LITTLE-KNOWN PAGES OF THE BALTIC FLEET PARTICIPATION IN LENINGRAD’S DEFENSE

Aleksei I. Balashov, Aleksandr I. Lushin

DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2020-1-4-9-17

Key words

naval artillery, siege, the Baltic fleet, heroism of Soviet sailors, counter-attack, submarine fleet, naval aviation, defense, State Defense Committee’s Headquarters

Annotation

The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the domestic historiography rather weakly covers the participation of the Baltic Fleet tactical formations in the defense of Leningrad. As a rule, special attention is paid to the tragic events of the first weeks of the Great Patriotic War and to the loss of a significant part of the Baltic Fleet ships. In this regard, the proposed article focuses on the history of the defending Tallinn, the Moonsund Islands, the Hanko Island, as well as on the participation of the Baltic Fleet artillery units and formations in checking the advancing Wehrmacht parts. Special attention is paid to the role of Leningrad in the history of the Great Patriotic War. St. Petersburg was the capital of the Russian Empire for over two centuries. With its embankments of the Neva River, bridges, the Hermitage, the Winter Palace and dozens of other unique structures, it was not only the capital for two centuries but its largest cultural center as well. No Russian city causes such a multitude of literary associations as St. Petersburg, and then Leningrad. The siege of the city, where more than a million people died, was unlike any of the tragedies of this war. Sieging Leningrad in September 1941 the fascists condemned almost three million people to starvation; more than a third of them died of starvation and exhaustion, but did not surrender to the fascists. A significant amount of scientific literature, journalistic, memories, etc. are devoted to the coverage of the heroic battle for Leningrad. However, there are still quite a few pages of this war that, in our view, have not received sufficient coverage in domestic historiography.

References

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Information about the author

Aleksei I. Balashov – Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head of Department of State and Municipal Management, Director of the Department of Master’s and Postgraduate Studies, North-West Institute of Management, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, Russia, St. Petersburg (balashov-ai@ranepa.ru; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3219-085X).

Aleksandr I. Lushin – Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Professor of the Department of State and Municipal Management, North-West Institute of Management, Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation, Russia, St. Petersburg (lushinai@mail.ru; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3432-9491).

For citations

Balashov A.I., Lushin A.I. LITTLE-KNOWN PAGES OF THE BALTIC FLEET PARTICIPATION IN LENINGRAD’S DEFENSE. Historical Search, 2020, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 9–17. DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2020-1-4-9-17 (in Russian).

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