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    The Madonnas of Leningrad
    The Madonnas of Leningrad
    The Madonnas of Leningrad
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Madonnas of Leningrad

    Written by Debra Dean

    Narrated by Yelena Shmulenson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Bit by bit, the ravages of age are eroding Marina's grip on the everyday. An elderly Russian woman now living in America, she cannot hold on to fresh memories—the details of her grown children's lives, the approaching wedding of her grandchild—yet her distant past is miraculously preserved in her mind's eye.

    Vivid images of her youth in war-torn Leningrad arise unbidden, carrying her back to the terrible fall of 1941, when she was a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum and the German army's approach signaled the beginning of what would be a long, torturous siege on the city. As the people braved starvation, bitter cold, and a relentless German onslaught, Marina joined other staff members in removing the museum's priceless masterpieces for safekeeping, leaving the frames hanging empty on the walls to symbolize the artworks' eventual return. As the Luftwaffe's bombs pounded the proud, stricken city, Marina built a personal Hermitage in her mind—a refuge that would stay buried deep within her, until she needed it once more. . . .

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperAudio
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9780062246172
    Author

    Debra Dean

    Debra Dean worked as an actor in New York theater for nearly a decade before opting for the life of a writer and teacher. She and her husband now live in Miami, where she teaches at the University at Miami. She is at work on her second novel.

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    Reviews for The Madonnas of Leningrad

    4/5

    91 ratings73 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This book moves back & forth between Marina's life in 1940's Leningrad and 40 some years later when she is struggling with Alzheimers. An interesting portrayal of that bleak time at the Hermitage and the survival of she and her husband Dimitri. The ending left me in the air & wishing it could have been better for them. A pretty good read.
    • 5/5
      This was a four-star book when I closed it's covers. In the two months I've since been pondering it, it's become a five-star book in my mind. Marina's story is told in the present. Her present in the Pacific Northwest, an elderly married woman attending her granddaughter's wedding; her present in Leningrad under The Siege. It is the merging and crashing of her two lives that make this story. As a young woman in Leningrad, she is working at The Hermitage Museum, among many who are frantically packing up the museum's treasures to be secreted away before anything happens to them. Most of the paintings are removed from their frames; the frames left hanging and the paintings packed among hundreds of thousands of the other holdings, on a train en route to somewhere safe. With that work done, their jobs are to take turns standing guard on the roof, and to try to remain alive, while slowly freezing and starving to death. There is nothing left now to distract them from the miseries of cold and hunger except their own internal resources. And so, as the world gets smaller and colder and dimmer, Marina notices, people are becoming fixated. Marina and Anya's fixation: Anya is helping Marina build a memory palace in the museum. “Someone must remember,” Anya says, “or it all disappears without a trace, and then they can say it never was.” So each morning, they get up early and the two women make their way slowly through the halls. They add a few more rooms each day, mentally restocking the Hermitage, painting by painting, statue by statue.Nikolsky's fixation: He sketches so incessantly that at the end of the day his fist will not unclench to release his pencil. The other night, he staged a showing of these drawings. … He had sketched interiors of the cellar and its residents, odd little drawings of their makeshift lodgings. Sketch after sketch showed the low vaulted ceilings crossed with pipes, the clutter of furniture, and the stark shadows cast by a single oil lamp. … One drawing showed merely a hand with three marble-sized pieces of bread resting in the palm. … “My intention was not to suggest anything but what is. These are not meant to be art. They are documentation, so that those who come later will know how we lived.”I found the history of the Hermitage during the siege to be a fascinating story, along with the glimpses of how people managed to survive during that time. Marina's present in her old age, suffering from Alzheimer's, gripped me as well. Whatever is eating her brain consumes only the fresher memories, the unripe moments. Her distant past is preserved, better than preserved. Moments that occurred in Leningrad sixty-some years ago reappear, vivid, plump, and perfumed. . . . The bond that had first brought them together as children existed whether they spoke of it or not, the bond of survivors. … She was his country and he hers. They were inseparable. Until now. She is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves.But it was the author's way of blending Marina's past and present, making them each the current thing in Marina's mind that kept haunting me. More distressing than the loss of words is the way that time contracts and fractures and drops her in unexpected places.Take, for instance, this selection: And looking around, one can see on the faces of the assembled family and guests the best of their humanity radiating a collective warmth around this fledgling young couple. There is music and tears and words. Commitment and love and cherish and community and honor.And music and more words. Olga Markhaeva recites poetry and Anya sings a song she remembers from her childhood, romantic and sweet. If Marina lives to be eighty, she things, she will never forget this wonderful night.The first two sentences are happening at her granddaughter's wedding, and the next three refer to something that happened sixty years ago in the bomb shelter in Leningrad. I think Ms. Dean did a masterful job of presenting a moment in history with a life unraveling mentally. I can just picture those thoughts of the disoriented happening something like that. More than picture it, I've begun to feel like that sometimes myself. Perhaps that's why this book spoke to me so strongly. Highly recommended for historical fiction buffs, especially if you know someone suffering from Alzheimer's.
    • 3/5
      An interesting read switching between an old woman in the present day suffering from Alzheimers to her past working in the Hermitage Museum at the Siege of Leningrad.

      A few historical inaccuracies, but a moving and haunting story of memory, art, and family.
    • 5/5
      A beautifully constructed tale of an elderly woman with Alzheimer's who remembers her past much more clearly than her present. Marina is attending a family wedding but she rarely recognizes her own daughter, much less the young couple of honor. Marina's present slips easily into the past, when she was a young woman during the siege of Leningrad, removing famous works of art in the Hermitage Museum from their frames for storage and protection from the ravages of war. She endeavors to remember them all, especially various depictions of the Madonna, as a way of enduring the incredibly harsh conditions of living in the museum's cellar. Dean weaves past and present brilliantly. Though numerous descriptions of pieces of art that may be unfamiliar to the reader can grow tiresome, the author's spare and delicate language perfectly captures Marina's youthful determination as well as the toll of Alzheimer's. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      The story takes place in present day America, but is interspersed with flashbacks of the Siege of Leningrad where Nazi Germany attempted to capture Leningrad during World War II. The story centers around Marina, a young tour guide for the Hermitage Museum. She, and countless others, decide to remove the priceless masterpieces for safekeeping. They leave the empty frames up with the hope that one day, the masterpieces will be returned to their frames.During this time, Marina is forced endure the harshness of living in a war torn country. Living with others, in the basement of the museum, she is exposed to freezing temperatures, forced to live on very little food and has no choice but to watch those around her perish from starvation. Her one glimmer of hope, is thinking about her lover, Dimitri and who has left to work the front lines.Flash forward to present day. Marina is now 80 years old and battling Alzheimer's. She is preparing to attend her granddaughter's wedding with her husband, Dimitri. Her daughter Helen, is not aware of the Alzheimer's until she sees her mother at the wedding. Her son, Andrei, is aware of the situation, but has not fully grasped the severity of her condition. Dimitri, who loves her dearly, continues to care for her as her condition declines. As the festivities of the wedding surround them, Marina escapes to the corners of her mind and revisits her childhood and her time in Leningrad.I've never known anyone that has battled with Alzheimer's, but the thought of not even recognizing your own husband or child... just the mere thought, fills me with fear. For Marina, the memories that are most intact, are the ones that she created for her "memory palace". During her time at the museum, her friend taught her how to envision each masterpiece within her mind, without it being present in the room. This created a "memory palace" of sorts. These are the memories that she can readily recall, but the more recent memories, such as her daughter's divorce, are non-existent.As the novel unfolds, we follow Marina to those gallery halls as the author describes, in painstaking detail, what used to hang within the Hermitage. The writing here is so vivid. I could "see" those paintings as the author described them. I even went back and Googled them at one point to see if what I had envisioned was close to what the author described.This novel was bittersweet for me. It was beautifully written, well developed and a treat for the eyes. The appreciation of beauty and life, contrasted with the darkness of the city and the bleak winter that followed... I really felt for these characters and their personal hardships. Although we are given a glimpse of Marina's current state (sad as it is), we are also given hope during the last few pages of the book. Not hope really, but closure. I felt completely satisfied when I finished and I don't feel that way too often after finishing a book.
    • 5/5
      I love this book. The vivid descriptions of the art work are wonderful. The author weaves the old woman's memories with the current events in her life in a realistic yet poetic way.
    • 5/5
      This is Debra Dean’s first novel but I certainly hope she writes more. She is very gifted and her humanity shines through this book.Marina was a docent at the Hermitage Museum just before World War II came to the doorstep ofLeningrad/St. Petersburg. Her boyfriend, Dmitri, asked her to marry him just before he was shipped off to the front and they spent one night together. As an employee of the museum, Marina and her uncle and aunt sheltered in the basement while the Germans shelled the city. Marina worked as long as it was possible to box up paintings and other treasures. When the galleries were empty she used to continue to recite her tour as she went through. One of the babushkas told her that she was making a memory palace and she convinced her to continue. Marina had to spend nights on the roof of the building to watch for fires. Usually she had a partner, but one night she was alone and she believed she made love with one of the gods whose statues lined the roof. Of course, by this time the siege of Leningrad was in full force and everyone was starving so perhaps it was a dream or a vision. As the cold winter months went by Marina and everyone else starved and froze. Many people died. Her uncle died first and then her aunt a month or so later.Marina lived, we know because the story also contains a present day story line in which Marina is suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. She is soon going to attend her granddaughter’s wedding but she has trouble remembering who is getting married. She even has trouble recognizing her daughter Elena who comes to pick her and Dmitri up. However, she remembers clearly events from that terrible winter and she goes through her memory palace at will.Does the title refer to the paintings of the Hermitage, many of whom were madonnas painted by the great masters? Or is Marina one of the Madonnas? It could go either way or maybe both meanings apply.It was very interesting to me to read Dean’s take on Alzheimer’s Disease. My mother had this horrible affliction before her death. Dean apparently watched a beloved grandmother suffer from it. I guess we’ll never know exactly what the person with the disease thinks. Certainly in the early stages my mother knew something was wrong just as Marina did. I felt something similar to what Elena felt when the end came:Several years hence, when Marina’s body is finally winding down, Helen will feel no grief, only a quiet detachment, as though she is waiting for a bus—it is late and she is tired but she has nowhere she needs to be and it will get here when it gets here. She and Andrei and Naureen and the grandchildren have long since said their good-byes, and Marina herself has left…That’s the tragedy of Alzheimer’s; the loved one disappears before the body is gone. I was fortunate that my mother still knew me right up to the end but many are not so blessed. I hope we find a cure soon!
    • 3/5
      Enjoyed this tale which had flashbacks aboutthe mother's life in Leningrad during WWII as a guide in the Hermitage and her life today with her dh and daughter under the grip of Alzheimers
    • 4/5
      The Madonnas of Leningrad. Debra Dean. 2007. This lovely, sad novel is the November selection for the Museum book club. Marina was a docent at the Hermitage Museum during the nightmarish German siege of Leningrad. She helped wrap the art works so they could be protected from the bombings as she watched her family slowly starve to death. At the urging of a older woman, she trained herself to remember the paintings in the museum and she would wander through the grand empty halls describing the paintings of the Old Masters, especially the Madonnas. After the war, she miraculously found her fiancé and they eventually found their way the United States and made a life there. We see Marina in Leningrad and today as she slowly falls in the confusion of Alzheimer’s, and the past and the present ooze together in her mind.
    • 4/5
      The book is about a woman, in the present who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Her short term memory is shot, but her long term memory, specifically relating to the time she was a docent at the Hermitage (and when she was sheltered there during The Siege of Leningrad,) is still sharp. The author does a great job of describing what someone with Alzheimer's might be going through and; the story has it's moments of triumph and poignancy. It's similar to WATER FOR ELEPHANTS (by Sara Gruen) and THE HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET (by Jaimie Ford) in that the narrative alternates between the protag in an earlier time and a "now" time when they are old; but TMOL has a little more dignity inherent to it in that it's not as obviously emotionally provocative. I spent quite a bit of time at The Hermitage Museum web-site, checking out the art and architecture mentioned in the book. The web-site is excellent, with high resolution digital images and virtual tours; but wow! how I would love to see the place and the art in person!
    • 4/5
      A haunting atmosphere inhabits this novel as an elderly woman with Alzheimer's remembers her youth in war-torn Leningrad. Marina was once a tour guide at the Hermitage Museum, where she worked surrounded by masterpieces of art, and on the eve of World War Two, she helped pack away these masterpieces for safekeeping. As the German army lay siege to Leningrad, the empty Hermitage became the home to Marina and her family, where they lived in the cellar, safe from bombs but not the shortages accompanied by war. Marina spends her time remembering the museum as it was before the war, memories that remain sixty years later, even as others are wiped away.
    • 4/5
      beautiful but so sad - entwined stories of decline into Alzheimers and the deprevations of the siege of Leningrad 1941-
    • 3/5
      Good premise but don't like chapters that segue back and forth though time. Also, ending was incomplete. Too many unanswered questions.
    • 4/5
      Reviewed this for Publishers' Weekly and really enjoyed it. The interplay between the present and the past is deft and meaningful, unlike what we see in some novels with a modern frame for a historical story. The historical plot is interesting and the emotional development in the present feels genuine.
    • 4/5
      A very interesting story of the seige of Leningrad during WWII.  
    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful book. How any citizens of Leningrad survived that winter is a miracle.
    • 5/5
      Beautiful art, the heartbreak of Alzheimer's, the hardship and suffering of war, the family--all are skillfully evoked in this fairly short but very touching novel. I loved it.
    • 4/5
      A real page turner. I had heard about the Siege of Leningrad during World War II, but this made it real for me.
    • 4/5
      As one can read from the summaries, this book is about a young woman's experiences during the Siege of Leningrad during WWII and her later descent into Alzheimer's. I found both stories to be compelling, but especially think the author did a good job of portraying Marina's confusion due to Alzheimers and the reaction of those around her at her granddaughter's wedding. It provided a great insight into the fact that we can never understand the past experiences of others especially our parents.I do believe this is a very well written novel; however, at times, I must admit that it didn't grip me as it should. I don't have a strong art background and quite frankly found some of the descriptions of the paintings tedious (I know those of you who are art lovers are going to disagree with that statement). This is a great novel for the lovers of historical fiction AND art.I would highly recommend The Siege: A Novel by Helen Dunmore which is also about the Siege of Leningrad.
    • 5/5
      4.5 stars - Excellent book about a woman's descent into Alzheimer's, that focuses on what she DOES remember - her life as an art curator at the Hermitage during the Seige of Leningrad. Dean weaves a lovely portrait of a woman’s descent into Alzheimer’s and her “life” in a world no one else comprehends. At the same time, she informs us of the Seige of Leningrad and the heroic efforts of the staff of the Hermitage to save the priceless art works stored there. Of course, I cannot help but think of my mother. From her few bursts of conversation, speaking about documents, etc, she must be reliving her years at work. I have to wonder, what secrets was she privy to? What will we never understand about her life, though we were there with her in that time frame? And there are many questions left for the reader, as they are for the family who survives Marina. Who was “the god” who fathered Andrei? Did Dimitri ever really know the child was not his? Or is that just a trick of Marina’s mind? What happened to Olga? To Anya (who taught her about building a memory palace)? To Dimitri? (He’s not mentioned in the last chapter as having said his good-byes … did he already pass on?) How did she get to the camp? I think of all the things I don’t know about my parents – how they met, what their lives were like before we were a family – and now I’ll never know because they can no longer answer those questions. I’m not at all distressed by this book. The last chapter says it best: “Marina herself has left, though no one is able to pinpoint exactly when that happened, only that at some point she was no longer there.” Two years ago I was nearly frantic with worry and concern about my parents. Now I am completely at peace with the process. I completely understand how Helen feels. I wish I understood how my mother feels.
    • 4/5
      Although I read this book sometime ago, it still haunts me. This was a beautifully written book and a wonderful story. The parts of the story tie together nicely in the end.
    • 4/5
      This is the haunting tale of Marina, a woman who works and later lives in the Hermitage art museum in Leningrad during the long winter of the German siege in World War II. It switches back and forth between her suffering at the museum and her present day self in the Pacific Northwest as an elderly woman whose mind is failing her.Though I had never read about Russia during this time period, much less the siege of Leningrad, as I read I began to wonder if perhaps I'd heard too many stories from WWII. The hunger and death grew wearisome, with the only real interest of the story coming from Marina's passionate descriptions of the art in the Hermitage. But things improved, and I left this book happy I had read it. This is one of those books you wander through with only mild interest until the last few scenes, when everything picks up and ties together, and you turn the last page feeling uplifted and truly satisfied.
    • 4/5
      Principally set in the siege of Leningrad, The Madonnas of Leningrad is a thought-provoking book as what is left unsaid is as important as what is written or indeed spoken. A junior curator of the Hermitage gallery, Marina, works to save the paintings - or at least their memory - during the siege of Leningrad and the hardships it brought. A series of beautifully crafted descriptions of paintings of the Madonna and Child paintings provide a commentary on the horror of the period and Marina's experience of it. This is set into relief by the parallel story of Marina towards the end of her life where it becomes apparent that despite the superficial return to 'normality' much remains unspoken. A well written and pleasingly understated novel of memory, loss and love.
    • 5/5
      I found this on the sale shelf at the bookstore and enjoyed a second story about the siege of Leningrad from another perspective. This book follows Marina, an elderly woman falling into dementia. When she leaves the present she finds herself back in Leningrad where she worked at the Hermitage, a huge art museum. As the war came to Leningrad the employees packed away all the art and Marina memorized the entire museum. We learn about her past as her family does. I was completely enthralled by the story, both past and present.
    • 3/5
      Interesting but not compelling--as always the insight into a new place is fascinating--and the account of the siege of Leningrad and those who lived in the Hermitage is well-done and vibrant. The story itself doesn't do much, though--I'm not sure I would remember it for a long time.
    • 4/5
      The paintings in the Hermitage were evacuated shortly before the Siege of Leningrad. Marina commits them to memory (her “Memory Palace”) to sustain her spirit over that three year period. This is how Dean brings these paintings to life for the reader. You will not want to read this book without summoning the actual paintings on your computer screen. They are really the whole point of the book.One might even say that the advertising term, Borrowed Interest, applies to Madonnas of Leningrad, so central are the paintings to the emotional appeal of the story. Through Marina's eyes, we see an introspective Madonna by Simone Martini, the almost adolescent wonderment of da Vinci's Benois Madonna, and the ripe forms and rippling surfaces of a Madonna by Crannach the Elder. Marina's memories form a sensual tour of the Hermitage's paintings. My advice – make a list of all the paintings in Marina's “Memory Palace.” Then go back and look up the actual paintings. It is in these moments that Marina will seem most real.The story drifts between World War II and the present-day, suggesting the mental drift Marina suffers due to progressing Alzheimer's Disease. It also points out the rich and private lives we live apart from our families – spouses, siblings, and even children. The parts of the book that soar are the dream-like memories. By night the blimps in the sky “swim like enormous white whales through a dark sea. She is swimming with the whales.” This lyricism contrasts with the horror and deprivation endured by the starving inhabitants of besieged Leningrad. Unfortunately, the present-day segments of the story, while poignant, feel flat compared to the richness of the “Memory Palace.” Read this book if you love art history.
    • 5/5
      The Madonnas of Leningrad is a thin book, only 228 pages, but it leaves you feeling as though you traveled to a different time and place. In 1941, Marini was a tour guide at the Hermitage museum in Leningradbut the war has changed things and on Stalin's orders all the precious painting and sculptures are being packed up to send to safety. One day in despair Marini confides to a companion that she is forgetting all the beautiful paintings she has been so proud to present to the public. Her friend advises her to rebuild the art in her memory, a palace of paintings. Marini does just that and the descriptions of the art she is trying to remember, will haunt me.Shortly after her fiance, Dmitri, leaves for duty in the People's Army, the war goes badly for Russia and soon the unthinkable happens, Leningrad is being bombed, day and night. Marini and her companions speed up their packing and begin moving art to the basement to save it. Before long, she is a night spotter, standing on the roof of the Hermitage, watching for enemy planes and calling down to report them.The Siege of Leningrad lasted 900 days. With many of the houses unable to be occupied, Marini and the family she has left, retreat to the basement of the Hermitage, where they will live out most of the remainder of the war. Marini is cold, starved and in fear, but her palace of the Madonnas that graced the walls of the museum, give her something to rely on. More importantly, she discovers when she gives others 'tours' of these paintings, she describes them so vividly that other people 'see' them all. Marini survives the war and Dmitri does also, they meet again in a displacement camp and he arranges to get them out of Germany and to America at the war ends.Marini still walks the corridors of the Hermitage, glorying in the art that only she can see. Her life, after her children are grown becomes more and more her memories and finally, when her disease overcomes her, she only lives in the present, when someone, usually her husband draws her back. Her disease takes away the present, old age, illness, pain and leaves her and ultimately the reader with the memory of those glorious paintings, many of which have never been seen, in public again.
    • 5/5
      As the Nazis advanced on Leningrad in 1941, the staff of the Hermitage Museum began evacuating their treasured art, packing up more than 1.1 million objects, but leaving the empty picture frames hanging on the museum walls as a promise that the art would some day be rehung. When the Nazis lay siege to Leningrad, the Hermitage staff and their families (more than 2000 people) were forced to live in the museum's basement in horrific conditions. Many starved before the siege was over. Debra Dean's novel The Madonnas of Leningrad is set during this dark moment in history.The main character of Dean's stunning novel is an elderly woman named Marina who is slowly sliding into the final stages of Alzheimer's Disease. As the disease advances, Marina's memories of the siege which she has buried for years begin to surface and Marina slips from the present into the past. Dean's portrayal of a young girl surviving the conditions of war is beautifully wrought. She shows us how Marina - with the help of an older woman named Anya - builds a "memory palace" in her mind, recreating the museum and all its gorgeous works of art - a place where the many Madonnas hang in exquisite perfection.The Madonnas of Leningrad is a radiant novel about the tenuous nature of memory, the power of imagination, the endurance of love, and the sad descent into Alzheimer's disease. Written with a strong sense of place with many fine details of art and the museum itself, Debra Dean's first novel is a treasure.Highly recommended.
    • 5/5
      Alternating chapters reveal an amazing story of deprivation and survival in the depths of the art museum in St. Petersburg during the German seige of World War 2, and the "now" life of two survivors who immigrated to the United States and raised their family in Washington state. A tender romance suffuses the story.
    • 5/5
      Author Debra Dean does a masterful job in telling the story of Marina against the backdrop of the siege of Leningrad during World War II. Elderly Marina, whose memory is failing, recalls vividly a time in her life that is largely unknown to her grown children, a time when food grew nearly nonexistent, when homes were bombed, when life itself was jeopardized, and when Marina was one of hundreds who were charged with saving the treasured art in the Hermitage Museum. This well-researched novel will intrigue and enlighten the reader as Marina’s present life fades away into the memories of the past.