947.0842 GOU Goure, Leon. The Siege of Leningrad / L. Goure ; forew. author M. Fainsod. - Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 1962. - 363 p : ill. - Bibliography: p. 343 - 356. - Текст : непосредственный. Notes : p. 311 - 342. Index: p. 357 - 363
Prewar Leningrad : part I The German Attack : part II The German Advance on Leningrad Leningrad at War The German Assault on Leningrad The Rattle of Leningrad The Siege : part III The Threat of Complete Encirclement Leningrad Tightens Its Belt The Dying City The Fortress City
For the 900 days from August 1941 to January 1944 the city of Leningrad was under siege. Virtually surrounded, with all its regular supply routes blocked, the city was exposed to constant German artillery fire and heavy aerial bombardment. The death toll from cold, starvation, disease, and front casualties ran into many hundreds of thousands. Severe shortages of supplies, water, and fuel contributed to a state of unrelenting misery. Many public services stopped functioning altogether. The political, social, and administrative structure of this once powerful city only just avoided collapse. Yet the Communist authorities in Leningrad did in fact manage not only to maintain administrative order and control, but to mobilize the people for an active and heroic part in the city’s defense. The largest city to suffer a siege since Paris was invested in 1870, Leningrad also had the distinction of being the only modern city of such size to be forced to rely on the independent efforts of its inhabitants. The industrial facilities of Leningrad were of enormous importance to the Soviet war effort, and to the Soviet authorities it was essential that industrial production continue despite the hardships suffered by the civilian population. Consequently, the authorities used various methods to induce the cooperation of the people. But administrative pressure was only one of the complex operating factors, and the author shows how love of country, fear and hatred of the enemy, attachment to the cause of Communism, and the sheer desire to live all contributed to the Leningraders’ achievement. No such thorough and scholarly work on the siege of Leningrad has appeared in English; even Soviet accounts, by Russian admission, are incomplete and inadequate. Much of the documentation, including captured German records and personal interviews with survivors of the siege, has never hefore been published, and most of the Soviet sources, including documents in the Leningrad Public Library, have not previously been translated.