Not so long ago, the Russian media wrote animatedly that the Krasnodar Higher Military Aviation School began to accept applications from girls. AT admission committee dozens of people who wanted to sit at the helm of a combat aircraft immediately poured in.
In peacetime, girls who master military specialties seem to us something exotic. But when the threat of war looms over the country, the fair sex often shows amazing courage and resilience, in no way inferior to men. So it was during the Great Patriotic War, when women fought at the front on an equal footing with men. They mastered a variety of military professions and carried out military service as nurses, pilots, sappers, scouts and even snipers.
In difficult military conditions, young girls, many of whom were yesterday's schoolgirls, performed feats and died for the Fatherland. At the same time, even in the trenches, they continued to preserve femininity, showing it in everyday life and reverent care for their comrades.
Few of our contemporaries are able to imagine what Soviet women had to go through during the war years. There are already few of them themselves - those who survived and managed to convey precious memories to their descendants.
One of the keepers of these memories is our colleague, Chief Specialist scientific department of the RVIO, candidate of historical sciences Victoria Petrakova. She devoted her scientific work to the topic of women in the war, the topic of her research is Soviet female snipers.
She told History.RF about the hardships that befell these heroines (Victoria was lucky enough to communicate with some of them personally).
"The parachutes were laid out to carry the bombs"
Victoria, I understand that the topic of women at the front is very extensive, so let's take a closer look at the Great Patriotic War.
The mass participation of Soviet women in the Great Patriotic War is an unprecedented phenomenon in world history. Neither in Nazi Germany nor in the allied countries did such a number of women participate in the war, and, moreover, women did not master military specialties abroad. With us, they were pilots, snipers, tankers, sappers, miners ...
- Did Russian women start fighting only in 1941? Why were they recruited into the army?
This happened as new military specialties appeared, the development of technology, involvement in fighting a lot of human resources. Women were called in to free the men for more difficult warfare. Our women were on the battlefields during the Crimean War, the First World War, and the Civil War.
- Is it known how many women in the Soviet Union fought during the Great Patriotic War?
- Historians have not yet established the exact figure. In various works, the number is from 800 thousand to 1 million. During the war years, these women mastered more than 20 military professions.
- Were there many female pilots among them?
- As for female pilots, we had three female aviation regiments. The decree on their creation was issued on October 8, 1941. This happened thanks to the famous pilot Marina Mikhailovna Raskova, who at that time was already a Hero of the Soviet Union and turned directly to Stalin with such a proposal. The girls actively went into aviation, because then there were many different flying clubs. Moreover, in September 1938, Polina Osipenko, Valentina Grizodubova and Marina Raskova made a direct flight Moscow - Far East lasting more than 26 hours. For this flight they were awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union". They became the first women - Heroes of the Soviet Union before the war, and during the war, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya became the first. Thus, the history of women in aviation during the war years acquired a completely new sound. As I said, we had three aviation regiments: 586th, 587th and 588th. The 588th was subsequently (in February 1943) renamed the 46th Taman Guards Regiment. The Germans called the pilots of this regiment the "Night Witches".
- Which of the military pilots of that time could you highlight?
- Among the women who piloted fighters, one of the most famous is Lydia (Lilia) Litvyak, who was called the "White Lily of Stalingrad." She went down in history as the most productive female fighter: she had 16 victories on her account - 12 personal and 4 group. Lydia began her combat career in the sky over Saratov, then defended the sky of Stalingrad in the most difficult September days of 1942. She died on August 1, 1943 - she did not return from a combat mission. Moreover, it is interesting: she had a fighting friend who told me that Lydia said that the worst thing for her would be to go missing, because then her memory would be erased. Actually, that's what happened. And only in the early 1970s in the Donetsk region, search teams found a mass grave, in which they found the girl. After examining the remains and comparing the documents, it was established that this was Lydia Litvyak. In 1990 she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
In the already mentioned 46th Women's Aviation Regiment, there were a lot of those who were awarded this title posthumously. Pilots, when they left for a combat mission at night, sometimes laid out parachutes. And the planes on which they flew were practically plywood. That is, if shells hit them, the planes instantly ignited, and the pilots could no longer eject.
- Why didn't they take parachutes with them?
- To carry more bombs. Despite the fact that the plane could easily catch fire, its advantage was that it was slow. This made it possible to quietly fly up to enemy positions, which increased the accuracy of bombing. But if the projectile did hit the plane, many were burned alive in bombers diving to the ground.
“Men cried when they saw girls die”
- Is it known what percentage of Soviet women could survive until the end of the war?
This is very difficult to ascertain if one takes into account the leadership's not well-ordered mobilization policy towards women during the war years. Statistics on losses among women do not exist at all! In the book of G. F. Krivosheev (Grigory Fedotovich Krivosheev - Soviet and Russian military historian, author of several works on the military losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR - Note. ed.), which is the best-known study to date, which contains the most accurate data on losses, it is said that women were included in the total number of losses - there was no distinction by gender. Therefore, the number of women who died during the Great Patriotic War is still unknown.
How did women cope with domestic difficulties in the war? After all, here they were required not only moral, but also physical endurance.
- Women's health at the front was practically atrophied, the body was constantly in a state of mobilization - both mentally and physiologically. It is clear that after the war people "thawed" and came to their senses, but in the war it simply could not be otherwise. A person needed to survive, it was necessary to carry out a combat mission. The conditions were very extreme. In addition, women fell into mixed units. Imagine: the infantry marches tens of kilometers - it was difficult to solve some everyday moments when there were only men around. In addition, not all women were subject to mobilization. Those who had small children, elderly dependent parents were not taken to the war. Because the military leadership understood that all the experiences associated with this could subsequently affect the psychological state at the front.
- What was required to pass this selection?
It was necessary to have minimum education and be in very good physical condition. Only those who had excellent eyesight could become snipers. By the way, many Siberians were taken to the front - they were very strong girls. including careful attention to psychological state person. We cannot but recall Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who in the most difficult days of the Moscow battle became a scout-saboteur. Unfortunately, various negative statements are currently appearing that offend the memory of this girl and devalue her feat. For some reason, people do not try to realize that she entered the reconnaissance and sabotage unit, where, of course, they did not take those with mental disabilities. To serve there, it was necessary to pass a medical examination, obtain various certificates, and so on. This part was commanded by a major, a hero of the Spanish war, the legendary Arthur Sprogis. He obviously would have seen some deviations. Therefore, the mere fact that she was enrolled in this unit and she became a scout-saboteur indicates that the person was mentally stable.
- How did men treat women in the military? Were they perceived as equal comrades-in-arms?
It all turned out to be very interesting. For example, when female snipers came to the front, men treated them with irony and distrust: “They brought the girls!” And when the first control firing started and these girls knocked out all the targets, respect for them, of course, increased. Naturally, they were taken care of, snipers were even called "glasses". They were treated like a father. A very touching story was told to me by sniper Klavdia Efremovna Kalugina. She had three sniper pairs, and everyone was called Masha. All three died. Her first sniper pair, Masha Chigvintseva, died in the summer of 1944. Then there was the operation "Bagration" - they liberated Belarus. Masha moved, and, apparently, the optics glared in the sun. The German sniper fired and hit her just below the right eye, right through. Masha dropped dead. Claudia Efremovna said that at that moment she screamed at the entire line of defense. Soldiers ran out of the dugout to her crying, tried to calm her down: “Don’t cry, the Germans will hear, they will open mortar fire!” But nothing worked. This is understandable: after all, you share shelter, food, secrets with a sniper pair, this is your closest person. She was buried in the summer in a field where there were many wild flowers: the grave was decorated with daisies and bells. Everyone came to bury Masha, up to the unit commanders. But it was already 1944, and the men had seen a lot of death and blood. But still, everyone cried at Masha's funeral. When she was lowered into the ground, the commander said: "Sleep well, dear Marusya." And all the men wept when they saw the young girls dying.
“When they came back, all sorts of unpleasant things sounded”
- And in which troops was it most dangerous for women to serve?
- In 1943, a study was conducted on the Leningrad Front on injuries among women of various military professions. It was highest, naturally, in the military medical service - nurses pulled the wounded from the battlefield under bullets and shrapnel. Signalmen and miners were often injured. If we talk about snipers, then the injury rate of this military profession, for all its danger and complexity, was relatively low.
- Were there many women among the snipers? How were they trained?
- In the Soviet Union, the only women's sniper school operated not only in our country, but throughout the world. In November 1942, women's sniper courses were created at the Central School of Sniper Instructors (male). Then, in May 1943, the Central Women's Sniper Training School appeared; it existed until May 1945. This school has released about two thousand female cadets. Of these, losses - 185 people, that is, 10 percent of total number. Snipers, firstly, were protected, they were not allowed to attack: they were supposed to fight only on the defensive. Snipers mostly died during the execution of a combat mission. This could happen due to accidental negligence: during sniper duels (when the optical sight glared in the sun, the German sniper fired, and, accordingly, the sniper from the opposite side died) or under mortar fire.
- What happened to these heroines after the end of the war?
Their fates were different. In general, the topic of post-war rehabilitation of female soldiers is very complex. The memory of the women's feat during the war years was forgotten for a very long time. Even the grandmothers-veterans themselves told how embarrassed they were to say that they fought. This was shaped by negative attitudes in society, which relied on various stories about "field wives". For some reason, this cast a shadow on all the women who fought. When they returned, unfortunately, all sorts of unpleasant things could be said to them. But I talked with them and I know what front-line everyday life and combat work cost them. After all, many returned with health problems, could not then have children. Take the same snipers: they lay in the snow for two days, received maxillofacial wounds ... These women endured a lot.
- Really there were no war novels with a happy ending?
There were happy cases when love was born in the conditions of war, then people got married. There were sad stories when one of the lovers died. But all the same, as a rule, the stories of the same “field wives” are, first of all, crippled female destinies. And we have no moral right to judge, much less to condemn. Although already today someone, apparently not having respect for memory, pulls out only individual plots from the multifaceted history of the war, turning them into “fried” facts. And this is very sad. When a woman returned from the war, the process of getting used to civilian life took a long time. It was necessary to master peaceful professions. They worked in completely different areas: in museums, at factories, someone was an accountant, there were also those who went to teach theory at higher military schools. People returned psychologically broken, it was very difficult to build a personal life.
"Not everyone could fire the first shot"
Still, women are gentle and sensitive creatures, it is rather difficult to associate them with war, murders ... Those girls who went to the front, what were they like?
One of my articles tells the story of Lidia Yakovlevna Anderman. She was a sniper, holder of the Order of Glory; unfortunately, she is no longer alive. She said that after the war she dreamed for a very long time of the first killed German. At the school, future snipers were taught to shoot exclusively at targets, and at the front they had to deal with living people. Due to the fact that the distance could be small and the optical sight brought the target closer by 3.5 times, it was often possible to see the enemy's uniform, the outlines of his face. Lidia Yakovlevna later recalled: “I saw through the scope that he had a red beard, some kind of red hair.” She dreamed of him for a long time even after the war. But not everyone could immediately make a shot: natural pity and qualities inherent in female nature made themselves felt when performing a combat mission. Of course, the women understood that the enemy was in front of them, but still it was a living person.
- How did they overpower themselves?
The death of comrades, the realization that the enemy is doing on his native land, tragic news from home - all this inevitably influenced the female psyche. And in such a situation, the question of whether it was necessary to go and carry out their combat mission did not arise: “... I must take up arms and take revenge myself. I already knew that I didn’t have any of my relatives left. My mother is gone…” one of the snipers recalled. Everywhere on the fronts, female snipers began to appear in 1943. At that time, the blockade of Leningrad had lasted for more than a year, the villages and villages of Belarus were burned, many relatives and comrades were killed. It was clear to everyone what the enemy had brought us. Sometimes people ask: “What did you need to have to be a sniper? Maybe it was some kind of predisposition of character, innate cruelty? Of course not. When you ask such questions, you need to try to “immerse yourself” in the psychology of a person who lived in wartime. Because they were the same ordinary girls! Like everyone else, they dreamed of marriage, arranged a modest military life, and took care of themselves. It's just that the war was a very mobilizing factor for the psyche.
- You said that the memory of a woman's feat was forgotten for many years. What has changed over time?
The first research papers on the participation of women in the Great Patriotic War began to appear only in the 1960s. Now, thank God, dissertations and monographs are being written about this. Women's feat is now, of course, established in the public mind. But, unfortunately, it's a bit late, because so many of them don't see it anymore. And many, perhaps, died forgotten, never knowing that someone wrote about them. In general, sources of personal origin are simply invaluable for studying the psychology of a person in war: memoirs, memoirs, interviews with veterans. After all, they talk about things that cannot be found in any archival document. It is clear that the war cannot be idealized, it was not only feats - it was both dirty and scary. But when we write or talk about it, we must always be as correct as possible, careful about the memory of those people. In no case should labels be attached, because we do not know even a thousandth of what really happened there. Many destinies were broken, distorted. And many veterans, in spite of everything that they had to endure, retained a clear look, sense of humor, optimism until the end of their days. We ourselves have a lot to learn from them. And most importantly - always remember them with great respect and gratitude.
Great Patriotic War - known and unknown: historical memory and modernity: materials of the international. scientific conf. (Moscow - Kolomna, May 6–8, 2015) / ed. editor: Yu. A. Petrov; In-t grew up. history of Ros. acad. sciences; Ros. ist. about; Chinese ist. o-vo and others - M.: [IRI RAN], 2015.
June 22, 1941 is the day from which the countdown of the Great Patriotic War began. This is the day that divided the life of mankind into two parts: peaceful (pre-war) and military. This is a day that made everyone think about what he chooses: to submit to the enemy or fight him. And each person decided this question himself, consulting only with his conscience.
Archival documents testify that the absolute majority of the population of the Soviet Union made the only correct decision: to give all their strength to the fight against fascism, to defend their homeland, their relatives and friends. Men and women, regardless of age and nationality, non-party and members of the CPSU (b), Komsomol and non-Komsomol members became the Army of Volunteers that lined up to apply for enrollment in the Red Army.
Let us recall that Art. The 13th Law on universal conscription, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939, the People's Commissariats of Defense and the Navy were given the right to recruit women with medical, veterinary and special technical training, as well as invite them to training camps. In wartime, women with this training could be drafted into the army and navy for auxiliary and special service.
After the announcement of the beginning of the war, women, referring to this article, went to the party and Komsomol organizations, to the military commissariats, and there they persistently sought to be sent to the front. Among the volunteers who applied in the first days of the war to be sent to the active army, up to 50% of the applications were from women. Women also went and signed up for the people's militia.
Reading the statements of female volunteers that were submitted in the first days of the war, we see that for young people the war seemed completely different than it turned out to be in reality. Most of them were sure that the enemy would be defeated in the near future, and therefore everyone was eager to participate in its destruction as soon as possible. The military registration and enlistment offices at that time carried out the mobilization of the population, following the instructions received, and refused those who were under 18 years old, refused those who were not trained in military craft, and also refused girls and women until further notice. What do we know and know about them? There are many about some of them, and we are talking about most of them as “defenders of the motherland”, volunteers.
It was about them, about those who left to defend their homeland, that the front-line poet K. Vanshenkin later wrote that they were "knights without fear and reproach." This applies to men and women. This can be said about them in the words of M. Aliger:
Everyone had their own war
Your way forward, your battlefields,
And everyone was in everything himself,
And everyone had only one goal.
The historiography of the Great Patriotic War is rich in collections of documents and materials about this spiritual impulse of the women of the USSR. A huge number of articles, monographs, collective works and memoirs have been written and published about the work of women during the war years in the rear, about exploits at the fronts, in the underground, in partisan detachments operating in the temporarily occupied territory of the Soviet Union. But life testifies that not everything, not about everyone and not about everything, has been said and analyzed. Many documents and problems have been "closed" to historians in past years. At present, there is access to documents that are not only little known, but also documents that require an objective approach to study and their impartial analysis. Doing about is not always easy due to the prevailing stereotype in relation to this or that phenomenon or person.
The problem of "Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War" has been and remains in the field of view of historians, political scientists, writers and journalists. They wrote and write about female warriors, about women who replaced men in the rear, about mothers, less about those who took care of evacuated children, who returned from the front with orders and were embarrassed to wear them, etc. And then the question is, why ? After all, back in the spring of 1943, the Pravda newspaper stated, referring to the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, that “never before in all past history a woman did not participate so selflessly in the defense of her homeland, as in the days of the Patriotic War of the Soviet people.
The Soviet Union was the only state during the Second World War in which women were directly involved in the fighting. From 800 thousand to 1 million women fought at the front in different periods, 80 thousand of them were Soviet officers. This was due to two factors. Firstly, an unprecedented upsurge of patriotism among young people, who were eager to fight the enemy who attacked their homeland. Secondly, the difficult situation prevailing on all fronts. Losses Soviet troops in the initial war led to the fact that in the spring of 1942 a mass mobilization of women was carried out to serve in the army and rear formations. Based on the decision of the State Defense Committee (GKO), mass mobilization of women took place on March 23, April 13 and April 23, 1942 to serve in the air defense forces, communications, internal security, on military highways, in the Navy and the Air Force, in the communications troops.
Healthy girls aged at least 18 were subject to mobilization. The mobilization was carried out under the control of the Komsomol Central Committee and local Komsomol organizations. At the same time, everything was taken into account: education (preferably not lower than 5 classes), membership in the Komsomol, health status, absence of children. Most of the girls were volunteers. True, there were cases of unwillingness to serve in the Red Army. When this was found out at the collection points, the girls were sent home, to the place of their conscription. M. I. Kalinin, recalling in the summer of 1945 how girls were drafted into the Red Army, noted that “the female youth who participated in the war ... were higher than average men, there is nothing special ... because you were selected from many millions . They didn’t choose men, threw a net and mobilized everyone, they took everyone away ... I think that the best part of our female youth went to the front ... ”.
There are no exact figures on the number of those called. But it is known that only at the call of the Komsomol, more than 550 thousand women became soldiers. Over 300 thousand patriots were drafted into the air defense forces (this is over ¼ of all fighters). Through the Red Cross, they received a specialty and came to serve in the military medical institutions health service of the Red Army 300 thousand Oshinsky sisters, 300 thousand nurses, 300 thousand nurses, over 500 thousand air defense sanitary troopers. In May 1942, a GKO decree was adopted on the mobilization of 25,000 women in the Navy. On November 3, the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League conducted a selection of Komsomol and non-Komsomol women of the formation of a women's volunteer rifle brigade, a reserve regiment and the Ryazan Infantry School. The total number of people mobilized there was 10,898 people. On December 15, the brigade, reserve regiment and courses began their normal studies. During the war years, five mobilizations were carried out among communist women.
Not all women, of course, took a direct part in the hostilities. Many served in various rear services: economic, medical, staff, etc. However, a significant number of them directly participated in the hostilities. At the same time, the range of activities of female soldiers was quite diverse: they took part in raids by reconnaissance and sabotage groups and partisan detachments, were medical instructors, signalmen, anti-aircraft gunners, snipers, machine gunners, drivers of cars and tanks. Women served in aviation. These were pilots, navigators, gunners, radio operators, and armed men. At the same time, female aviators fought both in the composition of ordinary "male" aviation regiments and separate "female" ones.
During the Great Patriotic War, women's combat formations first appeared in the Armed Forces of our country. Three aviation regiments were formed from female volunteers: the 46th Guards Night Bomber, the 125th Guards Bomber, and the 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment; A separate women's volunteer rifle brigade, a separate women's reserve rifle regiment, the Central Women's School of Snipers, a separate women's company of sailors, etc. The 101st long-range air regiment was commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union B.S. Grizodubova. The Central Women's School of Sniper Training provided the front with 1,061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors. The graduates of this school destroyed over 11,280 enemy soldiers and officers during the war. In the youth divisions of Vsevobuch, 220 thousand female snipers and signalmen were trained.
Located near Moscow, the 1st Separate Women's Reserve Regiment trained motorists and snipers, machine gunners and junior commanders of combat units. There were 2899 women in the personnel. 20,000 women served in the Special Moscow Air Defense Army. About how difficult this service is, documents in the archives of the Russian Federation speak.
The largest representation of participants in the Great Patriotic War was among women doctors. Of the total number of doctors in the Red Army - 41% were women, among surgeons they were 43.5%. It was estimated that the female medical instructors of rifle companies, medical battalions, and artillery batteries helped over 72% of the wounded and about 90% of the sick soldiers return to duty. Medical women served in all branches of the military - in aviation and marines, on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, Northern Fleet, Caspian and Dnieper flotillas, in floating naval hospitals and sanitary trains. Together with the horsemen, they went into deep raids behind enemy lines, were in partisan detachments. With the infantry they reached Berlin, participated in the storming of the Reichstag. For special courage and heroism, 17 female doctors were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
A sculptural monument in Kaluga reminds of the feat of female military doctors. In the park on Kirov Street, on a high pedestal, a front-line nurse in a raincoat, with a sanitary bag over her shoulder, rises to her full height.
Monument to military nurses in Kaluga
The city of Kaluga during the war years was the focus of numerous hospitals, which cured and returned to service tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders. In this city, there are always flowers near the monument.
There is practically no mention in the literature that during the war years about 20 women became tankmen, three of whom graduated from the country's tank schools. Among them, I.N. Levchenko, who commanded a group of T-60 light tanks, E.I. Kostrikova, commander of a tank platoon, and at the end of the war, commander of a tank company. And the only woman who fought on the IS-2 heavy tank was A.L. Boykova. Four female tank crews participated Battle of Kursk summer 1943
Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko and Evgenia Sergeevna Kostrikova (daughter of the Soviet statesman and politician S.M. Kirov)
I would like to note that among our female Heroes there is the only female foreigner - 18-year-old Anela Kzhivon, shooter of the female company of submachine gunners of the female infantry battalion of the 1st Polish Infantry Division of the Polish Army. The title was awarded posthumously in November 1943.
Anelya Kzhivon, who has Polish roots, was born in the village of Sadovy, Ternopil region, Western Ukraine. When the war began, the family was evacuated to Kansk Krasnoyarsk Territory. Here the girl worked in a factory. Several times I tried to go to the front as a volunteer. In 1943, Anelya was enrolled as a shooter in a company of submachine gunners of the 1st Polish division named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The company guarded the headquarters of the division. In October 1943, the division fought offensive battles in the Mogilev region. On October 12, during the next German air strike on the positions of the division, the shooter Kzhivon served at one of the posts, hiding in a small trench. Suddenly she saw that the staff car caught fire from the explosion. Knowing that it contained maps and other documents, Anelya rushed to save them. In the covered body, she saw two soldiers, stunned by the blast. Anelya pulled them out, and then, suffocating in the smoke, burning her face and hands, she began to throw folders with documents out of the car. She did this until the car exploded. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 11, 1943, she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. (Photo courtesy of the Krasnoyarsk Museum of Local Lore. Natalya Vladimirovna Barsukova, Candidate of History, Associate Professor of the Department of Russian History, Siberian Federal University)
200 female warriors were awarded Orders of Glory II and III degree. Four women became full Cavaliers of Glory. We almost never last years did not call them by name. In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, we will repeat their names. These are Nadezhda Alexandrovna Zhurkina (Kiek), Matrena Semyonovna Necheporchukova, Danuta Jurgio Staniliene, Nina Pavlovna Petrova. Over 150 thousand women soldiers were awarded orders and medals of the Soviet state.
The figures, even if not always accurate and complete, which were given above, the facts of military events show that history has not yet known such a massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland, which was shown by Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War. Let's not forget that women also showed themselves heroically and selflessly in the most difficult conditions of the occupation, standing up to fight the enemy.
There were only about 90,000 partisans behind enemy lines at the end of 1941. The issue of numbers is a special issue, and we refer to official published data. By the beginning of 1944, 90% of the partisans were men and 9.3% women. The question of the number of female partisans gives a spread in numbers. According to the data of later years (obviously, according to updated data), in total during the war years there were over 1 million partisans in the rear. Women accounted for 9.3% of them, that is, over 93,000 people. The same source also has another figure - over 100,000 women. There is one more feature. The percentage of women in partisan detachments was not the same everywhere. Thus, in the detachments in Ukraine it was 6.1%, in the occupied regions of the RSFSR - from 6% to 10%, in the Bryansk region - 15.8% and in Belarus - 16%.
Our country was proud during the war years (and is also proud now) of such heroines of the Soviet people as the partisans Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Liza Chaikina, Antonina Petrova, Anya Lisitsina, Maria Melentyeva, Uliana Gromova, Lyuba Shevtsova and others. But many are still unknown or little known due to years of verification of their identities. Great prestige among the partisans was won by girls - nurses, doctors, partisan scouts. But they were treated with a certain distrust and with great difficulty allowed to participate in military operations. At first, it was widely believed in the partisan detachments that girls could not be demolition workers. However, dozens of girls have mastered this difficult task. Among them is Anna Kalashnikova, head of a subversive group of a partisan detachment in the Smolensk region. Sofia Levanovich commanded a subversive group of a partisan detachment in the Oryol region and derailed 17 enemy echelons. Ukrainian partisan Dusya Baskina had 9 derailed enemy trains. Who remembers, who knows these names? And during the war years, their names were known not only in partisan detachments, they were known and feared by the invaders.
Where partisan detachments were operating that destroyed the Nazis, the order of General von Reichenau was in effect, which demanded to destroy the partisans “... to use all means. All captured partisans of both sexes in military uniform or in civilian clothes shall be publicly hanged.” It is known that the Nazis were especially afraid of women and girls - residents of villages and villages in the area where the partisans operated. In their letters home, which fell into the hands of the Red Army, the invaders frankly wrote that "women and girls act like the most seasoned warriors ... In this respect, we would have to learn a lot." In another letter, Chief Corporal Anton Prost asked in 1942: “How long will we have to wage this kind of war? After all, we - the combat unit (Western Front p / n 2244 / B. - N.P.) are opposed here by the entire civilian population, including women and children! .. "
And as if confirming this idea, the German newspaper Deutsche Algemeine Zeitung of May 22, 1943 stated: “Even harmless-looking women picking berries and mushrooms, peasant women heading for the city, are partisan scouts ...” Risking their lives, the partisans carried out tasks .
According to official data, as of February 1945, 7,800 female partisans and underground fighters received the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" II and III degrees. 27 partisans and underground fighters received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 22 of them were awarded posthumously. We cannot say with certainty that this is exact numbers. The number of those awarded is much higher, since the process of awarding, more precisely, the consideration of repeated submissions for awards, continued into the 90s. As an example, the fate of Vera Voloshina can be.
Vera Voloshina
The girl was in the same reconnaissance group as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Both of them on the same day went on a mission to the intelligence department of the Western Front. Voloshina was wounded and lagged behind her group. Got captured. She was executed, like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, on November 29. The fate of Voloshina remained unknown for a long time. Thanks to the search work of journalists, the circumstances of her capture and death were established. Decree of the President Russian Federation in 1993, V. Voloshina (posthumously) was awarded the title of Hero of Russia.
Vera Voloshina
The press is more often interested in numbers: how many feats have been accomplished. At the same time, they often refer to the figures taken into account by the Central Headquarters partisan movement(TSSHPD).
But what kind of accurate accounting can we talk about when underground organizations arose on the ground without any instructions from the TsSHPD. As an example, we can name the world-famous Komsomol-youth underground organization "Young Guard", which operated in the city of Krasnodon in the Donbass. Until now, there have been disputes about its size and composition. The number of its members ranges from 70 to 150 people.
There was a time when it was believed that the larger the organization, the more effective it was. And few people thought about how a large underground youth organization could operate under the conditions of occupation without betraying their actions. Unfortunately, a number of underground organizations are waiting for their researchers, because either little or almost nothing has been written about them. But the fates of underground women are hidden in them.
In the autumn of 1943, Nadezhda Troyan and her comrades-in-arms managed to carry out the verdict handed down by the Belarusian people.
Elena Mazanik, Nadezhda Troyan, Maria Osipova
For this feat, which entered the annals of the history of Soviet intelligence, Nadezhda Troyan, Elena Mazanik and Maria Osipova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Their names are usually not remembered often.
Unfortunately, our historical memory has a number of features, and one of them is forgetfulness of the past or "inattention" to facts, dictated by various circumstances. We know about the feat of A. Matrosov, but we hardly know that on November 25, 1942, during the battle in the village of Lomovochi, Minsk region, partisan R.I. Shershneva (1925) closed the embrasure of the German bunker, becoming the only woman (according to others data - one of two) who accomplished a similar feat. Unfortunately, in the history of the partisan movement there are pages where there is only a list of military operations, the number of partisans participating in it, but, as they say, the majority of those who specifically took part in the implementation of partisan raids remain “behind the scenes of events”. It is not possible to name everyone now. They, the privates, the living and the dead, are rarely remembered, despite the fact that they live somewhere near us.
Behind the fuss Everyday life in the last few decades, our historical memory of the everyday life of the past war has somewhat faded. On the privates of the Victory write and remember infrequently. As a rule, only those who accomplished a feat already captured in the history of the Great Patriotic War are remembered, less and less, and even then in a faceless form, about those who were next to them in the same ranks, in the same battle.
Rimma Ivanovna Shershneva is a Soviet partisan who closed the embrasure of an enemy bunker with her body. (According to some reports, the same feat was repeated by the lieutenant of the medical service Nina Aleksandrovna Bobyleva, a doctor of a partisan detachment operating in the Narva region).
Back in 1945, during the beginning of the demobilization of the girl soldiers, there were words that little was written about them, the girl soldiers, during the war years, and now, in peacetime, they can even be forgotten. On July 26, 1945, in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, a meeting was held between the girls-soldiers who had finished their service in the Red Army, and the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, M.I. Kalinin. A transcript of this meeting has been preserved, which is called “M.I. Kalinin’s conversation with warrior girls.” I will not retell its content. I draw your attention to the fact that in one of the speeches of the Hero of the Soviet Union pilot N. Meklin (Kravtsova) the question was raised about the need to "popularize the heroic deeds, the nobility of our women."
Speaking on behalf of and on behalf of the girl warriors, N. Meklin (Kravtsova) said what many people were talking about and thinking about, she said what they are talking about now. In her speech there was, as it were, an outline of a plan that had not yet been told about girls, women - warriors. It must be admitted that what was said 70 years ago is still relevant today.
Finishing her speech, N. Meklin (Kravtsova) drew attention to the fact that “almost nothing has been written or shown about girls - Heroes of the Patriotic War. Something has been written, it is written about partisan girls: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Lisa Chaikina, about Krasnodontsy. Nothing is written about the girls of the Red Army and Navy. But this, perhaps, would be pleasant for those who fought, it would be useful for those who did not fight, and it would be important for our posterity and history. Why not create documentary, by the way, the Central Committee of the Komsomol has long thought to do this, in which to reflect women's combat training, as, for example, during the defense of Leningrad, to repel the best women working in hospitals, to show snipers, female traffic controllers, etc. In my opinion, literature and art are indebted to warrior girls in this respect. That's basically all I wanted to say."
Natalya Fedorovna Meklin (Kravtsova)
These proposals have been implemented partially or not in in full. Time has put other problems on the agenda, and much of what the girl warriors proposed in July 1945 is waiting for their authors now.
The war separated some people in different directions, brought others closer together. There were separations and meetings during the war. There was love in the war, there were betrayals, everything was there. But after all, the war united men and women of different ages in its fields, mostly young and healthy people who wanted to live and love, despite the fact that death was at every step. And no one in the war condemned anyone for this. But when the war ended and demobilized female warriors began to return to their homeland, on whose chests there were orders, medals and stripes about wounds, the civilian population often threw insults into their eyes, calling them "PPZh" (field wife), or poisonous questions: “What did you get awards for? How many husbands did she have? etc.
In 1945, this became widespread and caused even among demobilized men a widespread protest and complete impotence how to deal with it. The Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League began to receive letters with a request to "put things in order in this matter." The Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League drew up a plan on the question raised - what to do? It noted that "... we do not always and not everywhere sufficiently promote the exploits of girls among the people, we do not tell the population) and young people about the huge contribution made by girls and women to our victory over fascism."
It should be noted that at that time plans were made, lectures were edited, but the severity of the issue practically did not decrease for many years. Warrior girls were embarrassed to put on their orders and medals, they took them off their tunics and hid them in boxes. And when their born children grew up, the kids sorted out expensive awards and played with them, often not knowing what their mothers received for. If during the years of the Great Patriotic War, women warriors were talked about in the reports of the Sovinformburo, they wrote in newspapers, they published posters where there was a woman warrior, then the further the country moved away from the events of 1941-1945, the less often this topic sounded. A certain interest in it appeared only on the eve of March 8. Researchers have tried to find an explanation for this, but their interpretation cannot be accepted for a number of reasons.
There is an opinion that "the starting point in the policy of the Soviet leadership in relation to women's memory of the war" is the speech of M.I. Kalinin in July 1945 at a meeting in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League with female soldiers demobilized from the Red Army and the Navy . The speech was called "Glorious daughters of the Soviet people." In it, M.I. Kalinin raised the question of the adaptation of demobilized girls to civilian life, the search for their professions, etc. And at the same time he advised: “Do not be conceited in your future practical work. You don’t talk about your merits, but let them talk about you - that’s better.” With reference to the work of the German researcher B. Fizeler "Woman at War: Unwritten History", these words of M.I. Kalinin cited above were interpreted by the Russian researcher O.Yu. Nikonova as a recommendation "demobilized women not to brag about their merits." Perhaps the German researcher did not understand the meaning of Kalinin's words, and the Russian researcher, building her "concept", did not bother to read the publication of M.I. Kalinin's speech in Russian.
At present, attempts are being made (and quite successfully) to reconsider the problem of women's participation in the Great Patriotic War, in particular, what motivated them when they applied for enrollment in the Red Army. The term "mobilized patriotism" appeared. At the same time, a number of problems or not fully explored subjects remain. If women warriors are written about more often; especially about the Heroes of the Soviet Union, about the women of the labor front, about the women of the home front, there are less and less generalizing works. Obviously, it is forgotten that one could "participate directly in the war, and one could participate by working in industry, in the possible military and logistics institutions." In the USSR, assessing the contribution made by Soviet women in defense of the Motherland, they were guided by the words of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU L.I. Brezhnev, who said: “The image of a female fighter with a rifle in her hands, at the helm of an airplane, the image of a nurse or a doctor with epaulettes on her shoulders will live in our memory as a shining example of selflessness and patriotism.” That's right, figuratively said, but ... where are the women of the rear? What is their role? Recall that what M.I. Kalinin wrote about in the article “On the moral character of our people”, published in 1945, directly applies to the women of the home front: “... all the previous pales before the great epic of the current war, before heroism and the self-sacrifice of Soviet women, showing civic prowess, endurance in the face of the loss of loved ones, and enthusiasm in the fight against such strength and, I would say, majesty, which have never been seen in the past.
On the civil prowess of women in the home front in 1941-1945. can be said in the words of M. Isakovsky, dedicated to the "Russian Woman" (1945):
... But can you tell about this -
What years did you live in!
What an immeasurable heaviness
On women's shoulders lay down! ..
But without facts, this generation is hard to understand. Recall that under the slogan "Everything for the front, everything for victory!" all the collectives of the Soviet rear worked. Sovinformburo in the most difficult time of 1941-1942. in their reports, along with reports on the exploits of Soviet soldiers, they also reported on the heroic deeds of home front workers. In connection with leaving for the front, in the people's militia, in the destruction battalions, the number of men in the national economy of Russia by the autumn of 1942 fell from 22.2 million to 9.5 million.
The men who had gone to the front were replaced by women and teenagers.
Among them were 550,000 housewives, pensioners, and teenagers. in food and light industry the share of women in the war years was 80-95%. In transport, more than 40% (by the summer of 1943) were women. In the All-Russian Book of Memory of 1941-1945, in an overview volume, interesting figures are given that do not need comments about the increase in the share of female labor throughout the country, especially in the first two years of the war. steam engines- from 6% at the beginning of 1941 to 33% at the end of 1942, compressor operators - from 27% to 44%, respectively, metal turners - from 16% to 33%, welders - from 17% to 31%, locksmiths - from 3.9% to 12%. At the end of the war, women in the Russian Federation made up 59% of the workers and employees of the republic instead of 41% on the eve of the war.
Up to 70% of women came to individual enterprises where only men worked before the war. There were no enterprises, workshops, sites in industry where women would not work, there were no such professions that women would not have mastered; the proportion of women in 1945 was 57.2% compared with 38.4% in 1940, and in agriculture- 58.0% in 1945 against 26.1% in 1940. Among communication workers, it reached 69.1% in 1945. The proportion of women among workers and apprentices in industry in 1945 in the professions of drillers and revolvers reached 70 % (in 1941 it was 48%), and among turners - 34%, against 16.2% in 1941. 48% of women from the total number of youth were employed in 145 thousand Komsomol youth brigades of the country. Only in the course of the competition for increasing labor productivity, for the manufacture of super-planned weapons for the front, over 25 thousand women were awarded orders and medals of the USSR.
To tell about themselves, their girlfriends, with whom they shared their joys and troubles, women warriors and women of the home front began years after the end of the war. On the pages of these collections of memoirs, which were published locally and in the capital's publishing houses, it was primarily about heroic military and labor deeds and very rarely about the daily difficulties of the war years. And only decades later they began to call a spade a spade and not hesitate to recall what difficulties Soviet women had to face, how they had to overcome them.
I would like our compatriots to know the following: May 8, 1965 in the year of the 30th anniversary Great Victory By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Slovak Republic, International Women's Day on March 8 became a public holiday "in commemoration of the outstanding merits of Soviet women ... in defending the Motherland during the Great Patriotic War, their heroism and dedication at the front and in the rear ...".
Turning to the problem of "Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War", we understand that the problem is unusually broad and multifaceted and it is impossible to cover everything. Therefore, in the presented article, one task was set: to help human memory, so that in the memory of the people "the image of a Soviet woman - a patriot, a fighter, a hard worker, a soldier's mother" is forever preserved.
NOTES
See: Law on General Conscription, [September 1, 1939]. M., 1939. Art. 13.
Truth. 1943. March 8; Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History (RGASPI). F. M-1. He. 5. D. 245. L. 28.
See: Women of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2014. Section 1: official documents testify.
RGASPI. F. M-1. He. 5. D. 245. L. 28. We quote from the transcript of the meeting in the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League with demobilized warrior girls.
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: an encyclopedia. M., 1985. S. 269.
RGASPI. F. M-1. He. 53. D. 17. L. 49.
The Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945: Encyclopedia. S. 269.
See: Women of the Great Patriotic War.
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: an encyclopedia. S. 440.
There. P.270.
URL: Famhist.ru/Famlrist/shatanovskajl00437ceO.ntm
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 13. L. 73.
The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: an encyclopedia. S. 530.
There. P.270.
URL: 0ld. Bryanskovi.ru/projects/partisan/events.php?category-35
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 13. L. 73–74.
There. D. 17. L. 18.
There.
There. F. M-7. Op. 3. D. 53. L. 148; The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: an encyclopedia. C. 270; URL: http://www.great-country.ra/rabrika_articles/sov_eUte/0007.html
For more details, see: "Young Guard" (Krasnodon) - an artistic image and historical reality: Sat. documents and materials. M, 2003.
Heroes of the Soviet Union [Electronic resource]: [forum]. URL: PokerStrategy.com
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 5. D. 245. L. 1–30.
There. L. 11.
There.
There. Op. 32. D. 331. L. 77–78. Highlighted by the author of the article.
There. Op. 5. D. 245. L. 30.
See: Fieseler B. Women at War: An Unwritten History. Berlin, 2002, p. 13; URL: http://7r.net/foram/thread150.html
Kalinin M.I. Selected works. M., 1975. S. 315.
There. S. 401.
There.
All-Russian book of memory, 1941-1945. M., 2005. Review volume. S. 143.
Great Patriotic War 1941-1945: Encyclopedia. S. 270.
All-Russian book of memory, 1941-1945. Review volume. S. 143.
RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 3. D. 331 a. L. 63.
There. Op. 6. D. 355. L. 73.
Quoted from: Great Soviet Encyclopedia. 3rd ed. M., 1974. T. 15. S. 617.
CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. Ed. 8th, add. M., 1978. T 11. S. 509.
This text is based on the diary entries of Vladimir Ivanovich Trunin, about whom we have already told our readers more than once. This information is unique in that it is transmitted first-hand, from a tanker who spent the entire war on a tank.
Before the Great Patriotic War, women did not serve in the Red Army. But often they "served" at the border posts along with their husbands, border guards.
The fate of these women with the advent of the war was tragic: most of them died, only a few managed to survive in those terrible days. But I'll talk about that later...
By August 1941, it became obvious that women were indispensable.
The first to serve in the Red Army were female medical workers: medical battalions (medical sanitary battalions), PPG (field mobile hospitals), EG (evacuation hospitals) and sanitary echelons were deployed, in which young nurses, doctors and nurses served. Then the military commissars began to call signalmen, telephone operators, and radio operators to the Red Army. It got to the point that almost all anti-aircraft units were staffed by girls and young unmarried women aged 18 to 25 years. Women's aviation regiments began to form. By 1943, from 2 to 2.5 million girls and women served in the Red Army at different times.
The military commissars called into the army the healthiest, most educated, most beautiful girls and young women. All of them showed themselves very well: they were brave, very persistent, hardy, reliable fighters and commanders, they were awarded military orders and medals for bravery and courage shown in battle.
For example, Colonel Valentina Stepanovna Grizodubova, Hero of the Soviet Union, commanded a long-range aviation bomber division (ADD). It was her 250 IL4 bombers that forced her to surrender in July-August 1944 Finland.
About anti-aircraft girls
Under any bombing, under any shelling, they remained at their guns. When the troops of the Don, Stalingrad and Southwestern fronts closed the encirclement around the enemy groups in Stalingrad, the Germans tried to organize an air bridge from the territory of Ukraine they occupied to Stalingrad. For this, the entire military transport air fleet of Germany was transferred to Stalingrad. Our Russian anti-aircraft gunners organized an anti-aircraft screen. They shot down 500 three-engine German Junkers 52 aircraft in two months.
In addition, they shot down another 500 aircraft of other types. The German invaders have never known such a rout anywhere in Europe.
Night Witches
The women's regiment of night bombers of Guards Lieutenant Colonel Yevdokia Bershanskaya, flying on U-2 single-engine aircraft, bombed German troops on the Kerch Peninsula in 1943 and 1944. And later in 1944-45. fought on the first Belorussian front, supporting the troops of Marshal Zhukov and the troops of the 1st Army of the Polish Army.
Aircraft U-2 (since 1944 - Po-2, in honor of the designer N. Polikarpov) flew at night. They were based 8-10 km from the front line. They needed a small runway, only 200 meters. During the night in the battles for the Kerch Peninsula, they made 10-12 sorties. Carried U2 up to 200 kg of bombs at a distance of up to 100 km to the German rear. . During the night, they dropped up to 2 tons of bombs and incendiary ampoules on German positions and fortifications. They approached the target with the engine turned off, silently: the aircraft had good aerodynamic properties: the U-2 could glide from a height of 1 kilometer to a distance of 10 to 20 kilometers. It was difficult for the Germans to shoot them down. I myself have seen many times how German anti-aircraft gunners drove heavy machine guns across the sky, trying to find a silent U2.
Now the pan-Poles do not remember how Russian beautiful pilots in the winter of 1944 dropped weapons, ammunition, food, medicines to Polish citizens who rebelled in Warsaw against the German fascists ....
On the Southern Front near Melitopol and in the male fighter regiment, a Russian pilot girl, whose name was White Lily, fought. It was impossible to shoot her down in aerial combat. On board her fighter was painted a flower - a white lily.
Once the regiment was returning from a combat mission, the White Lily flew in the rear - only the most experienced pilots receive such an honor.
The German fighter Me-109 guarded her, hiding in a cloud. He fired a burst at the White Lily and disappeared into the cloud again. Wounded, she turned the plane around and rushed after the German. She never returned back ... Already after the war, her remains were accidentally discovered by local boys when they were catching snakes in a mass grave in the village of Dmitrievka, Shakhtersky district of Donetsk region.
Miss Pavlichenko
In the Primorsky Army, one among the men - sailors, a girl - a sniper, fought. Ludmila Pavlichenko. By July 1942, Lyudmila already had 309 destroyed German soldiers and officers (including 36 enemy snipers) on her account.
In the same 1942, she was sent with a delegation to Canada and the United States. 
States. During the trip, she was at the reception of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. Later, Eleanor Roosevelt invited Lyudmila Pavlichenko on a trip around the country. American country singer Woody Guthrie wrote the song "Miss Pavlichenko" about her.
In 1943, Pavlichenko was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
"For Zina Tusnolobova!"
Regiment medical instructor (nurse) Zina Tusnolobova fought in a rifle regiment on the Kalinin Front near Velikiye Luki.
She walked in the first chain along with the fighters, bandaging the wounded. In February 1943, in the battle for the Gorshechnoye station in the Kursk region, while trying to help the wounded platoon commander, she herself was seriously wounded: her legs were broken. At this time, the Germans launched a counterattack. Tusnolobova tried to pretend to be dead, but one of the Germans noticed her, and with the blows of his boots and butt he tried to finish off the nurse.
At night, a nurse showing signs of life was discovered by a reconnaissance group, transferred to the location of the Soviet troops and on the third day taken to a field hospital. Her hands and lower legs were frostbitten and had to be amputated. She left the hospital on prostheses and with prosthetic hands. But she didn't lose heart.
Got better. Got married. She gave birth to three children and raised them. True, her mother helped her raise children. She died in 1980 at the age of 59.
Zinaida's letter was read to the soldiers in units before the assault on Polotsk:
Revenge me! Revenge for my Native Polotsk!
May this letter reach the heart of each of you. This is written by a man whom the Nazis deprived of everything - happiness, health, youth. I am 23 years old. For 15 months now I have been lying, chained to a hospital bed. I have no arms or legs now. The Nazis did it.
I was a laboratory chemist. When the war broke out, together with other Komsomol members, she voluntarily went to the front. Here I participated in the battles, endured the wounded. For the removal of 40 soldiers along with their weapons, the government awarded me the Order of the Red Star. In total, I carried 123 wounded soldiers and commanders from the battlefield.
In the last battle, when I rushed to the aid of the wounded platoon commander, I was also wounded, both legs were broken. The Nazis went on a counterattack. There was no one to pick me up. I pretended to be dead. A fascist approached me. He kicked me in the stomach, then began to beat me with a butt on the head, in the face ...
And now I'm disabled. I recently learned to write. I am writing this letter in a stub right hand which is cut off above the elbow. I got dentures, and maybe I'll learn to walk. If only I could pick up a machine gun at least once more to get even with the Nazis for blood. For torment, for my warped life!
Russian people! Soldiers! I was your comrade, walked with you in the same row. Now I can't fight anymore. And I beg you: take revenge! Remember and do not spare the damned fascists. Destroy them like mad dogs. Take revenge on them for me, for hundreds of thousands of Russian slaves driven into German slavery. And let each maiden's burning tear, like a drop of molten lead, incinerate another German.
My friends! When I was in a hospital in Sverdlovsk, the Komsomol members of a Ural plant, who took patronage over me, built five tanks at an inopportune time and named them after me. The realization that these tanks are now beating the Nazis gives great relief to my torment...
It's very hard for me. At twenty-three years of age, to be in the position I was in ... Eh! Not even a tenth of what I dreamed about, what I aspired to ... But I do not lose heart. I believe in myself, I believe in my strength, I believe in you, my dear! I believe that the Motherland will not leave me. I live in the hope that my grief will not remain unavenged, that the Germans will pay dearly for my torment, for the suffering of my loved ones.
And I ask you, relatives: when you go to the assault, remember me!
Remember - and let each of you kill at least one fascist!
Zina Tusnolobova, guard foreman of the medical service.
Moscow, 71, 2nd Donskoy proezd, 4-a, Institute of Prosthetics, room 52.
Newspaper "Forward to the enemy", May 13, 1944.
tank girls
The tanker has a very hard job: loading shells, collecting and repairing broken tracks, working with a shovel, crowbar, sledgehammer, and carrying logs. And most often under enemy fire.
In the 220th tank brigade, the T-34 was with us on the Leningrad Front as a driver, technician-lieutenant Valya Krikaleva. In battle, a German anti-tank gun smashed the caterpillar of her tank. Valya jumped out of the tank and began to repair the caterpillar. A German machine gunner scribbled it across her chest. Comrades did not have time to cover it. So the wonderful girl tanker went into eternity. We, tankers from the Leningrad Front, still remember her.
On the Western front in 1941, the company commander, tanker Captain Oktyabrsky, fought on the T-34. He died a heroic death in August 1941. The young wife Maria Oktyabrskaya, who remained in the rear, decided to take revenge on the Germans for the death of her husband.
She sold her house, all her property and sent a letter to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich with a request to allow her to buy a T-34 tank with the proceeds and take revenge on the Germans for their tanker husband killed by them:
Moscow, Kremlin To the Chairman of the State Defense Committee. Supreme Commander.
Dear Joseph Vissarionovich!
In the battles for the Motherland, my husband, regimental commissar Ilya Fedotovich Oktyabrsky, died. For his death, for the death of all Soviet people, tortured by fascist barbarians, I want to take revenge on the fascist dogs, for which I contributed all my personal savings - 50,000 rubles - to the state bank to build a tank. I ask you to name the tank "Fighting Girlfriend" and send me to the front as the driver of this tank. I have the specialty of a driver, I have an excellent command of a machine gun, I am a Voroshilov shooter.
I send you warm greetings and wish you health for many, many years to the fear of enemies and to the glory of our Motherland.
OCTOBER Maria Vasilievna.
Tomsk, Belinsky, 31
Stalin ordered to take Maria Oktyabrskaya to the Ulyanovsk Tank School, to train her, to give her a T-34 tank. After graduating from college, Maria was awarded the military rank of technician-lieutenant driver.
She was sent to that section of the Kalinin Front where her husband fought.
On January 17, 1944, in the vicinity of the Krynki station in the Vitebsk region, a left sloth was smashed by a shell near the tank "Fighting Girlfriend". The mechanic Oktyabrskaya tried to repair the damage under enemy fire, but a fragment of a mine that exploded nearby seriously wounded her in the eye.
She underwent surgery in a field hospital, and then was taken by plane to a front-line hospital, but the wound turned out to be too severe, and she died in March 1944.
Katya Petlyuk is one of the nineteen women whose gentle hands drove tanks towards the enemy. Katya was the commander of the T-60 light tank on the Southwestern Front west of Stalingrad.
Katya Petlyuk got the T-60 light tank. For convenience in battle, each machine had its own name. The names of the tanks were all impressive: “Eagle”, “Falcon”, “Terrible”, “Glory”, and on the turret of the tank that Katya Petlyuk received, an unusual one was displayed - “Baby”.
The tankers chuckled: “We have already hit the mark - a baby in the “Baby”.
Her tank was connected. She walked behind the T-34, and if one of them was hit, then she approached the wrecked tank on her T-60 and helped the tankers, delivered spare parts, and was a liaison officer. The fact is that not all T-34s had radio stations.
Only many years after the war, senior sergeant from the 56th tank brigade Katya Petlyuk learned the story of the birth of her tank: it turns out that it was built with the money of Omsk preschool children, who, wanting to help the Red Army, gave their accumulated toys for the construction of a combat vehicle and dolls. In a letter to the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, they asked to name the tank "Baby". Omsk preschoolers collected 160,886 rubles…
A couple of years later, Katya was already leading the T-70 tank into battle (they still had to part with the Malyutka). Participated in the battle for Stalingrad, and then as part of the Don Front in the encirclement and defeat of the Nazi troops. Participated in the battle on the Kursk Bulge, liberated the left-bank Ukraine. She was seriously wounded - at the age of 25 she became an invalid of the 2nd group.
After the war - lived in Odessa. Having taken off her officer's epaulettes, she trained as a lawyer and worked as the head of the registry office.
She was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the Order of the Patriotic War II degree, medals.
Many years later, Marshal of the Soviet Union I. I. Yakubovsky, the former commander of the 91st separate tank brigade, wrote in the book “Earth on Fire”: “... but in general it is difficult to measure how many times the heroism of a person exalts. They say about him that this is courage of a special order. They, of course, were possessed by a participant in the Battle of Stalingrad, Ekaterina Petlyuk.
Based on the diary entries of Vladimir Ivanovich Trunin and the Internet.
The female part of our multinational people, together with men, children and the elderly, bore all the hardships of the Great War on their shoulders. Women wrote many glorious pages in the annals of the war.
Women were on the front line: doctors, pilots, snipers, in air defense units, signalmen, scouts, drivers, topographers, reporters, even tankers, artillerymen and served in the infantry. Women actively participated in the underground, in the partisan movement.
Women took on many “purely male” specialties in the rear, as the men went to war, and someone had to stand at the machine, drive a tractor, become a lineman railways, master the profession of a metallurgist, etc.
Figures and facts
Military service in the USSR is an honorable duty not only for men, but also for women. This right is written in Art. 13th Law on universal conscription, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939. It says that the People's Commissariats of Defense and the Navy are given the right to take into the army and navy women who have medical, veterinary and special -technical training, as well as to involve them in training camps. In wartime, women with this training may be drafted into the army and navy for auxiliary and special service. The feeling of pride and gratitude of Soviet women to the party and government regarding the decision of the session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was expressed by the deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR E.M. Kozhushina from the Vinnitsa region: “All of us, young patriots,” she said, “are ready to defend our beautiful Motherland. We women are proud that we have been given the right to protect her on an equal footing with men. And if our party, our government calls, then we will all defend our wonderful country and give the enemy a crushing rebuff.”
Already the first news of Germany's perfidious attack on the USSR aroused in women boundless anger and burning hatred for enemies. At meetings and rallies held throughout the country, they declared their readiness to stand up for their homeland. Women and girls went to the party and Komsomol organizations, to the military commissariats, and there they persistently sought to be sent to the front. Among the volunteers who applied to be sent to the active army, up to 50% of the applications were from women.
During the first week of the war, applications for sending to the front were received from 20,000 Muscovites, and three months later, 8,360 women and girls of Moscow achieved admission to the ranks of the defenders of the Motherland. Among the Leningrad Komsomol members who filed applications in the first days of the war with a request to be sent to the army, 27 thousand applications were from girls. More than 5,000 girls from the Moskovsky district of Leningrad were sent to the front. 2 thousand of them became fighters of the Leningrad Front and selflessly fought on the outskirts of their native city.
Rosa Shanina. Destroyed 54 enemies.
Created June 30, 1941 State Committee Defense (GKO) adopted a number of resolutions on the mobilization of women to serve in the air defense forces, communications, internal security, on military highways ... Several Komsomol mobilizations were carried out, in particular, the mobilization of Komsomol women in Navy, in the Air Force and signal troops.
In July 1941, over 4 thousand women Krasnodar Territory asked to be sent to the active army. In the first days of the war, 4,000 women from the Ivanovo region volunteered. About 4,000 girls from the Chita region, more than 10,000 from the Karaganda region, became Red Army soldiers on Komsomol vouchers.
From 600 thousand to 1 million women fought at the front in different periods, 80 thousand of them were Soviet officers.
The Central Women's School of Sniper Training provided the front with 1,061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors. School graduates destroyed over 11,280 enemy soldiers and officers during the war.
At the end of 1942, the Ryazan Infantry School was ordered to train about 1,500 officers from female volunteers. By January 1943, over 2,000 women had arrived at the school.
For the first time in the years of the Patriotic War, women's combat formations appeared in the Armed Forces of our country. Of the female volunteers, 3 aviation regiments were formed: the 46th Guards Night Bomber, 125th Guards Bomber, 586th Air Defense Fighter Regiment; Separate Women's Volunteer Rifle Brigade, Separate Women's Reserve Rifle Regiment, Central Women's Sniper School, Separate Women's Company of Sailors.
Snipers Faina Yakimova, Roza Shanina, Lidia Volodina.
Being near Moscow, the 1st Separate Women's Reserve Regiment also trained cadres of motorists and snipers, machine gunners and junior commanders of combat units. There were 2899 women in the personnel.
20,000 women served in the Special Moscow Air Defense Army.
Some women were also commanders. You can name the Hero of the Soviet Union Valentina Grizodubova, who throughout the war commanded the 101st long-range aviation regiment, where men served. She herself made about two hundred sorties, delivering explosives, food to the partisans, and taking out the wounded.
Colonel-engineer Antonina Pristavko was the head of the ammunition department of the artillery department of the army of the Polish Army. She ended the war near Berlin. Among her awards are the orders: "Rebirth of Poland" IV class, "Grunwald Cross" III class, "Golden Cross of Merit" and others.
In the first war year of 1941, 19 million women were employed in agricultural work, mainly on collective farms. This means that almost all the burdens of providing food for the army and the country fell on their shoulders, on their laboring hands.
5 million women were employed in industry, and many of them were also entrusted with command posts - directors, heads of workshops, foremen.
Culture, education, health care have become a matter of concern, mainly for women.
Ninety-five women in our country have the high title of Heroes of the Soviet Union. Among them are our astronauts.
The largest representation of participants in the Great Patriotic War among other specialties were female doctors.
Of the total number of doctors, of whom there were about 700 thousand in the active army, 42% were women, and among surgeons - 43.4%.
More than 2 million people served as middle and junior medical workers at the fronts. Women (medical assistants, sisters, medical instructors) made up the majority - over 80 percent.
During the war years, a coherent system of medical and sanitary services for the fighting army was created. There was the so-called doctrine of military field medicine. At all stages of the evacuation of the wounded - from the company (battalion) to the hospitals of the deep rear - female doctors selflessly carried out the noble mission of mercy.
Glorious patriots served in all branches of the military - in aviation and marines, on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, the Northern Fleet, the Caspian and Dnieper flotillas, in floating naval hospitals and hospital trains. Together with the horsemen, they went into deep raids behind enemy lines, were in partisan detachments. With the infantry they reached Berlin. And everywhere the doctors provided specialized assistance to those injured in the battles.
It is estimated that the female medical instructors of rifle companies, medical battalions, and artillery batteries helped seventy percent of the wounded soldiers return to duty.
For special courage and heroism, 15 female doctors were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
The sculptural monument in Kaluga reminds of the feat of women - military doctors. In the park on Kirov Street, on a high pedestal, a front-line nurse in a raincoat, with a sanitary bag over her shoulder, rises to her full height. The city of Kaluga during the war years was the focus of numerous hospitals, which cured and returned to service tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders. That is why they built a monument in a holy place, which always has flowers.
History has not yet known such a massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland, which was shown by Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War. Having achieved enrollment in the ranks of the soldiers of the Red Army, women and girls mastered almost all military specialties and, together with their husbands, fathers and brothers, served in all military branches of the Soviet Armed Forces.
Unknown Soviet female soldiers from an anti-tank artillery unit.
Time is powerless to weaken the memory of mankind about
courage and unbending steadfastness of the Soviet people who rose to
defense of their Motherland, their Fatherland. This
the war was waged by the Soviet people against the Nazi invaders not only for the sake of
the Soviet people, but also for the sake of other peoples, for the sake of world peace. Invaluable
contribution to the victory over fascism was made by the Soviet
women who stood up to defend their homeland. In the article “On the moral character of our people”, M. I. Kalinin wrote:
all the previous ones pale before the great epic of the present war, before the heroism
and the sacrifice of Soviet women, showing civic prowess, endurance
at the loss of loved ones and enthusiasm in the fight against such strength and, I would say,
majesty such as has never been seen in the past.”
Soviet women accomplished an immortal feat in the name of the Motherland in the rear
countries. Overcoming the greatest difficulties of the war years, sparing no effort, they did
everything to provide the front with what was required to defeat the enemy. Woman
raised funds for the national defense fund,
food and clothing for the population affected by the invaders became
donors. Throughout the war, women in the home front kept in touch with the wars of the Red
The armies showed constant concern for them and their families.
Sending gifts to wars
patriotic letters, making trips with delegations to the front, they provided
on the defenders of the Motherland and moral influence, inspired them to new combat
exploits.
Soviet women as equal members
socialist state, were during the Great Patriotic War and
equal defenders. Women and girls served in the Red Army,
participated in the partisan movement, accepted the most direct and
active participation in the expulsion of the occupiers from Soviet soil and in their complete
rout.
On the military and labor exploits of Soviet women
written many books, essays, documentaries, magazines and newspapers
articles. Poets and writers devoted many
their works.
Already during the Patriotic War, the first
pages of history about the contribution of Soviet women to the defense of the socialist Motherland.
The military and labor exploits of Soviet women found consecration in a number of works, in
the first decade after the war. And yet, many of them were
significant shortcomings, primarily related to the limited
source base of those years.
It is known that the war began at an extremely
unfavorable for the USSR balance of forces with Germany. Especially hard
the loss of important economic regions affected the development of the military economy
countries at the beginning of the war. As a result
occupation by the enemy of a significant part of the Soviet territory, the country lost
territory that before the war produced 68% steel, 60% aluminum, 62%
mined coal, etc. More than once during the war, Soviet soldiers had
one rifle for two. Through great effort
by 1942 the USSR became
produce more weapons than Germany. Stalin raising the people to
holy war with fascism, warned the Soviet people against underestimating the enemy,
armed with powerful military equipment and
experienced in modern warfare.
Stalin urged the people to
in order to “defend every inch of Soviet land in a merciless struggle against the enemy,
fight to the last drop of blood for our cities and villages, show courage,
initiative and ingenuity characteristic of our people.” Countrywide
slogans sounded “Everything for the front!
everything to win! ".
This table shows that the number of women
employed in production is constantly growing and in 5 years they have increased by more than 1.5 times.
Years 1940 in thousands 1945 in thousands as % of 1940 Total people employed in production 47520 52820 111 Men 35550 34210 96 Women 11970 18610 156
The use of female labor in production
showed another great advantage of the Soviet socialist system. And
in this matter, not a single capitalist state can compare with the USSR.
The thoughts and aspirations of the patriots of the Soviet rear are well expressed in the appeals of the participants
two thousandth rally of women of the Ivanovo region. “Revenge and the great fair
anger, they wrote, does not fade for a moment in the hearts of each of us. Remember
that the front passes through our great Motherland, to the smallest remote
town, to the most remote village! We are all fighters formidable, merciless to the enemy
people's army! There is only one aspiration of every honest Soviet
man - everything for the front! Everything for victory! The front demands - it will be done! ".
Soviet power, socialist way
production provided the women of our country with opportunities for active labor
activities. The active participation of women in creative work has dramatically changed their
position in the national economy
increased their share in the production of the country. Thanks to the care and great
organizational work of the party already in the years of the first five-year plans, Soviet women
became active builders of socialism in the USSR. Women have also mastered
professions that were previously only possible for men: in 1939, only in
metalworking industry, about 50 thousand women worked as turners, 40
thousand locksmiths, 24 thousand millers, 14 thousand toolmakers, etc.
Soviet women also took their place in the ranks of the intelligentsia. If before the victory of October
female engineer was a rare exception in Russia, then in 1934 women
accounted for 10% of the engineering and technical personnel of the industry of the USSR, and in the chemical
industry, they accounted for 22.5%, etc.
call Communist Party to women - replace
men who went to the front met with a warm response from them. Hundreds of thousands of girls
and women voluntarily came to work. Only in Moscow during the days of the war on
production came 374 thousand women
housewives. Of these, more than 100ts. - industrial enterprises of the capital.
In besieged Leningrad, already in the first days of the war,
Kirov Plant 500 housewives, and their number increased every day. In August 1941, women made up 90% of all workers in the machine shop of this plant. During the first two months of the war
11,600 women came to Gorky's factories and factories, and they were mostly
housewives. They held a variety of positions and became blacksmiths,
locksmiths, moulders, heaters
etc.
The influx of female labor into the country's industry at the expense of housewives
increased from month to month. By October 1941, women made up 45% of all
workers of the country.
On the increase in the share of female labor among
qualified workers can be judged from the following data (in %) The main professions of skilled workers At the beginning of 1941 At the end of 1942 Among steam engine operators 6 33 Among compressor operators 27 44 Among metal turners 16 33 Among metal welders 17 31 Among locksmiths 3.9 12 Among blacksmiths and stampers 11 50 Among car drivers 3.5 19
Many women entered the industries that produced
defense products. So, by the end of 1942, in the most important sectors of the defense
industry, women ranged from 30% to 60%. With the advent of a large number
women in production, training in their professions has become important, as well as
as well as the improvement of industrial qualifications.
Many working women mastered new
professions right at the machine, at the workplace. Most girls and women
acquired work qualifications in short-term courses.
On the fronts of the Great Patriotic War
Among the volunteers who applied to be sent to
active army, up to 50% of applications were from women. Only in Barnaul
Altai Territory, more than 800 applications of volunteers were submitted, including 474
from women. Already in August 1941, 4544 women and girls of the region were trained
courses for nurses and nurses. Soviet patriots went to the front, courageously
fought against the fascist invaders, shedding their blood and parting with
life in order to preserve the lives and protect unarmed women, children and
old people, so that the native land is free again, so that happiness and
the world again became the ordinary life of a working person.
Faithful daughter of the Motherland Alexander Okunaev, fallen
the death of the brave, going into battle, left a note that said: "I
went to the front to defend the Motherland. I
wanted to take revenge on the Nazis for
immeasurable grief, suffering and evil that they brought to our land. I had to kill them. I understood and
I felt in my heart that I couldn’t live without it.” Boundless love for the Motherland, for the Communist Party, for
gave birth to her people from Soviet patriots
heroism and courage, strength and fortitude in the fight against the hated invaders
.
Giving an assessment of the feat of arms of Soviet women,
who went through the entire battle path along with the male wars, Marshal of the Soviet Union
A. I. Eremenko wrote: “There is hardly a single military specialty, with
which our brave women have not done as well as their brothers,
husbands and fathers." At the initiative of the Central Committee of the Komsomol in 1942 in the system
Vseobuch, formed under the People's Commissariat of Defense on October 1, 1941, Komsomol youth
divisions. which included girls. More than 222
thousand women fighters-specialists, including: mortar gunners - 6097 people, easel machine gunners - 4522 people,
light machine gunners - 7796 people, machine gunners - 15290 people,
sniper shooters - 102333 people, signalmen of all specialties -
45509 etc.
Many thousands of Soviet women and girls bravely fought for
socialist Fatherland in the Air Force. In 1942 from
female volunteers were formed
three aviation regiments that have passed a glorious combat path. Many women served in
other parts of Soviet aviation. In 1944, for example, in the 13th Air Army
Trans-Baikal Front served 1749 women and
girls, of which 1613-
Komsomol members. 3,000 women served in the 10th Air Army of the Far Eastern Front
and girls, including 712 communists. And in the 4th Air Army of the 2nd
Belorussian Front, which included the 46th Guards Women's Aviation Regiment,
4376 women served, of which 237 were officers. 862 sergeants, 1125
privates and 2117 civilians. Pilots of the women's regiment fought air battles
with the enemy, cleared the way for infantry, tanks, helped them in breaking through the enemy
defense, in the pursuit, encirclement and destruction of enemy groups, etc.
Many bright pages in the history of the fight against the hated
fearless scouts entered the enemy. Risking their lives, they went to the front line
line of fire, penetrated the territory of enemy fortifications, went into deep
rear of the enemy, delivering a lot of valuable information. There are many scouts
kind words were said, books and poems were written. It's about them, about the scouts, wrote
poet I. Selvinsky:
And what a stubborn force
In the outline of this mouth!
In this girl - all of Russia,
All to the birthmark spilled.
Thousands of Soviet patriots - fighters of the invisible front
for the feats committed during the Patriotic War, were awarded orders and
medals of the country, and N. T. Gnilitskaya and H. A. Kulman were awarded the title of Hero
Soviet Union.
A significant contribution to the struggle for the life of Soviet soldiers
made by those patriots who
worked in military hospital trains, in front-line and rear hospitals. This
a poem by the poet Joseph Utkin is dedicated to a nurse:
When leaned over me
The suffering of my sister, -
The pain immediately became not so:
Not so strong, not so sharp.
It's like I've been watered down
Living and dead water
As if Russia is above me
She bowed her blond head! ..
Soviet women took direct and
active participation in all decisive battles of the Soviet Armed Forces. Big
they made a contribution to the defense of the hero cities of Moscow, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Kyiv,
Odessa, Sevastopol, Novorossiysk, Kerch, Minsk and other important military
operations. Participants in the armed struggle against Nazi Germany set an example
selfless service to the motherland, his people, devotion to the Leninist party.
The main part of Hitler's plan "Barbaross" was
the destruction of Moscow, and in its place a huge sea was to appear, namely
therefore, in the battle near Moscow, the patriotism of Soviet women was clearly expressed.
Ten thousand women and girls served in military units and formations that defended
capital of the motherland.
Thousands of Soviet patriot women became workers' and
communist battalions, Moscow divisions of the people's militia. High
patriotism and their contribution to the defense of the capital was brought by each of the 12 Moscow
divisions. Their motto is "Better to die standing than to live on your knees". In fact, they are
did. The fire of their sniper rifles destroyed over 300
fascist German invaders. In addition, Natasha Kovshova, and Masha Polivanova
were the organizers of training in sniper skills. They prepared 26
snipers of the regiment, who also destroyed up to 300 Nazis. In an unequal battle
during the liberation of the Novogorodsk land, the brave patriots died. Soviet
the government posthumously awarded them
honorary title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, not all patriots,
defending the capital, had a chance to see the longed-for day of victory over the enemy.
Many of
they laid down their lives already during the defense of Moscow.
Mass heroism was shown by Soviet soldiers and residents
in the defense of a large industrial center and an important base of the Black Sea Fleet -
Odessa, which lasted 67 days. The enemy threw 18 divisions against the defenders of the city, which
several times the strength of the Soviet troops. But the Headquarters of the Supreme
The High Command gave the order to defend Odessa to the last opportunity
.This order was carried out with honor. Women of Odessa, like men courageously
endured all the hardships and hardships - continuous bombing and shelling, lack
food, and then water, which from September 10, after the capture
waterworks by the enemy, was issued on special cards.
Dozens
brave patriots who distinguished themselves in the battles for Odessa were awarded high
government awards.
Knowing their business well, disciplined and
resourceful warriors proved to be girls who served in the Leningrad
air defense armies. They wrote quite a few bright pages in the history of the hero city from
air pirates. Komsomol member corporal M. A. Vodinskaya was an excellent
instrument operator of the 618th anti-aircraft artillery division of the Leningrad Air Defense Army. She is
gave 100% accuracy in determining the target. According to her calculation, the beat was not hit
one enemy aircraft. Exceptional courage and courage were shown by the Soviet
patriots in the struggle for the lives of wounded soldiers. When the fierce fighting began,
Stalingrad hospitals daily 500 girls - combatants and nurses
worked to care for the wounded.
When 25
August 1942 at night in Traktorozavodsky
the district committee of the Komsomol appealed
commander of one of the military units
asking for help in
carrying out the wounded to the crossing, secretary of the district committee
Lidia Plastikova, along with 25 girls, went to the forefront. Under
machine-gun fire, explosions of mines and shells, they bandaged all the wounded and
they were taken to the left bank of the Volga.
Courage and bravery demonstrated
female warriors and at the final stage
Great Patriotic War. 1418 days they walked along the front roads,
overcoming all difficulties and hardships
military life, admiring his courage and endurance, inspiring young
few experienced soldiers.
In the last blows against the fascist army,
new strategic weapons - searchlights,
whose calculations consisted mainly of girls. Soviet patriots
We were proud of our participation in this important and responsible mission. bright beams
searchlights, the enemy was blinded and confused, and while the Nazis came to their senses from a powerful
light strike, our artillery and tanks broke through the enemy defenses,
and the infantry went on the attack, along with the projectors in carrying out this historic operation
40 female snipers also took part. And the Motherland appreciated
the feats of arms of their brave daughters,
surrounded them with attention and care. For military merit in the fight against
more than 150 thousand women were awarded military
orders and medals.
Many of them received several combat awards. 200
women were awarded Orders of Soldier's Glory, and four patriots became full cavaliers of the Order of Glory.
The struggle of Soviet women against the invaders in
behind enemy lines
Partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War
war was important integral part Soviet people against Hitler
Germany, one of the most active forms of participation of the broad masses in
defeat of foreign invaders. It was truly the whole popular movement,
generated by the just nature of war, the desire to protect
socialist gains, honor and independence of the homeland of the Soviets.
It was not easy for women partisans. But love for
socialist Fatherland and hatred for the enemies of the Motherland helped to overcome all
difficulties and hardships.
In the partisan units
whole families of Soviet patriots fought. A resident of Taganrog M. K. Trubareva came to
partisans of the Taganrog detachment together with their daughters Valentina, Raisa and son
Petey.
Big number
women and girls partisans received special training. During the war
only in the Central Schools of the Partisan Movement received military training
1262 women. In the ranks of the partisans were women of all ages, all professions and
nationalities of our vast country. According to the registration data of the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement on January 1, 1944. Number of members of the partisan movement Total 287,453 Men 26,746 Women 26,707
AT
difficult days for the country when the enemy
rushed to Moscow, the feat of Zoya was similar to the feat of the legendary Danko.
going on
execution, she did not ask for mercy and did not bow her head before the executioners. She firmly
believed in the inevitable victory over the enemy, in the triumph of the cause for which she
fought. Partisan scouts made a great contribution to the holy war
Smolensk region. The fact that many military operations were successfully carried out
partisans, there is a share of hard work of scouts. Lots of important information about
the enemy was delivered by scouts communist D. T. Firichenkova and a Komsomol member
Ludmila Kalinovskaya.
Often women - fighters of partisan detachments
had to participate in the performance of tasks to commit acts of sabotage.
Collecting information about the enemy, they distributed underground literature, leaflets, conducted political
work among the population of areas occupied by the enemy, and Rima Shershneva closed
with her body the embrasure of an enemy machine gun, thereby saving more than one life.
The Soviet government posthumously awarded the patriot of the Motherland the Order of the Red
Banner.
Navlinskaya underground worker Tamara Stepanova and Maria
Dunaev was promoted and brought to
partisan detachment of 30 encircled artillerymen who served in the German police.
To prevent hijacking in Nazi Germany 2
thousand young Red Guards, under the cover of night, Lyudmila Shevtsova made her way to the stock exchange building, squeezed out the window and
entered the room. With the help of artillery gunpowder and gasoline, she set fire to
paper. Thus, all were destroyed.
documents about sending Soviet people to hard labor.
Patriots shared the last piece with the partisans
bread, gave them their belongings, saved them from inevitable death. Only in December
1943 under the leadership of the secretary of the Antopol underground district party committee
Brest region A. I. Khromova
women of the Antopol region were collected and sent to the partisans of the detachment
named after Kirov 40 warm shirts, 71 pairs of underwear, 10 sheepskin coats, 20 pairs
felt boots, 30 woolen scarves, etc.
Invaluable
contributed to the fight against fascists
women and young girls who were not even 18 at the time they left
to the front.
71 years have passed since the spring when the Soviet
the people, all progressive mankind celebrated the victory over fascism.
The inspirer and organizer of this victory is the Communist Party
Soviet Union. It is she - the party of Lenin raised the Soviet people to
a just, liberation war, turned the USSR into a single fighting camp,
mobilized all the material and spiritual forces of the country and people to defeat
fascist Germany. Creating the Armed Forces of the country, the Communist Party
provided them with first-class equipment, led their combat operations. His
through everyday and not tired work, she brought up high moral, political and
combat qualities of soldiers and officers who fought on the fronts of the Patriotic
war, among the partisans waging war against the invaders in the captured Soviet
territory, from the workers and peasants who forged victory over the enemy in the rear of the country.
Great Patriotic War, in which the Soviet
Union won, not only historical event that determined the fate
humanity. In these difficult years, the ideological,
moral and ethical traits are inherent in a person in a socialist society.
The war on our women was a great test.
countries that not only endured the bitterness of the loss of loved ones, endured
not only the greatest hardships and hardships of wartime, but all
hardships and hardships of front-line life. And the women who worked in the rear of the country carried
bear the brunt of the work on their shoulders
manufacturing and agriculture.
The Soviet people remember with gratitude the soldiers of the Armed Forces of the country, the brave
partisans, home front workers, whose heroic hands ensured world peace.
This victory delivered many peoples of Europe and Asia from the yoke of the fascist invaders.
The women of the Land of Soviets also contributed to the victory over fascism.
