The 900 Days: The Siege Of Leningrad [Paperback]

Harrison E. Salisbury (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 16, 2003

The Nazi siege of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944 was one of the most gruesome episodes of World War II. Nearly three million people endured it; just under half of them died. For twenty-five years the distinguished journalist and historian Harrison Salisbury pieced together this remarkable narrative of villainy and survival, in which the city had much to fear-from both Hitler and Stalin.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A reminder that wars are messy and require the greatest resolve." -- Bookviews.com January 2004

About the Author

Harrison E. Salisbury is the author of American in Russia, Moscow Journal, and other books.

Product Details

• Paperback: 650 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 2nd edition (September 16, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306812983
• ISBN-13: 978-0306812989
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #46,094 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #51 in Books > History > Asia > Russia

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 100 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Classic Tome On The Seige Of Leningrad June 10, 2002

By Barron Laycock HALL OF FAME

Format:Paperback

Few events in the annals of modern history compare to the saga of the terrifying siege of Leningrad for almost three years by the German Wehrmacht during World War Two. In this classic historical work, "The 900 Days" written by long-time New York Times correspondent and editor Harrison Salisbury, the incredible toll in terms of blood, sweat and tears of the millions of Russian protagonists trapped by the Nazis in the city is told. The story is told in such a graphic and moving fashion that the individuals involved are portrayed from a common sense, human perspective, in terms of describing breathing, struggling individuals locked into a living nightmare, each of them having to make a titanic effort day after day just to endure the hardships and survive.

The scale of the siege itself boggles the mind; some three million residents and soldiers were encircled and entrapped at the beginning of the Nazi incursion into Russia in Operation Barbarossa, intensifying with a ruthless German offensive in early October of 1941 that literally strangled the lifeline for food and critical supplies from the embattled urban area. Of those trapped, almost half succumbed, and most of these fatalities were in a relatively brief period of time, commencing with the events of October 1941 and climaxing in early April of 1942. People starved, froze, drowned, were run over by tanks, walked into mine fields, succumbed to a wide range of diseases, were murdered by German soldiers, and sometimes were caught in artillery fire. In all, almost one and one half million people were lost during the siege....

Yet in the midst of all this immense suffering and the degraded conditions that forced many to the brink of extinction, the people of Leningrad consistently fought back, fighting environmental conditions, temperatures that dipped below 30 degrees below zero, with no heat, no light, little or no food or water. Yet the fighting on the front went on, supported by the inhabitants, who did everything from digging ditches to helping to care for the wounded in the midst of their own daily struggles to survive. In this instance, they didn't merely endure; in fact they prevailed against incredible odds. In the final analysis, it was the German army that was destroyed.

The scope of this achievement seems to be little appreciated today. And while Salisbury traces the causes in the tragedy of Leningrad in Stalin's sectarian governmental policies that ultimately played into Hitler's plans for capturing the city, he also describes the incredible contributions of a cross-section of the citizenry of the city, including artists, factory workers, soldiers, teachers, housewives, children, writers, and others engaged in the common daily struggle to survive without ever ceding the ground or the war to the foe. Even more impressive is his unflinching attention to detail, and his retelling of the final coup-de-grace delivered by Stalin, jealous and politically fearful of the genuine heroes made by the siege, who then arranged to charge, convict and execute all the principals of the city's campaign against the Germans based on trumped up charges of treason. This was one of the first books to deal with the levels of Soviet suffering and contribution to the war effort, and it has been praised quite consistently by readers and critics alike. I can recommend this book without reservation.
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52 of 55 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars classic epic of human endurance May 15, 2000

By Chapulina R

Format:Paperback

This is still the definitive work about the human tragedy of the Blockade of Leningrad. The background and military strategy are interesting and important, but the chronicle of the civilian suffering is gut-wrenching and unforgetable. It's been more than a dozen years since I read this, but certain scenes still remain with me: The diary of a little girl whose entire family starved to death. The heroic Young Pioneers and Komsomols hauling water by hand from the frozen Neva to the bakeries. The meager rations of the "bread", baked from sawdust and nearly undigestable. The poet who made a "meat jelly" from her neighbor's leather briefcase. The elderly man who was driven by starvation to eat his beloved pet cat, then afterward hanged himself in his home. The dead, frozen in their beds where they lay and in the streets where they fell, pulled on children's sleds by emaciated relatives, stacked like logs at the cemetery gate, where the ground was too frozen to dig. The silent, cold-eyed "cannibals" in the market selling the ubiquitous ground-meat patties which buyers hoped were dog, rat, or horsemeat. The desperate and dangerous Road of Life over the frozen Lake Ladoga, established and traveled under fire... Only the extraordinary endurance and efforts of the citizens saved Leningrad. Hitler's plan was to erradicate the city and its people. Stalin was perfectly willing to sacrifice them. St. Petersburg still bears the scars from the seige that lasted nearly three years. "Let no one forget. Let nothing be forgotten." Ironically, the human tragedy appears to be repeating itself today in Grozny.

77 of 86 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Worth Reading, But Not Fantastic June 7, 2000

By Oren Schaffer

Format:Paperback

I wasn't nearly so impressed by this work as I had expected and hoped to be. The theme is extraordinary, the two great Western totalitarian powers square off over the fate of a city of enormous historical significance (it was the seat of the Russian Revolution) and geographical significance (it was either the first or last Western city depending on which direction you're facing).

The book might better have been titled "Scenes from 900 Days" and if it were titled that or, better, written with the intention of being that, it might have been a great book. But the book aspired to be history and, because of that, it ought to have been more coherent. The reader gets a lot of the deprivation and misery among the ever dwindling Leningrad residents. And, in describing that, Salisbury is at his best. His descriptions are passionate and human without being mawkish. However, the military element of the siege (an important part -- if the Germans hadn't brought guns and artillery and all the other accoutrements of war along, the situation would have been more than just a littledifferent) is badly handled. We know that, at times, the Germans and Russians fought in places like Mga, but Salisbury rarely makes it clear why or how. The geography of the region remains a complete mystery. The two included maps were of little help and Salisbury wasn't particularly interested in describing the area or the significance of particular geographical features. There is precious little description of combat and either none or almost none of battlefields, strategies, tactics, and the like. The manner in which the Germans laid the siege is all but absent, so it becomes virtually impossible to figure out how the Russians would have or could have lifted it....

Moreover, he explains that Stalinist-era Soviet incompetence, mendacity, and villainy exacerbated or even caused much of the Leningraders' suffering, but he never demonstrates how. It might, for example, have been nice to know exactly how food and basic supplies were received and distributed among Leningraders, what the exact policies were, what the bureaucracy charged with that task was like and how it behaved, but all that is left vague. I got to know that Leningraders were given increasingly austere rations on which to survive, but that's about all. The political and social structure of the city is likewise left vague. We are apprised of the political tensions among the ambitious political elites of the USSR, but the treatment is too superficial.

His characters (and he draws too much on the experience of a group of writers, presumably because they were the people to whom he had access) are often flat and uninteresting. True, the historian doesn't always have the luxury of being able to play psychologist, but Salisbury rarely even seemed to make the attempt. Some of the players (Stalin, Andrei Zhdanov, and Marshal Zhukov) are well-enough known people that he could have provided a decent amount of insight into them and their motivations (history without some psychology tends to be about as interesting and as morally useful as literature without character development), and occasionally he did. The treatment of Beria and Malenkov is decent in this respect.

There are, to be sure, some well-written and engaging scenes. Salisbury has the journalist's flair of not being boring (but seldom rises above that level of high competence). The sections on the construction of the supply-railroad across Lake Lagoda is extremely good. As is his discussion of canibalism. The problem is that if his virtues are those of a journalist, so are his shortcomings. Too much of the book reads like news items or human interest stories. His eye is permanently fixed on the sorts of details that people would have wanted or needed to know immediately during the war (he has a fondness for describing with mathematical precision the amount of food each Leningrader got at certain points and the bureaucratic designations of military outfits -- the 291st infantry or whatever). And the historian needs details to be sure, he just needs better ones than these.

To be fair, the Soviet Union was a closed society and information about the siege must have been limited, both by official bureaucratic means and because, owing to the inculcation of contrary values and natural selection, candor ceased to be an attribute of the Russian character, if it ever was. Salisbury might have done the best he could with the limited resources he had. But that doesn't mean the book ought to be judged differently.

And it certainly wouldn't have been possible to provide every significant aspect of the siege in full detail (that seems to have become a virtual mantra among historians and history students). Still, he could have done a better job of picking the most important aspects and describing them in as much detail as he had time for. I honestly wish I could have liked the book better. It's about an important part of 20th centory history by a writer who strikes me (from this one encounter) as perfectly decent and likable. Sadly, that wasn't an option. He deserves credit for taking on such an ambitious project, and the book is worth reading if for no other reason than it describes such an important and awesome period in history (hence my giving it three stars -- it was certainly an above average book), but the final product was too uneven to be as great as one would hope it would be. Read more ›