Introduction: Wartime Suffering and Survival

Abstract

This roundtable reviews Jeffrey Hass’ Wartime Suffering and Survival, an in-depth historical ethnography of the Blockade of Leningrad. Reviewers address various empirical, thematic, and theoretical facets of the book and raise questions regarding each of these topics. Important issues include the nature of explanation in the humanities (especially history) and the social sciences (in this case, sociology); the role and form of power in such circumstances; and the nature of the Blockade itself as historical event. Reviews from the Southern Conference on Slavic Studies, the Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Societies, and European University at St. Petersburg provide further insight into the book and reflections on the Blockade. It is an important contribution to the understanding of human resilience in the face of great suffering, and its implications for history, politics, and society. It explores questions such as what happened to political identities, institutions, authority, and cultural tropes when survival was at stake, and if there is a homo sovieticus that responds to trauma and survival differently than a person elsewhere in human history. This roundtable seeks to provoke further rethinking of the Blockade, of the Soviet experience of war, of the nature of survival and human resilience, and of the nature of explanation.