The War Within: Diaries From the Siege of Leningrad by Alexis Peri Varlam Shalamov and the fear of abandoning

and the fear of abandoning one’s home

As a new Cold War hots up it is ever-more important to understand the origins of the modern relationship between Russia and the West

whose rendering of the rich Odessan slang is pitch-perfect

filled with failed coups d'etat and political intrigue

"a vast ad-hoc museum of a failing utopia" that in 1989 began to close for ever

The War Within: Diaries From the Siege of Leningrad by Alexis Peri Varlam Shalamov and the fear of abandoningWinner of the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2018 In September 1941, two and a half months after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the German Wehrmacht encircled Leningrad. Cut off from the rest of Russia, the city remained blockaded for 872 days, at a cost of almost a million civilian lives, making it one of the longest and deadliest sieges in modern history. Drawing on 125 unpublished diaries written by individuals from all walks of Soviet life,