#soviet partisans

^ alexey maresyev, 1916-2001. between august 1941 and march 1942, he shot down four german planes. on 5 april, 1942, his plane was shot down near staraya russa, where he was nearly captured. the crash resulted in extensive injuries, completely shattering both of his lower legs and causing extreme lacerations. he crawled for 18 days through a blizzard on his shattered legs and with gangrene and sepsis, sneaking past several german patrol units on the way. when he reached soviet troops, he was put on a stretcher and covered with a sheet, as it seemed certain that he would die. but a doctor operated on him and amputated both of his legs above the knee without permission. he worked furiously on rehabilitation and learned to control his prosthetics, and he returned to combat as a pilot in june of 1943. after returning, he shot down 3 german planes in a single battle. he later earned a phd in history and became a member of the supreme soviet.

^ mariya shcherbachenko, 1922-2016. she hid during the german occupation of her village, and then constructed defensive structures on the donets river. she was trained as a medic and was sent to combat in ukraine. she was one of the first 13 soviet soldiers to reach the dnieper river in september of 1943, and beginning on on 4 october, she personally carried 112 wounded soldiers from the battlefield and back across the river, providing first aid until they reached a medical station. she continued to serve on the frontlines until 1944, when she began attending medical school. however, she dropped out and completed a law degree instead, later working as a lawyer in kyiv.

^ lyudmila pavlichenko, 1916-1974. she was engaged to a fellow sniper who was fatally wounded; she had to carry his body off the battlefield. her longest sniper battle lasted over 24 hours, against a german sniper who had already killed several of her comrades. they spent an entire day silently hunting each other, until she finally shot him. by the time she was wounded and taken out of active duty in 1942, she had killed 309 nazis. on a visit to the united states to meet president roosevelt, she said “i’m only 25, gentlemen, and i’ve already killed 309 fascist oppressors. don’t you think, gentlemen, that you’ve been hiding behind my back for too long?” after the war, she completed her education in history, which had been put on hold by the war, and she worked as a historian and research assistant at soviet navy headquarters.

^ valentina grizodubova, 1909-1993. she commanded an aviation unit that carried out thousands of sorties to provide essential supplies to partisans and to evacuate the injured. her unit delivered thousands of tonnes of ammunition to resistance fighters. under her orders, a new airstrip was built near the dnieper river to facilitate safer conditions for officers along the ukrainian front. she was the only woman out of 10 members to serve on the “extraordinary state commission for ascertaining and investigating crimes perpetrated by the german-fascist invaders and their accomplices” (ChGK), which testified at nuremberg. later, she trained test pilot svetlana savitskaya (1948-), who became a cosmonaut and the first woman to complete a spacewalk.

^ semyon nomokonov, 1900-1973. he was evenk, and nicknamed the “taiga shaman” by the nazis. he was a lifelong hunter who began his military service as a medic. while carrying a wounded soldier from the field, he shot a distant german sniper dead without aiming, after which he officially became a sniper himself. he was known for his incredible eyesight and innovative tactics, using mirrors and sticks to distract the enemy soldiers. he killed 368 nazis, including a major general, and was wounded 8 times. he mostly used a simple rifle without a telescopic sight, and yet he had remarkable accuracy even at long distances and with very little time to aim. after the war, he returned to his village on a horse and became a carpenter.

^ yevdokiya bershanskaya, 1913-1982. she commanded the all-female 588th night bomber regiment, later the 46th guards night bomber aviation regiment. her pilots were extremely fierce and accurate. they had a habit of idling their engines and dropping to glide directly above their targets before releasing their bombs and turning their engines back to full power. this technique inspired their nazi-given nickname of “night witches”. they flew over 23,000 sorties and dropped over 3,000 tonnes of bombs. under bershanskaya’s command, 23 members of the regiment were awarded hero of the soviet union, with bershanskaya being awarded order of the red banner twice and becoming the only woman to ever receive the order of suvorov. after the war, she married a fellow bomber and had three daughters.

^ ivan sereda, 1919-1950. he graduated from culinary school shortly before the war began and he soon became a cook for troops on the latvian front. when german tanks appeared behind their lines while he was alone, he hid in the forest. when the nazis stopped to raid his field kitchen for supplies, he attacked them with the only weapon he had, an axe. the tanks began to fire at him with machine guns, but he jumped on top of them and bent the barrels with his axe. he then began to yell commands to his fellow soldiers, who weren’t there at the time (although the germans didn’t know that). he ordered the imaginary soldiers to fire at the tanks and he used his axe to simulate gunfire. when the germans tried to escape their tanks, he held them at gunpoint with an old and dysfunctional rifle until his comrades actually arrived and subdued them. after a serious injury, he was demobilised and served as the head of a village council.

^ zoya kosmodemyanskaya, 1923-1941. although still a high school student living in moscow, she volunteered as a partisan in 1941. on 27 november, she received an assignment with two other partisans to burn a village occupied by a german cavalry regiment. one of the partisans did not wait for the others and left their designated meeting spot early. the second was captured. when kosmodemyanskaya found herself alone, she returned to the village to continue the arson campaign. she was captured, stripped, lashed over 200 times, burned repeatedly, and tortured and interrogated in several other ways, but she refused to give the germans any information about partisan activities. the next morning she was marched to the centre of the village with a sign around her neck reading “houseburner”. she was hanged, and her body was left hanging for several weeks. her breasts were cut off by germans and her body was desecrated by collaborators. she became famous after an elderly peasant who witnessed her execution told the story to a reporter visiting the village once the nazis had left. the witness said “they were hanging her and she was giving a speech. they were hanging her and she was threatening them.” when stalin heard about her, he said “here is the people’s heroine” and he ordered soviets not to take germans from the regiment that executed her as prisoners, but to kill them. soviet sources say that her last words were “hey, comrades! why are you looking so sad? be brave, fight, beat the nazis, burn, wipe them out! i'm not afraid to die, comrades. it is happiness to die for one's people!” or “farewell, comrades! fight, do not be afraid! stalin is with us! stalin will come!” she told the germans “you hang me now, but i'm not alone. there are 200,000,000 of us. you can't hang us all. they will avenge me.”

^ yekaterina budanova, 1916-1943. she was one of only two female flying aces in the world, along with fellow soviet lydia litvyak (1921-1943). with litvyak and other famous fighter pilots like maria kuznetsova (1919-1990) and raisa belyaeva (1912-1943), she flew in a regiment founded by marina raskova (1912-1943), who gained stalin’s personal approval to form 3 all-female aviation regiments. budanova is credited with 5+ aerial victories, and was known for her agile and aggressive piloting. although initially skeptical of her skill, her male comrades quickly came to respect her as a formidable fighter, and they trusted her enough to grant her special combat privileges. during her last flight, she engaged in combat with a german fighter plane. her plane caught on fire, forcing her to crash in no-man’s land. farmers pulled her from the aircraft, but she was already dead.

^ roza shanina, 1924-1945. after her brother was killed, she asked to serve but was denied. even when women between 16 and 45 became eligible for the draft, she was not initially called, because the local commissariat wanted to spare her; she was only a teenager and three of her siblings had been killed. after several applications, she was finally admitted to the central women’s sniper training school, where she graduated with honours. she was asked to stay as an instructor, but refused in favour of active duty. after her first kill, she collapsed and entered a state of shock, until her comrades assured her that the nazi she had killed did not deserve to be spared. she later wrote that if she could do it again, she would, gladly. she was widely praised as extremely brave but also caring and kind. the soviets had a policy of sparing snipers, but shanina entered the front lines without permission, and she did not face court martial. she wrote to stalin to ask to be officially sent to the front lines. she performed numerous difficult feats in combat, with at least 59 confirmed kills and several captured, despite being shot in action. she was particularly known for her ability to shoot successful doublets. her diary entries spoke of her hopes to raise children orphaned by the war. one entry read “the essence of my happiness is fighting for the happiness of others. it's strange, why is it that in grammar, the word "happiness" can only be singular? that is counter to its meaning, after all... if it turns necessary to die for the common happiness, then i’m braced to.” in january 1945, her battalion was reduced to 6 people, and she was discovered disembowled, with her chest and abdomen torn open. she was taken to a medical facility and died the following day. a nurse later recalled that during a fleeting moment of consciousness, shanina had said that she regretted doing so little.

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i’m breaking from my fandom niche to give a little history lesson. i first began studying the history of the soviet union because of my interest in ethnomusicology, but it’s now become an obsession of mine in its own right.