two Soviet snipers

During World War II the Soviet Army used young women as snipers. The women served not just as icons of solidarity for propaganda purposes, but were, many of them, authentic war heroines.

Here are two: Roza Shanina and Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

Roza Yegorovna Shanina (Ро́за Его́ровна Ша́нина) was a teacher's aide in a Russian kindergarden when in 1943, at age 19, when she joined the Red Army. She was killed in battle in 1945. In two years of combat duty, she served in major conflicts as the Soviet forces first stopped German advances, then relentlessly pushed them back out of Eastern Europe. During that time, she killed at least 54 enemy combatants, including 12 during the brutal Vilnius Offensive of a single week in July 1944. That winter she was shot in the shoulder but continued fighting and was killed a few weeks later in battle in the Ukraine.

Lyudmila Mikhailivna Pavlichenko (Людмила Михайловна Павличенко) was 23, studying for her Master's Degree in History, when she joined the Red Army. She had previously earned a living as a grinder at the Kiev Arsenal factory and had there become a member of the local rifle club. An excellent marksman (markswoman), she was one of the first women to sign up to fight in what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

During 1941 when she first entered battle as a sniper, the Germans were crushing the Red Army in the south and west. Assigned to a rifle division, she fought for a year in Odessa and the Crimean Peninsula until wounded by mortar fire. By the time she was pulled from combat, she had 309 confirmed kills. She became part of the Soviet propaganda operation after her fame as a sniper spread.

Touring the US in 1942, she was flabbergasted by the superficiality of the American press. The magnitude and significance of the struggle between the Nazi and Soviet armies in Hitler's Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941 is now almost impossible to comprehend. As the wikipedia article on the campaign says, "Operation Barbarossa and the areas that fell under it became the site of some of the largest battles, deadliest atrocities, highest casualties, and most horrific conditions for Soviets and Germans alike – all of which influenced the course of both World War II and 20th century history." Lyudmila Pavlichenko fought amidst this carnage and suffered with the hundreds of thousands of others who fought in the same battles. Though impossible to comprehend much about her experience at the time, it is possible to imagine her shock when, as the wikipedia article on her reports, one reporter, during her tour of the US, "criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat." The wikipedia article on her says that of the 2,000 women sharpshooters, only 500 survived the war; she was one of these survivors.

{Roza Shanina; source: wikipedia}

{Roza Shanina; source: flickr}

{Roza Shanina; source: flickr}

{Roza Shanina; source: wikipedia}

{Lyudmila_Pavlichenko; source: wikipedia}

{Lyudmila_Pavlichenko; source: pic.itiexue.net}

{Lyudmila_Pavlichenko; source: wikipedia}

Here are some Youtube videos giving these and a few more still shots of the two women.





This video gives still shots of the two and also a few other Soviet snipers.