Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major composer.
Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova, was one of the most significant poets of 20th century. She was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965 and received second-most (three) nominations for the award the following year.
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was a Russian and American poet and essayist.
Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60, nicknamed the Leningrad, was begun in Leningrad, completed in the city of Samara in December 1941, and premiered in that city on March 5, 1942. At first dedicated to Lenin, it was eventually submitted in honor of the besieged city of Leningrad, where it was first played under dire circumstances on August 9, 1942, nearly a year into the siege by German forces. The performance was broadcast by loudspeaker throughout the city and to the German forces in a show of resilience and defiance. The Leningrad soon became popular in both the Soviet Union and the West as a symbol of resistance to fascism and totalitarianism, thanks in part to the composer's microfilming of the score in Samara and its clandestine delivery, via Tehran and Cairo, to New York, where Arturo Toscanini led a broadcast performance and Time magazine placed Shostakovich on its cover. That popularity faded somewhat after 1945, but the work is still regarded as a major musical testament to the 27 million Soviet people who lost their lives in World War II, and it is often played at Leningrad Cemetery, where half a million victims of the 900-day Siege of Leningrad are buried.
Andrei Aleksandrovich Zhdanov was a Soviet politician and ideologue. He has been described as the Soviet Union's "propagandist-in-chief" in the 1940s, and was responsible for developing the Soviet cultural policy, the Zhdanov Doctrine, which remained in effect until the death of Joseph Stalin. Zhdanov was considered Stalin's most likely successor but died before him.
Helen Dunmore FRSL was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer.
Maria Veniaminovna Yudina was a Soviet pianist.
Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz was a Soviet and Russian poet, writer, playwright and journalist. She is most famous for her work on the Leningrad radio during the city's blockade, when she became the symbol of city's strength and determination.
Betrayal is violation of trust.
Lydia Korneyevna Chukovskaya was a Soviet writer, poet, editor, publicist, memoirist and dissident. Her deeply personal writings reflect the human cost of Soviet repression, and she devoted much of her career to defending dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. The daughter of the celebrated children's writer Korney Chukovsky, she was wife of scientist Matvei Bronstein, and a close associate and chronicler of the poet Anna Akhmatova.
A siege is a military blockade and assault of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering. For a list of sieges, see list of sieges.
naturalism
The Almost Moon is the third book and the second novel by the American author Alice Sebold, author of the memoir, Lucky and the best-selling novel The Lovely Bones.The Almost Moon was released by Little, Brown and Company in the United States on October 16, 2007.
The 872-day siege of Leningrad, Russia, resulted from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad in the Eastern Front during World War II. The siege lasted from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, and was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, devastating the city of Leningrad.
Yevgeny Ilyich Ukhnalyov was a Russian artist. He was a founding member of the Russian Guild of Heraldic Artists and the creator of many state symbols of modern Russia including its coat of arms. In 1997 he was awarded the People's Artist of Russia title.
A Spell of Winter is a 1995 literary gothic novel by Helen Dunmore, set in England, around the time of World War I. The novel was the first recipient of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 1996.
The Siege is a 2001 historical novel by English writer Helen Dunmore. It is set in Leningrad just before and during the Siege of Leningrad by German forces in World War II. The book was shortlisted for the Orange Prize in 2002 and for the 2001 Whitbread Prize.
The Leningrad première of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 took place on 9 August 1942 during the Second World War, while the city of Leningrad was under siege by Nazi German forces.
Zennor in Darkness, was the debut novel from English author Helen Dunmore, published in 1993. It won the 1994 McKitterick Prize which is awarded for debut novels for writers over 40. Until that point, Dunmore was primarily a poet though she had published short stories and books for children. As a result of winning the prize, Penguin offered her a two-book deal and fiction became her focus.
Elena Semenovna Chizhova is a Russian writer, whose work is characterized by its reexamination of Russian history and society. She is best known for her 2009 novel Vremia zhenshchin, which won that year's Russian Booker Prize. Vremia zhenshchin was translated into English in 2012 as The Time of Women.
