to meet basic physical needs to subsist and survive. Townsend as cited by Turner state that poverty in terms of exclusion from the living condition, and inability to
participate in the activities, taken for granted by the wider society because of lack of material sources as cited by Turner, 2006, p. 503.
Using the theory of absolute deprivation above, this part discusses about six parts of deprivation. They are extreme winter, the shortage of food supply, the
other shortages of supply, the activity restriction, the waves of evacuation, and the mass death of Leningrad people. Each part describes about the absolute
deprivation suffered by people of Leningrad as depicted in City of Thieves.
1. The Extreme Winter
Winter is mentioned in this discussion because without enough food and proper shelter, winter made the situation getting even worse. To survive in the
winter was not an easy thing to do. The city was poor at some times, but the Leningrad people felt they were
extremely poor during the winter. This statement is mentioned by Lev as the main character in the beginning of the story, “In June of 1941, before the Germans
came, we thought we were poor. But June seemed like paradise by winter” p. 7. The Siege of Leningrad happened for almost 900 days, it started from
September 8, 1944 until January 27, 1945. Benioff mentions about the coldness in his novel, although they are not specific. In the first chapter of the novel, Lev said
how the condition at that timewas, “You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold” p. 7.
Reflecting to the fact, Salisbury 2003 states that Russia at that time had an extremely cold winter. The weather was described to be tremendously cold
with rain and snow. The statements which describe the winter reveal in certain chapters. There is a story about the experience of Russia troops during the winter.
It is said that the troops got wet all day long and even all night long p. 396. It also happened when the Red Army discussed about strengthening their army that
had been already in Neva River. The front’s armored commander, General N.A. Bolotnikov commanded the army to get heavy tanks as there was ice covering
almost the entire Neva. Bolotnikov said to his troops, “If you want to help the Fifth-fourth Army, then you need heavy tanks.
Without them the infantry can’t do anything. You can ask Bychevsky about trying to put KV tanks across. He hasn’t any pontoons, and there is
ice cover almost the entire Neva” p. 402. There is also a record from a Russian poet, Dmitri Grigorovich, about his
experience of winter. He said that on November 17, 1944, the sky was gray and dark, the people felt the bitter cold, the time which was full of suffering. There
was nothing to warm them, no food to eat, and no electricity, the sun rose well after 9 A.M. 410. He described explicitly how bitter was the winter at that time,
“… the winter twilight of Petersburg sinking into the black of night… and he alone… far, far from all, in the deep shadows, the snowy emptiness and swirling
wind” p. 423. There is also Nikolai Tikhonov, a middle-aged man, one of Russia’s best-
known writers. It is described that he walked in TverskayaUlitsa in a November night. He walked through the world of shadow, of cold, of snow and of wind p.
424.
