Breaking the Blockade of Hunger in the Work of Lidija Ginzburg

My paper explores how, through the lens and language of hunger in literary texts, we can appreciate some important aspects of modern Russian culture. A faithful companion of wars, revolutions, and great changes during the turbulent periods in Russia's twentieth-century history, hunger feeds the literary imagination. Eating in siege-texts is perceived not merely as a physical function, but also as a social agent. And these periods of actual starvation gave rise in the literature to a poignant imagination of the consumption of food. Food, I argue, conveyed both the negative and positive perceptions of the world – thoughts of both lack and abundance. We can agree with Terry Eagleton that “food is endlessly interpretable” and eating can be perceived as “a combination of biological necessity with cultural significance”. We see a striking example of the transformation of historical hunger and material lack into a common bond that stirs communal imagination in Lidiia Ginzburg's Blockade Diary (Zapiski blokadnogo cheloveka, 1942-1962-1983).