A vida ordinária inviabilizada: o diário de Elena Skriábina sobre o trauma do cerco de Leningrado

Life writing helped the Russian intelligentsia to build its identity as a group. Many women from Russian intelligentsia embraced the memorialist/autobiographical genre and narrated their lives. Many of these lives faced challenging times. This article analyzes a diary written by Elena Skriabina - Siege and Survival – The Odyssey of a Leningrader, that describes the experience of surviving the Leningrad’s Blockade. Leningrad (now, Saint Petersburg) was blocked by Hitler’s troops in the Second World War during 872 days and its inhabitants suffered the most terrible difficulties and hardship. Skriabina’s book talks about having the private life forged by History and opens the reader’s eyes to the importance of the narration of individual lives lived through the whirlwind of History.