Diary of Russia’s ’Anne Frank’
The Diary of Lena Mukhina
Lena Mukhina (Macmillan, R250)
‘PEOPLE are not born brave, strong and smart. These qualities must be acquired through perseverance and with determination, like the ability to read and write.”
When Lena Mukhina wrote this stern reminder to herself, she was a Leningrad schoolgirl of 16 with two great worries — her end-of-year exams and her secret crush on a boy in her class. Her diary of the summer of 1941 is sprinkled with Soviet pieties, teenage problems and a blithe disregard for politics.
All this changed on June 22, when the radio announced that the Germans had invaded. By mid-September, Leningrad was encircled, and its two and a half million inhabitants were under bombardment. The blockade was to last an incredible 874 days, but that first winter was the most harrowing of all. Until late November the city was completely cut off; then a single, fragile line of supply known as the “Road of Death” opened up over the ice of Lake Ladoga. People starved in their hundreds every day.
Lena continued to keep her diary throughout. She wrote of the terror of the air-raids, the lack of sleep, her exhausting labour building the city’s defences and her observations on the transformed city — all interspersed with the anxieties and dreams of a young girl. No wonder that when her notebook was discovered recently in an archive in Moscow, she was hailed as the “Russian Anne Frank”. Before discovering from relatives that Lena lived until 1991, the publisher had concluded from the diary’s abrupt end that its author had died, one of around 800 000 siege victims.
By December they are forced to kill and eat their “dear puss”. “I never thought cat meat would be so tender and tasty,” Lena writes, beyond all pretence at sentiment. She is still attending school, occasionally going to the theatre, and she enjoys the New Year party for the city’s children arranged by the authorities — yet she is so weak, she observes, “it’s making me unsteady on my feet”.
By the end of December, the housekeeper Aka has taken to her bed. “It would be better if she died… she is just an extra mouth to feed,” writes Lena in a rare lapse of humanity. “But if she dies I hope it happens after the 1st, so we can get her ration card ...” Aka does die and a month later, despite all Lena’s attempts at cheerfulness, despite queuing and begging and making “meat jelly” out of carpenter’s glue, Mama slips away, too. “My dear, sweet, beloved Mama …” Alone, Lena must now fend for herself.
Evacuated in 1942, Lena made her way to an aunt in Gorky. Had not her health been permanently weakened, she might have lived beyond the age of 66; she might even have lived long enough to see her teenage dream of becoming a published writer fulfilled. — © The Sunday Telegraph @TelegraphBooks