How a starving poet became the lifeline of a besieged city under fire

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: During the brutal blockade of Leningrad, radio broadcasts were the only connection between the starving city and the outside world. Poet Olga Berggolts turned the Radio Committee into a defiant public voice, recording testimony and music while colleagues died around her, convinced that peace and victory were imminent.

On the night of January 10, 1942, inside the Radio Committee, Olga Berggolts and her colleagues—including the Art Director Babushkin and editor Makogonenko—conceived a book titled This Is Radio Leningrad!. Working by the light of a single dim bulb, they planned a chronicle of the city’s resilience. The atmosphere was harrowing; staff members slept on camp-beds in the same room, bloated or withered by extreme hunger. One journalist, Pravdich, died in his sleep that very night, a grim reality that contrasted sharply with the group's sudden, almost physical realization that the city’s survival was inevitable.

For the besieged, the radio was more than a medium; it was a vital lifeline. By August 1941, when the blockade tightened, it became the sole communication channel for Leningraders to receive news from the front and for the rest of Russia to hear the truth about the city’s condition. This was critical because German forces were actively spreading disinformation, including fake photographs of SS guards on Nevskii Prospect and printed invitations for a victory banquet at the Astoria Hotel, claiming the city’s fall was imminent.

Despite the pervasive hunger and the loss of her husband Nikolay Molchanov in January 1942, Berggolts remained a steadfast presence at the Radio House. She and her colleagues viewed the breach of the blockade as synonymous with total victory, though they would later endure years of further hardship before the siege was fully lifted. Their work, which included broadcasting Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony and recording the voices of workers and soldiers, served as a powerful testament to the invincibility of the people. Berggolts’s commitment to this public voice transformed her into a symbol of resilience, documenting a tragic yet valiant path that she believed was destined for a return to peace.

The project they started that night was intended to capture the voices of Leningraders in chronological order, from the war's start to the anticipated victory. While they were not naive about the horrors they faced, they found a magic influx of strength in their shared purpose. This dedication to documenting the city's spirit ensured that, even as the radio staff faced death, the voice of Leningrad continued to speak.

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