82 pages • 2 hours read
David BenioffCity of Thieves
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 11-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 11 Summary
Lev and Kolya begin their journey to Mga, walking along the disused Moscow railway line, which has been cut by the Germans like all of Leningrad’s rail lines. While Lev is still seething with jealousy over Kolya’s liaison with Sonya, Kolya boasts about his sexual prowess, claiming that he will teach Lev what he knows and help him find a girl. Kolya also continues to quote from The Courtyard Hound while berating critics for their neglect of the novel he considers a masterpiece. Their conversation is interrupted by a gruesome scene: the bodies of a couple and three children sprawled in the snow, their flesh hacked off for meat.
By midday they reach the edge of the Leningrad defenses, where they are stopped by Russian soldiers. Kolya produces a letter given to them by the colonel, stating that they are on a special mission for the NKVD and must not be detained. The sergeant is impressed and finds them some food supplies before sending them on their way.
Chapter 12 Summary
As they leave behind the darkness of the city and walk through woodland, Lev’s spirits are lifted by the sight of trees and birds. The conversation between the two men flows naturally, and Lev enjoys discussing his father’s poems with Kolya.
The sound of a distressed dog leads them to a clearing in the woods, where the snow is covered with the treads of recently departed German tanks and the bodies of dead dogs. The whimpering dog appears, limping and bleeding, with a box strapped to his back. Kolya informs Lev that these are canine mines, trained to run underneath German tanks, though the Germans clearly spotted the ploy and shot all the dogs. He uses Lev’s knife to put the dog out of his misery before they continue their journey to Mga.
Chapter 13 Summary
Having lost valuable time, and now unlikely to make it to Mga before nightfall, which brings dangerously low temperatures, Lev and Kolya march at double-pace. They are now entering German territory and are therefore surprised to see a Russian soldier on guard. They quickly realize that he is dead, frozen to the ground. They take his gun before continuing their journey.
As night falls and Kolya admits they may be lost, they come across a well-lit farmhouse. Despite Kolya’s insistence that the house’s occupants could only be German, Lev, who is near collapse, decides to take a chance. Through the windows they are surprised to find several young Russian girls who are well fed, warm, and listening to music. Enchanted by the scene, Lev is slow to understand what is going on, but Kolya immediately realizes what the girls are doing there and why they are well fed. He approaches the girls with an accusatory question: “So after the Germans get bored firing their artillery at all of us in Piter, they come here for the night and you take care of them?” (184). The frightened girls are quick to defend themselves:
You walk in here and condemn us? The Red Army hero? Where have you been, you and your army? The Germans came and burned everything, and where was your army? They shot my little brothers, my father, my grandfather, every man in town (185-86).
Chapter 14 Summary
After the initial hostility, Lev and Kolya make friends with the girls—Nina, Galina, Lara, and Olesya—who have witnessed the massacres of their local towns and villages. While many women were sent to work as slaves in German factories, the young and pretty girls have been kept “for the invaders’ pleasure” (188).
The girls give Lev and Kolya food, real potatoes and butter, and tell them that the German officers sometimes have eggs. When Kolya questions them about why they have not escaped, they hesitate before telling the terrible of story of Zoya, a 14-year-old girl who ran away and was caught. The officers from the Einsatzgruppen brought her back to the house and forced the other girls to watch as they sawed off Zoya’s feet and left her to die. One of the girls recalls, “I’ll never get that scream out of my brain” (198).
Kolya tells the girls they must leave the house in the morning; he gives them an address in the city where they can stay.
Chapters 11-14 Analysis
As we follow Lev and Kolya’s journey to Mga, the novel provides valuable information and historical context regarding the siege and its effects. While Lev and Kolya are repulsed by the sight of a dead couple and their children, their bodies half-eaten by desperately hungry people, they are also aware that such horrors are now the norm in Leningrad. The same can be said for the cruel use of dogs in warfare, though Kolya’s compassion in finding the dog and gently ending its suffering provides a sharp contrast to the sickening nature of the scene.
As Lev and Kolya cross the line into German territory, the terrifying presence of the Nazis is made all the more real, as is the equally dangerous threat from the Russian winter’s perilous temperatures. Lev and Kolya also provide some perspective on the war by debating the Nazi belief system, tactics, and perception of Russians. As Lev thinks to himself, “[The Nazis] didn’t want to change anyone’s mind, at least no one among the inferior races […] The Germans believed in the lesson of Darwin’s mockingbirds—life must adapt or die” (171-72).
The Nazis’ brutality is seen at its worst when Lev and Kolya come across the farmhouse. The initial scene through the window, in which the girls appear as traitors, warm and comfortable, contrasts dramatically with the story of Zoya’s horrific torture and murder, and the terror of the four other girls who are forced to serve as prostitutes to German officers. Lev comments that, despite all the terrible suffering he has seen in the city, the people of the countryside have experienced something far worse.
