Diary of memory: why children should know about Tanya Savicheva

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

On January 23, 2020, the Leningrad schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva, who lost her whole family during the blockade, would have turned 90 years old. But she died at 14 in evacuation from dystrophy and nervous exhaustion. The girl left a short diary of nine pages, where she sparingly recorded how her relatives died one after another.

The document was used during the Nuremberg trials as one of the main evidence of the crimes of the fascists, and the whole world learned about Tanya Savicheva from besieged Leningrad. However, 75 years after the end of the Great Patriotic War, not all modern Russian schoolchildren are familiar with its history. Often, parents try to protect their children from the too cruel testimonies of that terrible time. The teachers are sure that this is not worth doing.

Touch the pages

Every year, in addition to Russian students, foreigners come to the museum of St. Petersburg School No. 35 of the Vasileostrovsky District, where Tanya Savicheva studied. In 2019, there were schoolchildren from Switzerland, Germany and Austria. In total, over the past year, the museum has conducted about a hundred excursions. As the school director Oksana Kusok notes, this is a significant result for a non-anniversary year. It is possible that in the year of the 75th anniversary of the Victory and the 90th anniversary of the birth of Tanya, the flow of visitors will increase.

"Zhenya died on December 28 at 12.00 o'clock in the morning of 1941" - this entry with the letter "Zh" became the first in Tanya Savicheva's notebook. She did it after the death of her older sister. And she continued to write down the dates of death of the rest of her relatives, using the corresponding letters: "B" - grandmother, "D" - uncles, "M" - mother. The diary ends with the entries "The Savichevs are dead", "All are dead" and "Tanya is the only one left", made on pages with the letters "C", "U" and "O".

The museum contains photographs, originals and prototypes of the blockade bread, letters of soldiers. The diary itself has been converted into electronic form. Guests can browse it at the interactive kiosk. The original is in the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.

Tanya Savicheva's diary in the museum at the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery, where about 500,000 victims of the siege of Leningrad and soldiers of the Leningrad Front are buried. Alexander Demyanchuk / RIA Novosti

Now the school desks no longer where Tanya Savicheva was sitting. She was transferred to the Museum of the Siege of Leningrad, said Oksana Kusok.

“But whether it was exactly her desk, I strongly doubt, since the school served as a hospital during the war,” she said.

Children of different ages, even kindergarten children, are brought to the school museum. Quests are arranged for the youngest: visitors receive questions and must find answers right there, in the museum. It is not uncommon for children to cry when they learn about Tanya's fate and her diary, says Oksana Kusok. However, there are those who have never heard of Tanya.

- Not all parents today tell their children about such events. Some guys don't even know that there was a blockade in our city. And if they do know, then only individual facts. But, fortunately, there are not many of them,”Oksana Kusok emphasized.

No hypocrisy

Professor of the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Rubtsov categorically disagrees with the approach of parents to avoid terrible facts in stories to children about the Great Patriotic War. In his opinion, trying to protect children from cruelty in this way is hypocrisy.

- We must remember not only about the heroes of the war, but also about the numerous victims, one of which was Tanya Savicheva. The greatness of this child lies in the fact that when her closest people fell from hunger and died, she found the courage to leave testimonies. Did she do it for herself? I guess not. She wanted to leave some kind of trace, a memory for her peers, - said Yuri Rubtsov.

One of the few surviving photographs of Tanya Savicheva (1933 - 1944), held by the surviving Tanya's sister Nina Savicheva (right) and brother Mikhail (left). Photo by Rudolf Kucherov / RIA Novosti

Some children today do not know who Tanya is, because the teachers simply have not yet had time to tell them about her. As explained to Izvestia in the publishing house "Prosveshchenie" and the corporation "Russian Textbook", the events of the Great Patriotic War are held in the tenth grade. Most of the textbooks used today to study the history of Russia contain material about Tanya Savicheva. For example, in the textbook edited by Anatoly Torkunov “History of Russia. Grade 10 "says that Tanya's diary has become a symbol of the terrible blockade period, and a fragment from the records is also given.

Pavel Pankin, chairman of the Moscow regional branch of the Association of Teachers of History and Social Science, emphasized in an interview with Izvestia that no one forbids teachers to talk about Tana Savicheva with younger students. Efim Rachevsky, director of the Moscow school №548 "Tsaritsyno", agrees with this. According to him, all seventh grades in the educational institution prepare materials for the 75th anniversary of the Victory, and a significant part of them is devoted to Tanya.

Whether students remember this story depends on the skill of the teacher.

- The teacher must combine historical facts and particular stories. It is through the details that understanding comes to schoolchildren, - explained Pavel Pankin.

The right to memory

Using the story of Tanya Savicheva as an example, we see a tragedy from the inside, said Arseny Zamostyanov, deputy editor-in-chief of the "Historian" magazine.

- It was the most ordinary Leningrad family. One of many. But it’s hard to find a story about the blockade that is more engaging,”he said.

Tanya Savicheva is also often compared to the Jewish girl Anne Frank, who described the atrocities of fascism in her diary. But Tanya was younger - 11 years old, just a child. Exhausted from hunger and cold, she could not fully keep a diary and left only short notes about the death of loved ones. What for? Many specialists - historians and psychologists - are looking for the answer to the question. Opinions vary, but one thing is clear: this is how the girl tried to conquer death.

Tanya Savicheva's diary. Photo by RIA Novosti

- The most important thing in the diary is that she writes not about herself, but about how her loved ones died. Writes under stress. But death is impossible to look at as something commonplace. Tanya's stingy words reflected the most important thing for her, - concluded Arseny Zamostyanov.

Tanya Savicheva has proved her right to be remembered, the historian noted. She proved that a person, even in the most monstrous conditions, should not turn into an animal.