrmacht troops directly to Leningrad began on July 10, 1941, from the line of the Velikaya River. They launched an offensive on the southwestern and northern approaches to Leningrad and at the end of July, at the cost of considerable losses, reached the border of the Narva and Lugai Mshaga rivers.

The city authorities perfectly understood the seriousness of the current situation, so it was extremely important to effectively organize work to prepare Leningrad for defense. The Leningrad Party organization sent an appeal to all the working people of the city. Below are its snippets:

“COMRADES OF LENINGRAD, DEAR FRIENDS!

Over our home and beloved city hangs the immediate threat of an attack by the German fascist troops. The enemy is trying to penetrate Leningrad. He wants to destroy our homes, seize factories and plants, plunder the people's property, flood the streets and squares with the blood of innocent victims, outrage the peaceful population, enslave the free sons of our Motherland. This will not happen! […]

Let us stand as one to defend our city, our homes, our families, our honor and freedom! […]

We will stand up to the end, not sparing our lives, we will fight with the enemy, we will break and destroy him!

Commander-in-Chief Marshal - K. Voroshilov

Secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) - A. Zhdanov

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Councils of Working People's Deputies - P. Popkov. "

But from words it was necessary to move on to deeds: as early as July 1, 1941, a Commission on the Defense of Leningrad was created. Its chairman was A.A. Zhdanov.

On June 30, on the initiative of the Party organization of Leningrad, the formation of a people's militia began in the city. Applications were submitted by workers of enterprises, students, graduate students and university professors, representatives of the intelligentsia and people of various professions. About 160 thousand people were selected, although there were more than twice as many applicants.

Also, in order to prepare the necessary reserve of defenders of the city on July 13, 1941, a decree was adopted on military training of all men aged 17 to 55 years. Introduced compulsory general training of the population in air defense. By August 10, more than 100 thousand people attended military training classes.

Measures such as the introduction of universal labor service were also taken. On June 27, the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council adopted a resolution on attracting residents of Leningrad, Pushkin, Kolpino, Kronstadt and Peterhof to it.

The inhabitants of Leningrad worked on defensive construction sites in 1941 alone, about 15 thousand man-days. The length of the anti-personnel and anti-tank obstacles erected by them was three times the distance between Moscow and Leningrad (i.e., at least 1800 km).

The total length of trenches, trenches, communication passages, shelters for infantry and fire weapons reached 1000 km. 626 km of anti-tank ditches were dug, 406 km of escarps and counter-escarps, about 50 thousand obstacles, 306 km of forest obstructions, 35 km of city barricades, 635 km of wire obstacles, 935 km of communication tunnels, 15 thousand pillboxes and bunkers, 22 thousand firing points in the city, 2300 command and observation posts 1.

No one wanted to be left on the sidelines when the fate of their beloved city was being decided. In August, 79 workers' battalions, consisting of 41 thousand fighters, were formed in the shortest possible time. They were intended for the defense of the city, the protection of factories, plants and institutions. Women and adolescents volunteered among them.

On August 8, 1941, the Wehrmacht forces launched an offensive in the Red Guard direction. Despite the heroic defensive actions of the Soviet troops, by September 1, they were driven back by the enemy at a distance of 30-40 km east of Kexholm and Vyborg. There was a real threat to the encirclement of Leningrad. In addition, the offensive along the Moscow-Leningrad highway, carried out by the Nazi armed forces, allowed the enemy to go from the south to the Neva in the vicinity of the Ivanovo rapids on August 30 and, after capturing the Mga station, cut the railway connecting the city with the country. After a little over a week ─ 8 September ─ the enemy took possession of Shlisselburg (or rather, part of it, but, as it turned out, that was enough), which made it possible to cut off Leningrad from land. From that day on, communication with the outside world could only be carried out by air and Lake Ladoga. The 900-day siege of Leningrad began ...

Chapter II. "LET THE FUTURE FOR LENINGRAD EQUALIZE THE BOLDEST MAN IN THE FUTURE!"

The first ordeal that fell to the lot of the courageous Leningraders was regular shelling (the first of which dates back to September 4, 1941) and air strikes (although the first time enemy aircraft tried to penetrate the city limits on the night of June 23, they only managed to break through there on September 6 ). However, the German aviation did not drop shells chaotically, but according to a clearly verified scheme: their task was to destroy as many civilians as possible, as well as strategically important objects.

On the afternoon of September 8, 30 enemy bombers appeared in the sky over the city. High-explosive incendiary bombs rained down. The fire engulfed the entire southeastern part of Leningrad. The fire began to devour the wooden storages of the Badayevsky food warehouses. Burns, sugar and other types of food. It took almost 5 hours to quell the conflagration. “Hunger is hanging over the population of many millions ─ there are no Badaevsky food warehouses.” This is what the population consumes in just three days. The main part of the stocks was dispersed to other bases ..., seven times more than the ones on the Badayevskys burned down. ”

In total, over 100 thousand were dropped on the city during the blockade. incendiary and 5 thousand high-explosive bombs, about 150 thousand shells. Only in the autumn months of 1941, the air raid warning was announced 251 times. The average duration of the shelling in November 1941 was 9 hours.

Without losing hope to take Leningrad by storm, on September 9 the Germans launched a new offensive. The main blow was delivered from the area west of Krasnogvardeisk. But the command of the Leningrad Front transferred part of the troops from the Karelian Isthmus to the most threatening sectors, replenished the reserve units with detachments of the people's militia. These measures allowed the front to stabilize on the southern southern-western approaches to the city.

It was clear that the Nazis' plan to seize Leningrad was a fiasco. Having failed to achieve the previously set goals, the top of the Wehrmacht came to the conclusion that only a long siege of the city and incessant air raids could lead to its mastery. One of the documents of the operational department of the General Staff of the Third Reich "On the Siege of Leningrad" dated September 21, 1941 said:

“B) First, we blockade Leningrad (hermetically) and destroy the city, if possible, with artillery and aviation ...

c) When terror and famine have done their job in the city, we will open separate gates and release the unarmed people ...

d) The remnants of the "fortress garrison" (as the enemy called the civilian population of Leningrad ─ ed. ed.) will remain there for the winter. In the spring we will penetrate the city ... we will take out all that remains alive into the depths of Russia or take prisoner, raze Leningrad to the ground and transfer area north of the Neva, Finland ".1

These were the plans of the foe. But the Soviet command could not put up with such circumstances. September 10, 1941 is the date of the first attempt to release the blockade of Leningrad. The Sinyavinskaya operation of the troops of the 54th separate army and the Leningrad Front began with the aim of restoring the land connection between the city and the country. The Soviet troops lacked strength and could not fulfill the assigned task. The operation ended on September 26.

Meanwhile, the situation in the city itself was becoming more and more difficult. In the besieged Leningrad, there were 2, 544 million people, including about 400 thousand children. Despite the fact that from the middle of September the "air bridge" began to operate, and a few days earlier small lake ships with flour began to moor at the Leningrad coast, the stocks of provisions were decreasing at a catastrophic rate.

On July 18, 1941, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a decree to introduce cards in Moscow, Leningrad and their suburbs, as well as in individual settlements of the Moscow and Leningrad regions, cards for the most important food products (bread, meat, fats, sugar, etc.) by the end of the summer, such goods were issued by cards throughout the country). They set the following norms for bread:

Workers and engineers and technicians of the coal, oil, metallurgical industries were entitled to from 800 to 1200 gr. bread a day.

The rest of the workers and engineering and technical workers (for example, in the light industry) were given 500 grams of bread each.

Employees of various sectors of the national economy received 400-450 gr. bread a day.

Dependents and children had to be content with 300-400 gr. bread a day.

However, by September 12, Leningrad, cut off from the mainland, remained: grain and flour ─ for 35 days, imakaron cereals ─ for 30 days, meat and meat products ─ for 33, fats ─ for 45, sugar and confectionery ─ for 60 days. Leningradthere was the first reduction in the established throughout the Union of daily norms of bread: 500 gr. for workers, 300 gr. for employees and children, 250 gr. for dependents.

But the enemy did not calm down. Here is the entry from September 18, 1941, appeared in the diary of the chief of staff of the ground forces of fascist Germany, Colonel-General F. Halder: “The ring around Leningrad is still open as tightly as we would like ... The enemy has concentrated large human and material forces and means. The situation here will be tense, as long as, as an ally, he does not allow himself to feel hunger. ”2 Herr Halder, to a great regret for the inhabitants of Leningrad, thought absolutely right: hunger was really felt more and more every day.

From October 1, the townspeople began to receive 400 grams. (workers) and 300 gr. (other). Food, delivered by waterway through Ladoga (for the entire autumn navigation ─ from September 12 to November 15 ─ 60 tons of provisions were brought in and 39 thousand people were evacuated), did not cover and three of the needs of the urban population.

Another significant problem was the acute shortage of energy carriers. Before the war, Leningrad plants and factories worked on imported fuel, but the siege disrupted all supplies, and the available supplies were melting away. The city is under the threat of a fuel hunger. In order to prevent the emerging energy crisis from becoming a disaster, on October 8, the Leningrad Executive Committee of Working People's Deputies decided to procure firewood in the regions north of Leningrad. There were sent detachments of logging companies, which consisted mainly of women. In mid-October, the detachments began their work, but from the very beginning it became clear that the logging plan would not be fulfilled. Leningrad youth also made a significant contribution to resolving the fuel issue (about 2 thousand Komsomol members, mostly girls, took part in the logging). But even their work was not enough for the full or almost complete provision of enterprises with energy. With the onset of cold weather, factories stopped one after another.

Only the lifting of the siege could make the life of Leningrad easier, for which the Sinyavinskaya operation of the troops of the 54th and 55th armies and the Neva operational group of the Leningrad Front started on October 20. It coincided with the offensive of the fascist German troops on Tikhvin, so on October 28 the release of the blockade had to be postponed due to the aggravated situation in the Tikhvin direction.

The German command became interested in Tikhvin after the failures with the capture of Leningrad from the south. It was this place that was a hole in the circle around Leningrad. And as a result of heavy fighting on November 8, the Nazis managed to occupy this town. And this meant one thing: Leningrad lost the last railroad, along which cargoes went to the city along Lake Ladoga. Noreka Svir remained inaccessible to the enemy. Moreover: as a result of the Tikhvin offensive operation in mid-November, the Germans were driven back to the Volkhov River. The liberation of Tikhvin was carried out only a month after his capture - on December 9.

On November 8, 1941, Hitler arrogantly uttered: “Leningrad itself will raise its hands: it will inevitably fall, sooner or later. No one will get free from there, no one will break through our lines. Leningrad is destined to die of starvation. ”1 Someone then might have thought that it would be so. On November 13, another decrease in the norms for the issuance of bread was recorded: workers and engineers and technicians were given 300 grams each, the rest of the population - 150 grams each. But when navigation on Ladoga had almost ceased, and in fact no provisions were delivered to the city, even this meager ration had to be cut. The lowest bread supply rates for the entire period of the blockade were set at the following levels: workers were given 250 grams each, employees, children and dependents ─ 125 grams each; troops of the first line and warships ─ 300 grams each. bread and 100 grams of dryers, the rest of the military units ─ 150 grams each. bread and 75 gr. It is worth remembering that all such products were not baked from first-grade or even second-grade wheat flour. The blockade bread of that time had the following composition:

rye flour ─ 40%,

cellulose ─ 25%,

meal ─ 20%,

barley flour ─ 5%,

malt ─ 10%,

cake (if available, replaced cellulose),

bran (if available, meal was replaced).

In the besieged city, bread was undoubtedly the highest value. For a loaf of bread, a bag of cereals or a can of stew, people were ready to give even family jewelry. Different people had different ways of dividing slices of bread, which was given out every morning: someone cut it into thin slices, someone cut it into tiny cubes, but they all agreed on one thing: the most delicious and satisfying is the crust. But what kind of satiety can we talk about when each of the residents of Leningrads lost weight before our eyes?

In such conditions, one had to recall the ancient instincts of hunters and food getters. Thousands of hungry people flocked to the outskirts of the city, to the fields. Sometimes, under a hail of enemy shells, emaciated women and children shoveled the snow with their hands, dug the ground ossified from frost in order to find at least a few potatoes, rhizomes or cabbage leaves remaining in the soil. Dmitry Vasilyevich Pavlov, authorized by the State Defense Committee for food supply of Leningrad, wrote in his essay "Leningrad in the blockade": a dog, from home first-aid kits, they chose everything that can be used for food: castor oil, petroleum jelly, glycerin; they made soup, jelly from carpenter's glue. ”1 Yes, the townspeople caught everything that ran, flew or crawled. Birds, cats, dogs, rats - people saw with all these animals, first of all, food, therefore, during the blockade, their population within Leningrad and the surrounding environs was almost completely destroyed. There were also cases of cannibalism, when babies were stolen and eaten, the most fleshy (mainly buttocks and thighs) parts of the body of the deceased were cut off. But the increase in mortality was still appalling: by the end of November, about 11 thousand people had died of exhaustion. People fell right on the streets, going to work or returning from it. A huge number of corpses could be observed in the streets.

The terrible cold weather that set in at the end of November was added to the total hunger. The thermometer often dropped to -40˚ Celsius and almost never rose above -30˚. The water supply system is frozen, the sewerage and heating systems are out of order. There was no more fuel, all power plants stopped, city transport froze. Unheated rooms in apartments, as well as cold rooms in institutions (the windows of buildings were knocked out by the bombing), were covered with frost from the inside.

Leningraders began to install temporary iron stoves in their apartments, bringing pipes out of the windows. Everything that could burn in them was burned: chairs, tables, wardrobes and bookcases, sofas, parquet floors, books and so on. It is clear that such "energy resources" were lacking for a long period. In the evenings, hungry people sat in the dark and hungry. The windows were patched with plywood or cardboard, so the freezing night air penetrated the houses almost unhindered. To keep warm, people put on everything that they had, but this did not help either: whole families died in their own apartments.

The whole world knows a small notebook, which became a diary, kept by 11-year-old Tanya Savicheva. A little schoolgirl, who was not lazy, wrote down: “Zhenya died on 28 December. at 12.30 o'clock morning 1941. Grandmother died on January 25. at 3 o'clock. days 1942 Lenya died on March 17 at 5 o'clock. in the morning of 1942. Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am 1942. Uncle Lyosha ─ on May 10 at 4 am. day 1942 Mom ─ May 13 at 7 o'clock. 30 minutes. in the morning of 1942 the Savichevs all died. There is only Tanya left. "

By the beginning of winter, Leningrad had become a "city of ice," as the American journalist Harrison Salisbury wrote. The streets and squares are covered with snow, so the lower floors of the houses are barely visible. “The chime of trams has ceased. Trolleybus boxes frozen in the ice. There are few passers-by on the streets. And those whom you see walk slowly, often stop, gaining strength. And the hands of the street clock are numb at different time zones. " one

The Leningraders were already so exhausted that they had neither the physical capabilities nor the desire to go down into the bomb shelter. Meanwhile, the air attacks of the fascists became more and more intense. Some of them lasted for several hours, causing enormous damage to the city and exterminating its inhabitants.

With particular ferocity, the German pilots aimed at the plants and factories of Leningrad, such as Kirovsky, Izhora, "Electrosila", "Bolshevik". In addition, the production lacked raw materials, tools, materials. It was unbearably cold in the workshops, and from touching the metal it was painful. Many production workers performed the work while sitting, since it was impossible to stand for 10-12 hours. Due to the shutdown of almost all power plants, some of the machines had to be set in motion by hand, due to which the working day increased. Often, some of the workers stayed overnight at the shop, saving time on urgent front-line orders. As a result of such a selfless labor activity, in the second half of 1941, the active army received from Leningrad 3 million shells and mines, more than 3 thousand regimental and anti-tank guns, 713 tanks, 480 armored vehicles, 58 armored trains and armored sites. In the fall of 1941, during fierce battles for Moscow, the city on the Neva sent over a thousand artillery guns and mortars to the troops of the Western Front, as well as a significant number of other types of weapons. The commander of the Western Front, General G.K. Zhukov sent on November 28 by A.A. Zhdanov a telegram with the words: "Thanks to the Leningraders for helping the Muscovites in the fight against the bloodthirsty Nazis."

But to accomplish labor feats, you need recharge, or rather, food. In December, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, the city and regional committees of the party took urgent measures to save the population. On the instructions of the city committee, several hundred people carefully examined all the places where food products had been stored before the war. At the breweries, the floors were opened and the remaining malt was collected (in total, 110 tons of malt were accumulated). In the mills, they scraped off flour dust from the walls of the ceilings, shook out every bag where flour or sugar had once been crushed. The remains of edibles were found in warehouses, in vegetable stores and railway cars. In total, about 18 thousand tons of such remains were collected, which, of course, was a great help in those difficult days.

The production of vitamin C was established from the needles, which effectively protects against scurvy. And the scientists of the Forestry Academy, under the guidance of Professor V.I. Sharkov, in a short time, they developed a technology for the industrial production of protein yeast from cellulose. The 1st confectionery factory began the daily production of up to 20 thousand dishes from such yeast.

On December 27, the Leningrad City Committee adopted a resolution on the organization of hospitals. City and regional hospitals operated in all large enterprises and assumed bed rest for the weaker workers. Relatively rational food and a warm room helped tens of thousands of people survive.

Around the same time, so-called household detachments began to appear in Leningrad, which included young Komsomol members, mostly girls. The pioneers of this extremely important activity were the youth of the Primorsky District, whose example others followed. In the memo, which was given to the members of the detachments, one could read: “You ... are entrusted with taking care of the everyday needs of those who are most difficult to endure the hardships associated with the enemy blockade. Caring for children, women and the elderly is your civic duty ... ”1 The soldiers of the domestic front, themselves tormented by hunger, brought water from the Neva, firewood or food to the ailing Leningraders, heated stoves, cleaned apartments, washed clothes, etc. Many lives have been saved as a result of their noble work.

When mentioning the incredible difficulties that the residents of the city on the Neva faced, it is impossible not to say that people gave themselves up not only at the machines in the workshops. Scientific works were read in bomb shelters, dissertations were defended. The State Public Library named after V.I. M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. “Now I know: only work has kept me alive,” 2 ─ once said a professor who was familiar to Tatiana Tess, the author of an essay about besieged Leningrad called “My Dear City”. He told me, "how almost every evening he went from home to the scientific library for books."

With each passing day, this professor's steps became slower and slower. He constantly struggled with weakness and dire weather conditions, and on the way he was often caught off guard by air raids. There were even such moments when he thought that he would not reach the doors of the library, but each climbed the familiar steps and entered his own world. He saw librarians whom he had known for "a good ten years." He also knew that they too, from the last forces, could endure all the blockade difficulties, that it was not easy for them to get to their library. But they, having gathered their courage, got up day after day and went to their favorite work, which, like that professor, kept them alive.

It is believed that not a single school worked in the besieged city in the first winter, but this is not so: one of the Leningrad schools worked for the entire academic year 1941-42. Its director was Serafima Ivanovna Kulikevich, who gave this school thirty years before the war.

Every school day, teachers invariably came to work. In the teachers' room there was a samovar with boiled water and a sofa, on which one could take a breath after a hard road, because in the absence of public transport, hungry people had to overcome serious distances (one of the teachers passed thirty-two (!) Tram stops from home to school). in order to carry the briefcase in his hands: it hung on a string tied to his neck. When the bell rang, the teachers went to classrooms where the same exhausted and emaciated children sat, in whose homes irreparable troubles always happened - the death of a father or mother. “But the children got up in the morning and went to school. They were not kept in the world by the meager bread ration that they received. The strength of the soul kept them alive. "

There were only four senior classes in that school, in one of which there was only one girl left - a ninth-grader Veta Bandorina, but teachers still came to her and prepared for a peaceful life ...

However, it is impossible to imagine the history of the Leningrad blockade epic without the famous "Road of Life" ─ a motorway laid on the ice of Lake Ladoga.

In October, work began on the study of the lake, and in November, the study of Ladoga was launched in full force. Reconnaissance aircraft made aerial photographs of the area, and a road construction plan was actively developed. As soon as the water exchanged its liquid state of aggregation for a solid one, this area was surveyed almost daily by special reconnaissance groups together with the Ladoga fishermen. They examined the southern part of the Shlisselburg Bay, studying the ice regime of the lake, the thickness of the ice shelters, the nature and places of descents to the lake, and much more.

In the early morning of November 17, 1941, a small detachment of fighters headed by the 2nd rank military technician L.N. Sokolov, company commander of the 88th separate bridge-building battalion. The pioneers were tasked with scouting and plotting the route of the ice route. Together with the Ladogeshli detachment, two guides from local old-timers. A brave detachment, tied with ropes, successfully passed the Zelentsy Islands, reached the village of Kobona, and returned in the same way.

On November 19, 1941, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front signed an order on the organization of transportation on Lake Ladoga, on the laying of an ice road, its protection and defense. Five days later, the plan for the entire route was approved. From Leningrad, it passed to Osinovets and Kokkarevo, then descended around the lake and ran along it in the area of ​​the Shlisselburg Bay to the village of Kobona (with a branch to Lavrovo) on the eastern shore of Ladoga. Further, through swampy-wooded places, it was possible to reach two stations of the Northern Railway - Zaborie and Podborovye.

Initially, the military road on the ice of the lake (VAD-101) and the military road from the Zabor'e station to the village of Kobona (VAD-102) existed as if separately, but later were merged into one. -mayor A.M. Shilov, and the military commissar - the deputy chief of the political administration of the front, brigade commissar I.V. Shishkin.

The ice on Ladoga is still fragile, and the first sled train is already on its way. On November 20, the first 63 tons of flour were delivered to the city.

The hungry city did not wait, so all sorts of tricks had to be used to deliver the largest mass of food. For example, where the ice cover was threateningly thin, it was built up with the help of boards and brush mats. But even such ice could sometimes “let down”. On many parts of the track, it was only able to withstand a half-loaded car. And it was unprofitable to drive cars with a small load. But even here a way out was found, moreover, a very peculiar one: half of the load was packed on the nasani, which were attached to the cars.

All efforts were in vain: on November 23, the first convoy of vehicles delivered 70 tons of flour to Leningrad. From that day on, the work of drivers, road operators, traffic controllers, doctors began full of heroism and courage - work on the world famous "Road of Life", work that only a direct participant in technical events could best say. Such was Senior Lieutenant Leonid Reznikov, who published in "Front Road" (a newspaper about the Ladoga military highway, which began to be published in January 1942, editor ─ journalist B. Borisov) verses from what fell to the lot of the driver of a lorry at that harsh time:

“We forgot to sleep, we forgot to eat ─

And they rushed with loads on the ice.

And in a mitten there was a hand on the steering wheel,

Eyes closed on the move.

The shells whistled as a barrier before us,

But the way was ─ to his native Leningrad.

They got up to meet a blizzard and blizzard,

But the will knew no barriers! "1

Indeed, the shells were a serious obstacle to the way of courageous drivers. Already mentioned above, Colonel-General of the Wehrmacht F. Halder in December 1941 wrote in his military diary: "The movement of enemy vehicles on the ice of Lake Ladoga does not stop ... Our aviation began raids ..." 2 This "our aviation" was opposed by Soviet 37- and 85-mm anti-aircraft guns, many anti-aircraft machine guns. From November 20, 1941 to April 1, 1942, Soviet fighters flew about 6.5 thousand times to patrol the area over the lake, conducted 143 air battles, shot down 20 aircraft with a black and white cross on the hull.

The first month of operation of the ice line did not bring expected results: due to difficult weather conditions, not the best condition of equipment and air raids by the Germans, the transportation plan was not fulfilled. Until the end of 1941, 16.5 tons of cargo were delivered to Leningrad, and the front and the city demanded 2 thousand tons daily.

In his New Year's speech, Hitler said: “We are not deliberately storming Leningrad now. Leningrad will consume itself! ”3However, the Fuhrer miscalculated. The city on the Neva not only showed signs of life, it tried to live as it would be possible in peacetime. Here is how the message was published in the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" at the end of 1941:

"FOR LENINGRAD RESIDENTS FOR THE NEW YEAR.

Today, in addition to the monthly food standards, the population of the city will be given: half a liter of wine each ─ workers and employees, a quarter liter each ─ dependents.

The Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council decided to hold New Year's trees in schools and kindergartens from January 1 to 10, 1942. All children will be treated to a two-course festive dinner without clipping food ration coupons. ”1

Such tickets, which you can see here, gave the right to plunge into a fairy tale for those who had to grow up ahead of time, whose happy childhood became impossible because of the war, whose best years were darkened by hunger, cold and bombing, the death of friends or parents. And, nevertheless, the city authorities wanted the children to feel that even in such a hell there are reasons for joy, and the coming of the new 1942 is one of them.

But far from all of them survived until the onset of 1942: only in December 1941, 52,880 people died of hunger and cold. The total number of victims of the blockade is 641,803 people.2

Probably, something similar to a New Year's gift was the addition (for the first time in the entire time of the blockade!) To the wretched ration that was supposed to be. On the morning of December 25, each worker received 350 grams, and “one hundred and twenty-five grams of blockade ─ with fire and blood in half”, as Olga Fedorovna Bergholts wrote (who, by the way, along with ordinary Leningraders, endured all the hardships of the enemy siege), turned into 200 (for the rest of the population) ... Undoubtedly, this was also facilitated by the "Road of Life", which became more active in the new year than the previous one. Already on January 16, 1942, instead of the marked 2 thousand tons, 2, 506 thousand tons of cargo were delivered. From that day on, the plan began to be overfulfilled regularly.

January 24, 1942 ─ and a new allowance. Now, the employee's card was given 400 grams, according to the employee's card - 300 grams, the card of a child or dependent ─ 250 grams. of bread. And after some more time ─ 11 February ─ workers began to give out 400 grams. bread, all others ─ 300 gr. Notably, cellulose was no longer used as an ingredient in bread baking.

Another rescue mission is connected with the Ladoga highway - the evacuation, which began at the end of November 1941, did not acquire a massive character only in January 1942, when the ice became sufficiently strong. First of all, children, the sick, the wounded, the disabled, women with young children, as well as scientists, students, workers of the evacuated factories with their families and some other categories of citizens were subject to evacuation.

But the Soviet armed forces did not doze either. From January 7 to April 30, the Luban offensive operation of the troops of the Volkhov Front and part of the forces of the Leningrad Front was carried out, aimed at breaking the blockade. At first, the movement of Soviet troops in the Luban direction had some success, but the battles were fought in wooded and swampy terrain, for the effectiveness of the offensive, considerable material and technical means were needed. as well as food. The lack of all of the above, coupled with the active resistance of the Nazi troops, led to the fact that at the end of April the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts had to go over to defensive actions, and the operation was completed, since the task was not completed.

Already at the beginning of April 1942, due to serious warming, the Ladoga ice began to melt, in some places "puddles" up to 30-40 cm deep appeared, but the lake highway was closed only on April 24.

From November 24, 1941 to April 21, 1942, 361,309 tons of cargo were brought to Leningrad, 560,304 thousand people were evacuated. The Ladoga highway made it possible to create a small untouchable stock of food products ─ about 67 thousand tons.

Nevertheless, Ladoga did not stop serving people. During the summer-autumn navigation, about 1,100 thousand tons of various cargoes were delivered to the city, and 850 thousand people were evacuated. During the entire period of the blockade, at least one and a half million people were taken out of the city.

And what about the city? “Although shells were still exploding in the streets and fascist planes were flying in the sky, the city in spite of the enemy revived together with its overhang.” The hunger also began to gradually recede: the bread ration increased, the distribution of fats, cereals, sugar, meat began, but in very limited quantities. The consequences of winter were disappointing: many people continued to die from dystrophy. Therefore, the struggle to save the population from this disease has become strategically important. Since the spring of 1942, the most widespread are food stations, to which dystrophies of the first and second degrees were attached for two to three weeks (with the third degree, a person was hospitalized). In them, the patient received meals, one and a half to two times more calories than was required for a standard ration. These canteens helped to recover about 260 thousand people (mainly workers in industrial enterprises).

There were also canteens of a general type, where (according to statistics for April 1942) at least a million people, that is, most of the city, ate. There they handed in their ration cards and in return received three meals a day and soy milk and kefir in addition, and starting from summer ─ vegetables and potatoes.

With the onset of spring, many went out of town and began to dig land for vegetable gardens. The party organization of Leningrad supported this initiative and called on each family to have their own vegetable garden. In the city committee even a department of agriculture was created, and advice on growing one or another vegetable was constantly heard on the radio. Seedlings were grown in specially adapted urban greenhouses. Some of the factories have launched the production of shovels, watering cans, rakes and other garden tools. Individual plots covered the Field of Mars, the Summer Garden, St. Isaac's Square, parks, squares, etc. Any flower bed, any piece of land, even a little suitable for such farming, was plowed and sown. Over 9 thousand hectares of land were occupied by potatoes, carrots, beets, radishes, onions, cabbage, etc. He also practiced the collection of edible wild plants. The gardening venture was another good opportunity to improve the food supply for the troops and the population of the city.

In addition, Leningrad was heavily polluted during the autumn-winter period. Not only in morgues, but even in the streets, there were unburied corpses, which, with the arrival of warm days, would begin to decompose, would become the cause of a large-scale epidemic, which the city authorities could not allow.

On March 25, 1942, the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council, in accordance with the GKO decree on cleaning up Leningrad, made a decision to mobilize the entire working population to clean up yards, squares and embankments of otold, snow and all kinds of sewage. With difficulty lifting the working tools, the emaciated inhabitants fought on their front line ─ the lines of inter-cleanliness and pollution. By the middle of spring, at least 12 thousand yards were put in order, more than 3 million square meters. km of streets and embankments now sparkled with cleanliness, took out about a million tons of garbage.

April 15 was truly significant for every resident of Leningrad. For almost five difficult autumn and winter months, everyone who worked covered the distance from home to the duty station on foot. When your stomach is empty, your legs go numb in the cold and do not obey, and shells whistle over your head, then even some 3-4 kilometers seem like hard labor. And then, finally, the day came when everyone could get on the tram and get even to the opposite end of the city without any effort. By the end of April, trams were already running on five routes.

A little later, they restored such a vital public service as water supply. In the winter of 1941-42. only about 80-85 houses had a water supply system. Those who were not among the lucky ones who inhabited such houses were forced to take water from the Neva throughout the cold winter. By May 1942, the taps of the bathrooms and kitchens were again noisy from the running H2O. Water supply again ceased to be considered a luxury, although the joy of many Leningraders was not determined: “It is difficult to explain what the siege was experiencing, standing at an open faucet, admiring the stream of water ... Respectable people, like children, splashed and splashed over the sinks.” 1 The sewer network was also restored. Baths, hairdressing salons, repair shops were opened.

As in the New Year, on May Day 1942, Leningraders were given the following additional products: children ─ two tablets of cocoa resin and 150 grams each. cranberries, adults ─ 50 gr. tobacco, 1.5 liters of beer or wine, 25 gr. tea, 100 gr. cheese, 150 gr. dried fruits, 500 gr. salted fish.

Having strengthened physically and received moral support, the residents who remained in the city returned to the workshops for the machines, but there was still a lack of fuel, so about 20 thousand Leningraders (almost all of them women, teenagers and pensioners) went to harvest firewood and peat. By their efforts, before the end of 1942, factories, factories and power plants received 750 thousand cubic meters. meters of wood and 500 thousand tons of peat.

Peat and firewood mined by Leningraders, supplemented with coal and oil, brought from outside the blockade ring (in particular, through the Ladoga pipeline, built in record time - less than a month and a half), breathed life into the industry of the city on the Neva. In April 1942, 50 (in May ─ 57) enterprises produced military products: in April-May, 99 guns, 790 machine guns, 214 thousand shells, more than 200 thousand mines were sent to the front.

The civilian industry tried to keep up with the military by resuming the production of consumer goods.

Passers-by on the city streets have thrown off their wadded trousers and sweatshirts and dressed up in coats and suits, dresses and colored headscarves, stockings and slippers, and Leningrad women are already "powdering their noses and painting their lips."

Extremely important events took place in 1942 on the front. From August 19 to October 30, the Sinyavskaya offensive operation of the troops took place

Leningrad and Volkhov fronts with the support of the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga military flotilla. This was the fourth attempt to break the blockade, like the previous ones, which did not solve the set goal, but played a definite positive role in the defense of Leningrad: another attempt by the Germans on the inviolability of the city was thwarted.

The fact is that after the heroic 250-day defense of Sevastopol, Soviet troops had to leave the city, and then the whole Crimea. So it became easier for the Nazis in the south, and it was possible to focus all the attention of the German command on the problems in the north. On July 23, 1942, Hitler signed Directive No. 45, in which, in common terms, he gave the go-ahead for the operation to storm Leningrad at the beginning of September 1942. It was first called "Feuerzauber" then ─ "Nordlicht" ("Northern Lights"). But the enemy not only failed to make a significant breakthrough to the city: the Wehrmacht during the hostilities lost 60 thousand people killed, more than 600 guns and mortars, 200 tanks and the same number of aircraft.2 Prerequisites were created for a successful breakthrough of the blockade in January 1943.

The winter of 1942-43 was not as gloomy and lifeless for the city as the previous one. There were no longer heaps of rubbish and snow on the streets and avenues. Trams are common again. Schools, cinema and theaters were opened. Plumbing and sewerage systems operated almost everywhere. The windows of the apartments were now glazed, and not ugly boarded up with improvised materials. There was a small stock of energy and food. Many continued to engage in socially useful work (in addition to their main job). It is noteworthy that on December 22, 1942, the presentation of the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad" began to all those who distinguished themselves.

There was some improvement in the situation in the city due to the provision of goods. In addition, the winter of 1942-43 turned out to be softer than the previous one, so the Ladoga highway during the winter of 1942-43 was in operation for only 101 days: from December 19, 1942 to March 30, 1943. But the drivers did not allow themselves to relax: the total freight turnover amounted to more than 200 thousand tons of cargo.

Chapter III. "THE COUNTRY WHOSE ARTISTS IN THESE SEVERE DESIGNS CREATE WORKS OF IMMORTAL BEAUTY AND HIGH SPIRIT IS INVINCIBLE!"

“During the war, our people defended not only their land. He defended world culture. He defended everything beautiful that was created by art, ”1 ─ wrote Tatiana Tess. Indeed, the Soviet people sought to preserve and protect from fascist barbarism all the cultural heritage that they left from the masters of the past. After all, the German invaders ruined not only Leningrad itself: many suburban cities suffered at their hands. The world famous monuments of Russian architecture were destroyed and plundered.

A priceless amber room, Chinese silk wallpaper, gilded carvings, antique furniture and a library were taken out of Pushkin's palaces-museums. The palace in Pavlovsk also became unusually depleted after the Germans visited it: it lost sculptures, part of the collection of the rarest porcelain of the 18th century, parquetry of great artistic value, bronze door decorations, bas-reliefs, tapestries, some wall and ceiling plafonds.

But more than in others, the Nazis committed atrocities in Peterhof. The Great Peterhof Palace, founded during the reign of Peter I, was burned, and the property was plundered. Enormous damage was inflicted on the Peterhof Park. The statue-fountain "Samson Tearing the Lion's Jaws" was cut into pieces and taken to Germany. In the upper and lower parks, the Neptune fountain, sculptural decorations of the Grand Cascade terrace and other valuable statues were removed.

The State Hermitage, although it was not subjected to fascist vandalism directly, that is, from within, but its treasures were under no small threat, therefore, the salvation of its exhibits became a task of primary importance. The director of the famous museum in those years was an outstanding orientalist, academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences Iosif Abgarovich Orbeli, who later recalled how, from the very first days of the war, the entire staff of the Hermitage worked tirelessly to pack the exhibits, spending no more than an hour on food and rest. The work of the hose is continuous, day and night, for eight days. The museum staff was helped by a huge number of those people who previously could only be visitors in these halls, but who were not indifferent to the fate of objects that witnessed history: artists, sculptors, teachers, employees of scientific institutions and many others. They begged to let them go to even the hardest work. As a result, the first echelon with exhibits was sent on July 1, and the second was sent on July 20.

Hermitage treasures were taken to the rear, accompanied by some museum staff, but its management “had to endure a struggle with people who refused the opportunity to travel to safe areas of the country, just to keep their hometown and their home museum. Nobody wanted to leave the walls of the Hermitage and the Winter Palace. "

In the halls of the Hermitage, there were only those items that were of secondary importance, or collections that were too bulky (one of them is the famous collection of historical carriages) that were too difficult to transport. A small group of employees kept the collections packed and transported to secure storage rooms and cellars. But from continuous air strikes to the museum (more than 30 shells hit it) and constantly bursting water pipes, the hungry and weakened museum workers had to move the exhibits from basement to basement, from hall to hall countless times, because antiquities do not tolerate high humidity and cold air. But for the entire time of the blockade, not a single significant exhibit was lost, damaged or destroyed.

The Hermitage was rapidly emptied, but did not forget its purpose. In the Field Marshal's Small Throne and Armorial Halls of the Winter Palace, there was a large exhibition dedicated to the heroic military and past of the Russian people. In the gallery of the Patriotic War of 1812, one could see the uniform of Peter the Great shot through by a Swedish bullet near Poltava, Napoleon's gray traveling coat, the uniforms of Kutuzov, etc. In the Armorial Hall of the Winter Palace, the banners of the Swedish king Karl XII, the Prussian king Friedrich, Napoleon were exhibited ─ trophies of Russian soldiers Joseph Abgarovich Orbeli also prepared a celebration on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi, which took place on October 19, 1941. When Iosif Abgarovichun was hinted that it was unsafe to start something like this at this time, but there were other reasons why the celebration of this round date could be disrupted. In response to these words, Orbeli said: “The anniversary should take place in Leningrad! Just think ─ the whole country will celebrate Nizami's anniversary, but Leningrad will not be able to! For the Nazis to say that they thwarted our anniversary! We must conduct it at all costs! ”1 And we did it: two orientalists were sent from the front, they read the poems of this outstanding Azerbaijani poet, both in translation into Russian and in the original; speeches were made, reports on the life and work of Nizami, arranged a small exhibition of what was not taken out. The Director of the Hermitage calculated the time of the event to within a matter of minutes: the anniversary was begun and finished neatly between two shelling.

Less than two months later, on December 10, 1941, at 4 p.m. in the Hermitage, another meeting was held, this time dedicated to the 500th anniversary of the great poet of the Middle East Alisher Navoi.

"The very fact of honoring the poet in Leningrad, besieged, doomed to suffering from hunger and the impending cold, in a city that the enemies consider already dead and bloodless, once again testifies to the courageous spirit of our people and their unbroken will ..."

In the fall of 1941, the Government proposed to the command of the North-Western Front and the leadership of the Leningrad party organization to ensure the departure of major figures of science and culture from the besieged city to the mainland. The lists of the "Golden Fund", as the list of names of prominent Leningraders was called, began with Professor I.I. Janelidze ─ Chief Surgeon of the Fleet, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Lieutenant General of the Medical Service. Dzhanelidze replied asking to leave the besieged city: "I will leave Leningradan nowhere!" The same were the answers of many other figures who were listed in the "Gold Fund".

The artists who worked during the blockade also tried to contribute to the common cause of the fight against the fascist enemy. At the beginning of January 1942, an exhibition was organized under the title "Leningrad in the days of the Patriotic War", which presented 127 paintings and sketches by 37 artists. In the exhibition hall there was a ten-degree frost, and the participants of the exhibition could hardly move. Especially tragic is the fate of the artist Hertz, who brought two sketches from the Vasilievsky Island, one of them in a heavy gilded frame. “Paintings have to look good,” he said. On the same day, Geretz died of dystrophy in the exhibition hall ...

Later, the works of Leningrad artists: drawings by N. Dormidontov ("Near the water", "In the courtyard", "Queue to the bakery", "Cleaning the city", etc.), drawings by A. Pakhomov ("Leading to the hospital", "For water "Etc.) were exhibited in Moscow. The artist P. Sokolov-Skalya, being impressed by what he had seen, wrote: “The image of an angry, resolute city bristling with bayonets, the images of the heroism of ordinary, yesterday peaceful people, the images of the selfless courage and resilience of children, women and elders, workers and scientists, fighters and academicians rise in all its grandeur at this exhibition, modest in size, but deep in drama. "

The spring of 1942 opened a new page not only in the lives of Leningraders themselves, but also in the cultural life of the city. Cinemas began to open everywhere, and concert and theatrical life was resumed. In March 1942, in the building of the Academy of Theater. A.S. Pushkin held the first symphony concert. Although it was terribly cold in the room, and everyone was wearing their clothes on top, while listening to the great music of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, nikton paid attention to these inconveniences.

Among all entertainment establishments, the Leningrad Theater of Musical Comedy, created in 1924, worked during the entire period of the blockade, which gave 2350 concerts for front-line soldiers and townspeople. Headed during the war by N.Ya. Yanet, in 1941-45 he presented 15 premieres to the public. In 1942, two of the most significant premiere performances took place: the operetta and partisans "Forest Byl" by A.A. Loginov (premiere ─ June 18) and the musical comedy “The Sea Spreads Wide”, timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution (premiere ─ November 7) and narrating about the everyday life of blockers and their heroic struggle (staged by V.L. Vitlin, L.M. Kruts , N.G. Minha).

We know a lot of literary works dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, in particular, the defense and blockade of Leningrad. For example, the cycle of poems "Courage" by Anna Akhmatova, whom the siege found in her beloved city. Akhmatova was already seriously ill when she was evacuated to Tashkent. Another outstanding Leningrad poet, Olga Berggolts, did not leave her hometown at all. All Olga Fyodorovna's creativity is imbued with warmth even for the completely unsightly Leningrad in the winter of 1941 (the poem "Your Way"), the infinite faith that he will not die, he will return and become more beautiful than the old, just like its inhabitants (the poem "A Conversation with a Neighbor" etc.). She constantly performed on the radio with fellow poets Nikolai Tikhonov, Mikhail Dudin, Vsevolod Vishnevsky. N. Tikhonov once said that at such a time the museums cannot remain silent. And the muses spoke. They spoke in the harsh but truthful words of the patriot. In his poem "Kirov is with us" Tikhonov turned into a poetic form the thoughts and aspirations of all Leningraders:

“The enemy could not overpower us by force,

He wants to take us with hunger,

Take Leningrad from Russia,

In full of Leningraders to pick up.

This will never be

On the holy Nevsky bank,

Working Russian people

They will die, they will not surrender to the enemy. "

Another well-known Leningrad woman, Vera Inber, in her poem "Pulkovo Meridian" is set up even more radically, which, however, is not devoid of her own logic. The poet writes with hatred about fascism, predicting an imminent and inevitable death, and also expressing a desire to avenge all the atrocities of the Nazis:

“We will avenge everything: our city,

The great creation of Petrovo,

For the inhabitants who were left homeless,

For the dead as a tomb, the Hermitage ...

For the death of the Peterhof "Samson",

For the bombs in the Botanical Garden ...

We will avenge young and old:

For the old people bent in an arc,

For a child's coffin, so tiny,

No more than a violin case.

Under the shots, into the murk of snow,

On a sled, he made his way. ”2

However, the most significant cultural event in the blockade of Leningrad was the performance of the 7th symphony by D.D. Shostakovich, completed in December 1941. “I dedicate my 7th symphony to our fight against fascism, our upcoming victory over the enemy, my hometown ─ Leningrad,” 1 ─ wrote Shostakovich on the score for his work. In March 1942, it was first performed at the Bolshoi Theater of Kuibyshev (now ─ Samara), and then ─ in Moscow. On August 9, 1942, the symphony was first performed at the Leningrad State Philharmonic. This was preceded by the complete danger of the delivery of the apparatus by air; replenishment of the orchestra by those who fought at the front; change in the format of performance associated with the threat of air raids (according to Shostakovich's plan, there should be an intermission after the first movement, and the other three parts are performed without interruption, but then the symphony was played without intervals at all); only five or six rehearsals before execution. But still the concert took place! This is how Leningrad citizen NI Zemtsova recalls this unprecedented event for the besieged city: “When we saw the posters on the streets that there would be a concert in the Philharmonic, we didn’t remember ourselves with joy. We could not imagine that we would sound Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. […] It is difficult to describe the extraordinary atmosphere, the happy faces of the people who came to the Philharmonic as if it were a huge holiday. […] The musicians took their places. They were dressed in what. Many are in soldiers' overcoats, in army boots, jackets, and gymnasts. And only one person was in full artistic form - the conductor. Karl Ilyich Eliasberg got up at the scoring console, as it should be, in a tailcoat. He waved his wand. Music of unspeakable beauty and greatness sounded. We were shocked. Our feelings cannot be conveyed. And the whole concert passed peacefully. Not a single alarm! ”2 In the sky over Leningrad, everything was really calm: the 14th Guards Artillery Regiment did not allow any enemy aircraft to break through to the city.

Chapter IV. “FORWARD, EAGLES! BREAK THE BLOCKADE, ITS IRON RING! "

At the beginning of the winter of 1942-43, Lake Ladoga did not freeze for a long time, so the situation in Leningrad was again very disastrous. A breakthrough of the blockade was needed like air.

At the end of November 1942, the Vienna Council of the Leningrad Front reported to the Headquarters that the primary task of hostilities in the winter of 1942-43 should be an operation to break the blockade. The Military Council asked the Headquarters to allow:

“Organize a breakthrough of the enemy's front in the 2nd Gorodok, Shlisselburg sector and join the latter with a strike along the shores of Lake Ladoga with a simultaneous counter-strike by the Volkhov Front.

The purpose of the operation is to lift the blockade from Leningrad, to ensure the construction of a railway along the Ladoga Canal, and thus to organize the normal communication of Leningrad with the country, to ensure freedom of maneuver for the troops of both fronts. "

Having considered this proposal presented by the commanders of the Leningrad (Lieutenant General L.A. Govorov) and Volkhovsky (Army General K.A. Meretskov) fronts, the Supreme Command Headquarters on December 2 approved the plan of the operation under the code name "Iskra". And on December 8 at 22 h. 15 min. The headquarters signed a directive to the commander of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts. It stated:

"By joint efforts ... to defeat the enemy group in the area of ​​Lipka, Gaitolovo, Moskovskaya Dubrovka, Shlisselburg ─ thus cut the siege of the city of Leningrad." 2

The narrow Shlisselburg-Sinyavsky ledge, separating the forces of the two fronts by no more than 16 km, was chosen as the place for breaking the blockade. The strip of land had its advantages and disadvantages. The first was that, as the commander of the Olkhov front, K.A. Meretskov, “this direction made it possible to solve the problem of a breakthrough with one short blow, without fear of prolonged protracted battles.” his defensive system. On top of that, this area is wooded and swampy, so, according to K.A. Meretskov, "a difficult struggle with the enemy was accompanied by an equally difficult struggle with nature."

As for Iskra itself, it differed significantly from all previous attempts to break the blockade in that the early offensive was carried out only from the outer side of the ring, that is, from the Volkhov front. Now it was planned to deliver equally powerful blows from two sides: from inside the blockade ring and from outside it.

By the beginning of 1943, the shock groups of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts were concentrated: 282 thousand soldiers and officers, 4 300 guns and mortars, 214 anti-aircraft guns, 530 tanks, 637 rocket launchers. Almost 900 aircraft were planned to participate.

At 9.30 a.m. On January 12, 1943, artillery training began in the breakthrough zones of the 67th and 2nd shock armies. Over 4.5 thousand. tons of metal were rained down on enemy positions, long-range artillery fired at headquarters, reserves, and batteries located behind enemy lines, and guns set for direct fire destroyed emplacements and defensive structures on the front edge.

According to the testimony of the prisoners, the blow of the Soviet artillery stunned the fascists. “The artillery fire of the Russians with a devastating blow fell on us and forced our ranks to falter,” said a captured non-commissioned officer of the 366th infantry regiment of the 227th Infantry Division, “many fire points were destroyed. A desperate situation has been created. " “I am an artilleryman, but I have never seen such a crushing blow before this offensive,” 4 another prisoner confirmed.

The offensive was so swift that within 15-20 minutes after the start of the attack, the first echelons took possession of the German trench, which passed along the left bank of the Neva.

At 11 hours 15 minutes. the Volkhov divisions went on the offensive, and at 11 hours 50 minutes. ─ advanced units of the Leningrad divisions.

The heroic efforts of the soldiers of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts led to the fact that on the very first day of the fighting, the main defensive lines of the enemy were broken through and conditions were created for a further successful offensive.

However, on January 13 and 14, the advance of the front strike groups was extremely slow. The enemy sought to stop the advance of the Soviet troops and regain the lost positions.

During January 15-17, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, overcoming stubborn resistance from the Nazis, fought stubbornly near Workers' villages No. 1 and 5.

January 18 at 9.30 a.m. on the eastern outskirts of Rabochegoposyolok No. 1, units of the 123rd Infantry Brigade of the Leningrad Front united with the happiness of the 372nd Infantry Division of the Volkhov Front. At noon, in Rabochaemposyolok No. 5, units of the 136th rifle division and the 61st tank brigade of the Leningrad Front joined forces with the 18th rifle division of the Volkhov Front. By the end of the day, there were meetings and other formations and units of the two fronts.

“The breakthrough of the enemy's defense showed the high fighting spirit of our troops and the increased skill of the commanders. [...] The operation carried out clearly and vividly showed that the task of the complete and liberation of the city of Leningrad from the German siege ... our troops can handle ”.1 (Commander of the Leningrad Front, Colonel General L.A. Govorov)

“January 18 is the day of the great celebration of our two fronts. [...] The sparkling of the Iskra turned into the final fireworks ─ Moscow salute with 20 volleys from 224 guns ... "2 (Commander of the Volkhov Front, General Army KA Meretskov).

"The breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad ... went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War ... as the clearest example of courage and courage of our troops to victory."

The news of the breakthrough of the opposed blockade instantly spread around the huge Leningrad: people in the streets shouted "Hurray!", Laughed and cried with joy. On the night of January 19, 1943, the radio spoke in an agitated voice of Olga

Bergholz: “The blockade has been broken! We have been waiting for this day for a long time. We have always believed that it will be. We were sure of this in the darkest months of Leningrad - January and February last year. Our dead in those days, relatives and friends, those who are not with us in these solemn moments, dying, stubbornly whispered: "We will win ..." And we ourselves, stony from grief ... instead of a farewell speech swore to them: "The blockade will be broken. We will win "..." 1

On the morning of January 19, the front pages of Western media newspapers were dazzled with headlines of articles about breaking the Siege of Leningrad. For example, the American New York Times, which was never particularly favorably disposed towards the USSR, wrote in its article “Starving Leningrad Resisted a Huge Army”: “The civilian population lacked food, and malnutrition led to huge casualties, but the defense held on. Bombs fell from the sky day and night, long-range artillery shells exploded in the center of the city, but the Red Army and the inhabitants of the city survived ... "2

Highly appreciating the feat of Leningraders and the heroism of the soldiers who broke the blockade, US President F.D. Roosevelt sent the city a Non-Special Letter, which said: “On behalf of the people of the United States of America, I present this letter to Leningrad in memory of its valiant warriors and his faithful men, women and children who, being isolated by the invader from the rest of the purity of their people and despite constant bombardment and unspeakable suffering from cold, hunger and disease, successfully defended their beloved city during the critical period from September 8, 1941 to January 18, 1943 and thus symbolized the fearless spirit of the peoples of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all peoples of the world resisting the forces of aggression. "

The breakthrough of the blockade had a beneficial effect on the internal position of the city. Land communication with the country was restored. From February to December 1943, 4.4 million foodstuffs, fuel, raw materials, weapons and ammunition were delivered to Leningrad along the newly built railway along the southern coast of Ladoga.

In the spring of 1943, the State Defense Committee adopted a Resolution on the restoration of enterprises in Leningrad. By the end of the year, 85 plants and factories were already in operation: Electrosila, Kirovsky, Bolshevik, Russian Diesel, Krasny Khimik, etc. Engineers and workers of the Volkhovskaya HPP restored six of its units with a total capacity of 48 thousand kW.

In the summer of 1943, 212 Leningrad enterprises produced more than 400 types of military products. During the year, the front received 2.5 million shells, mines and aerial bombs, over 166 thousand automatic rifles, light and heavy machine guns, and also repaired about 2 thousand tanks, 1.5 thousand aircraft, 250 warships and others.1

The life of the civilian population of Leningrad slowly, no doubt came back to normal (of course, comparable with other front-line cities). By the winter of 1943-44, 99% of the houses were already running a water supply system, 350 thousand square meters were repaired. m. street and suburban highways, 500 trams ply 12 routes.

The food situation was also gradually improving: the townspeople began to receive food according to the norms of other cities of the Soviet Union. Suburban subsidiary farms and state farms provided the city with 73 thousand tonnes of food and potatoes, tens of thousands of tonnes were collected on individual plots.

But the blockade still continued to torment the townspeople, because the front line still passed near the city limits. Hoping neither for the storming of the city, nor for its capture with the help of a long siege, the Nazis, in despair, sought to bring Leningrad as serious damage as possible. For the entire 1943, 600 high-explosive and 2600 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city; in March, April and May alone, the city was bombed 69 times. However, the Leningrad air defense did not remain silent, and thanks to their prompt actions in the second half of the year, the number of raids sharply decreased. The last shell landed on city streets on the night of October 17th.

The enemy's long-range guns were equally problematic. In 1943, they fired 68,316 artillery shells, which killed 1,410 and wounded 4,600 people.

But already a little bit was left to the survivors of Leningraders and all the survivors. In January 1944, the Soviet armed forces, after successful offensive maneuvers, were able to liberate Pushkin, Gatchina, Lyuban, Chudovo, and the October Railway and ended the blockade completely.

On January 27, 1944, Leningrad became free after 872 days of the Nazi siege. On the same day, volleys of 324 guns burst out. Fireworks in Leningrad! For the first time in long 29 months, the city on the Neva shook, lit up, smiled.

The British newspaper Star wrote about the complete lifting of the blockade of Leningrad: “All free and all peoples enslaved by the Nazis understand that what role was played by the defeat of the Germans near Leningrad to weaken the Nazi power. Leningrad has long won a place among the hero cities of the current war. The battle of Leningrad sowed alarm among the Germans. She gave me the feeling that they are only temporary masters of Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Oslo. "

Yes, from now on Leningrad was free. Finally, I would like to recall the beautiful lines of S. Vasiliev's poem "To Leningraders":

“You have suffered for a long time. Enough!

The enemy blockade has been dispelled.

I sighed freely and freely

The broad chest of Leningrad.

The harsh years will fly by

Other lightning flashes will shine.

But the military spirit of the Leningrader

It will remain in my people.

And it will be everywhere, as before,

With human lips alive

Always repeat myself with hope

Great city name ... "2

CONCLUSION

Well, mentally passed the thorny path of the inhabitants of besieged Leningrad. It's time to take stock, bitter for those who tried to destroy this mighty city, and joyful for those who defended it ...

First, it should be noted that the battle for Leningrad itself, which lasted more than three years, is the longest of all in the Great Patriotic War. The blockade ─ two years and five months without eleven days ─ is also unprecedented in world history. This explains some of the "blunders" of the city authorities in organizing the most effective defense and defense of Leningrad. For example, it is known that even in August and the beginning of September, commercial canteens operated, and without the cards one could buy almost any high-calorie, even gourmet, product. If one listens to all the logical arguments, then it turns out that the first reduction in the norms was made a little late. According to all the same logic, it was necessary to carry out clearer measures for the mass evacuation of the population to the safe eastern regions of the country. But, inclined to an uncompromising struggle against fascism, the Leningraders did not want to leave it, even being perfectly aware of what the consequences of this step might be.

But be that as it may, for Leningrad from the first days of the siege, communications acquired special importance, since the city was not fully provided with them. On the few routes that were at the disposal of the Soviet side, Leningrad could be supplied with everything necessary, mainly food, as well as evacuate. The whole life of Leningrad and the success of the struggle of its inhabitants depended on the availability and state of communications. Therefore, when at the end of autumn 1941 navigation on Ladoga almost stopped, and the highway on the lake could not yet allow all its potential to be used, the norms were becoming insignificant. Let me remind you that it was 250 gr. for workers and 125 gr. for others.

Another seemingly not entirely logical action of the Leningrad Party organization is an increase in the norms on December 25 to 350 grams. for workers and 200 gr. for all other residents. However, it can be interpreted. Despite the great enthusiasm of the Leningraders to fight, their work only on "moral and strong-willed" could not continue indefinitely. In order for the people to rise in spirits, it was necessary to add at least something to their meager ration. No sooner said than done. But this venture was rather dangerous. The point is this: along the Ladoga highway ─ the main link with the outside world ─ Leningrad received 700 tons of food every day, and consumed 600 tons per day (based on the old norms). By simple arithmetic calculations, we find that the stock was only 100 tons. The vehicles traveled from the points of dumping of all cargoes to the city for a total of at least two days, but a small reserve remained in Tikhvin, which was not so close to Leningrad. Considering that the month of Tikhvin was "under the Germans" for more than a month, the threat of a new seizure of this town could not but exist (all the more so as the enemy knew its strategic importance very well). If something happened in this area, the position of Leningrad would become supercritical. But, as you know, risk is a noble cause, and the stake was made on the fact that the psychological effect will prevail over the economic one.

But the indisputably necessary and important decision can be called the organization of mass cleaning of the city and the widespread distribution of individual vegetable gardens. Thanks to someone's ingenious savvy, the citizens of Leningrad could recover from a terribly frosty winter, gain strength for the social work so much needed by everyone.

Of course, in this final review, one cannot fail to say that the blockade was broken in January 1943. Its importance for a tired and hungry city cannot be overemphasized. Difficult and bloody battles, which were fought on a tiny piece of land called "Nevsky Pyatachok", gave Leningrad the necessary land communication to an extreme degree. From that moment, the initiative passed to the Soviet army, and the city breathed a sigh of relief.

January 27 will forever remain in the memory of all residents of the blockade Leningrad. On this day in 1944, the siege of the city, which lasted exactly 872 days, was finally lifted.

But no one thought about relaxing. Leningraders dreamed of making their beloved city even more beautiful and richer than it was before the war. 790 million rubles were allocated for the restoration of Leningrad.

... Not everyone was able to see the solemn fireworks in honor of the final lifting of the blockade, the joyful faces of the townspeople, the peaceful sky above their heads. In Leningrad, more than one memorial complex was erected in honor of those who gave their lives in exchange for the lives of new generations. On one of them ─ the monument to the grieving Mother-Motherland at the Piskarevskoye cemetery, where the heart stops at the sight of an almost kilometer-long series of hills, mass graves ─ is carved with the inscription:

“The Leningraders are lying here.

Here the townspeople are men, women, children.

Next to them are soldiers of the Red Army.

With their whole lives they have protected you ...

We cannot list their noble names here:

There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite.

But know, who hears these stones,

Nobody is forgotten and nothing is forgotten. "

Truly: no one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten!

LIST OF USED LITERATURE.

1. World history: v. X. Moscow, 1965.

2. History of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union 1941-1945: v. 2, 4. Moscow, 1961, 1964.

3. The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945: Encyclopedia. Moscow, 1985.

4. The Great Patriotic War in photographs and photographic documents. Compiled by N.M. Afanasyev et al. Moscow, 1985.

5. Essays on the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945. Compiled by V.V. Katinov, Moscow, 1975.

6. Children's encyclopedia: v. 8, 10. 1961-62.

7. Zubakov V.E., Leningrad is a hero city. Moscow, 1981.

8. Tsybulsky II, Chechin VI, Chechin OI, Broken ring. Moscow, 1985.

9. Zherebov BK, Solomakhin II, Seven January days. Leningrad, 1987.

10. Ehrenburg IG, Chronicle of courage. Moscow, 1983.

11. Magrachev LE, Report from the blockade. Leningrad, 1989.

12. Kovalchuk V.M. Victory road of besieged Leningrad. Leningrad, 1984.

13. Erugin N.P., About those who survived. Minsk, 1989.

14. Arzumanyan A.M., Orbeli Brothers. Yerevan, 1976.

15. Travel to the land of poetry. Compiled by L.A. Solovyov and D.A. Semichev, Leningrad, 1976.

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BLOKADALENINGRAD

The purpose of this essay is to study the impact of the blockade of Leningrad on the patriotic spirit of the Soviet people during World War II 1941-1944.

The military blockade of Leningrad by German, Finnish and Spanish troops began on September 8, 1941 and lasted 872 days. All communications of the city with the outside world were severed, road and railways were blocked. Communication with the city was carried out only by water or air. According to Zhukov: “The situation that developed near Leningrad, Stalin at that moment assessed as catastrophic. He even once used the word “hopeless”. He said that, apparently, several more days would pass, and Leningrad would have to be considered lost. " By the beginning of the blockade, the city did not have enough food supplies, so soon famine and disease began in the city. By that time, there were 3 million people in the city. The words of A. V. Molchanov, who was a child during the blockade of Leningrad, are terrifying: “We were so exhausted that we did not know, leaving for bread or water, whether we would have enough strength to return home. My school friend went to get bread, fell and froze, he was covered in snow. "

A small amount of food and water was delivered to the residents through a small break in the ring in the summer by water, and in the winter by the ice of Lake Ladoga. Let this one be called "dear life." Often, food barges were subjected to enemy shelling, and trucks broke the ice and sank, but the courage of the soldiers was unshakable, and they continued to maintain life in the city. Due to the large number of people killed on the road, Leningraders themselves called it "the road of death." Women and children also helped on it: they cleared the road from the snow and from the bodies of the fallen. However, the harsh conditions and gloomy environment could not break their spirit. Malysheva Nadezhda Aleksandrovna, who worked on the road during the war, recalls: “The mood in spite of everything is fighting! In the morning we go to work, shovels on the shoulder, girls: "Sing!" And we sing songs. "

Factories that supplied ammunition to the front continued to operate in the city. Dotsenko Anna Mikhailovna confirms this in her own words: “Despite the bombing and shelling, they began to restore production. It was cold in the workshops, ice lay on the floor, it was impossible to touch the cars, but the Komsomol members undertook to work at least 20 hours after hours. Mainly 15-year-old girls worked here, but they fulfilled the quota by 150-180% ”. siege of leningrad war patriotic

Many historians believe that it was the defense of Leningrad that became the decisive moment in the development of the war. After easy victories in Europe, a Russian city arose before Hitler, the courage of whose inhabitants was beyond his strength. Perhaps it was then that he realized that his plan to capture the blitzkrieg could not be carried out. The war took on a protracted nature, which was beneficial for the USSR, but did not suit the Germans. Hitler had to transfer part of the troops from near Leningrad to other fronts, so the Germans did not have enough strength for the final assault on the city.

Having spoiled Hitler's plans and given extra time for the Soviet army, Leningrad suffered heavy losses. According to historians, during the blockade, 800 thousand people died from hunger and about 17 thousand during the bombing and shelling. The city could have been surrendered without fighting, but given Hitler's plans for the complete destruction of Leningrad, it was difficult to imagine a peaceful evacuation of the inhabitants. Fighting under the city continued, but now the Germans were heavily bombing the city itself, aiming at food depots with incendiary bombs. The Badayevsky warehouses with food were burned, but this did not have much effect, since due to the war there was not a large supply of food in the warehouses. The inhabitants of the city were not at a loss and in every possible way defended themselves from the bombing of the Germans. According to the stories of Galina Evgenievna Blumina: “Children's teams were created in the houses, which helped adults to extinguish lighters. We were in canvas mittens and protective helmets on our heads, as incendiary bombs pierced the roofs, fell into the attic and spun like a top, spewing out a sea of ​​sparks, causing a fire and lighting up everything around us. We - children from 10 years old and older - took bombs in mittens and threw them into the windows of the attic on the paving stones of the yard (then there were no asphalt yards), where they were rotting. "

On January 27, the blockade was lifted from the city and it was celebrated with fireworks, which was an exception during the war. The heroic defense of Leningrad has become a symbol of the courage and steadfast spirit of the people. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States of America wrote: “I present this letter to the city of Leningrad as a memory of its brave soldiers and its loyal men, women and children, who, in conditions of isolation from their people by invaders and despite constant bombing and countless suffering from the cold, hunger and disease successfully defended their beloved city in the critical period from September 8, 1941 to January 18, 1943 and thus demonstrated the invincible spirit of the people of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and all peoples of the world to resist the forces of aggression. "

The blockade of Leningrad left an unhealing scar in the soul of everyone who survived it. Many could not endure such torment and went crazy, while the rest had to start a new life after breaking the blockade, with the image of loved ones and family members who died before their eyes in these terrible years. The memory of those who died will be with us forever. While doing my essay research, I read many stories of survivors of the siege of Leningrad, and their stories made an indelible impression on me.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Information and analytical publication of the historical perspective fund: Century (Internet newspaper) http://www.stoletie.ru/

2. Information portal: http://www.gazeta.ru/

3. Ilyinsky Igor Mikhailovich website: http://ilinskiy.ru/

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Essay on the "Siege of Leningrad"

One of the most famous and terrible events of the Second World War is the blockade of Leningrad. This name refers to the whole "era", which lasted 871 days. Not surprising: the complete isolation of the city has changed it beyond recognition. This historic event claimed many lives: the number ranges from a million to two. However, despite all the terrible aspects of the blockade, this incident showed how united the people can be in difficult times.

The heroism of the Leningrad residents who defended the city cannot be overemphasized. This period will forever remain for us a reminder of human fortitude and patriotism. And also about how cruel the war can be for those who had nothing to do with it. The inhabitants of the peaceful city were isolated from the whole world simply because the commanders-in-chief ordered so. Innocent people suffered, died, fought to be free. For the sky to be clear and the Leningrad children to live.
Fascist troops surrounded the city, but it did not surrender.
The factories continued to work, Leningrad even helped the guys at the front, firing shells and military equipment. Despite famine, complete inflation of money and the depreciation of gold, the city continued to live. People fought, defended their hometown from the German military. Secret food convoys very rarely came. There was not enough food for everyone, so there were often massacres and attacks on people who had food. Nevertheless, the residents coped with it.
It was a very cold winter during the blockade. The city was caught by temperatures down to -50 degrees. People were dying of hunger and infectious diseases because of the lack of resources in the city, unsanitary conditions began. The corpses did not have time to be buried, and there was a period when they just lay in the streets.
Emaciated people put on concerts and performances in theaters. Nothing was supposed to interfere with the life of the cultural capital of Russia. Although most of the children were evacuated from the city, many babies remained in Leningrad. They performed in ensembles, and it was especially sad against the backdrop of hostilities. After all, war is very terrible in itself. But when it touches children's lives, people are ready to fight to the end for their future.

In January 1944, Leningrad wins. Patriotic people break through the blockade for many days, and the city is freed from the fascist clutches. This is commonly called the feat of Leningrad. Today, January 24 is considered the day of remembrance for the victims of the siege of Leningrad.

Essay on the "Siege of Leningrad"

4.5 (90%) 16 votes

The heroism of the Leningrad residents who defended the city cannot be overemphasized. This period will forever remain for us a reminder of human fortitude and patriotism. And also about how cruel the war can be for those who had nothing to do with it. The inhabitants of the peaceful city were isolated from the whole world simply because the commanders-in-chief ordered so. Innocent people suffered, died, fought to be free. For ...

1 0

First, we write a prehistory of why Leningrad ended up in a blockade ring and it is necessary in the preface to disclose the topic of the blockade, not only as a definition, but also what it is from a human point of view. In the main part, there are several real stories from life in besieged Leningrad and how you personally perceive it. It would be good to mentally put yourself in the shoes of any inhabitant of Leningrad at that time and try to feel how it is, whether it is possible to withstand it. In conclusion, write what these people could and why they could do it, what moved them and where did they get the strength for human feat in the truest sense of the word. On my own behalf. I think that time was a lesson for all people in the world, and if now we deny the heroism of those people, then soon humanity will have to reap the fruits of its forgetfulness. As a living person, I can not wait, thank God, for a terrible time, but you, who are now 15, can get everything that was in Leningrad and it depends only on you what the world will be like in ...

0 0

One of the most famous and terrible events of the Second World War is the blockade of Leningrad. This name refers to the whole "era", which lasted 871 days. Not surprising: the complete isolation of the city has changed it beyond recognition. This historic event claimed many lives: the number ranges from a million to two. However, despite all the terrible aspects of the blockade, this incident showed how united the people can be in difficult times.

The heroism of the Leningrad residents who defended the city cannot be overemphasized. This period will forever remain for us a reminder of human fortitude and patriotism. And also about how cruel the war can be for those who had nothing to do with it. The inhabitants of the peaceful city were isolated from the whole world simply because the commanders-in-chief ordered so. Innocent people suffered, died, fought to be free. For the sky to be clear and the Leningrad children to live.
Fascist troops surrounded the city, but he ...

0 0

It is customary to call a blockade military actions taking place according to the principle of encircling an enemy army with the aim of capturing people or destroying them. During the Great Patriotic War, it was the city of Leningrad that suffered from the blockade of German troops. The German fascist invaders chose this majestic city because it was of rather great importance in terms of politics.

In 1941, on the 30th of August, all the tracks along which trains could travel from the cities of the Soviet Union to Leningrad were destroyed. Later, on September 8, it was generally impossible to get to Leningrad by land. So, it is this day that marks the beginning of the Great Siege of Leningrad.

People were not ready for such a tragic and dangerous incident: they had almost no additional provisions, and in the fall of 1941 the cold began very early. Thousands of Leningrad residents perished from hunger and cold. Deliver at least a small amount of food supplies from others nearby ...

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Liudmila Sharukhia Supreme Mind (168409) 2 years ago

The Blockade of Leningrad was broken 70 years ago. These days the whole country remembers the great feat. 872 days of life and death. How did the city that Hitler wanted to wipe out survived? Blockade is one of the worst words of the war. This is the time when, it seems, there was nothing left - no shells, no water, no strength. Except one. Hopes not even to survive - not to break down and not surrender the city to the enemy. For a person who has gone through such tests, every moment is the most important part of life. Scrolling through the pages of history and looking at the heroes who, risking their lives, stood for the Motherland, one never ceases to be amazed at the stamina, courage and courage of people who have gone through terrible events. It is necessary not to break the chain of memory, to know and remember the events of wars and our heroes. Every person should know the feat of the Leningraders. What did they go through, how did they manage to withstand it, that one must not lose hope. This is the first thing that the blockade of Leningrad teaches. By the end...

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How to write an essay on the blockade of Leningrad

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Help write an essay essay on the topic of manifesting will and freedom during the siege of leningrad

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For eight hundred and seventy-two days, the inhabitants of Leningrad were in captivity of hunger. He killed many, made some stronger. The feat of both those and others became a tragic page in the history of the Patronymic. The composition "The Blockade of Leningrad" is a tribute to the memory of modern schoolchildren to the inhabitants of the hero-city who died in severe torment from 1941 to 1944.

The road of life

The capture of this city in 1941 would have been a great chance for the German command to win. For the Soviet Union, it was the cause of serious destabilization. Having captured Leningrad, the enemy would have had the opportunity to strike at the capital from the rear, and therefore blocking it was the only way out for him.

At the beginning of autumn 1941, there was not an adequate supply of food in the city. The blockade began on 8 September. Lake Ladoga became the only communication route. But it was also subjected to regular shelling from the German artillery. This path began to be called the Road of Life. More than a million were evacuated along it ...

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History essays on the Siege of Leningrad

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Essay on the topic of memory

Here it is ... Stalingrad, Myasnoy Bor, Krasukha Leningrad blockade of Khatyn Heroes of Chernobyl The film "Soldiers marched aty-bats", And the dawns here are quiet. "Submarine K-141" Kursk "

Help write an essay reasoning topic: the blockade of Leningrad.

Grade 9 or 11? the topic is quite serious there is the 4th position of the author .. at apparently for some story it is necessary to write .. what other essay ...

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Composition: Blockade of Leningrad

EE "Belarusian University of Consumer Cooperation"

Leningrad blockade

Orlova M.I.

Teacher

V.V. Krivonosova

Completed by the student

group Сс11

Gomel 2010

Modern Russians have long been accustomed to the historical name of the northern capital. The original names of the streets, avenues and buildings of old Petersburg have been returned. Nobody calls it the city of Lenin anymore (and if this happens, it is perceived quite wildly by ear). However, in the most dramatic period of its history, the city on the Neva bore exactly this name: Leningrad. Until now, those few who survived the blockade, and today with sincere pride call themselves Leningraders, blockadeers.

We, who live in the XXI century, are separated from the Great Patriotic War by more than 60 years - a whole life. And the words "blockade of Leningrad", "blockade" today can often be heard in an ironic, humorous context ("why ...

March 23 2015

Everyone knows Tanya Savicheva. But she was not the only one who survived the terrible test that helps to understand and recognize a person in extreme situations. Many books have been written about the events of the Second World War. Everybody writes about children.

Here is one of these stories about a girl Tamara, who survived the siege of Leningrad. This Story was written by Viktor Konetsky. This story is about Tamara Yaremenko, a fifteen-year-old girl who lost her parents during the war, and who came to Leningrad to live with her only relatives, her aunt Anna Nikolaevna and her daughter Katya. In this story, Tamara describes the line in front of the bakery in an internal monologue that helps to present a holistic picture of the city.

Even from her one phrase, one could understand what the situation was in the city. One of these phrases is the description of a frozen old woman. Looking at her, Tamara thinks: “And the old woman no longer has steam from her mouth. In vain she sat on the curbstone. If I don’t move, then I will die too. ”

In this detail ...

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The blockade of Leningrad lasted exactly 871 days. This is the longest and most terrible siege of the city in the history of mankind. Almost 900 days of pain and suffering, courage and dedication. After many years after breaking the blockade of Leningrad many historians, and ordinary people as well, wondered - could this nightmare have been avoided? To avoid - apparently not. For Hitler, Leningrad was a "tasty morsel" - after all, here is the Baltic Fleet and the road to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, from where help came from the allies during the war, and if the city had surrendered, it would have been destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth. Was it possible to mitigate the situation and prepare for it in advance? The issue is controversial and worthy of a separate study.

The first days of the blockade of Leningrad

On September 8, 1941, in continuation of the offensive of the fascist army, the city of Shlisselburg was captured, thus the blockade ring was closed. In the early days, few believed in the seriousness of the situation, but many residents of the city began to thoroughly prepare for the siege: literally in a few hours all savings were withdrawn from the savings banks, the shops were empty, everything that was possible was bought up. Not everyone succeeded in evacuating when the systematic shelling began, and they began immediately, in September, the escape routes were already cut off. There is an opinion that it was the fire that occurred on the first day blockade of Leningrad in the Badayev warehouses - in the storage of the city's strategic reserves - provoked a terrible famine during the blockade days. However, not so long ago declassified documents give slightly different information: it turns out that as such a "strategic reserve" did not exist, since in the conditions of the outbreak of the war, create a large reserve for such a huge city as Leningrad was (and at that time about 3 Millions of people) was not possible, so the city ate imported products, and the existing reserves would only last for a week. Literally from the first days of the blockade, ration cards were introduced, schools were closed, military censorship was introduced: any attachments to letters were prohibited, and messages containing decadent sentiments were seized.

The siege of Leningrad - pain and death

Memories of the blockade of Leningrad people survivors, their letters and diaries reveal a terrible picture to us. A terrible famine fell upon the city. Money and jewelry have depreciated. The evacuation began in the fall of 1941, but it was only in January 1942 that it became possible to withdraw a large number of people, mainly women and children, through the Road of Life. There were huge queues at the bakeries where the daily ration was served. Beyond hunger besieged Leningrad other disasters also attacked: very frosty winters, sometimes the thermometer dropped to -40 degrees. The fuel ran out and the water pipes froze - the city was left without electricity and drinking water. Another misfortune for the besieged city in the first blockade in winter was the rats. They not only destroyed food supplies, but also spread all kinds of infections. People were dying, and there was no time to bury them, the corpses lay right in the streets. There were cases of cannibalism and robbery.

Life of besieged Leningrad

Simultaneously Leningraders They tried with all their might to survive and not let their hometown die. Moreover, Leningrad helped the army by producing military products - the factories continued to work in such conditions. Theaters and museums were rebuilding their activities. It was necessary - to prove to the enemy, and, most importantly, to ourselves: Leningrad blockade will not kill the city, it continues to live! One of the striking examples of striking dedication and love for the Motherland, life, hometown is the story of the creation of one piece of music. During the blockade, D. Shostakovich's famous symphony was written, which was later named "Leningrad". Rather, the composer began writing it in Leningrad, and finished it already in evacuation. When the score was ready, it was taken to the besieged city. By that time, a symphony orchestra had already resumed its activities in Leningrad. On the day of the concert, so that enemy raids could not disrupt it, our artillery did not allow a single fascist aircraft to approach the city! All the days of the siege, the Leningrad radio was working, which was for all Leningrad residents not only a life-giving source of information, but also simply a symbol of continuing life.

The Road of Life - the pulse of a besieged city

From the first days of the blockade, the Road of Life began its dangerous and heroic work - pulse besieged Leningrada... In summer - a water route, and in winter - an ice path connecting Leningrad with the "mainland" along Lake Ladoga. On September 12, 1941, the first barges with food came to the city along this route, and until late autumn, when storms made navigation impossible, barges traveled along the Road of Life. Each of their voyages was a feat - enemy aircraft constantly made their bandit raids, weather conditions were often not in the hands of the sailors either - the barges continued their voyages even in late autumn, until the very appearance of ice, when navigation was in principle impossible. On November 20, the first horse-drawn sled carriage descended on the ice of Lake Ladoga. A little later, trucks set off along the Ice Road of Life. The ice was very thin, despite the fact that the truck was carrying only 2-3 bags of food, the ice broke, and there were frequent cases when the trucks sank. At the risk of their lives, the drivers continued their deadly flights until spring. Military road No. 101, as this route was called, made it possible to increase the bread ration and evacuate a large number of people. The Germans constantly tried to break this thread connecting the blockaded city with the country, but thanks to the courage and strength of the spirit of the Leningraders, the Road of Life lived on its own and gave life to the great city.
The significance of the Ladoga route is enormous; it saved thousands of lives. Now on the shores of Lake Ladoga there is a museum "The Road of Life".

Children's contribution to the liberation of Leningrad from the blockade. Ensemble A.E. Obrant

There is no greater grief at all times than a suffering child. Children of blockade are a special topic. Having matured early, not childishly serious and wise, they with all their strength, on a par with adults, brought victory closer. Children are heroes, each fate of which is a bitter echo of those terrible days. Children's dance ensemble A.E. Obranta is a special piercing note of the besieged city. In the first winter blockade of Leningrad many children were evacuated, but despite this, for various reasons, many more children remained in the city. The Palace of Pioneers, located in the famous Anichkov Palace, passed to martial law with the outbreak of the war. I must say that 3 years before the start of the war, the Song and Dance Ensemble was created on the basis of the Palace of Pioneers. At the end of the first blockade winter, the remaining teachers tried to find their pupils in the besieged city, and choreographer A.E. Obrant created a dance group from the children who remained in the city. It's scary to even imagine and compare the terrible days of siege and pre-war dances! Nevertheless, the ensemble was born. At first, the guys had to recover from exhaustion, only then they were able to start rehearsals. However, in March 1942 the first performance of the band took place. The fighters, who had seen a lot, could not hold back tears, looking at these courageous children. Remember how long did the blockade of Leningrad last? So during this considerable time the ensemble gave about 3000 concerts. Wherever the guys had to perform: often the concerts had to end in a bomb shelter, since several times during the evening the performances were interrupted by air raids, it happened that young dancers performed several kilometers from the front line, and in order not to attract the enemy with unnecessary noise, they danced without music, and the floors were covered with hay. Strong in spirit, they supported and inspired our soldiers, the contribution of this collective to the liberation of the city can hardly be overestimated. Later, the guys were awarded medals "For the Defense of Leningrad".

Breaking the blockade of Leningrad

In 1943, a turning point occurred in the war, and at the end of the year, Soviet troops were preparing to liberate the city. On January 14, 1944, during the general offensive of the Soviet troops, the final operation on lifting the blockade of Leningrad... The task was to inflict a crushing blow on the enemy south of Lake Ladoga and restore the land routes connecting the city with the country. The Leningrad and Volkhov fronts by January 27, 1944, with the help of the Kronstadt artillery, carried out breaking the blockade of Leningrad... The Nazis began to retreat. Soon the cities of Pushkin, Gatchina and Chudovo were liberated. The blockade was completely lifted.

A tragic and great page in Russian history that claimed more than 2 million lives. As long as the memory of these terrible days lives in the hearts of people, finds a response in talented works of art, is passed from hand to hand to descendants - this will not happen again! The blockade of Leningrad briefly, but was succinctly described by Vera Inberg, her lines are a hymn to the great city and at the same time a requiem for the departed.