Memories of World War II were indelibly engraved on the artist’s soul. In 1941 Ilya Sergeyevich joined the throngs of refugees fleeing Leningrad to escape Hitler’s approaching army. It was a chaotic melee of soldiers and refugees numbering in the hundreds of thousands and bellowing livestock herded in clouds of dust. The young man would never forget the images of retreating Russian soldiers, their sweat-stained uniforms faded from the sun and their clear blue eyes staring out from dark faces, like ancient icons. It was undoubtedly during this time that the future artist conceived of one of the works he would execute later as a student, depicting the dramatic events that unfolded in his country. It was this very painting, which he entitled “The Roads of War” that the artist dared to submit to the art academy’s administrative board as his graduation work!
The administrative board rejected the painting by unanimous decision and determined the work to be anti-Soviet and a distortion of the truth and meaning of the Great Patriotic War. “The war is celebrated as a victory, yet you revel in the spectacle of the retreat of Soviet troops – nothing like this has ever before been portrayed in Soviet art.”
Long before many writers and poets, the artist had the civic courage to convey to the observer the terrible days preceding the blockade of Leningrad. The painting was banned for several years and its author subjected to public derision. In 1964, at the famous 5-day exhibition held at the Manezh Central Exhibition Hall, the artist dared to display the painting. The exhibition was closed down and the painting was turned over to the Officers’ Club, where it was destroyed. In the mid-1980’s Glazunov painted a second version of the destroyed painting, which hangs presently in the Museum of Art in Alma Ata.
The 900-day Leningrad Blockade, which took the lives of hundreds of thousands, became one of the tragic symbols of the Second World War. Many perished after enduring agonizing starvation or cold, while others were buried alive in rubble during the endless bombings and exchanges of fire. Those horrific days remain indelibly imprinted in the artist’s memory as a never-ending nightmare which he miraculously survived, while enduring the ordeal of watching nearly every member of his family die of starvation before his eyes. “It’s as if it all happened to someone else. As if it were a soul-chilling dream,” says the artist. “But when I close my eyes, I am back once again in that freezing St. Petersburg room, and I can hear the howling sirens and I’m afraid to open my eyes and see the face of my dying mother in the flickering light of the oil lamp.”
The famous “Road of Life” (the sole transport and evacuation route to and from the besieged city), was truly a road of life for Ilya Sergeyevich. He was evacuated to the Novgorod village of Greblo, where he spent slightly over two years before returning to the city of his birth. Upon his return, he was struck by the city’s desertedness, by the enduring beauty of the splendid palaces along Nevsky Prospekt and the meditative melancholy of the Petrograd section, where he lived and grew up. “I was happy that I had been accepted into the St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Fine Arts. I came to love the strict and romantic Imperial Academy of the Arts building, which even today bears the inscription: “To the free arts. 1725.”

Blockade. From the series “Leningrad Blockade. 1941-1944.” 1956	Famine. From the series “Leningrad Blockade. 1941-1944.” 1956	A Russian Woman. Sketch for “The Roads of War.” 1955	Our Land. From the series “The War Years.” 1986
Snow Storm. From the series “The War Years.” 1978	Study for “The Roads of War.” 1955	Mother. Study for “The Roads of War.” 1951	The Mother of a Hero. 1986