The siege of Leningrad

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PHJ № 3 (47) 2025 — V. L. Piankevich. LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN BESIEGED LENINGRAD

As part of the study of the sensory experience of war and blockade, the article attempts to analyze sensory impressions, the experience of residents of besieged Leningrad staying in conditions of darkness for a long time, the perception and reflection of light and darkness in written and visual sources. Among them are testimonies from the war and blockade time: diaries, letters, regulatory documents of state authorities and administration, works of artists, architects, photographers, as well as transcripts of oral testimonies collected shortly after the blockade and the war, interviews and memories of city residents of a later time.

PHJ № 2 (46) 2025 — A. Yu. Stefanenko. HARVESTING VEGETABLES IN BESIEGED LENINGRAD

After the end of the first winter of the blockade in 1941–1942, the Leningrad leadership was faced with the problem of finding new sources of food. One of the most important areas became the organisation of the harvest of agricultural products, especially vegetables and potatoes. The city’s leaders launched mass campaigns to create individual gardens and send Leningraders to plant, weed and harvest crops and vegetables on the subsidiary farms of enterprises and state farms in the Leningrad region. At the same time, the authorities had to solve a number of organisational and social problems. Throughout the blockade, there was an acute shortage of equipment and supplies. The irrational use of available human resources led to the loss of vegetables through spoilage and theft. Nevertheless, the mobilisation campaigns helped to supply Leningrad with food and to prevent a repetition of the tragedy of the “time of death”.

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PHJ №1 (45) 2025 — E. D. Tverdyukova. “BECOMING NOT ONLY TOBACCO WORKERS, BUT ALSO AMMUNITION MANUFACTURERS”: THE LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE LENINGRAD TOBACCO FACTORY NAMED AFTER URITSKIY V. N. RUMYANTSEV TO THE V. P. ZOTOV (7.7.1942)

The published document is a primary source on the history of the 1st Leningrad Tobacco Factory named after Uritsky. It was the largest enterprise in the USSR to operate during the siege of Leningrad, supplying the city’s population and its defenders with cigarettes and tobacco. In the challenging conditions of war and blockade, smoking frequently served as means of coping with psycho-emotional distress, alleviating hunger, and acquiring a certain ritualistic significance. The factory’s activities in the initial year of the Great Patriotic War are discussed by the factory director, V. N. Rumyantsev, in a letter to V. P. Zotov, A. I. Mikoyan’s commissioner on food issues. The factory’s staff, in their efforts to substitute scarce raw materials, not only produced tobacco products but also successfully mastered the production of ammunition and medicines. The author of the letter goes on to describe his efforts to maintain the factory’s operational capacity during the first blockade winter, and characterizes the domestic characteristics of the workers.

PHJ No 4 (36) 2022 – V.L. Piankevich. Review of the collection of documents: Blockade in the decisions of the leading party bodies of Leningrad. 1941–1944. Parts I–III. STPb. 2019–2022

The collection of documents is a continuation of the work on the publication of official documents on the World War II and the blockade. Together with published documents of personal origin, the new edition significantly expands the source base for research on the history of the defense and Leningrad blockade. This is a unique, first, complete, specific publication of the most important documents of the highest regional authorities and administration, almost all of which (98%) were previously kept in secret. The published documents make it possible to study the most important issues of military production, the supply and distribution of food, the management of Leningrad and the Leningrad Region, the economy and urban economy, etc.

PHJ No 4 (36) 2022 – A.Yu.Stefanenko. Logging during the siege of Leningrad

The article dwells on the issues of labour organisation at forest camps during the siege of Leningrad. The extensive nature of timber harvesting has prevailed before the blockade and continued to persist during the siege. During the blockade, the city administration rejected to use only repressive methods and increased measures to motive workers by the food supply. Despite this, logging continued to be a problem due to the growing demand for wood for Leningrad industry.

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PHJ № 2 (34) 2022 — B. N. Kovalev. THE HUMAN FACTOR IN THE SOVIET STATE SECURITY: THE BATTLE OF LENINGRAD, 1941–1944

The battle of Leningrad (1941–1944) was a fierce struggle. The Soviet state security bodies were opposed by both the Nazis and their allies. The former did not always emerge victorious over the latter. This can be explained not only by the high efficiency of the Germans. The human factor played a crucial role in this confrontation: mistakes, miscalculations, individual derelictions of duty and failures of Soviet security officials. On June 22, 1943, the head of the Leningrad Directorate of the NKGB, Pyotr Kubatkin, held a training seminar for his employees. In the seminar, his deputy, Colonel Iona Ivanov, made the report “Secret agents: training and the pace of work”. It analyzed the experience gained by the KGB servicemen over the two years of the armed confrontation. Pyotr Kubatkin emphasized the following. “To make an arrest with no sufficient ground, with no adequate verification is a shame and a crime for our bodies. We should have a bare-knuckled fight with this shameful phenomenon in our ranks; we absolutely cannot put up with this crime. Our goal is to continue to work so that there are no violations of the rules”.

PHJ № 3 (35) 2022 – A. I. Rupasov. Activities of the Leningrad City and Regional State Arbitration Courts in 1943–1944

During the war, the desire of the Leningrad City Court of Arbitration to extend the scope of its competence, in spite of the reluctant and negative attitude of the local executive authorities, was partly fulfilled in the practice of its activities. As a result, the Leningrad State Arbitration acquired the features of an administrative body, a managerial body.