Anna Reid (born 1965) is an English journalist and author whose work focuses primarily on the history of Eastern Europe.
Reid read law at Oxford University and studied Russian History at the University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies. After working as a consultant and business journalist, she moved to Kyiv, where she was the Ukraine correspondent for the Economist from 1993 to 1995. From 2003 to 2007 she worked for the British think-tank Policy Exchange, editing several of their publications [1] [2] [3] and running the foreign affairs programme. [4]
Reid has published three books on East European history: Borderland: a journey through the history of Ukraine,The Shaman's Coat: A Native History of Siberia, and Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II: 1941-1944. Critics have praised her for her highly descriptive narratives of the locations she studies. [5] She has received especially high praise for Leningrad, which is the first 21st century book-length account of the Siege of Leningrad (modern-day Saint Petersburg) by the Germans from 1941 to 1944. [6] In its use of newly discovered primary sources from the Siege, including private diaries of ordinary citizens who suffered from cold and starvation during the winter of 1941-1942, the book has been called "a relentless chronicle of suffering." [7]
Her most recent book, A Nasty Little War: The Western Intervention into the Russian Civil War, chronicling the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, was published in 2023. [8]
The Continuation War, also known as the Second Soviet-Finnish War, was a conflict fought by Finland and Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. It began with a Finnish declaration of war and invasion on 25 June 1941 and ended on 19 September 1944 with the Moscow Armistice. The Soviet Union and Finland had previously fought the Winter War from 1939 to 1940, which ended with the Soviet failure to conquer Finland and the Moscow Peace Treaty. Numerous reasons have been proposed for the Finnish decision to invade, with regaining territory lost during the Winter War regarded as the most common. Other justifications for the conflict include Finnish President Risto Ryti's vision of a Greater Finland and Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim's desire to annex East Karelia.
The siege of Leningrad ; ; was a prolonged military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the Soviet city of Leningrad on the Eastern Front of World War II. Germany's Army Group North advanced from the south, while the German-allied Finnish army invaded from the north and completed the ring around the city.
Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva, commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva, was a Russian girl who kept a diary in 1942, whilst enduring the siege of Leningrad during World War II. During the siege, Savicheva recorded the successive deaths of each member of her family in her diary, with her final entry indicating her belief to be the sole living family member. Although Savicheva was rescued and transferred to a hospital, she succumbed to intestinal tuberculosis in July 1944 at age 14.
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.
Saint Petersburg is the second largest city in Russia, after Moscow and the fourth most populous city in Europe.
The city of Saint Petersburg was founded by Tsar Peter the Great on 27 May 1703. It became the capital of the Russian Empire for more than two hundred years. Saint Petersburg ceased being the capital in 1918 after the October Coup.
The Hunger Plan was a partially implemented plan developed by Nazi bureaucrats during World War II to seize food from the Soviet Union and give it to German soldiers and civilians. The plan entailed the genocide by starvation of millions of Soviet citizens following Operation Barbarossa, the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union. The premise behind the Hunger Plan was that Germany was not self-sufficient in food supplies; to sustain the war and keep up domestic morale, it needed food from conquered lands at any cost. The plan created a famine as an act of policy, killing millions of people.
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.
The 80th Rifle Division was a rifle division of the Red Army, formed twice.
The 43rd Rifle Division was a formation of the Red Army, which took part in the Second World War, known to the Soviets as the "Great Patriotic War".
Nina Leonidovna Veselova was a Russian Soviet realist painter and graphic artist, Doctor of art-criticism (1954), who lived and worked in Leningrad. She was a member of the Leningrad Union of Artists and regarded as one of the brightest representatives of the Leningrad school of painting.
Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 had its Leningrad première on 9 August 1942 during the Second World War, while the city was under siege by the Nazi German forces.
Sergei Petrovich Varshavsky (Russian: Сергéй Пeтрóвич Варшáвский, was a Russian writer and art collector.
The 285th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. Formed in the summer of 1941, the division entered combat during the fall of that year, fighting in operations attempting to break the siege of Leningrad. The division fought in the same area until the relief of Leningrad in February 1944, when it began advancing into the Baltic states. The division served in the Baltic states until October, when it transferred south to Poland, where it fought in the Vistula–Oder Offensive and Silesian Offensives in early 1945. The division was disbanded soon after the end of the war in the summer of 1945.
The 286th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. Formed in the summer of 1941, the division entered combat during the fall of that year, fighting in operations attempting to break the siege of Leningrad. The division fought in the same area until the relief of Leningrad in February 1944, when it was transferred northwards to fight in the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, which ended the Continuation War. The division was transferred to Poland with the end of the Continuation War, and fought in the Vistula–Oder Offensive and the Prague Offensive in early 1945. The division was disbanded soon after the end of the war in the summer of 1945.
The 281st Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. Formed in the summer of 1941, the division fought in the siege of Leningrad until the end of the siege in early 1944, when it advanced into eastern Estonia. The 281st was soon moved north to fight against Finland during the summer of that year, and after Finland's withdrawal from the war fought in battles in East Prussia and Poland during early 1945. The division was disbanded in the summer of 1945.
The 291st Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II. Formed in the summer of 1941, the 290th fought in the siege of Leningrad until its end in January 1944, and then in the Baltic states, Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia before being disbanded after the end of the war in the summer of 1945.
The 268th Rifle Division was an infantry division of the Soviet Union's Red Army during World War II.
Nikita Andreevich Lomagin is a Russian historian, economist and international relations expert, known for his comprehensive studies of socio-economic aspect of the Siege of Leningrad.
This is a select bibliography of English language books and journal articles about the Soviet Union during the Second World War, the period leading up to the war, and the immediate aftermath. For works on Stalinism and the history of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era, please see Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union. Book entries may have references to reviews published in English language academic journals or major newspapers when these could be considered helpful.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
