Poems

«The Voice of Blockaded Leningrad», the author of extremely sincere diaries, one of the most significant Soviet poetesses, was able to express in her lyrics the dreams and sorrows of the tragic era of the 1930s-40s. Her voice, heard from... the loudspeakers of the besieged city, became a symbol of hope and resilience for Leningraders, and the poetess's hard life, full of faith and disappointment, became a symbol of the fate of an entire generation. The poems of Olga Berggolts are an example of genuine poetry, imbued with lyrical and civic sentiment, meant to testify to the truth and capable of speaking «for all who perished here».
The present edition includes selected poems of the poetess and a fragment of «The Forbidden Diary», and the collection opens with a preface by Natalia Gromova — a literary historian and leading specialist on the work of Olga Berggolts.