The Madonnas of Leningrad
of Debra Dean (Goodreads Author)
Description
Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. And while the elderly Russian woman cannot hold on to fresh memoriesâthe details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchildâher distant past is preserved: vivid images that rise unbidden of her youth in war-torn Leningrad.In the fall of 1941, the German army approached the outskirts of Leningrad, signaling the beginning of what would become a long and torturous siege. During the ensuing months, the city's inhabitants would brave starvation and the bitter cold, all while fending off the constant German onslaught. Marina, then a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum, along with other staff members, was instructed to take down the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, yet leave the frames hanging empty on the wallsâa symbol of the artworks' eventual return. To hold on to sanity when the Luftwaffe's bombs began to fall, she burned to memory, brushstroke by brushstroke, these exquisite artworks: the nude figures of women, the angels, the serene Madonnas that had so shortly before gazed down upon her. She used them to furnish a "memory palace," a personal Hermitage in her mind to which she retreated to escape terror, hunger, and encroaching death. A refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .
Gender
Main Characters
Book Details
- Format Paperback
- Pages 228 pages
- Publisher Harper Perennial
- Publication Date February 20th 2007
- First Publication 10/29/06
- Language English
- ISBN 9780060825317
- Edition Not informed
- Category Other
- Scenario []
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