Film about unknown heroes of besieged Leningrad screened in the Presidential Library

Cinema club meeting, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege, was held at the Presidential Library. The half-hour concert was followed by the film crew meeting and the screening of the documentary film “Siege Blood” on the work of the donor service in besieged Leningrad.

The concert of laureates and nominees of the Vladimir Spivakov International Charitable Foundation has become a gift to survivors of the siege gathered in the multimedia hall of the Presidential Library. The string group, accordionist, violinist and two soloists performed two concerts from the A. Vivaldi cycle "The Seasons", Caprice No. 10 for violin solo N. Paganini, Sarabano I.-S. Bach, the immortal "Ave Maria" J. Caccini and other musical works. The visual row on the screen was represented by photographs taken from the same angle during the war years and today.

Documentary “Siege Blood” was filmed according to the scenario of Petersburg writer Dmitry Karalis, directed by Eleonora Lukyanova. This is the first and so far the only film about the activities of the Leningrad Institute of Blood Transfusion (LIPK), which continued to work during the years of the siege of the city. A lot of amazing facts from its military history are given by the authors of the film, at least one of them: at the time of an acute shortage of blood for the wounded of the Leningrad Front, employees of the institute became donors, who, together with all citizens, were malnourished, were cold, suffered from dystrophy, and sometimes died on workplace.  

“The film is like a part of my destiny”, - said screenwriter Dmitry Karalis before viewing the film. - My mother gave blood during the siege. We lived just opposite the institute of blood transfusion. But the topic of donation came from the other side: I was filming about the battles on the Nevsky Pyatachok and learned that the youngsters were sent from there to Leningrad for the blood that the wounded soldiers needed. I became interested in this, wanted to clarify something - and did not myself notice how the story of blood donation in the besieged city captured me... "   

Almost all the films about the siege of Leningrad are based on newsreel shots of that time. The first, the most frosty winter, trams abandoned on rails, queues for bread, water from the frozen Neva, sleds that took the dead to the cemetery ... Immediately after the credits, the film reports that the death toll during the siege exceeds the death of the population during the bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. The result is sad. But the film by Karalis is not about this, or rather, not only about this.

In parallel with the development of the siege theme, the most tragic in history, when the army opposed not the army, but ordinary civilians, there is a theme of confrontation between the spiritual, capable of building up even in inhuman conditions. One of the experts of the film, Doctor of Historical Sciences Nikita Lomagin, a researcher of the Leningrad siege, reflects on what so weakened the Germans in the war and brought an undeniable advantage to the Russians.

Thus, a blood theme arises, the significance of which was formulated by genetics: “Blood remembers everything”. It contains not only the decoding of the human genome, but also a number of indisputable factors that indicate its vital meaning. During the war years, rivers of blood were shed, and in the event of a wound, a fighter was required to replenish it body reserves. That is why, realizing that war with Germany is inevitable, the Soviet leadership recognized the blood as a strategic reserve and, within an accelerated timeframe, the country created the most powerful system for replenishing this strategic resource. Some 1800 donor points were created. On the first day of the war, the number of donors increased many times.

During the siege in the walls of LIPK, the LIPK-3 infusion solution was invented, which was delivered to the front line with a syringe and exerted a healing effect, delaying which would mean death. Soviet wounded quickly recovered and returned to the front.

Only in the first months of the siege - from September to the end of 1941 - 35 thousand people donated blood for the needs of the front. Next year - over 55 thousand of Leningrad residents. “There were no other blood supplies to the army of the Leningrad and the Volkhov fronts. There was only blood from Leningrad”, - the script author noted.

People, strong in spirit survived the siege.. Consultant of the film became a war veteran who fought on the Leningrad front - the writer Daniil Granin. This was his last interview.

“The film raised a topic that no one has yet tried to uncover”, - says actor Nikolai Burov, who reads the off-screen text in the film. “The authors wonder how a hungry person, chronically hungry, can give blood to another person. I was struck by the video, I watched a lot of documentary about the siege, but I have never met many of the shots in this film”.

According to the majority of guests who addressed at the cinema club meeting “Siege Blood” film is of great value for the younger generation, which is sometimes presented with Russian history in a distorted form. That is why the “Siege Blood” film will be included in the Presidential Library’s collections as another document against historical unrighteousness.