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Abstract
This article focuses on the civilian return to Leningrad after the end of the Blockade and in the immediate post-war period. It examines how the authorities tried to control movement back to the city but proved to be overwhelmed by vast numbers of civilians returning with or without permission. It describes post-war living conditions, explores the official historical narrative of resilience and recovery, and provides a critique of the alternative historical narrative that claimed there was no post-war ‘return to normalcy’ and that Leningrad became a different city after the war.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank the Balzan Foundation for support in the research for this article.
Notes
1 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 126, d. 19, l. 13.
2 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1136, l. 58.
3 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1136, l. 60.
4 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, l. 18.
5Jeffrey Jones and Karl Qualls have produced work on post-war urban reconstruction in Rostov-on-Don, Sevastopol.
6The most prominent members of the Leningrad Party elite, Aleksei Kuznetsov, P. S. Popkov, M. I. Rodionov and F. Ya. Kapustin, were all promoted after the war, only to be destroyed during the Leningrad Affair in 1949.
7This is the definition of territoriality given by the geographer Robert David Sack (Citation1986) and used by Robert Argenbright to analyse the original evacuation in Argenbright (Citation1999, pp. 207 – 39).
8 Sbornik ukazov (Citation1945, p. 16). Leningrad was a military city until 23 May 1945; Leningradskaya Pravda, 23 May 1945.
9 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1, l. 36; LP, 20 March 1946.
10 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, l. 21.
11 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1136, l. 60.
12 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1350, l. 181.
13 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, l. 15.
14 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, ll. 21 – 22.
15 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, l. 18.
16 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, l. 25.
17Argenbright makes a similar observation about the original evacuation, noting that this attitude encapsulates the Party's approach to space and place, where everything and everyone was replaceable (Citation1999, p. 238).
18 TsGASPb, f. 327, op. 1, d. 31, l. 54.
19 TsGASPb, f. 327, op. 1, d. 31, l. 14.
20 TsGASPb, f. 327, op. 1, d. 31, l. 38.
21 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, ll. 3 – 5.
22 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1241, l. 5.
23 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1510, l. 137.
24 LP, 16 March 1945.
25 LP, 23 October 1945.
26 LP, 23 October 1945.
27 LP, 23 October 1945.
28 LP, 27 July 1946.
29 LP, 8 December 1945.
30 LP, 4 February 1945.
31 LP, 8 December 1945.
32 LP, 30 June 1946.
33 LP, 8 August 1946.
34 Vechernyi Leningrad (VL), 31 March 1946.
35 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1350, ll. 61, 92, 101.
36 LP, 7 August 1946.
37 TsGASPb, f. 7384, d. 17, op. 1331, ll. 462 – 77.
38 LP, 13 December 1945.
39 LP, 4 February 1945.
40 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1331, ll. 456, 153; Simmons and Perlina (Citation2005, pp. 122 – 23).
41 TsGASPb, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 1514, l. 35.