An ordinary Leningrad girl Tanya Savicheva became known to the whole world thanks to her diary, which she kept in 1941-1942. during the siege of Leningrad. This little book has become one of the main symbols of those terrible events.
Place and date of birth
Tanya Savicheva was born on January 23, 1930 in a small village called Dvorishchi. This place was located next to Lake Peipsi. Her parents brought her up and raised her in Leningrad, where she spent almost her entire short life. The elder Savichevs themselves came from the northern capital. The girl's mother, Maria Ignatievna, decided to give birth in a remote village because her sister lived there, whose husband was a professional doctor. He played the role of an obstetrician and helped to safely deliver.
Tanya Savicheva was the eighth child in her large and friendly family. She was the youngest of all her brothers and sisters. Three of them died before the birth of a girl in childhood in 1916 due to an epidemic of scarlet fever. So, by the beginning of the blockade, Tanya had two older sisters (Evgenia and Nina) and a brother (Leonid and Mikhail).
Savichev family
Tanya's fatherwas a NEPman - that is, a former entrepreneur. Back in tsarist times, Nikolai Savichev owned a bakery, a confectionery and even a cinema. When the Bolsheviks came to power, all these enterprises were nationalized. Nikolai Rodionovich not only lost all his property, but also became dispossessed - he was demoted in voting rights, as socially unreliable.
In the 30s, the Savichev family was even briefly evicted from Leningrad, although they soon managed to return to their hometown. Nevertheless, Nikolai could not stand all these shocks and died in 1936. His children were not allowed to study at universities or join the Communist Party. Older brothers and sisters worked at various factories and enterprises in Leningrad. One of them, Leonid, was fond of music, which is why there were many instruments in the Savichevs' house and amateur cheerful concerts were constantly held. The younger Tanya was especially trusting of her uncle Vasily (father's brother).
Beginning of blockade
In May 1941, Tanya Savicheva finished 3rd grade. In the summer, the family wanted to go to the village of Dvorishchi for a vacation. However, on June 22, it became known about the German attack on the Soviet Union. Then all the adult Savichevs decided to stay in Leningrad and help in the rear of the Red Army. The men went to the draft board, but were refused. Brother Leonid had poor eyesight, and uncles Vasily and Alexei were not suitable for their age. Only Mikhail was in the army. After the capture of Pskov by the Germans in July 1941, he became a partisan behind enemy lines.
Big sisterNina then went to dig trenches near Leningrad, and Zhenya began to donate the blood needed for transfusion to wounded soldiers. The blockade diary of Tanya Savicheva does not tell these details. In it, only nine pages fit short notes of the girl about the death of her loved ones. All the details about the fate of the Savichev family became known much later, when the child's diary became one of the main symbols of that terrible blockade.
Eugenia's death
Zhenya was the first in the Savichev family to die. She has seriously undermined her he alth due to regular blood donation at the transfusion point. In addition, Tanya's older sister continued to work at her factory. Sometimes she stayed overnight right there to save energy for extra shifts. The fact was that at the end of 1941, all public transport stopped in Leningrad. This was due to the fact that the streets were covered with huge snowdrifts, which there was no one to clean. To get to work, Evgenia had to walk huge distances of several kilometers every day. Stress and lack of rest took a toll on her body. On December 28, 1941, Zhenya died in the arms of her sister Nina, who came to visit her after she was not found at work. At the same time, the blockade diary of Tanya Savicheva was replenished with the first entry.
First entry
Initially, Tanya Savicheva's diary from besieged Leningrad was her sister Nina's notebook. The girl used it on herwork. Nina was a draftsman. Therefore, her book was half filled with various technical information about boilers and pipelines.
Tanya Savicheva's diary began almost at the very end. The second part of the book has been divided alphabetically for ease of navigation. The girl, making the first entry, stopped at the page marked with the letter "F". There, the diary of Tanya Savicheva from besieged Leningrad forever preserved the memory that Zhenya died on December 28 at 12 o'clock in the morning.
New 1942
Despite the fact that already in the first months of the encirclement of the city many people died, the blockade of Leningrad continued as if nothing had happened. Tanya Savicheva's diary contained several notes about the most terrible events for her family. The girl made her notes with an ordinary colored pencil.
In January 1942, Tanya's maternal grandmother Evdokia Grigoryevna Fedorova was diagnosed with dystrophy. This sentence has become a common occurrence in any house, in every apartment and family. Provisions from neighboring regions stopped coming to Leningrad, and internal supplies were quickly depleted. In addition, the Germans, with the help of air raids at the very beginning of the blockade, destroyed the hangars where the bread was stored. Therefore, it is not surprising that the old 74-year-old grandmother Tanya died of exhaustion one of the first. She passed away on January 25, 1942, just two days after the girl's birthday.
Latest entries
The next after grandmother Evdokia, Leonid died of dystrophy. In his family affectionatelyname was Leka. The 24-year-old young man was the same age as the October Revolution. He worked at the Admir alty Plant. The enterprise was located very close to the Savichevs' house, but Leka still almost never went there, and every day he stayed overnight at the enterprise in order to get on the second shift. Leonid passed away on March 17. Tanya Savicheva's diary kept the news of this death on one of its pages.
In April, Uncle Vasya passed away, and in May - Uncle Lesha. Tanya's father's brothers were buried at the Piskarevsky cemetery. Just three days after Uncle Lesha, the girl's mother, Maria Savicheva, died. It happened on May 13, 1942. At the same time, Tanya left three last entries in her diary - “The Savichevs died”, “Everyone died”, “Tanya alone remained.”
The girl did not know that Misha and Nina had survived. The older brother fought at the front and was a partisan, because of which there was no news about him for a long time. He became disabled and in peacetime moved only in a wheelchair. Nina, working at her Leningrad factory, was hurriedly evacuated, and was never able to notify her family of her rescue in time.
My sister was the first to discover the notebook after the war. Nina sent her to an exhibition describing the days of the siege of Leningrad. Tanya Savicheva's diary became known throughout the country just after that.
Wandering girls
After the death of her mother, Tanya was left alone. First, she went to Nikolaenko's neighbors, who lived in the same house on the floor above. The father of this family organized the funeral of Tanya's mother. The girl herself could notattend the ceremony because she was too weak. The next day, Tanya went to Evdokia Arsenyeva, who was her grandmother's niece. Leaving her home, the girl took the box, which contained various trifles (including death certificates of relatives and a diary).
The woman took custody of the younger Savicheva. Evdokia worked at the factory and often left the girl at home alone. She already suffered from dystrophy caused by malnutrition, which is why even with the onset of spring she did not part with winter clothes (because she felt constant chills). In June 1942, Tanya was discovered by Vasily Krylov, an old friend of her family. He managed to bring letters from his older sister Nina, who was in the evacuation.
Evacuation
In the summer of 1942, Savicheva Tatyana Nikolaevna, along with another hundred children, was sent to an orphanage in the Gorky region. It was safe back there. Numerous staff took care of the children. But by that time, Tanya's he alth was hopelessly undermined. She was physically exhausted from long periods of malnutrition. In addition, the girl fell ill with tuberculosis, which is why she was isolated from her peers.
The child's he alth burned out very slowly. In the spring of 1944, she was sent to a nursing home. There tuberculosis passed into the last stage of its progress. The disease was superimposed on dystrophy, nervous breakdown and scurvy. The girl died on July 1, 1944. In the last days of her life, she became completely blind. So even two years after the evacuation, the blockade killed its captives. Tanya Savicheva's diary has become short, but one of the most impressive and capacious testimonies of the horrors that the inhabitants of Leningrad had to endure.
