The film "Leningrad in Struggle," produced in the spring of 1942, was the first documentary addressing the blockade and played a pivotal role in shaping the cultural memory of these events. Individual aspects of the film’s production are frequently cited in various studies; however, a comprehensive analysis grounded in a broad range of sources has yet to be conducted. The film was produced by Leningrad cinematographers under the direction of the local Communist Party leadership. In the preparatory stage, the concept entailed filming a Leningrad analog of the film "Moscow Strikes Back." The initial version was severely criticized at a meeting in Smolny for its excessive tragic tonality; the party leadership intervened in the production process and demanded a revision of the plot. In the revised version, the heroic dimension predominated, with the central image being the hero city. Drawing on materials from federal and Saint Petersburg archives, the article details the following issues: the activities of the city’s film studios in 1941–1942; the preparation of the screenplay by V.V. Vishnevsky; the filming process; the Smolny meeting; R.L. Karmen’s assignment to the besieged Leningrad; and the organization of the Leningrad United Film Studio. The premiere occurred in the summer of 1942; hundreds of thousands of viewers in the USSR and abroad watched the film, and in 1943 its creators were awarded the Stalin Prize. Based on newspaper articles, letters, and diaries, the paper analyzes the reception of the film by Leningraders and by residents of other cities within the Soviet Union. Made under active interference by the Communist Party leadership, the work became the principal visual source of information about the besieged Leningrad. Scenes from the film were frequently incorporated into other pictures about the blockade, created both during the postwar period and in the post-Soviet era. The film production constituted a significant link in the party leadership’s construction of the besieged Leningrad image as a heroic city–fortress.
