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[THE SIEGE OF LENINGRAD] Rasskazy o Leningradtsakh [i.e. Short Stories about Residents of Leningrad]

Ketlinskaia, V.

Item #2775

Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1944. 302, [2] pp. 14,5x11 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Foxing occasionally, otherwise very good.

First and only edition. One of 10.000 copies. The book was approved for print on November 11, 1944, after the liberation of the city.

The story collection is written by Vera Ketlinskaia (1906–1976). She was born into the family of a White navy officer in Sevastopol. Her father was murdered in 1918, after that she soon began to work at a factory when she was 13 years old. In 1920, she joined Komsomol and since then Vera Ketlinskaia was sincerely close to socialist ideology and officially became a member of the Communist party in 1927. She worked in Gosizdat, she made her debut in 1929, publishing a work about socialist youth.

Ketlinskaia’s ideologically sound works about the builders of the new communist society earned recognition from the party leadership. During the siege of Leningrad, she held leading positions on the ideological front: from June 1941 to July 1942, she served as Executive Secretary of the Leningrad branch of the USSR Union of Writers.

The collection includes 18 short stories divided into two parts “Simple Stories” and “Leningrad Sketches”. The second group consists of works fully devoted to hardship of wartime life, children of the war, starvation, diseases, daily bomb attacks, and struggle for the better.

Worldcat shows copies located at LoC, Brown and Chicago Universities.

Price: $500.00