I write here only the truth. From the diaries. 1923-1971

Olga Fedorovna Berggolts (1910–1975) — a Russian poet, the legendary voice of besieged Leningrad, the author of the famous phrase “No one is forgotten, and nothing is forgotten.”

She kept diaries for almost her entire life: during the dark years of Stalin's repressions and in the 'mortal time' of the blockade. Olga Berggolts considered her fictionalized autobiography “Diurnal Stars” to be a prologue to her Main Book: based on diary entries, in terms of candor and boldness, this book was intended to follow “Past and Thoughts” by Herzen and “Confession of a Son of the Century” by Alfred de Musset. But the project, which Berggolts called “the work of her life,” remained unfulfilled.

“I write you slyly, my main book. I bypass everything important in you, all my pain. It cannot be discovered yet,” — this is the entry Berggolts made in May 1954.

She did not live to see the time when the pain could be discovered. But the diaries, published decades after Olga Berggolts' death, became her Main Book.