Isaiah Berlin: A Life — 11: Leningrad

1. 1. In November 1945, Isaiah Berlin visited Leningrad, drawn by bookstores with pre-Revolutionary material, and stayed at the Astoria Hotel.
2. 2. Berlin visited his childhood apartment on Angliisky Prospekt, finding it neglected, and felt suspended between past and present.
3. 3. At the Writers' Bookshop, Berlin met manager Gennady Rakhlin, a 'Leningrad Figaro' who boasted of clients like Molotov and Beria.
4. 4. Critic Vladimir Orlov described the Leningrad siege: virtually all children born during those three years died, and bodies lay in the streets.
5. 5. Berlin met Anna Akhmatova at her apartment in Fontanny Dom on a snowy afternoon, bowing to her as she looked like a tragic queen.
6. 6. Akhmatova told Berlin about her son Lev's arrest in 1938 and her seventeen-month vigil outside Kresty Prison, which inspired her poetic cycle Requiem.
7. 7. Randolph Churchill interrupted their first meeting by shouting Berlin's name from the courtyard, forcing Berlin to flee and later return.
8. 8. During their second meeting, which lasted until 11 a.m., Akhmatova recited her poems, including Requiem and Poem without a Hero, and they discussed literature, disagreeing on Dostoevsky vs. Turgenev.
9. 9. Berlin's visit led to severe consequences: Akhmatova was denounced by Zhdanov as a 'half nun, half harlot', expelled from the Writers' Union, and her book was pulped.
10. 10. Berlin's uncle Leo was arrested, beaten, and forced to confess to being a British spy, dying of a heart attack after seeing his torturer in 1954.
11. 11. Berlin's encounter with Akhmatova fueled his lifelong loathing of Soviet tyranny and his defense of Western liberalism, as he saw history bow to human conscience.