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Podcast: New Books in German Studies
Episode: Prit Buttar, "To Besiege a City: Leningrad 1941-42" (Osprey, 2023)
Description: The city of St. Petersburg held great significance to the Russian Empire when Peter the Great first built the city in 1703. It was intended to be Russia's "window to the West" and usher in Russia's place as a modern European power. It also replaced Moscow as the capital of the growing empire that stretched across two continents. It was also the site of the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in 1917. Subsequently the city was renamed Leningrad in honor of the founder of the Soviet Union. During World War II (1939-1945), the c...