The urban economy of Leningrad and its restoration management during the blockade: activities, methods, cultural identity

The study presents an analysis of significant measures taken by the Leningrad City Council and its Executive committee to revive the housing and communal services of Leningrad during the years of the blockade. The author reveals aspects of the transformation of the main approaches to city management in an extreme wartime situation. Particular attention is paid to the factors that influenced the formation of the Leningrad cultural identity among the Soviet principal staff, the «Zhdanov team», that had been gathering since the late 1930s. The research methodology includes the use of concrete-historical, problem-chronological methods, the method of historical reconstruction, as well as the approach of studying emotions. The source base of the work includes published and unpublished materials covering the work of the Leningrad Soviet and Party activists during the war and blockade.