Braithwaite - Moscow 1941

MOSCOW 1941

An engrossing and masterly account This is a significant contribution to our understanding of the Great Patriotic War. Virginia Rounding, Independent

One of the most overlooked moments in history the strength of Moscow 1941 lies in its eye for detail, the snapshots of everyday life that set the scene. Viv Groskop, Observer

A superb achievement of galloping narrative history, fine, sensitive writing and exciting fresh research, mainly based on his own interviews and new papers. But above all this is a heartbreaking and thrilling story of peerless heroism and misery on a barely-imaginable scale Here is such a richness of new detail and cultural knowledge and so many deeply personal tales of tragedy, cruelty, courage and absurdity that the reader staggers from laughter to tears, while never forgetting that blood is flowing. Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Mail

Braithwaite interviewed a remarkable range of Muscovites for the book, from students to nurses who joined the fight to a metro worker who dug Stalins secret bunker, and he has produced a symphonic evocation of a great city at war. New Yorker

A real taste of peoples history, coupling his own encyclopaedic knowledge of Moscow with material gleaned in interviews with aged survivors of those terrible years He allows them to tell their stories of comradeship, inventiveness, hunger and horror. Richard Gott, New Statesman

[Braithwaite] retells the story with verve and compassion Robert Service, Guardian

Together with his remarkably clear, concise style and his empathy with people, he achieves a graphic vividness which puts this book on a level with Beevors. Donald Rayfield, Mail on Sunday

This is a splendid read, full of interesting material, and essential for anyone trying to understand the Russians and the war they fought and won at such a great cost. Evan Mawdsley, BBC History Magazine

An outstanding book these accounts provide a fascinating insight not only into the war but also into Soviet society Braithwaite therefore had the ability to bring Russia and the Russians to life in a way that few histories manage to do. Catherine Andreyev, Times Higher Education Supplement

A masterful account pacey and comprehensive Michael Binyon, The Times

A compelling piece of narrative history which brilliantly tells the story of the desperate opening months of the Russian campaign. I couldnt put it down. James Heneage

Dramatic and frightening reading This book is an heroic account of a city under siege in which the people, despite the paranoia of Stalin and the trembling incompetence of senior officers, pulled together and drove back Hitlers steel wall. Paul Callan, Daily Express

A rich, fascinating fabric he has captured the first-hand accounts of many people whose stories would probably otherwise have been lost to us. These vignettes are as important to history as accounts of the great battles. Braithwaite, helped by the mouths of the participants, has told their story well. Ian Gardiner, Scotland on Sunday

It is remarkable to find new material, new insights and even fresh revealing reflections on Stalin Braithwaites description of Moscow under siege is masterly in detail and style. Geoffrey Goodman, Tribune

An impressive account. Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times

A vivid picture of the stark and bloody struggle for national survival with which Russias war began. Economist

With great skill, he maintains tension throughout this sinewy, moving and consummately crafted history of the Soviet Unions darkest hours it is the stuff of epics. John Lloyd, Herald

Braithwaite mingles most deftly general accounts of what was going on with personal details, of individual men and women who were involved at the time, some of them willingly, some under compulsion. John Luckacs, Spectator

A searingly passionate account John Crossland, Sunday Times, top five history books of the year

If asked to recommend a single book on Soviet history, I think I might propose Moscow 1941 Lars T. Lih, Moscow Times

After military service in Vienna, RODRIC BRAITHWAITE studied Russian at Cambridge in 19525 and at Oxford in 19723. He was in the Foreign Office from 1955 to 1992, serving in Jakarta, Warsaw, Rome, Brussels and Washington. He was in Moscow from 1963 to 1966 and again as ambassador from 1988 to 1992. Since then he has been among other things Foreign Policy Adviser to Prime Minister John Major, a senior adviser to Deutsche Bank and Chairman of the Royal Academy of Music. He is currently the Chairman of the Moscow School of Political Studies. His previous book Across the Moscow River (2002) was about his time in Russia and the end of the Soviet Union.

A CITY AND ITS PEOPLE AT WAR

RODRIC BRAITHWAITE

This revised and updated paperback edition published in 2007

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by

Profile Books Ltd
3A Exmouth House
Pine Street
Exmouth Market
London ECIR 0JH
www.profilebooks.com

Copyright Rodric Braithwaite, 2006, 2007

Front cover image shows volunteers on the embankment opposite the Kremlin,
and is a reconstruction from the 1950s. Reproduced by permission of the Moscow
Central Archive of Audio Visual Documents.

Back cover image shows Red Square celebrations, 9 May 1945. Reproduced by
permission of RIA Novosti.

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Typeset in Garamond 3 by MacGuru Ltd
info@macguru.org.uk

Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Bookmarque Ltd, Croydon, Surrey

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN-10: 1 86197 774 3
ISBN-13: 978 1 86197 774 8

T his book is about the men and women who lived and worked and stood their ground in Moscow in the autumn and winter of 1941. It is dedicated to the survivors who gave up so much of their time to tell me what it was like, and to their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, who live in a very different city today.

And it is dedicated to Lev Parshin, who found so many of them for me. Without his tireless enthusiasm, energy, and ingenuity the book would have been a much poorer thing.

Map 1: Central Moscow in 1941

This map shows how the requirements of defence over the centuries imposed a concentric plan on the layout of Moscow, and how the main highways radiated outwards. The main German thrusts in 1941 were along the Mozhaisk, Leningrad and Volokolamsk Highways.

KEY:

1 The Kremlin

2 Red Square

3 GUM, the main universal store on Red Square

4 St Basils cathedral

5 The House on the Embankment

6 The Palace of the Soviets, under construction on the site of the cathedral of Christ the Saviour

7 The Lubyanka, the headquarters of the NKVD

8 The Bolshoi Theatre (closed for repair on the eve of the war and damaged by a bomb)