Moral Economies of Wartime Intimacy: One Facet of Gender in the Blockade of Leningrad

Abstract

The Blockade of Leningrad was a tragedy that significantly affected all aspects of everyday civilian life. One such area was gender: from jobs to families and much more, the roles, identities, and practices of women and men shifted, sometimes profoundly. One such area was intimacy and sensuality. This paper briefly explores how the combination of material deprivation and shifts in women’s responsibilities and status in the besieged city created competing norms vis-à-vis the “proper” nature of sexuality and intimacy. In particular, after desexualization in the first Blockade winter — where sex drives and senses of femininity and masculinity were under assault by severe food and material deprivation — a resexualization followed once food availability stabilized. However, the return of senses of sexuality and intimacy was not without tension: in particular, a tension over the legitimate position of intimacy and sensuality in relation to deferring such feelings to discipline oneself and devote energy and attention to the war effort. In the sphere of everyday life, a politics of resexualization began to emerge in Leningrad in 1943.