Archival Fetishism and Historiographical Nihilism in One Approach to Studying the History of the Defense of Leningrad

Abstract

The article describes The Defense of Leningrad. 1941–1945, a collection of documents and materials about the Blockade of Leningrad. The editors of the book attempted to demonstrate the uniqueness of their published sources, obtained from collections of the State Defense Committee, I. V. Stalin, A. A. Zhdanov, V. M. Molotov, G. M. Malenkov, and A. I. Mikoyan, which are stored in the archive RGASPI. However, an acquaintance with the materials in this collection reveals that many have already been in circulation and are the basis for numerous monographs and articles. In the introduction to the collection, there is no historiographical discussion. Choosing such an approach to presenting the material, the editors not only ignored achievements of their predecessors, but also fell under the influence of these supposedly “new” documents. They “rediscover” questions of military and party leadership in Leningrad besieged by enemy armies, the scale of mortality among the civilian population, and they “learn” about the existence of privileges in providing residents with food. Unfortunately, the archeographical part of the introduction violates accepted professional norms: the editors do not indicate whether this or that document has already been published or is it being published for the first time. Recognizing the importance of publishing documents on the history of the Blockade of Leningrad from Russian archival collections, we draw attention to the need for correctly introducing materials into scholarly circulation.