Vikings creator Michael Hirst developing Siege of Leningrad series

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

With Vikings having wrapped up its six-season run last year, creator Michael Hirst is diving into multiple new historical projects, and Deadline has reported that the latest will find him taking on the bloody and tragic Siege of Leningrad.

Michael Hirst will write the series, which will be an adaptation of Anna Reid's Leningrad: The Epic Siege of World War II, 1941-1944. For 872 days, Leningrad was surrounded by Nazi troops, leaving those trapped inside with no food and no resources. By the end, nearly a million civilians had died. Not exactly the most cheerful story, but it's also one that will illustrate resilience and courage in the face of unimaginable hardship, particularly through the lens of the experience of women. "Because the authentic voice of the people is crucial to telling the true story, one of the great resources are the diaries kept by so many people, specifically women, in the city," Hirst said. "The majority of our main characters are women, not only because they are often overlooked or even ignored in historical accounts, but also because while many of Leningrad’s men went to war and died in battle, the women remained. I think it’s entirely right to tell the story of the Siege through the female experience."

In addition to the Siege of Leningrad series, Michael Hirst also has a sequel series to Vikings in the works for Netflix, a miniseries about the Great Plague of London in development for History, and a miniseries adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.