Tatiana Savicheva

Tatiana «Tanya» Nikolayevna Savicheva (Russian: Татьяна "Таня" Николаевна Савичева; 25 January 1930 - July 1, 1944) was a Soviet girl who wrote a brief diary during the siege of Leningrad in World War II. The diary she wrote was short but moving.

The Diary

Among the documents presented as evidence at the Nuremberg Trials was a small notebook that belonged to schoolgirl Tania Sávicheva, from Leningrad. There are dates on six pages, with a death associated with each one. Six pages - six deaths. Nothing more, just short, pithy notes and one final remark:

1. Zhenia died on 28 December 1941 at 12 noon in the morning.
2. Babushka (Granma) died on January 25, 1942, at three.
3. Leka died on March 17, 1942, at five in the morning.
4. Dedya (uncle) Vasya died on April 13, 1942, at two in the morning.
5. Dedya (tío) Lesha on 10 May 1942 at 4 p.m.
6. Mom on May 13, 1942 at 7.30 a.m.
7. The Savichevs are dead.
8. They all died.
9. There's only Tanya left.

Tatiana "Tanya" Sávicheva was the youngest in the family of a baker, Nikolai Rodionovich Sávichev, and a seamstress, Mariya Ignatievna Sávicheva. Her father died early, when Tatyana was only six years old, leaving Mariya Savicheva with five children - three girls, Tania, Zhenya and Nina, and two boys, Mikhail and Leka. The family planned to spend the summer of 1941 in the countryside, but the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22 ruined his plans. All except Mikhail, who had already left, decided to stay in Leningrad. They all worked to support the Red Army. Mariya Ignatievna sewed the uniforms, Leka worked as a planer at the Navy Ministry Factory, Zhenya at the munitions factory, and Nina building the city's defenses. Uncle Vasya and Uncle Lesha served in the anti-aircraft defense. Tanya, then only eleven years old, was digging the trenches and putting out the firebombs.

One day Nina went to work and didn't come back. She was sent to Lake Ladoga and then she was urgently evacuated.The family did not know this and they thought she had died.

After a few days, in memory of Nina, Mariya Ignatievna gave Tanya a small notebook that had belonged to her sister and would later become Tatyana's diary. It was only then that Sávicheva had a real diary, since until then she had a thick notebook in which she wrote down everything important that happened to her. She burned it when there was nothing else to fuel the stove in winter, but she kept her sister's notebook.

Tanya Sávicheva's diary.

The first record is dated December 28. Zhenya got up every day before dawn. She walked seven kilometers to the factory, where she worked two shifts each day making mine casings. After work he donated his blood. Her weak body couldn't take it. He died in the factory where he worked. Later she died Yevdokiya Grigorievna, her grandmother. Then Tania's brother, Leka. And, one after another, Uncle Vasya and Uncle Lesha. Her mother was the last. Probably at that moment Tania turned the pages and made her last note.

In August 1942, 140 children were rescued from Leningrad and brought to the village of Krasni Bor. All survived, except Tania. Anastasiya Karpova, a teacher at the Krasni Bor orphanage, wrote to Tanya's brother Mikhail, who was lucky to be outside Leningrad in 1941: “Tanya is alive, but she does not look well. A doctor, who visited her recently, said that she is very sick. She needs rest, special care, nutrition, a better climate and, most important of all, maternal affection ». In May 1944 she was sent to the Shatkovsky Hospital in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, where she died just a month later, on July 1, 1944 of intestinal tuberculosis.

Nina Savicheva and Mikhail Savichev returned to Leningrad after the war. Tania Savicheva's diary is now on display at the Leningrad History Museum, and a copy is on display at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.

The Story

Since the diary's appearance, Tanya Savicheva has become a public image of the victims of the Siege of Leningrad in the postwar Soviet Union. In May 1972, a monument was built in her honor at Shatki, which was later expanded into a monumental complex. A minor planet discovered in 1971 by the Soviet Union was named Tanya Savicheva by astronomer Lyudmila Chernyj, who described it as "a gesture in her honor."

When Zhenya was buried, her mother said: "We are burying you, my daughter, but who is burying us?", which shows the despair of the family and reflects the situation they were experiencing.

Photo Gallery

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  Estela and memorial wall in memory of Tanya Savicheva in Krasny Bor

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  Savicheva Tomb in Krasny Bor Cemetery

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  Commemorative plaque in the courtyard of the house of the Savicheva

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  Commemorative plaque at the Savicheva House in St. Petersburg

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  Commemorative Complex "Dedicated to Tanya Savicheva and the Children of War"