Survival Theme Analysis

The novel begins four months into the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days and spanned four brutal Russian winters during World War II. City of Thieves portrays a brutal physical and emotional landscape in which extreme measures must be taken in order to survive the intense rationing, cold, and the violence of the war.

When the Germans began the siege in September 1941, Leningrad began rationing food immediately. As Lev notes, residents began to have to eat house pets, rats, and pigeons as the situation quickly became dire. As flour grew rare, bread was made from anything that could approximate flour and was often made from cottonseed, cellulose, and sawdust. By the winter of late 1941 and early 1942, when the novel begins, the death toll in the city was around 1,600 people per day, and it's estimated that Leningrad's residents were only consuming 10% of the calories needed to survive the cold, which was regularly as low as -40 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Russian characters dance a very delicate dance with the cold dark winters. They remark many times that it's the winter that will defeat the Nazis, but given the situation, the difficulties that winter poses stand a good chance of killing the Russians themselves too. To this end, Benioff pays a great deal of attention to the physical items necessary for staying alive, namely boots and warm clothing. Boots are a chilling indicator of the fortunate and the unfortunate have-nots. Red Army soldiers as well as Nazis have state-issued boots to keep them warm in the snow, while others suffer in a variety of inadequate footwear or none at all. The boots also serve as a reminder of who didn't survive, as the living are quick to remove and steal boots from the dead, either for themselves or for resale on the black market. Lev also takes note of the blood on some of the boots for sale in the Haymarket, which further reinforces the fact that the individuals who are alive are at least in some way alive at the expense of the dead.

The novel also explores many different but intersecting definitions for survival, asking the reader to consider what is truly necessary to survive. Lev and the other residents of Leningrad need the true basics to survive: food, shelter, and something to burn to keep warm. But Lev and Kolya are shocked when they realize that Colonel Grechko's idea of basic necessities far exceed their own. Grechko places a great deal of importance on providing a "proper wedding" for his daughter as a way to remain human and Russian. As Lev and Kolya are roped into the quest for eggs, they're forced to comply with the questionable wisdom and morality of supplying luxury items in exchange for getting back their own ration cards, which are the only surefire way they have to obtain food. However, as they encounter cannibals and some of the shocking brutality of the war, they realize that staying alive can come at the expense of one's humanity. Put another way, the lengths a person needs to go to survive can result in that person losing what made them human in the first place.

To this end, everyone involved in the war must protect themselves mentally and emotionally in order to continue functioning after witnessing the violence, horror, and brutality of the war and the siege. This fact primarily ties back to how the novel deals with storytelling as a method of self-preservation. By either choosing to believe a happier version of events, or refusing to engage with a story altogether, characters can preserve some sense of wellbeing in the face of intense violence and life’s absurdity, and what it forces them to do and encounter in order to survive.