Beyond the Siege of Leningrad

One Woman’s Life During and After the Occupation: the Recollections of Evdokiia Vasil’Evna Baskakova-Bogacheva

Oleg Beyda, Pavel Gavrilov (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

120 Seiten

2024
Central European University Press (Verlag)
978-963-386-712-9 (ISBN)

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This memoir about the experiences of German occupation during the siege of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) was written by Moscow-born Evdokiia Vasil’evna Baskakova-Bogacheva (1888–1976), an émigré in Australia, at the age of eighty-one. The text had been forgotten in the Museum of Russian Culture in San Francisco since 1970 until the editors of this volume discovered it.

In the memoirs, after accounting on her youth spent against the background of the First World War and of the two Russian revolutions of 1917, Evdokiia describes the inferno of the Nazi occupation as experienced in a suburb of Leningrad in 1941-43. She survived for nearly two years almost on the front line, within a few kilometers of the blockade ring. As a medical practitioner, she became useful for the occupational authorities and the ever-shrinking town population, until her family was evacuated to the west in October 1943. Besides hunger, discord, disease, the hunt for food and firewood, along with violence and death, Evdokiia’s account deals with various forms of cooperation between Soviet citizens and the new authorities.

All the events she recalls can be confirmed through other sources. The introduction and the detailed notes to the text help the reader to locate Evdokiia’s recollections in time and place, and situate them in their historical context.

Oleg Beyda is the Hansen Lecturer in Russian History at the University of Melbourne. Pavel Gavrilov is an independent researcher of history of the Soviet partisan movement and the siege of Leningrad, based in Israel.

Maps

Introduction. Beyond the Siege of Leningrad: One Woman’s Life during and after the Occupation

Oleg Beyda and Pavel Gavrilov

A hidden past

Portraits without faces

In the shadow of the blockade

Typical untypical

Speaking Anti-Bolshevik

The city of the poet: At the gates of hell

“The little devils of war”: The mechanics of violence

“Human trash”: Normality and deformity

An (un)sentimental war: The image of womanhood

A “mission for the skilled”: Women under the occupation

The recollections of Evdokiia Vasil’evna Baskakova-Bogacheva

Early Life

Chaos: The First World War, the Civil War, and the early years of Soviet power

In Pushkin: Memory snapshots

They are here: Start of the German occupation

Survival above all: Winter-Spring 1942

Witnessing: A visit to the POW vamp and Dr. Matskevich’s fate

“Poor people”: Navigating between the different occupants

Securing nutrition: More on food

Throwback: 1941

Exit Pushkin: The last year beyond the siege

Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	25.04.2024
Zusatzinfo	3 Maps
Verlagsort	Budapest
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	334 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
	Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► 1918 bis 1945
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Gender Studies
ISBN-10	963-386-712-6 / 9633867126
ISBN-13	978-963-386-712-9 / 9789633867129
Zustand	Neuware