Siege Postcards Project

​Postcards of the Siege
Propaganda, Art, and Total War in Leningrad

The Blavatnik Archive is excited to announce the next phase of our digital humanities initiative to create an immersive website for our collection of postcards published and mailed during, and in the immediate aftermath of, the Siege of Leningrad in World War II (1941–1944). The project will offer an intimate, in-depth look at the cultural production during the Siege, and the lived human experience of a humanitarian disaster that became a defining event in Russian history and culture.

PROJECT NEWS – JAN 2024

NEH Production Grant Award

Following the successful completion of the prototyping phase, the project has been awarded a two-year National Endowment for the Humanities “Digital Projects for the Public” production grant. This grant will enable us to finish building and launch the Postcards of the Siege website.


PROJECT NEWS – JAN 2022

NEH Prototype Grant Award

We are thrilled to announce that the project has been awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities “Digital Projects for the Public” prototyping grant for 2022.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

The Siege of Leningrad & the Siege Postcard

Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia's second largest city and its cultural and formerly political capital, lies on the Neva River near the Baltic Sea, about 400 miles northwest of Moscow. By the start of World War II, it was home not only to many military formations, but also 600 factories and about 10 percent of the Soviet Union’s industrial output. Capturing Leningrad would not only cripple the nation’s capacity to wage war but also demoralize its citizens, for whom Leningrad had enormous significance as the cradle of the Communist Revolution and their homeland’s cultural heart, and Hitler made the destruction of the city an early objective. Because of the military presence in the city, he opted for a blockade rather than direct assault. The ensuing humanitarian disaster took nearly a million civilian lives (about a third of the prewar population) between September 1941 and January 1944.


And yet, despite the catastrophic conditions in this city stricken by bombings, starvation, cold, disease, and darkness, as many as 800 striking postcard designs were produced and distributed to its residents during the siege. These postcards underwent a strict censorship process to ensure they delivered ideologically correct messages, but despite the restrictions, we find a staggering variety of styles representing the work of dozens of artists, poets, and even composers—some famous, others all but forgotten. The postcards were mailed by (and to) the besieged by the thousands, maintaining a tenuous but determined human connection. In this project, we will examine them as objects of politics and propaganda, as works of art and historical artifacts, and as a means of communication and testimony in a time of crisis.

PROJECT FORMAT

Immersive Exploration

Our website will offer several ways of learning about the Siege and the Siege postcards. Some sections will include narratives on topics like the history of the Siege of Leningrad, Soviet propaganda strategies, the workings of the state censorship apparatus, styles of Soviet art, and biographies of contributing artists. Other sections will offer “deep dives” into individual postcards, which will become historical tour guides into the political, cultural, and everyday life in the besieged city as we examine the stories of their production, the symbolism of their imagery, and the messages they carried. Finally, a Gallery section will offer the opportunity to browse and sort the full selection of postcards and admire their striking art and the rich variety of styles represented.

PROJECT TEAM

Blavatnik Archive + Leading Experts

We are fortunate to be collaborating with a number of leading scholars in the fields of Soviet history, literature, and culture; art history; media studies; and musicology, including:

Polina Barskova – Co-director
Assistant Professor, Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of California, Berkeley

Stephen M. Norris – Co-director
Walter E. Havighurst Professor of Russian History; Director, Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies
Miami University, Ohio

Richard Bidlack
Martin and Brooke Stein Professor of History
Washington and Lee University

Alexis Peri
Associate Professor of History
Boston University

Brandon Schechter
Academic Consultant
Blavatnik Archive

Amber Nickell
Assistant Professor of History
Fort Hays State University

Alla Rosenfeld
Research Consultant for Russian and East European Art
The Merrill C. Berman Collection of Early 20th-Century Avant-Garde Art and Design

Alison Rowley
Professor of History
Concordia University, Montreal

Anna Nisnevich
Visiting Scholar; Lecturer, McIntire Department of Music
University of Virginia