The ordinary Leningrad girl Tanya Savicheva became known throughout the 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 Yards. This place was next to Lake Peipsi. Parents raised and raised her in Leningrad, where she spent most of her short life. The older Savichevs themselves came from the northern capital. The girl’s mother, Maria Ignatievna, decided to give birth in a remote village due to the fact that her sister, whose husband was a professional doctor, lived there. He played the role of an obstetrician and helped to safely take birth.
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, at the beginning of the blockade, Tanya had two older sisters (Eugene and Nina) and a brother (Leonid and Mikhail).
The Savichev family
Tanya's father was a Nepman - that is, a former entrepreneur. Even in Tsarist times, Nikolai Savichev owned a bakery, a pastry shop 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 a deprived person - he was lowered in suffrage as a socially unreliable one.
In the 30s, the Savichevs' family was even evicted from Leningrad for a short while, although they soon managed to return to their hometown. Nevertheless, Nikolai could not stand all these shocks and died in 1936. His children did not have the right to study at universities or join the Communist Party. Older brothers and sisters worked in various factories and enterprises of Leningrad. One of them - Leonid, was fond of music, because of which there were a lot of instruments in the Savichevs house and amateur concerts were constantly held. Younger Tanya was especially trusting of her uncle Vasily (father's brother).
The beginning of the blockade
In May 1941, Tanya Savicheva graduated from grade 3. 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 adults of the 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 age. Only Mikhail was in the army. After the Germans captured Pskov in July 1941, he became a partisan behind enemy lines.
Elder sister Nina then went to dig trenches near Leningrad, and Zhenya began to donate the blood necessary for transfusion to wounded soldiers. The besieged diary of Tanya Savicheva does not tell these details. In it, only nine pages fit the girl’s short notes 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.
The death of Eugenia
The first in the Savichev family, Zhenya died. She severely damaged her health due to regular blood donation at the transfusion site. In addition, Tanya's older sister continued to work at her factory. Sometimes she stayed to spend the night right there to save energy on additional 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, Eugenia had to walk huge distances of several kilometers every day. Stress and lack of rest greatly influenced 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. Then the besieged diary of Tanya Savicheva was replenished with the first entry.
First recording
Initially, the diary of Tanya Savicheva from besieged Leningrad was the notebook of her sister Nina. The girl used her at her work. Nina was a drawing designer. Therefore, her book was half full of various technical information about boilers and pipelines.
The diary of Tanya Savicheva began almost at its very end. The second part of the book was divided alphabetically for easy navigation. The girl, making the first entry, stopped at the page marked with the letter "Zh". There, the diary of Tanya Savicheva from besieged Leningrad forever retained 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. The diary of Tanya Savicheva contained several notes about the most terrible events for her family. The girl made her notes with an ordinary color pencil.
In January 1942, Tanya’s grandmother on the maternal side of Evdokia Grigoryevna Fedorova was diagnosed with dystrophy. This sentence has become commonplace in any home, in every apartment and family. In Leningrad, supplies from neighboring regions ceased to flow, and domestic 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 bread was stored. Therefore, it is not surprising that Tanya's old 74-year-old grandmother was one of the first to die of exhaustion. She passed away on January 25, 1942, just two days after the girl’s birthday.
The last notes
The next after the grandmother of Evdokia from dystrophy died Leonid. In the family, he was affectionately called Lekoy. The 24-year-old was the same age as the October Revolution. He worked at the Admiralty Plant. The enterprise was not far from the Savichevs' house, but Leka almost never visited there, and every day he stayed overnight at the enterprise to get on the second shift. Leonid passed away on March 17. The diary of Tanya Savicheva kept the news of this death on one of its pages.
In April, Uncle Vasya died, and in May - Uncle Lesha. Brothers of father Tanya were buried at Piskarevsky cemetery. Just three days after Uncle Lesha, the girl’s mother, Maria Savicheva, died. It happened on May 13, 1942. Then Tanya left the last three entries in her diary - "The Savichevs died," "Everyone died," "Tanya remained alone."
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 of him for a long time. He became disabled and in peacetime only moved in a wheelchair. Nina, working at her Leningrad plant, was hastily evacuated, and was never able to timely notify the family about her salvation.
After the war, my sister was the first to find a notebook. Nina sent her to an exhibition describing the days in which the blockade of Leningrad went. The diary of Tanya Savicheva became known throughout the country just after that.
Wandering girls
After the death of her mother, Tanya was left alone. First, she went to the neighbors of Nikolayenko, who lived in the same house a floor above. The father of this family organized the funeral of mother Tanya. The girl herself was not able to attend the ceremony, due to the fact that she was too weak. The next day, Tanya went to Evdokia Arsenyeva, who was the niece of her grandmother. Leaving her home, the girl took away the box, which contained various trifles (including the death certificates of relatives and the 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, because of which, even with the onset of spring, she did not part with winter clothes (since 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 Nina's older sister, who was evacuated.
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 in the rear. Numerous staff took care of the children. But by then, Tanya’s health was hopelessly undermined. She was physically exhausted due to long malnutrition. In addition, the girl fell ill with tuberculosis, because of which she was isolated from peers.
The child’s health burned out very slowly. In the spring of 1944 she was sent to a home for the disabled. There, tuberculosis entered the last stage of its progress. The disease overlaps with dystrophy, nervous breakdown and scurvy. The girl died on July 1, 1944. In the last days of her life, she was completely blinded. So even two years after the evacuation, the blockade killed its captives. The diary of Tanya Savicheva became short, but one of the most impressive and capacious evidence of the horrors that the inhabitants of Leningrad had to endure.