A REAL-LIFE FAIRY TALE...

ONCE UPON A TIME, a large city in the far northern corner of the world lived in a hell of blood and ice, for this city had been surrounded by a terrible enemy for many, many months. Thousands of people, men and women, old and young, were starving and suffering because of the Brown Monster.

The people had almost nothing to eat, no heating, and the city itself was lying like a ghostly, gigantic creature under a shroud of white snow. All the windows were covered with black curtains, the church bells never rang, the long straight streets were deserted – only Death went from house to house. All the small birds, all the cats, dogs, and even mice were gone.

Every day, thousands of souls ascended to heaven, and those left behind were struggling to survive and to take care of the remaining children. Naturally, it was painful for the grown-ups to watch the hungry and emaciated little ones, but how were they supposed to help them when even breadcrumbs were being weighed on gold scales?

Do you know what they did? One day, they fetched the most genuine, warm-hearted, and wisest stories ever written, and then they sent for a distinguished, old painter, who had worked for none other than the Royal Family during the earlier, more prosperous days. He was actually not that old, but his skin already looked like parchment. You see, all faces, even the children’s, looked old because of hunger. With his emaciated hands, the painter made these wonderful stories reemerge.

One evening, a soldier’s wife said to her little boy, "Come here, sweetheart, let’s read a book together", and then they sat down by the fireside. This happened in thousands of other homes all over the city, where little boys and girls were part of the family.

It was wonderful to watch the children as they turned the pages of the book, smiles returning to their faces, their eyes lighting up. The grown-ups shared their joys and sorrows, and they imagined the first spring day after the war.

All this happened and was experienced in Leningrad in 1943. At that time, despite the lack of paper, electricity, and manpower, 30,000 copies of the stories written by the Danish writer of fairy tales H. C. Andersen were published.

German forces had surrounded the Russian city of over a million inhabitants in September 1941. The German besiegers aimed to starve the entire population of the city, and this strategy was considered a rational way of fighting the war, from an economic point of view. The city was cut off from the rest of Russia, facing a winter without food and medicine.

The besiegers thought that they only needed to wait for the city’s capitulation, but it never came. The barbaric artillery shelling and bombardment that followed continued for 2.5 years, sometimes 10-15 hours per day.

Walking down this road of pain, the Leningrad citizens met loss, death, and sorrow. However, it was also a road that offered much wisdom and humanity. The spirit remained strong in Dostoyevsky’s and Tchaikovsky’s city.

By the light of an oil lamp, Olga Berggolts, also known as “the Blockade’s Muse”, wrote her poems, Dmitry (Dmitriyevich) Shostakovich began to compose his 7^th symphony, Leningradskaya. On 9 August 1942, it was performed at the Great Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad before an audience of heroes – the very heroes of the work. The music sounded like an anthem to the city that refused to surrender…

The name of the artist who made the beautiful illustrations for Andersen’s fairy tales was Vladimir Konasevich, who lived and worked in the city during the entire siege.

Never before have the Danish writer’s stories been printed under such tragic circumstances, and they may never have been read with a greater desire and deeper gratitude than by the children in Leningrad at the height of the war’s horror.

There, that is a true story…

Svetlana Wolder, May 2004.

Translated by Lars Ottesen (Larsottesen@hotmail.com)