Tatyana Savicheva’s Diary

Below is the text translated from Russian. First row: 1.) [Sister] Zhenya died at 1200 Hours on December 28, 1941. 2.) Grandma Evdokia died at 1500 Hours, January 25, 1942. 3.) [Brother] Leka died at 0500 Hours on March 17, 1942. 4.) Uncle Vasya (Vasily) died at 0200 Hours on April 13, 1942. 5.) Uncle Lesha (Aleksey) died at 1600 Hours on May 10, 1942. Second row: 6.) Mom [Mariya Ignatievna] died at 0730 Hours on May 13, 1942. 7.) The Savichevs died. 8.) Everyone died. 9.) Only Tanya is left.

Nikolay Rodionovich Savichev (1884 – March 5, 1936), a baker, and Maria Ignatievna Fedorova Savicheva (1889 – May 13, 1942), a seamstress, had five children in Leningrad. Nikolay died before the war, leaving Maria with five children. Hoping to vacation away from Leningrad in the summer in June 1941, the family canceled their plans in the face of the Nazi German invasion.

The Savichev family decided to stay in Leningrad, stay together, and help the front. Mother Maria sewed clothing for soldiers. Brother Leka Savichev (1917 – March 17, 1942), an engineer exempt from military service due to nearsightedness, worked at the Leningrad Admiralty Shipyard Office. Sister Zhenya Savicheva (1909 – December 28, 1941) walked 7 kilometers (4 miles) to a munitions factory and donated blood until she collapsed. Two of Tanya’s uncles, Vasily Savichev (1886 – April 13, 1942) and Aleksey Savichev (1871 – May 10, 1942), served in Voiska ProtivoVozdushnoy Oborony (PVO – “Anti-Aircraft Defense Troops”). They were older men who couldn’t serve in the Red Army; they worked until they died. Tanya, with some other children, helped adults to put out duds and to dig trenches until she contracted intestinal tuberculosis, was evacuated, and also died in the hospital.

Son Mikhail Savichev (1921 – 1988), who had left Leningrad before the invasion, joined the partisans in the occupied Soviet Union and fought behind Nazi German lines for the duration of the war, until he was wounded in 1944 and returned to Leningrad after the siege was broken.

Sister Nina Savicheva (November 23, 1918 – February 23, 2013) was engaged in defensive works until she was forcibly evacuated across Lake Lagoda without sending word – they believed she was killed in the shelling. She was unable to send word that she was alive. She recovered the diary when she returned to Leningrad in 1945.

Two copies of the diary exist: one is displayed at The State Museum of the History of Saint Petersburg, and the other at Peter and Paul Fortress in Saint Petersburg.