By Kevin Seabrooke
Within the expansive history of Russia’s iconic second largest city, from Peter the Great to Vladimir Putin, McKay details the nearly 900 days of the Siege of Leningrad (as the city was then known), considered to be one of the worst sieges in history, causing an estimated 1.5 million deaths out of city population of about 3.2 million.
From September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944—872 days—troops from Germany and Finland surrounded but never captured Leningrad, deciding instead to bomb the city and starve its inhabitants. Many of the deaths were caused by starvation during the winter of 1941–1942.
McKay, the author of The Hidden History of Code-Breaking, mines diaries, memoirs, and letters from the city’s inhabitants to paint a grim picture of the misery of the siege and the few, faint flickers of humanity that shone through.
Saint Petersburg: Sacrifice and Redemption in the City that Defied Hitler (Sinclair McKay, Pegasus Books/ dist. Simon & Schuster, 432pp., January 6, 2026 $35 HC)
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