In my last post, I discussed the epic battle at Stalingrad, savagely fought by the Red Army along the banks of the Volga River from August 23, 1942, until the German surrender and final victory on February 2, 1943. After 132 days of battle, the city was left virtually demolished. But another epic battle was ongoing at the same time far to the north. The Germans had commenced shelling Leningrad a year before the start of battle at Stalingrad, and after the Red Army claimed victory there, virtually another year of fighting was needed before the Soviets could claim victory at Leningrad.

The siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg before the Russian Revolution) would last 872 days, six and half times as long as the battle for Stalingrad, and saw suffering on a previously inconceivable scale. In the early stages of Operation Barbarossa, the German Army Group North drove through the Baltic territories to Leningrad’s doorstep. The German thrust was aimed at the city that had political, military, and economic significance as it bore Lenin’s name as the birthplace of the Bolshevik revolution, was a port on the Baltic, and a major industrial center. To Adolf Hitler, the conquest of Leningrad was to be a supreme symbol of Nazism’s ideological triumph over international communism. After a few weeks of artillery shelling that began in August 1941, the siege of the city officially began with its landed encirclement by German forces on September 8, 1941, three full months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into the war. The siege lasted until January 27, 1944, meaning that the contest for Leningrad encompassed both of the great Soviet victories at Stalingrad and Kursk in the summer of 1943 before victory could be claimed there.

The museum of the Great Patriotic War in Moscow employs a series of dioramas to tell the story of the Nazi-Soviet war from 1941-1945. Without text panels or interactive show elements, these dioramas are quite striking in how they convey the history of the war and through their artistic presentation invoke intuitive feelings for the realities of what it must have been like to be there for visitors. The Leningrad diorama is particularly striking because of the details of the city. In the lead image to this post, one can clearly see in the diorama the drama of a city under siege. The scene depicts the Bank Bridge along the Griboedov canal, a small pedestrian bridge clearly recognizable for the two gold-winged griffons that flank it (the griffons were created by the sculptor Pavel Sokolov in 1825-1826). Visible through the smoke and destruction, far down the street, is the dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral. The dome of Kazan Cathedral appears to the right of the viewer a few blocks down the canal and spotlights search for enemy aircraft. What would in peacetime be a beautiful and charming scene of city life in Leningrad (St. Petersburg today) is transformed by the oppressive atmosphere of war, as white, grey and black billows flood the sky. In the streets, men attempt to put out fires in the burning buildings. On the icy surface of the frozen canal can be seen a man feeding a hose through the ice in order to pump water into the fires. In the foreground an anti-aircraft gun stands at ready, lending an air of physical reality to the scene.

Before it, above all, one feels cold. In another part of the diorama, in a view that I interpret as a canal connecting to the Neva River with St. Isaac’s Cathedral dome again in the background at dawn, one can sense the sheer struggle to survive in the city under siege. An ambulance truck stands on the other side of the bridge as planes streak overhead, while under the bridge some civilians appear to be peering out to see where the planes are going. Soldiers on the bridge appear to be more accustomed to the danger. Everywhere is smoke, ice, snow, random fires, and a sense of heavy, freezing air that one can imagine slightly burning as it goes in and out of the lungs.