Winner of the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize Winner of the University of Southern California Book Prize Honorable Mention, Reginald Zelnik Book Prize “Fascinating and perceptive.” ―Antony Beevor, New York Review of Books “Stand aside, Homer. I doubt whether even the author of the Iliad could have matched Alexis Peri’s account of the 872-day siege which Leningrad endured.” ―Jonathan Mirsky, The Spectator “Powerful and illuminating…A fascinating, insightful, and nuanced work.” ―Anna Reid, Times Literary Supplement “Much has been written about Leningrad’s heroic resistance. But the remarkable aspect of [Peri’s] book is that she tells a very different story: recounting the internal struggles of ordinary people desperately trying to survive and make sense of their fate.” ―John Thornhill, Financial Times “A sensitive, at times almost poetic examination of their emotions and disordered mental states. It both contrasts with and complements the equally accurate official Soviet portrait of a stalwart population standing firm in the face of evil and in defense of Soviet ideals.” ―Robert Legvold, Foreign Affairs In September 1941, two and a half months after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, the German Wehrmacht encircled Leningrad. Cut off from the rest of Russia, the city remained blockaded for 872 days, at a cost of almost a million lives. It was one of the longest and deadliest sieges in modern history. The War Within chronicles the Leningrad blockade from the perspective of those who endured it. Drawing on unpublished diaries, Alexis Peri tells the tragic story of how young and old struggled to make sense of a world collapsing around them. When the blockade was lifted in 1944, Kremlin officials censored publications describing the ordeal and arrested many of Leningrad’s wartime leaders. Some were executed. Diaries―now dangerous to their authors―were concealed, shelved in archives, and forgotten. The War Within recovers these lost accounts, shedding light on one of World War II’s darkest episodes while paying tribute the resilience of the human spirit. “Synthesize[s] dozens of accounts to powerful and illuminating effect…A fascinating, insightful, and nuanced work that incorporates much fresh research. Particularly rewarding is the close attention Peri pays to language.” ― Anna Reid , Times Literary Supplement “[A] fascinating and perceptive book.” ― Antony Beevor , New York Review of Books “A remarkable record of 125 unpublished diaries written by the blokadniki who endured the 872-day siege of Leningrad from 1941–44… Much has been written about Leningrad’s heroic resistance. But the remarkable aspect of the Boston University professor’s book is that she tells a very different story: recounting the internal struggles of ordinary people desperately trying to survive and make sense of their fate.” ― John Thornhill , Financial Times “Stand aside, Homer. I doubt whether even the author of the Iliad could have matched Alexis Peri’s account of the 872-day siege which Leningrad endured after Hitler’s army encircled the city in September 1941…[A] magnificent narrative.” ― Jonathan Mirsky , The Spectator “The battle for Leningrad lasted 1,127 days; the city was under siege for 900 of them. Between 1.6 million and two million Soviet citizens died, 800,000 of them civilians―40 percent of the city’s prewar population. (As Peri points out, the overall death toll approximates the total number of members of the U.S. military who died in war between 1776 and 1975.) Leningrad residents of all types―from factory foremen to teachers, party workers to professional writers―kept diaries during the ordeal. Peri searches through 125 of them to capture how the nightmare deconstructed the writers’ prior realities and altered their sense of humanity. Her portrait is a sensitive, at times almost poetic examination of their emotions and disordered mental states. It both contrasts with and complements the equally accurate official Soviet portrait of a stalwart population standing firm in the face of evil and in defense of Soviet ideals. Peri makes plain that even though the diarists endured the total transformation of their fundamental sense of reality, their social relationships, and the nature of their social order, most of them did not become alienated from the values and basic outlook of the Soviet system.” ― Robert Legvold , Foreign Affairs “A powerful book…In a groundbreaking history, Alexis Peri has sifted through scores of previously unpublished diaries that have lain largely forgotten for decades in Russian archives. As a result, we now have a far fuller picture of the siege. It may make disturbing reading, but these journals personalize the catastrophe far better than any conventional history.” ― Guy Walters , Daily Mail “[An] important new book…Peri’s book is not a tale; it is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, and it does not reprint any diary in full. But oh, these