Leningrad 1943: Inside a City Under Siege by Alexander Werth Page B
Authors: Alexander Werth
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pretty desperate at one time,’ Likharev said. ‘It was no longer safe to take German prisoners down the Nevsky. And then, there was the famous case of the German plane crashing in the Tauris Gardens. The airman had one of those high decorations they call the Ritterkreuz. He was beaten up by the women. He was certainly in a nice mess when they got him to hospital. And the reason why he crashed was that Sevastianov, our great air ace, had rammed his plane. Ramming was a Leningrad invention. We were outnumbered in the air. Out of a kind of despair, rather than see any of these vultures escape, our fellows began to ram them. It put the fear of death into the Germans. They couldn’t take it. Sevastianov. … Yes, there was he, and there were several others who developed a ramming ‘technique’ if you please. It takes guts – my God, it does! We no longer need such desperate remedies now. We are more than equal to them now. We can lick them on equal terms.’ And it made me wonder whether this quite extraordinary personal bravery and self-sacrifice had not, in 1941, made that tiny difference which in reality made all the difference and saved Moscow, and Leningrad, and was ultimately going to win the war for Russia.
‘Funny,’ said the major, still thinking back to the dark days of 1941, ‘how during those days people never talked about food. It was bad style, it was tactless. But how things changed after February! You cannot imagine what it was like when on April 15th, 1942 – yes, I remember the exact date – when the first tramcar ran down the Nevsky. People ran after it and cheered their heads off. It was like their triumphal chariot, that tramcar.’
Every few minutes the loudspeaker in the room had been saying: ‘Citizens, the artillery shelling of the district continues,’ but suddenly it said: ‘Citizens, the artillery shelling of the district has ceased.’ Somebody came in to say the show would now start. It was ten to six – the show had been delayed by twenty minutes.
Meschane – the petit-bourgeois – would not have been much of a play really but for the actors. It was typical young-Gorki stuff which, when you come to analyse it, is not very different from old-Ibsen stuff, full of the correct sentiments and sentences, and with its slightly more juvenile Dr. Stockmanns and slightly less stuffy Noras and Hedda Gablers. The petit-bourgeois household is drab and terribly discontented and unhappy, except the lodger, the young railwayman who ‘loves life,’ and proclaims this love on every occasion: ‘I know Life is difficult, full of violence and injustice, but I am a strong and healthy man, and I know we shall win. And I want to throw myself right up to my neck into Life.’ With a capital L, of course. To which the boss of the household – miserable old bully he is – replies: ‘Life will just show you where you get off. You must be drunk.’ But the frivolous young widow agrees with the hero. She does not vamp him; she tries instead to vamp the helpless, futile young son of the boss but he is mentally too impotent, too henpecked by Pa to react. Equally miserable is the daughter of the household, driven to an abortive suicide by her failure to find a husband. The hero finally goes off with the daughter of the saintly old bird-catcher whom the miserable bully had driven out of his house. All a trifle dreary but for the long spells of comic relief provided chiefly by the philosophising drunk, a sort of unsuccessful tragedian, who hangs about the house. But the acting was so good throughout and the bird-catcher’s daughter had such a pretty face and alluring figure that one watched the play with considerable interest. The audience, without being over-enthusiastic, seemed to enjoy it – especially the funny passages. There was much laughter, but not loud laughter; cheering, but not frantic cheering, as one gets in Moscow. But perhaps, I thought, Leningrad had become naturally reserved.
‘Funny,’ said the major, still thinking back to the dark days of 1941, ‘how during those days people never talked about food. It was bad style, it was tactless. But how things changed after February! You cannot imagine what it was like when on April 15th, 1942 – yes, I remember the exact date – when the first tramcar ran down the Nevsky. People ran after it and cheered their heads off. It was like their triumphal chariot, that tramcar.’
Every few minutes the loudspeaker in the room had been saying: ‘Citizens, the artillery shelling of the district continues,’ but suddenly it said: ‘Citizens, the artillery shelling of the district has ceased.’ Somebody came in to say the show would now start. It was ten to six – the show had been delayed by twenty minutes.
Meschane – the petit-bourgeois – would not have been much of a play really but for the actors. It was typical young-Gorki stuff which, when you come to analyse it, is not very different from old-Ibsen stuff, full of the correct sentiments and sentences, and with its slightly more juvenile Dr. Stockmanns and slightly less stuffy Noras and Hedda Gablers. The petit-bourgeois household is drab and terribly discontented and unhappy, except the lodger, the young railwayman who ‘loves life,’ and proclaims this love on every occasion: ‘I know Life is difficult, full of violence and injustice, but I am a strong and healthy man, and I know we shall win. And I want to throw myself right up to my neck into Life.’ With a capital L, of course. To which the boss of the household – miserable old bully he is – replies: ‘Life will just show you where you get off. You must be drunk.’ But the frivolous young widow agrees with the hero. She does not vamp him; she tries instead to vamp the helpless, futile young son of the boss but he is mentally too impotent, too henpecked by Pa to react. Equally miserable is the daughter of the household, driven to an abortive suicide by her failure to find a husband. The hero finally goes off with the daughter of the saintly old bird-catcher whom the miserable bully had driven out of his house. All a trifle dreary but for the long spells of comic relief provided chiefly by the philosophising drunk, a sort of unsuccessful tragedian, who hangs about the house. But the acting was so good throughout and the bird-catcher’s daughter had such a pretty face and alluring figure that one watched the play with considerable interest. The audience, without being over-enthusiastic, seemed to enjoy it – especially the funny passages. There was much laughter, but not loud laughter; cheering, but not frantic cheering, as one gets in Moscow. But perhaps, I thought, Leningrad had become naturally reserved.
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