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Living Pictures
An innovative, kaleidoscopic literary work about the siege of Leningrad and its aftermath by one of Russia's most acclaimed contemporary writers
'A precise, tremendous and beautiful book' Maria Stepanova, author of In Memory of Memory
Growing up in Leningrad, Polina Barskova saw no trace of the estimated million people who died in the city during the Nazi blockade of 1941-44. As one of Russia's most admired and controversial contemporary writers, she has repeatedly returned to the archive of texts still being recovered from the siege, finding creative ways to commemorate these ghosts from her home city's past.
A chorus of their voices and stories appears in Living Pictures, a breathtakingly inventive literary collage of memoir, archival material and fiction. With blazing immediacy and wit, Barskova delves into traumas historical and personal, writing of memories from a Soviet childhood, her foundational relationships and losses, and a life spent excavating vital fragments from under Leningrad's official history. Ending with a stunning chamber drama about two real people who died while sheltering in the Hermitage Museum during the siege, this is a rich, polyphonic work of living history.
'A precise, tremendous and beautiful book' Maria Stepanova, author of In Memory of Memory
Growing up in Leningrad, Polina Barskova saw no trace of the estimated million people who died in the city during the Nazi blockade of 1941-44. As one of Russia's most admired and controversial contemporary writers, she has repeatedly returned to the archive of texts still being recovered from the siege, finding creative ways to commemorate these ghosts from her home city's past.
A chorus of their voices and stories appears in Living Pictures, a breathtakingly inventive literary collage of memoir, archival material and fiction. With blazing immediacy and wit, Barskova delves into traumas historical and personal, writing of memories from a Soviet childhood, her foundational relationships and losses, and a life spent excavating vital fragments from under Leningrad's official history. Ending with a stunning chamber drama about two real people who died while sheltering in the Hermitage Museum during the siege, this is a rich, polyphonic work of living history.
170 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
23 people are currently reading
867 people want to read
About the author
Polina Barskova
29 books10 followersPolina Barskova is an associate professor of Russian Literature at Hampshire College. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of twelve collections of poetry in Russian, including her latest volume of selected poems Solnechnoe utro na ploshchadi (A Sunny Morning on the Square, 2018), and author of a collection of short stories entitled Zhiviye kartiny (Living Pictures, 2014), for which she was awarded the Andrei Belyi Prize (2015). Three collections of her poetry have appeared in English translation: This Lamentable City (2010), Zoo in Winter (2011) and Relocations (2013). She edited the anthology Written In The Dark, named Best Literary Translation into English for 2017 by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Languages, and of two scholarly works in Russian: a reader on the Siege of Leningrad Blokada: svidetel’stva o leningradskoi blokade (2017) and a collection of conference papers Blokadnye narrativy (2017). Her first English monograph, Besieged Leningrad: Aesthetic Responses to Urban Disaster, was published in 2017.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
February 18, 2023
Usually, I am full of enthusiasm for most of the recent New York Review Books. In the case of Polina Barskova's Living Pictures, however, I'll make an exception. The title piece is a play set during the horrible winter of 1941-42, when the Nazis began their siege of Leningrad and people died of starvation in the streets. Of course, they weren't allowed to say that because it was politically incorrect: The official name of the disorder was dystrophy.
The other items in the collection are essays which are hard to read because (1) everything is expressed in dreamlike language; (2) names of real people are intermixed with fictional characters; (3) virtually every paragraph needs to be footnoted. If it weren't for the play at the end, I would have rated the collection two stars only. The play, "Living Pictures," deserves four stars on its own.
The other items in the collection are essays which are hard to read because (1) everything is expressed in dreamlike language; (2) names of real people are intermixed with fictional characters; (3) virtually every paragraph needs to be footnoted. If it weren't for the play at the end, I would have rated the collection two stars only. The play, "Living Pictures," deserves four stars on its own.
August 8, 2021
ох, какие виртуозные тексты! заманивают и захватывают тебя. при этом в книге очень много всего намешано, и обычно меня бы это оттолкнуло, но не тут. и еще один достойный пример того, как личное может сосуществовать с историческим.
February 5, 2023
Polina Barskova was born and brought up in Leningrad over 30 years after the end of the siege of that city by the Germans during WWII. The siege lasted from September 1941 to January 1944. The siege cast a long shadow which still affected the lives of the children in the 1970s and early 1980s. Reminders were all around, a preserved bomb shelter, missing buildings, walls scarred by shell fragments, and in memorials.
Barskova is a scholar of the literature and art of the blockade. She wants to know how people responded to and made sense of the blockade as well as how they lived with one another in these conditions. Family members had to divide insufficient resources amongst themselves when face-to-face with each other's suffering. These psychological cruelties affected the survivors who also had to try and attempt forgiveness.
Archives of text from the siege times are still being discovered and Polina Barskova finds creative ways to commemorate these ghosts from her home city's past in this book, a collage of fiction, memoir, and archival material.
Barskova is a scholar of the literature and art of the blockade. She wants to know how people responded to and made sense of the blockade as well as how they lived with one another in these conditions. Family members had to divide insufficient resources amongst themselves when face-to-face with each other's suffering. These psychological cruelties affected the survivors who also had to try and attempt forgiveness.
Archives of text from the siege times are still being discovered and Polina Barskova finds creative ways to commemorate these ghosts from her home city's past in this book, a collage of fiction, memoir, and archival material.
January 30, 2023
"The Leningrad blockade is unfinished and infinite, it is not buried, the final word on it has not been said, but even so, what a multitude, what an absurd quantity of words it has produced! You could fill rooms, storage lockers of memory with the diaries alone . . . I’ve asked friends who are just as devoted to the subject, Where do I go, where do I find it, where is it now?"
This is a stunning collection of stories, essays, vignettes and even drama at some point- all thrown in together, for good measure- by a writer who writes about her hometown, St.Petersburg, and the tragic history associated with the city. We are talking here of a poet- who is at once one of the most influential and controversial figures in the modern Russian literary scene- and an expert on the catastrophic siege of Leningrad...no less! So we at the very onset we get an inkling of what is to follow. Indeed my words would not do justice to the very fact that the book is written very beautifully- recreating a past through characters that spring out of the murky oblivion of past tragedies and injustices, wearing a motley garb of colours from the different walks of life- indeed, almost poetically. The characters, in every sense of the word, wear and depict some of the key facets of Leningrad's tragic past, and they are given a sense of the modern too- as if they were alive and living amongst us. Polina Barskova belongs to the selected few list of modern Russian writers- a list which would include worthwhile luminaries like Sergei Dovlatov, Mikhail Shishkin, Vladimir Sorokin, Sergei Kuznetsov, Evgeny Vodolazkin, Mikhail Gigolashvili and a few others- that I have discovered over the last couple of years. Indeed this is a book to cherish, to read again, and peruse, and is a worthwhile contribution to modern Russian letters.
This is a stunning collection of stories, essays, vignettes and even drama at some point- all thrown in together, for good measure- by a writer who writes about her hometown, St.Petersburg, and the tragic history associated with the city. We are talking here of a poet- who is at once one of the most influential and controversial figures in the modern Russian literary scene- and an expert on the catastrophic siege of Leningrad...no less! So we at the very onset we get an inkling of what is to follow. Indeed my words would not do justice to the very fact that the book is written very beautifully- recreating a past through characters that spring out of the murky oblivion of past tragedies and injustices, wearing a motley garb of colours from the different walks of life- indeed, almost poetically. The characters, in every sense of the word, wear and depict some of the key facets of Leningrad's tragic past, and they are given a sense of the modern too- as if they were alive and living amongst us. Polina Barskova belongs to the selected few list of modern Russian writers- a list which would include worthwhile luminaries like Sergei Dovlatov, Mikhail Shishkin, Vladimir Sorokin, Sergei Kuznetsov, Evgeny Vodolazkin, Mikhail Gigolashvili and a few others- that I have discovered over the last couple of years. Indeed this is a book to cherish, to read again, and peruse, and is a worthwhile contribution to modern Russian letters.
January 19, 2023
Barskova is at her best when writing about the Siege of Leningrad/the Blockade. Large sections of the book, at the same time, focus on her past, her relationships and her mental or emotional states. This feels less welcoming, more fraught – like sneaking a peek at an acquaintance's private diary, or listening to an interior monologue spoken clearly in the speaker's sleep. Maybe that's the point, but while it is creative and sincere – heartfelt – it is also not inviting or, for me, rewarding. It reads like a catharsis for her, which I appreciate, but which I somehow can't access. Nor do I really want to.
Her writing did make me want to seek out more historical and detailed writing about the siege, and more writings by its survivors and its victims.
Her writing did make me want to seek out more historical and detailed writing about the siege, and more writings by its survivors and its victims.
December 3, 2014
Самые сложные для меня книги - это когда там есть изумительные части, а остальное - ну, остальное не изумляет. И вообще не трогает. И пока кто-то пишет про интимность и лирику, я листаю с недоумением и не понимаю. Возможно, есть и интимность, и лирика, но какое они имеют отношение к блокаде? В общем, первые сто с чем-то страниц я не поняла автора - зачем, для чего, как это все соотносится? Но постмодернизм такой постмодернизм, заумь, всякое такое.
Часть про Шварца и Бианки прекрасна, потому что а) ты видишь их глазами; б)ты видишь их; в)мы наконец добрались до блокады. Я, например, решительно ничего не знала про блокадные записки Бианки, теперь мне и их нужно прочесть. Про Шварца прекрасно, что весь уродливый Ленинград 1930-х гг, медленно сжиравший себя и людей, оказался в этом аду - впрочем, как мудро отмечает Шварц, короли и придворные не пострадали, в Советском Союзе даже ад ранжирован и причесан.
Восхитительна последняя драматическая зарисовка (потому что она как пьеса, а не потому, что она волнительная, как любят уточнять мои ученики) про Тотю и Мотю. Про Грибоедова писали про каплю воды и тогдашнюю Москву, так вот Барскова в нескольких страницах умудрилась отразить осень и зиму 1941-42, и все это без рисовки, без выспренности, очень просто и атмосферно.
Пока я писала, я еще подумала о том, почему мне так не понравилось все остальное. Блокада - это очень физиологично. Мы привыкли, что подвиг - это как краткая вспышка. Блокадный Ленинград не похож на вспышку, он тлеет, он чадит, там нечем дышать, стены в грязи, люди в грязи, нет выхода, но почему-то его нельзя затушить. Автор же пишет о тонких материях, носах, пальцах, о городе, который она знает.Мне кажется, что блокадный Ленинград - это совсем иное пространство, которое не имеет ничего общего с собой, как какое-то наслоение, нарост, срезанный после 1945, и поэтому он не ощущается, не смотрит со страниц. Поэтому пусть будет три звездочки, но вот за последние две главы я головой ручаюсь, что - хорошие.
Часть про Шварца и Бианки прекрасна, потому что а) ты видишь их глазами; б)ты видишь их; в)мы наконец добрались до блокады. Я, например, решительно ничего не знала про блокадные записки Бианки, теперь мне и их нужно прочесть. Про Шварца прекрасно, что весь уродливый Ленинград 1930-х гг, медленно сжиравший себя и людей, оказался в этом аду - впрочем, как мудро отмечает Шварц, короли и придворные не пострадали, в Советском Союзе даже ад ранжирован и причесан.
Восхитительна последняя драматическая зарисовка (потому что она как пьеса, а не потому, что она волнительная, как любят уточнять мои ученики) про Тотю и Мотю. Про Грибоедова писали про каплю воды и тогдашнюю Москву, так вот Барскова в нескольких страницах умудрилась отразить осень и зиму 1941-42, и все это без рисовки, без выспренности, очень просто и атмосферно.
Пока я писала, я еще подумала о том, почему мне так не понравилось все остальное. Блокада - это очень физиологично. Мы привыкли, что подвиг - это как краткая вспышка. Блокадный Ленинград не похож на вспышку, он тлеет, он чадит, там нечем дышать, стены в грязи, люди в грязи, нет выхода, но почему-то его нельзя затушить. Автор же пишет о тонких материях, носах, пальцах, о городе, который она знает.Мне кажется, что блокадный Ленинград - это совсем иное пространство, которое не имеет ничего общего с собой, как какое-то наслоение, нарост, срезанный после 1945, и поэтому он не ощущается, не смотрит со страниц. Поэтому пусть будет три звездочки, но вот за последние две главы я головой ручаюсь, что - хорошие.
April 16, 2023
Not too proud to admit when I’ve been bested by a book. Polina Barskova took a scattershot approach to twentieth century Leningrad, including memoir, fiction, essays, and even a play, but I could make neither heads nor tails of it.
December 25, 2023
Первый раз я читала эту книгу как сборник рассказов, то есть в оглавлении находила то название, которое казалось интересным, и читала выборочно. Тогда я вообще ничего не поняла, (псевдо)автобиографические рассказы про условную Полину Барскову приводили меня в недоумение. А потом летом я начала читать с начала, и кусочки стали складываться, и то, что раздражало в начале, обрело смысл. Барскова пишет очень проникновенно и остро не только про блокаду, для которой сложно найти слова, но и про себя, про собственные травмы, и они, подсвеченные историей, обретают реальность.
Книга очень яркая, письмо очень экспрессивное. Мне особенно понравились рассказы "Братья и братья Друскины" и "Листодер" и пьеса в конце, очень пронзительная и грустная.
Очень хотелось, чтобы после книги Барсковой-писательницы второй частью шла книга Барсковой-исследовательницы, очень хотелось прочитать комментарий к ее собственным текстам, но их не было. И вообще я думаю, что правильно, что не было, потому что "Живые картины" это совсем не лёгкое чтение, нужно либо очень доверять своему чутью, либо искать, гуглить, читать статьи, делать необходимую работу по сохранению памяти. Это восприятие читателя как равного меня поразило в "Седьмой щелочи"
Книга очень яркая, письмо очень экспрессивное. Мне особенно понравились рассказы "Братья и братья Друскины" и "Листодер" и пьеса в конце, очень пронзительная и грустная.
Очень хотелось, чтобы после книги Барсковой-писательницы второй частью шла книга Барсковой-исследовательницы, очень хотелось прочитать комментарий к ее собственным текстам, но их не было. И вообще я думаю, что правильно, что не было, потому что "Живые картины" это совсем не лёгкое чтение, нужно либо очень доверять своему чутью, либо искать, гуглить, читать статьи, делать необходимую работу по сохранению памяти. Это восприятие читателя как равного меня поразило в "Седьмой щелочи"
August 21, 2025
I have believed that Polina Barskova is a true genius from the first moment I met her. Being her student was one of the greatest joys and honours of my collegiate experience. Finally getting to dive into her work outside of a classroom and I am so glad that I started here. The storytelling and writing style are very reminiscent of how she speaks and operates when she speaks. I giggled at the wild punctuation (or lack thereof) because I could feel her presence so strongly. Something she told me that will always stick with me is that I am reading a translation… not the actual book. I forever wish I knew Russian well enough to read stories in their intended language. There is so much depth, beauty, pain and sorry poured into the lines of Russian literature and I yearn to acquaint myself with it properly.
I absolutely loved the titular play at the end of this book. So Russian. So wonderful.
I absolutely loved the titular play at the end of this book. So Russian. So wonderful.
July 28, 2024
I read the short chapter as poems to the horrific events in Leningrad during the Nazi occupation of Russia. A mix of factual events and the few stories inspired by the events that the other could find. Because little have survived: people & writing, the book is written in symbolism of factual events & stories inspired by those literary figures writing.
Because the chapters were shorter, it gave me time to reread them and try to better understand how some of these stories related to each other & the atrocities the residents of Leningrad experienced.
As the author put it in one of the chapters: “…you should just write about it. What can I write, I tell her,there’s nothing to write, nothing happened, as we know; how can you write about something that never happened?”
Because the chapters were shorter, it gave me time to reread them and try to better understand how some of these stories related to each other & the atrocities the residents of Leningrad experienced.
As the author put it in one of the chapters: “…you should just write about it. What can I write, I tell her,there’s nothing to write, nothing happened, as we know; how can you write about something that never happened?”
December 1, 2024
This is the first book I've ready in years, and now I'm ready to start reading again. I think you have to be a little bit pretentious and secretly like poetry, even if you don't read poetry, to enjoy reading it. I loved it. You have to be okay with not always seeing exactly what is happening when you first read a page, but it all comes together in the next page or two. It ends with a depressing play, and if that idea sounds terrible to you, this book isn't for you. The writing is beautiful and poignant and feels so relevant to our moment. It's about history, art, suffering, weakness, hope, and writing.
May 30, 2020
Сборник коротких и довольно разных текстов.
Тут и зарисовки по писателях и художниках, и воспоминания о собственном детстве и юности. В конце - заглавная мини-пьеса о влюблённой паре искусствоведов в Эрмитаже во время блокады зимой 1941-1942 г.
Всё (пожалуй, кроме пьесы) написано очень непростым языком - это поток сознания, перескакивающий с предмета на предмет, с мысли на мысль.
Есть очень хорошие и трогательные миниатюры (о Бианки и Шварце, о собственной поездки в Сибирь к родне после гибели возлюбленного), а есть такие, которые "не зашли".
Тут и зарисовки по писателях и художниках, и воспоминания о собственном детстве и юности. В конце - заглавная мини-пьеса о влюблённой паре искусствоведов в Эрмитаже во время блокады зимой 1941-1942 г.
Всё (пожалуй, кроме пьесы) написано очень непростым языком - это поток сознания, перескакивающий с предмета на предмет, с мысли на мысль.
Есть очень хорошие и трогательные миниатюры (о Бианки и Шварце, о собственной поездки в Сибирь к родне после гибели возлюбленного), а есть такие, которые "не зашли".
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 22, 2022
This is a collection of short pieces focused on the siege of Leningrad and the accompanying trauma on the lives of artists who endured the starvation. The stories are poetic and fractured in their structure. The title refers to the ending selection, a play where starving curators remember paintings, now removed, at the Hermitage as they shelter there for warmth. The trouble with this Oct. 2022 selection from NYRB Classics is that I don't have the context for understanding the references to all these artists and writers. The notes help a bit, but not enough.
March 8, 2023
This book swallowed me up whole. By the time I got to the title piece—smartly positioned last in the collection—I’d gleaned enough new knowledge about the Siege of Leningrad and gotten to “know” some things about the author’s life—a sense of her concerns and her personality. And that—oh god, call it almost a grooming, but in a positive sense?—that process of reading the prose pieces made the experience of reading the play Living Pictures so damn emotional. I was weeping as I read the final page. One of my favorite recent lit experiences.
Did not finish
August 29, 2024Well, I bought this especially to read for #WITmonth (Women in Translation) but I found it unreadable.
I thought it was going to be a book about how the people of Leningrad lived and died and survived and dealt with the aftermath, but when it wasn't ranting against the USSR and Stalin, it was incomprehensible. It didn't help me understand anything.
A waste of time and money.
I don't rate books I don't finish.
I thought it was going to be a book about how the people of Leningrad lived and died and survived and dealt with the aftermath, but when it wasn't ranting against the USSR and Stalin, it was incomprehensible. It didn't help me understand anything.
A waste of time and money.
I don't rate books I don't finish.
April 25, 2021
Das war leider etwas zu viel... keine erkennbare Struktur UND ausschließliche geschlossene Metaphern? Das mag ja anspruchsvoll sein, aber dadurch sind auch nur die letzten 20% des Buchs irgendwie verständlich. Wenn ich nicht gewusst hätte worum es geht, hätte ich kaum eine Ahnung gehabt.
August 16, 2022
3 stars. Feels unfair for me to rate it officially because I don't know enough about Russian history, including literary history, to meet the text (and its author) in its fullness. The author is doing something really interesting but my understanding was lacking.
May 9, 2024
I think I just didn’t know enough about the period to get this. There are sections about the blockade, but also more personal pieces about Barskova’s life - I was expecting the first, not the latter.
October 31, 2022
It lost me at the end... might have been a mistake to read it all in one sitting rather than stagger each essay between other things.
December 3, 2022
Прям рыдал, но советую прочитать вот это: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?stor...
December 4, 2022
You really need the notes, unless you are well-versed on artistic figures of the siege of Leningrad.
January 4, 2023
this text is set somewhere between critical history, poetry and memoir. each story is so rich with imagery and memory. exquisite.
Read
June 12, 2023I read this book.
October 2, 2023
I had trouble understanding many of the allusions . It may have been better if I was more initiated to “code words” and had more information on the historical context.
Read
May 4, 2024Loved this. In so many ways and for so many reasons
Read
June 15, 2025a little too close to home re paranoid speculative fiction
January 4, 2026
предвасякинское такое. очень важное и нужное, наверное, но я до этих премудростей ещё не доросла.
А пьеса "Живые картины" замечательная.
А пьеса "Живые картины" замечательная.
Read
February 19, 2026Loved the intro and first story, but the writing in the rest I hated so skimmed and DNF
March 31, 2025
What an extraordinary work; full of heart-wrenching, grotesque, poignant storytelling and imagery. I only wish I could get my hands on the Russian translation, but it seems to be impossible to find…
October 18, 2016
Предварительно разлинованное, пропорциями не обделённое, схематически прорисованное, красками едва раскрашенное — живое трепещущее полотно работы Полины Барсковой. На непритязательный взгляд стороннего человека — работа, подобная множеству. Автор, как художник, отобразил богатство внутреннего мира, сообразно способностям. Понимание сути изложенного — занятие для ценителей. Барскова будет стоять в стороне и выражать недоумение от неспособности читателя понять замысел. Желающие найти, обнаружат разное: кто-то возрадуется технике исполнения, иным откроется скрытое под имеющимся, остальные задумаются на миг и махнут рукой.
(c) Trounin
(c) Trounin
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews