‘The child's past in the adult's present’: The trauma of the Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944)

This study deals with the individual and collective memory of Leningrad Siege survivors who experienced mass and prolonged wartime trauma during childhood (1941–44). While much has been published about the Siege, there has to date been no investigation by psychologists into the effects of extreme deprivation on Siege victims apart from one pilot study (Gulina et al., 2005). This study is still underway. Interviews with 80 participants (68 female and 12 male) are analysed and discussed here. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and content analysis are utilized. Unpublished archival writings by children caught in the Siege have been analysed. The principal method of interpretation is based on a psychoanalytic understanding of child development, mourning and the metabolizing of traumatic experience. The subjective meaning of the Siege experience to individual children is considered