Zwischen politischen Strukturen und Zeitzeugenschaft

The study deals with the formation of the history of the Leningrad siege and it's official commemoration in the late stalinist Soviet Union. Its focus is set on Leningrad historiography, literature and the Museum of the defense of Leningrad as three building sites„ of war commemoration. These fields are analyzed, using an innovative actor-centered concept of commemoration in an approach to both: political institutions and individuals, engaged in the process of building an official war memory. Links between political events such as Zhdanovs cultural politics or the Leningrad affair and cultural and ideological influences on Leningrad war histories are shown. Readers perceive the process of trial and error that led to the formation of historical images of the siege, still vivid today in Russia. The book also questions the myth of omnipresent preformed state memory, giving way to a perspective on developments and individual influences.“