Defending Leningrad: Women Behind Enemy Lines

This book includes a remarkable diary of an ordinary Soviet middle-class teenager named Ina Konstantinova, who was transformed by the outbreak of the war and death of her boyfriend. Unlike Anne Frank, the most famous teenage author of a WWII diary, Ina was to die fighting, after she ran away from home to become a partisan and avenge her boyfriend's death. At times Ina served alongside her father; his poignant "Story of a Daughter" complements her diary. Ina's parents were both teachers and members of Soviet intelligentsia. Her comrade-in-arms Masha Poryvayeva, caught and executed by the enemy, was of a working class background.