Leningrad 1943: Inside a City Under Siege by Alexander Werth Page A
Authors: Alexander Werth
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polished black granite outside the Ermitage had been slightly damaged by a shell, but apart from broken windows the general appearance of the wonderful Winter Palace square was unchanged. There was scaffolding round the giant red granite monolith in the centre of the square, with the angel on top. ‘This scaffolding,’ said the architect, ‘was put up some time before the war. We were not sure whether the monolith could stand the traffic so we were going to test it; but shells have been blowing up all around it, and it’s none the worse for it. There couldn’t have been a better test!’ We went back to the Astoria where the old dame had prepared an excellent dinner for us, and after dinner about five o’clock we drove off to the theatre. All the theatre shows in Leningrad began at five-thirty.
We drove to the Dramatic Theatre on the Fontanka to see Gorki’s Petit-Bourgeois. I had always remembered it as a rather shabby little theatre, compared with the Big Three, and it looked much the same as before. In the past it used to be called the Maly Theatre. I had gone there to a schoolchildren’s matinée once to see Henry of Navarre – it must have been in 1913 or 1914. Outside the theatre was a small crowd, mostly soldiers, all wearing the Leningrad medal, and some of them had other decorations. There were also some girls, many of them in khaki, and several wearing the Leningrad medal. There was also a sprinkling of Baltic sailors – officers and ratings – the latter with something of the old Baltic swagger, and the forelock sticking from under the sailor’s cap. ‘It’s no good,’ somebody remarked. ‘The trevoga is still on, and until it’s over they won’t start the show.’ Nearby there was a loudspeaker saying every few minutes: ‘Citizens, the artillery shelling of the district is continuing; citizens, the artillery shelling of the district is continuing.’ This wasn’t very evident, though, for what explosions could be heard could be heard only faintly. And the people stood round the theatre doors totally unperturbed. A militiaman was, however, inviting the public to take cover – though without much success, and not very pressingly for that matter. Our colonel, however, thought we had better go in, and we were escorted into a dark little office with a couple of chairs and an old leather sofa; a Lenin portrait and a large pink theatre bill were on the wall. This gave the repertory of the Dramatic Theatre for the week: Davnim Davno, the sentimental and rather silly rhymed play, full of marivaudage, about the Hussars in 1812 and the young girl dressed up as a Hussar – a play I had seen at the Ermitage in Moscow in the summer of 1942; also that great nineteenth-century comedy, Krechinsky’s Wedding, and The Road to New York, a light American play, and finally, the Petit-Bourgeois we had come to see. Bad luck. This was really the heaviest of all the plays running in Leningrad that week (even if the lightest of Gorki’s plays), but that day there was nothing else to see. Actually there were only two theatres open in Leningrad, this and the Alexandrinka, if one did not count a smaller theatre in the Viborg district on the other side of the river. So we sat in the little office for some time, a little aimlessly. Likharev and Major Lozak were recalling various Leningrad experiences; curious how their thoughts always seemed to run back to those famine months. ‘They used to play the comic opera Bayadère during the famine,’ one of them said. ‘They played it here and also went out to the front to play it to the troops. It used to be so frightfully cold in the theatre that the actresses had to play with their fur coats on. Yes, even the dancers wore fur coats. Nobody minded, you couldn’t expect anything else. It became a little extra theatrical convention – there are plenty of conventions anyway at the theatre – one had to accept these oriental princesses in fur coats!’
‘We became
We drove to the Dramatic Theatre on the Fontanka to see Gorki’s Petit-Bourgeois. I had always remembered it as a rather shabby little theatre, compared with the Big Three, and it looked much the same as before. In the past it used to be called the Maly Theatre. I had gone there to a schoolchildren’s matinée once to see Henry of Navarre – it must have been in 1913 or 1914. Outside the theatre was a small crowd, mostly soldiers, all wearing the Leningrad medal, and some of them had other decorations. There were also some girls, many of them in khaki, and several wearing the Leningrad medal. There was also a sprinkling of Baltic sailors – officers and ratings – the latter with something of the old Baltic swagger, and the forelock sticking from under the sailor’s cap. ‘It’s no good,’ somebody remarked. ‘The trevoga is still on, and until it’s over they won’t start the show.’ Nearby there was a loudspeaker saying every few minutes: ‘Citizens, the artillery shelling of the district is continuing; citizens, the artillery shelling of the district is continuing.’ This wasn’t very evident, though, for what explosions could be heard could be heard only faintly. And the people stood round the theatre doors totally unperturbed. A militiaman was, however, inviting the public to take cover – though without much success, and not very pressingly for that matter. Our colonel, however, thought we had better go in, and we were escorted into a dark little office with a couple of chairs and an old leather sofa; a Lenin portrait and a large pink theatre bill were on the wall. This gave the repertory of the Dramatic Theatre for the week: Davnim Davno, the sentimental and rather silly rhymed play, full of marivaudage, about the Hussars in 1812 and the young girl dressed up as a Hussar – a play I had seen at the Ermitage in Moscow in the summer of 1942; also that great nineteenth-century comedy, Krechinsky’s Wedding, and The Road to New York, a light American play, and finally, the Petit-Bourgeois we had come to see. Bad luck. This was really the heaviest of all the plays running in Leningrad that week (even if the lightest of Gorki’s plays), but that day there was nothing else to see. Actually there were only two theatres open in Leningrad, this and the Alexandrinka, if one did not count a smaller theatre in the Viborg district on the other side of the river. So we sat in the little office for some time, a little aimlessly. Likharev and Major Lozak were recalling various Leningrad experiences; curious how their thoughts always seemed to run back to those famine months. ‘They used to play the comic opera Bayadère during the famine,’ one of them said. ‘They played it here and also went out to the front to play it to the troops. It used to be so frightfully cold in the theatre that the actresses had to play with their fur coats on. Yes, even the dancers wore fur coats. Nobody minded, you couldn’t expect anything else. It became a little extra theatrical convention – there are plenty of conventions anyway at the theatre – one had to accept these oriental princesses in fur coats!’
‘We became
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