St Petersburg Episode 17 Finding Leningrad in Literature

For the final episode in the series, we are 'leaving' St Petersburg to discover Soviet era Leningrad through the work of three very different authors. First, the poet Anna Akhmatova, whose writing was largely banned, but whose very Russian, free-spirited poetry made her a symbol of opposition to the state. Then Helen Dunmore, whose two novels The Siege and Betrayal are set in 1940s and 50s Leningrad, with heart-rending plots showing the difficulties of life in Soviet times. And finally, Sergei Dovlatov, whose short story collection The Suitcase casts a wry, critical, yet amusing look at the trials of being a Leningrad citizen in the 1960s.

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