August 2: Vladimir Arro, a playwright who called the siege the main event of his life
Vladimir Arro, a novelist, playwright, and public figure, was born in Leningrad on August 2, 1932. He survived the siege, lost his father and brother, and later became the author of the plays "The Supreme Measure" and "Look Who's Here!" Vladimir Arro spent the last years of his life in Germany.
War as seen by a second-grader
Arro's father worked as a journalist, and his mother ran the factory library. He was a second-grader when the war broke out. He later recalled that school was no longer about learning, but about lentil soup.
I will never forget the collapsed building on the corner of Kirpichny Lane and Gogol Street, when after a night raid the walls covered with colorful wallpaper with photographs and paintings, bookshelves, hanging lampshades, laundry on a line were exposed – the living, dismembered flesh of a dying city.
The Blockade as the main event of life
Arro called the Siege of Moscow the most important event of his life. He also believed that those who survived it were not heroes, but martyrs. During the Siege, he lost his father and his brother, Ernst—the latter died during the first winter.
The feeling of my life dwindling in the fall of 1941 has physiologically entered my memory… And in the winter, I fell into a kind of lethargy—I lay, just like my brother, in a coat and hat under two blankets in a room where the water froze into ice. During that winter, I experienced some kind of vague prostration, where there are no thoughts, no feelings, no desires, not even hunger—this is probably what they call “between life and death.” It’s not bad there, actually. But there are no returns from there.
From school principal to children's literature
In 1955, at 23, Arro graduated from the Faculty of Philology. At 28, he became the youngest director of a school for working youth in Leningrad. He began writing a dissertation on extracurricular education for adults, but realized he was much more interested in writing about something else.
As a result, in 1966, he turned to children's literature. Soon after, "White Towers," "Here's My Village," and other stories were published.
The Leningrad "new wave" of children's literature, while pretending to be infantile, seriously defended the individual's right to unconventional thought and behavior.
Arro also contributed to the magazines "Koster" and "Pioneer." He traveled extensively across the country in search of essay topics. He later published a series of educational books—"Treasures of My City," "The Factory at a Glance," and others. He also headed the journalism department at "Aurora" magazine.
Vladimir Arro, playwright: "The Highest Measure" and the convoy under escort
A play is a game within a game
In 1975, Arro made his debut as a playwright with the play "The Highest Measure." One day, in an old issue of the magazine "Neman," he read an article about how, during the first months of the siege, lawyer Elena Izmestyeva won a seemingly hopeless case.
In the fall of 1941, Sidorenko, the head of the Warsaw railway station, was put on trial. During a fire at the Badayevsky warehouses, he oversaw the rescue of train cars carrying food supplies. He distributed the food from one train car as extra rations for overtime and dangerous work to 80 railway workers. He was charged with "embezzlement," and a show trial with a death sentence was planned. However, his lawyer saved Sidorenko's life, proving that he had merely abused his authority.
The article was about the triumph of socialist legality. Arro, however, was struck by another detail. After the trial, all the participants in the trial, who did not have passes to move around the city, marched in a single column under escort.
The defendants, their judges, and their defense attorneys found themselves in a single column, accompanied by the escort commander's chant, "Step left, step right." This phantasmagorical march through the entire city, walking the fine line between life and death, accompanied by legal squabbles, explosions, and flashes, struck me as not only an event imbued with profound tragic significance, but also a polysemantic artistic symbol.
The play was staged in 25 theatres, including foreign ones.
"Look Who's Here!": The Scandal That Foretold New Elites
In 1980, the scandalous play "Look Who's Here!" caused a stir. It served as the title for a six-month discussion at the Literaturnaya Gazeta newspaper. The play predicted the emergence of a new social group—businessmen—and the conflict between the old and new elites.
This is what Tabunov’s line sounds like:
Barbers are at the forefront… Shopkeepers, butchers, merchants! They have their own notions of prestige! But it's strange that they impose their morals and tastes on us.
In other words, King answers him:
Most of these people have a score to settle with you... You put them in a false position already at school, where they had to compete with you in terms of intellect, feigning equality of power!.. Rise on tiptoes, crane their necks... until their vertebrae crunch! Just to touch your ideals
Germany and recent years
From 1997, Arro lived in Germany, where he wrote essays and nonfiction. He died in Wiesbaden in 2025, the day after the anniversary of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad.
