​The Life of Olga Bergoltz

Olga Bergolits, a female writer and poet, was born on May 16, 1910 in a workers' district outside St. Petersburg. Her father was a doctor attached to a factory. Bergolits showed talent as a poet as a teenager, and her works were published in the newspapers just before she turned 15. In 1925, Bergolits joined the youth literary group "Successors". There she met the poet Boris Karnilov, whom she soon married. A little later, they had a daughter, Irina. In 1930, Bergolits graduated from Faculty of Letters at Leningrad University and worked as a reporter for the newspaper "Soviet Steppe" in Kazakhstan. Around this time, she divorced and remarried her university classmate Nikolai Marchanov. She returned to Leningrad and worked as an editor for a factory's in-house newspaper.

But a few years later, tragedy struck the Bergholts' life: their second daughter, Maya, died, and two years later, their eldest, Irina, also died.

Furthermore, during the storm of Stalin's purges, she was deemed an anti-establishment figure and imprisoned in December 1938. She was released in July 1939. At the time of her imprisonment, Bergholtz was pregnant, but she gave birth to a stillborn child after being tortured. In December 1939, she wrote the following in her diary, which she had carefully concealed to avoid censorship:

"Now, five months after my release, the heavy smell of prison, the smell of fish and humidity come back to me more strongly than when I was released. I can hear the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs. When I was called in for questioning and headed off, I felt as if I was watching something that didn't happen to me, an unnatural calm, a sense of despair and claustrophobia... They dig into other people's souls with their smelly hands, spit on them, and after filthing them, they casually hand them back to me and say, 'I'll let you live.'"

During the siege of Leningrad in 1941-43, Bergholts was in the city surrounded by German troops. When bombs fell on the Soviet Writers publishing house, she wrote in her Forbidden Diary: "Almost everyone was killed. Tanya Gurevich was killed too - I knew her for a long time, she was a nice, cheerful woman. I spoke to her recently when I went to the publishing house to discuss some money. Semenov survived, but he was seriously injured. So almost everyone was dead. Only the typist, who had escaped to the bomb shelter, was saved. So you have to go to the bomb shelter! Run as soon as the siren sounds... You can't, you can't, you can still be saved... Oh, what a vile thought! I feel sorry for them. But the first thing that came to my mind was myself. I had to learn a lesson. I know everyone else is the same."

In June 1941, around the same time as the German invasion of the Soviet Union began, Bergholtz was hired by the Radio Committee and would go on to encourage citizens through broadcasts.

Meanwhile, her husband developed severe epilepsy and was hospitalized in January 1942. At the same time, Bergholtz began living in the Radio Committee building under the state of emergency. She wrote about her experiences at that time in her diary:

"...If you are going to die, I want to die with you. So I leave you in the care of good people and write at the radio station, escaping the bottomless fear of death that is drawing me in. Or should I face death and be by your side, with your terrifying face, having lost your reason? But we both have to survive. If I stay by your side I will be completely worn out, and the last of the energy I want to save for you will be gone."However, in January 1942, her husband passed away. Bergholtz wrote the following about her feelings when she received the news of her husband's death:

"Oh, how it came to this... What a life you have lived, full of troubles and hardships, you have died without having had much happiness, without waiting for it to come... No, I should have been there for him. Perhaps I could have recognised my face. Perhaps I could have told him how much I loved him. Then perhaps I would have died a happier death..."

Bergolits broadcast radio shows almost daily, the contents of which were later included in his book This Is Leningrad. Bergolits' voice was heard endlessly on the radio in a city where many people were starving to death and corpses were piling up high. When exhausted people went to fetch water from the frozen Neva River, during gun battles, and even in the hardest days when bread rations were reduced to just 120 grams a day, Bergolits' voice recited poems. To the people, it sounded like the voice of a dear friend. As one woman said: "Whenever I am on the verge of losing my dignity as a human being, your poetry helps me. It always helped me out at the right time. My husband died in December. We had no matches. The lamp kept going out, and I would poke the wick to fix it, but it would break and the fire would go out. I would feed my husband by bringing food to his mouth with a spoon, but sometimes the spoon would go up to his nose, and just when I thought, "Oh no," I would hear your poetry. It made us both feel better... And yesterday I was lying down, feeling weak and exhausted, and the bed was shaking from artillery fire. I was lying down, wrapped in cloth, and bullets were flying close by, and the bed started shaking again. It was so terrifying, and it was so dark. Then I heard your poetry again... and I felt a surge of reality that I was alive." The voice of Bergoritz, heard in the frozen, dim houses of Leningrad, became the voice of Leningrad itself.

After the war, Bergholtz continued his creative work until his death in 1975.

Olga Bergholtz Biography

1910	Born in St. Petersburg in the family of a doctor
1924 Age 14	Bergholz's poem "Lenin" was first published in the newspaper of the factory where his father worked as a doctor.
1925 15 years old	The poem "Poem about the Flag" is published in the newspaper "Leninskie Iskry"
1927 Age 17	He studied art history at the State University of Art History, which was later closed and transferred to Leningrad University.
1928 18 years old	Married B. Kornilov. In October, their daughter Irina was born.
1930 20 years old	Divorced from B. Kornilov. Married to N. Molchanov (registered in 1932). December: After graduating from university, he left his daughter with his mother and went to work for a newspaper in Kazakhstan.
1931 21 years old	Returned to Leningrad and got a job in the newspaper department of the "Electrosila" factory.
1932 Age 22	Her husband, Molchanov, was drafted into the army but was discharged due to severe epilepsy. Second daughter Mya is born
1933 23 years old	Second daughter Mya dies
1934 Age 24	Published his first collection of poems. Elected member of the Union of Soviet Writers.
1936 26 years old	Eldest daughter Irina dies
1937 27 years old	The Great Purge begins Expelled from the Writers' Union for having ties to the "enemies of the people" Bergholtz was pregnant at the time, but after being questioned as a witness she was taken to hospital where she suffered a miscarriage. After being fired from the Electrosira factory, he became a Russian language teacher at a junior high school.
1938 28 years old	He was arrested and imprisoned on the false charge of "joining a terrorist group." He wrote poetry while in prison.
1939 29 years old	Released
1941 31 years old	June: German troops invade the Soviet Union. Starts working at the Radio Committee. August: First time in front of a broadcast microphone September: The siege of Leningrad begins
1942 32 years old	January: Her husband N. Molchanov dies. March: Belgorits, who is suffering from severe malnutrition, is evacuated to Moscow by his friends. Belgorits learns that the devastation in Leningrad is not being reported in Moscow, and that it is not permitted to speak about it. In the same month, his father is sent to Siberia. April: Returns to Leningrad. Marries colleague G. Makogonenko. August: Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 is performed
1943 33 years old	January: The siege of Leningrad is lifted. Bergoritz reports the news on the radio: "Citizens of Leningrad, comrades, friends! The siege has been broken!" February: The first train arrives in Leningrad after the siege (trains had been suspended since August 1941). June: Received the Bergholtz "Defense of Leningrad" Award
1945 35 years old	May: At a general meeting of the Union of Soviet Writers, Bergholts' poems are criticized for exclusively describing the suffering of besieged citizens.
1953 43 years old	Stalin dies
1956 46 years old	Writing the famous inscription on the monument at the Piskaryov Cemetery: "Nobody will be forgotten, nothing will be forgotten" (inscription unveiled in 1960)
1958 48 years old	The Bergholtz Anthology (2 volumes) published in Moscow
1959 49 years old	Divorce from G. Makogonenko (officially in 1962)
1960 50 years old	"Day Stars" published in Moscow
1968 58 years old	"Daytime Stars" film adaptation
1970 60 years old	Published a collection of poems titled "Loyalty"
1972 62 years old	Published a collection of poems, "Recollections"
1975 65 years old	Bergholtz dies