The Presidential Library portrays Olga Bergholz

May 16, 2023 marks the 113th anniversary of the birth of Olga Bergholz, who was called the “voice of hope” of besieged Leningrad, a poetess who has become a symbol of an unbending spirit.

She was born in 1910 in St. Petersburg in the family of a factory doctor who lived on the working outskirts of the capital in the Nevsky Zastava area.

The first poetry of young Olga was published in 1925. Korney Chukovsky was interested in her literary success.

There were many things in the pre-war fate of Bergholz that could break her. Olga Fyodorovna had to endure the death of her daughters, the arrest of her father, the divorce from her husband, the poet Boris Kornilov, who was shot in February 1938. Bergholz herself was arrested on charges of having links with enemies. In prison, she lost her third, unborn daughter...

The news of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War found Olga Fyodorovna in her native Leningrad. From the first days of the war Bergholz thought about where and how she could be useful.

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War radio communications became the most important means of informing the population of a vast country. For the citizens of Leningrad, squeezed into the siege, the radio played a special role. Through the roar of shells, the howl of sirens, in the ringing silence of nights and days, like the beating of the living heart of the city, the sound of a metronome made its way. When a click was heard on the air and the words “Leningrad is speaking!” sounded, crowds of people gathered near the loudspeakers. And if the voice of Moscow was Yuri Levitan, then the voice of Leningrad was Olga Bergholz, fragile but unusually strong in spirit.

Olga Bergholz, perhaps, like no one else understood the pain of the whole people, the suffering and fear of everyone for themselves and loved ones, hatred for the enemy, so mercilessly destroying the familiar world, taking away loved ones. In January 1942, her second husband, literary critic Nikolai Molchanov, died of starvation.  

Olga Bergholz writes poetry and reads it almost daily on the Leningrad Radio. For many exhausted and tormented citizens, she becomes a friend, a consolation, a confirmation that one must hold on until victory.

These are the lines from the poem “I will talk to you today” that also sounded on the air of the Leningrad radio in those fateful years. A unique record, where the author himself reads them, is available on the Presidential Library’s portal. "The victory will be ours!" - the poetess believes and inspires listeners with her faith.

At this time, Bergholz created her best poems dedicated to the defenders of Leningrad - "February Diary" (1942) and "Leningrad Poem" (1942). In 1943, she wrote the script for a film about the household detachments of a besieged city, eventually reworked into the play “They Lived in Leningrad”.

Olga Bergholz in her poems carefully recorded the details of the besieged life.

Her poems advised, consoled, delighted, inspired hope in Leningrad citizens. Overnight, she became a poet, personifying the resilience of the besieged city. One of the friends of the poet Boris Kornilov said that she "spoke shells with her poems, averted trouble from Leningrad." And it so happened that it was her voice that told the people of Leningrad the good news about the breaking of the siege.

Today, one of the streets of St. Petersburg bears the name of Olga Bergholz, and the granite slabs of the Piskarevsky memorial cemetery “speak” with the residents and guests of the city in the words of the poetess.

In the memory of generations, Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz remained the courageous and unbending Muse of the besieged city, a symbol of the firmness and fearlessness of the Russian spirit.

The Presidential Library’s portal features electronic copies of Olga Bergholz's books: a collection of poems "Leningrad", published in 1944, a 1945 play "They Lived in Leningrad", written in collaboration with Georgy Makogonenko, as well as other materials. In addition, today on the library’s portal one can hear the quiet but firm voice of Olga Bergholz. By May 16, the birthday of the poetess, an audio recording of Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz's speech, made on the occasion of her 60th birthday, was published on the Presidential Library's portal.