| Summary: | Ol’ga Berggol’ts’s diary, written between July 1939 and the years of the war and the siege, is not only an extraordinary testimony of a tragic moment in the history of Leningrad, but also an interesting exposure – through the use of the written word – of the most secret and unspeakable thoughts on the present and the recent past in the light of the writer’s personal experiences. The author is intimately divided between the need to tell the truth about herself and the surrounding world, and the sentiment of disquiet resulting from the pressure of the official censorship and a sort of self-censorship stemming from the fear to write about her own emotions and thoughts. The act of writing implies going once again through the pain and the sorrow that may be triggered in the process and admitting to herself a deep disenchantment with what she had believed in. Despite all of this, however, Ol’ga Berggol’ts embarks on a difficult path towards awareness, on the quest of an individual truth, which is in contrast with the official truth of the regime.
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