Equipment of Soviet soldiers during the Great Patriotic War (13 photos). Fashion and style during the Second World War What people wore during wartime

The Great Patriotic War - known and unknown: historical memory and modernity: materials of the international. scientific conf. (Moscow - Kolomna, May 6–8, 2015) / rep. editor: Yu. A. Petrov; Institute grew. history of Russia acad. sciences; Ross. ist. about; Chinese history o-vo, etc. - M.: [IRI RAS], 2015.

June 22, 1941 is the day on which the countdown to the Great Patriotic War began. This is the day that divided the life of mankind into two parts: peaceful (pre-war) and war. 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 indicate that the absolute majority of the population of the Soviet Union made the only correct decision: to devote all their strength to the fight against fascism, to defend their Motherland, their family and friends. Men and women, regardless of age and nationality, non-party members and members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Komsomol members and non-Komsomol members, became the Army of volunteers that lined up to apply for enlistment in the Red Army.

Let us recall that in Art. The 13th Law on General Military Duty, adopted by the IV session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on September 1, 1939, gave the People's Commissariats of Defense and Navy the right to recruit women into the army and navy who have medical, veterinary and special-technical training, as well as attract them to training camps. In wartime, women with the specified training could be drafted into the army and navy to perform auxiliary and special service.

After the announcement of the start of the war, women, citing this article, went to party and Komsomol organizations, to military commissariats and there persistently sought to be sent to the front. Among the volunteers who submitted applications 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 applications of girl volunteers that were submitted in the first days of the war, we see that for young people the war seemed completely different from what it turned out to be in reality. Most of them were confident that the enemy would be defeated in the near future, and therefore everyone sought to quickly participate in its destruction. The military registration and enlistment offices at this time mobilized 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 did we know and know about them? There are many about some, and about most of them we talk about “defenders of the homeland,” volunteers.

It was about them, about those who went to defend their Motherland, that the front-line poet K. Vanshenkin later wrote that they were “knights without fear or 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 path forward, your battlefields,
And everyone was himself in everything,
And everyone had the same goal.

The historiography of the Great Patriotic War is rich in collections of documents and materials about this spiritual impulse of 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 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 everything has been said and analyzed. Many documents and problems were “closed” to historians in past years. Currently, there is access to documents that are not only little-known, but also to documents that require an objective approach to study and impartial analysis. It is not always easy to do this due to the existing stereotype in relation to one or another phenomenon or person.

The problem “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 women 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 arises: why ? After all, back in the spring of 1943, the Pravda newspaper stated, citing a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, that “never before in all of past history has a woman participated so selflessly in the defense of her Motherland as during the days of the Patriotic War of the Soviet people.”

The Soviet Union was the only state during World War II in which women took a direct part 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 rise in the patriotism of young people, who were eager to fight the enemy who had attacked their homeland. Secondly, the difficult situation that has developed on all fronts. The losses of Soviet troops at the initial stage of the war led to the fact that in the spring of 1942, a mass mobilization of women was carried out to serve in the active army and rear units. Based on the resolution of the State Defense Committee (GKO), mass mobilizations of women took place on March 23, April 13 and 23, 1942 to serve in the air defense, communications, internal security forces, on military roads, in the Navy and Air Force, in the signal troops.

Healthy girls aged at least 18 years were subject to mobilization. The mobilization was carried out under the control of the Komsomol Central Committee and local Komsomol organizations. Everything was taken into account: education (preferably at least 5th grade), membership in the Komsomol, state of health, absence of children. The majority of the girls were volunteers. True, there were cases of reluctance to serve in the Red Army. When this was discovered at the assembly points, the girls were sent home to their place of 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 taller than average men, there’s nothing special... because you were selected from many millions . They didn’t choose men, they 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 conscripts. But it is known that over 550 thousand women became warriors only at the call of the Komsomol. Over 300 thousand patriotic women were drafted into the air defense forces (this is over ¼ of all fighters). Through the Red Cross, 300 thousand Oshin nurses, 300 thousand nurses, 300 thousand nurses, and over 500 thousand air defense sanitary workers received a specialty and came to serve in the military medical institutions of the sanitary service of the Red Army. In May 1942, the State Defense Committee adopted a decree on the mobilization of 25 thousand women in the Navy. On November 3, the Central Committee of the Komsomol carried out the selection of Komsomol and non-Komsomol members of the formation of the women's volunteer rifle brigade, a reserve regiment and the Ryazan Infantry School. The total number of people mobilized there was 10,898. On December 15, the brigade, reserve regiment and courses began normal training. During the war, five mobilizations were held among communist women.

Not all women, of course, took direct part in the fighting. Many served in various rear services: economic, medical, headquarters, etc. However, a significant number of them directly participated in the hostilities. At the same time, the range of activities of women warriors was quite diverse: they took part in raids of 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, radio operator gunners, and armed forces personnel. At the same time, female aviators fought both in regular “male” aviation regiments and in separate “female” ones.

During the Great Patriotic War, women's combat formations appeared for the first time in the Armed Forces of our country. Three aviation regiments were formed from female volunteers: the 46th Guards Night Bomber, the 125th Guards Bomber, the 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, etc. The 101st long-range air regiment was commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union B.S. Grizodubova. The Central Women's Sniper Training School provided the front with 1,061 snipers and 407 sniper instructors. Graduates of this school destroyed over 11,280 enemy soldiers and officers during the war. The youth units of Vsevobuch trained 220 thousand female snipers and signalmen.

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 on staff. 20 thousand women served in the Special Moscow Air Defense Army. Documents in the archives of the Russian Federation speak about how difficult this service is.

The largest representation of participants in the Great Patriotic War was among female doctors. Of the total number of doctors in the Red Army, 41% were women, among surgeons there were 43.5%. It was estimated that female medical instructors of rifle companies, medical battalions, and artillery batteries helped over 72% of the wounded and about 90% of sick soldiers return to duty. Women doctors served in all branches of the military - in aviation and the marine corps, on warships of the Black Sea Fleet, the Northern Fleet, the Caspian and Dnieper flotillas, in floating naval hospitals and ambulance trains. Together with horsemen, they went on deep raids behind enemy lines and were in partisan detachments. With the infantry they reached Berlin and took part 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 us of the feat of female military doctors. In the park on Kirov Street, a front-line nurse in a raincoat, with a sanitary bag over her shoulder, stands at full height on a high pedestal.

Monument to military nurses in Kaluga

During the war, the city of Kaluga was the center of numerous hospitals that treated and returned tens of thousands of soldiers and commanders to duty. In this city there are always flowers at the monument.

There is practically no mention in the literature that during the war years, about 20 women became tank crews, three of whom graduated from the country’s tank schools. Among them are I.N. Levchenko, who commanded a group of T-60 light tanks, E.I. Kostrikova, the commander of a tank platoon, and at the end of the war, the 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 took part in the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943.

Irina Nikolaevna Levchenko and Evgenia Sergeevna Kostrikova (daughter of the Soviet statesman and political figure S.M. Kirov)

I would like to note that among our female Heroes there is the only foreign woman - 18-year-old Anela Krzywoń, a shooter of a female company of machine 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 Sadovye, Ternopil region of Western Ukraine. When the war began, the family was evacuated to Kansk, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Here the girl worked in a factory. I tried several times to volunteer for the front. In 1943, Anelya was enlisted as a rifleman in a company of machine gunners of the 1st Polish Division named after Tadeusz Kosciuszko. The company guarded the division headquarters. In October 1943, the division fought offensive battles in the Mogilev region. On October 12, during another German airstrike on the division’s positions, rifleman Krzywoń served at one of the posts, hiding in a small trench. Suddenly she saw that the staff car had caught fire due to 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 wave. Anelya pulled them out, and then, choking in the smoke, burning her face and hands, began throwing 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, Ph.D., Associate Professor of the Department of History of Russia, Siberian Federal University)

200 women warriors were awarded Orders of Glory II and III degrees. Four women became full Knights of Glory. We have almost never called them by name in recent years. In the year of the 70th anniversary of the Victory, we will repeat their names. These are Nadezhda Aleksandrovna Zhurkina (Kiek), Matryona Semenovna Necheporchukova, Danuta Yurgio 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, that were given above, the facts of military events indicate that history has never known such a massive participation of women in the armed struggle for the Motherland, as was shown by Soviet women during the Great Patriotic War. Let's not forget that women also showed themselves heroically and selflessly under the most difficult conditions of occupation, standing up to fight the enemy.

There were only about 90 thousand 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 range of figures. According to data from later years (obviously, according to updated data), during the war there were over 1 million partisans in the rear. Women among them accounted for 9.3%, i.e. over 93,000 people. The same source also contains another figure - over 100 thousand women. There is one more feature. The percentage of women in partisan detachments was not the same everywhere. Thus, in units 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 now is also proud) of such heroines of the Soviet people as partisans Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Lisa Chaikina, Antonina Petrova, Anya Lisitsina, Maria Melentyeva, Ulyana Gromova, Lyuba Shevtsova and others. But many are still unknown or little known due to years of background checks on their identities. Girls - nurses, doctors, and partisan intelligence officers - gained great authority among the partisans. But they were treated with a certain distrust and with great difficulty were allowed to participate in combat operations. At first, the opinion was widespread among partisan detachments that girls could not be demolitions. However, dozens of girls have mastered this difficult task. Among them is Anna Kalashnikova, the leader of a subversive group of a partisan detachment in the Smolensk region. Sofya Levanovich commanded a subversive group of a partisan detachment in the Oryol region and derailed 17 enemy trains. Ukrainian partisan Dusya Baskina had 9 enemy trains derailed. Who remembers, who knows these names? And during the war, their names were known not only in the partisan detachments, but the occupiers knew and feared them.

Where partisan detachments operated, destroying the Nazis, there was an order from General von Reichenau, who demanded that in order to destroy the partisans “... use all means. All captured partisans of both sexes in military uniform or civilian clothes shall be publicly hanged.” It is known that the fascists were especially afraid of women and girls - residents of villages and hamlets in the area where the partisans operated. In their letters home, which fell into the hands of the Red Army, the occupiers wrote frankly that “women and girls act like the most seasoned warriors... In this regard, we would have to learn a lot.” In another letter, Chief Corporal Anton Prost asked in 1942: “How much longer will we have to fight this kind of war? After all, we, a combat unit (Western Front, p/p 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 Allheimeine Zeitung” dated May 22, 1943 stated: “Even seemingly harmless women picking berries and mushrooms, peasant women heading to 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 “Partisan of the Patriotic War” medal of II and III degrees. 27 partisans and underground women received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 22 of them were awarded posthumously. We cannot say with certainty that these are accurate numbers. The number of award recipients is much larger, since the process of awarding, or more precisely, considering repeated nominations for awards, continued into the 90s. An example could be the fate of Vera Voloshina.

Vera Voloshina

The girl was in the same reconnaissance group as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Both of them went on a mission for the intelligence department of the Western Front on the same day. Voloshina was wounded and fell behind her group. She was captured. She was executed, like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, on November 29. Voloshina’s fate remained unknown for a long time. Thanks to the search work of journalists, the circumstances of her captivity and death were established. By decree of the President of the Russian Federation in 1993, V. Voloshina was (posthumously) awarded the title of Hero of Russia.

Vera Voloshina

The press is often interested in numbers: how many feats have been accomplished. In this case, they often refer to the figures taken into account by the Central Headquarters of the 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 cite the world-famous Komsomol youth underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the city of Krasnodon in the Donbass. There are still disputes about its numbers and its 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 occupation without revealing its actions. Unfortunately, a number of underground organizations are waiting for their researchers, because little or almost nothing has been written about them. But the fates of underground women are hidden in them.

In the fall of 1943, Nadezhda Troyan and her fighting friends managed to carry out the sentence pronounced 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) covered the embrasure of a German bunker, becoming the only woman (according to others according to 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 listing of military operations, the number of partisans who participated in it, but, as they say, “behind the scenes of events” remain the majority of those who specifically took part in the implementation of partisan raids. It is not possible to name everyone right now. They, the rank and file - living and dead - are rarely remembered, despite the fact that they live somewhere near us.

In the bustle of everyday life in the last few decades, our historical memory of the everyday life of the past war has somewhat faded. Victory’s privates are rarely written or remembered. As a rule, they remember only those who accomplished a feat already recorded in the history of the Great Patriotic War, less and less, and even then in a faceless form about those who were next to them in the same formation, in the same battle.

Rimma Ivanovna Shershneva is a Soviet partisan who covered the embrasure of an enemy bunker with her body. (according to some reports, the same feat was repeated by medical service lieutenant Nina Aleksandrovna Bobyleva, a doctor of a partisan detachment operating in the Narva region).

Back in 1945, during the beginning of the demobilization of girl warriors, words were heard that little was written about them, girl warriors, during the war years, and now, in peacetime, they might be completely forgotten. On July 26, 1945, the Central Committee of the Komsomol hosted a meeting of girls warriors who had completed their service in the Red Army with 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 “a conversation between M.I. Kalinin and girl warriors.” I will not retell its contents. I would like to 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 and nobility of our women.”

Speaking on behalf and on behalf of the warrior girls, N. Meklin (Kravtsova) said what many were talking and thinking about, she said what they are still talking about. In her speech there was, as it were, a sketch of a plan that had not yet been told about girls, women warriors. We must admit that what was said 70 years ago is still relevant today.

Concluding 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, Liza Chaikina, about the Krasnodonites. Nothing has been 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 a documentary film, by the way, the Komsomol Central Committee has long been thinking about doing this, in which to reflect women’s combat training, as, for example, during the defense of Leningrad, to reflect the best women working in hospitals, to show snipers, traffic police girls, etc. . In my opinion, literature and art for that matter owe a debt to warrior girls. That's basically all I wanted to say."

Natalya Fedorovna Meklin (Kravtsova)

These proposals were partially or not fully implemented. Time has put other problems on the agenda, and much of what the girl warriors proposed in July 1945 is waiting for its authors now.

The war separated some people in different directions, and brought others closer together. During the war there were separations and meetings. During the war there was love, there was betrayal, everything happened. But the war united in its fields men and women of different ages, mostly young and healthy people who wanted to live and love, despite the fact that death was at every turn. And no one condemned anyone during the war for this. But when the war ended and demobilized women soldiers began to return to their homeland, on whose chests there were orders, medals and stripes about wounds, the civilian population often threw insults at them, calling them “PPZh” (field wife), or poisonous questions: “Why did you receive awards? How many husbands have you had? etc.

In 1945, this became widespread and even among demobilized men caused widespread protest and complete powerlessness on how to deal with it. The Central Committee of the Komsomol began to receive letters asking them to “put things in order in this matter.” The Komsomol Central Committee outlined a plan on the issue raised - what to do? It noted that “...we do not always and not everywhere sufficiently propagate the exploits of girls among the people; we tell the population and young people little about the enormous contribution made by girls and women to our victory over fascism.”

It should be noted that then plans were drawn up, lectures were edited, but the urgency of the issue practically did not decrease for many years. The girl warriors were embarrassed to put on their orders and medals; they took them off their tunics and hid them in boxes. And when their children grew up, the children sorted out expensive awards and played with them, often not knowing why their mothers received them. If during the Great Patriotic War women warriors were talked about in the reports of the Sovinformburo, written in newspapers, and posters were published where there was a woman warrior, then the further the country moved away from the events of 1941-1945, the less often this topic was heard. A certain interest in it appeared only in the run-up to March 8th. Researchers tried to find an explanation for this, but we cannot agree with their interpretation 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 M.I. Kalinin’s speech in July 1945 at a meeting at the Komsomol Central Committee with female soldiers demobilized from the Red Army and Navy . The speech was called “Glorious Daughters of the Soviet People.” In it, M.I. Kalinin raised the question of adapting demobilized girls to peaceful life, finding their own professions, etc. And at the same time he advised: “Don’t become arrogant in your future practical work. Don’t talk about your merits, let them talk about you - it’s better.” With reference to the work of the German researcher B. Fieseler “Woman at War: The Unwritten History”, these above words of M.I. Kalinin were interpreted by the Russian researcher O.Yu. Nikonova as a recommendation “for 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, while building her “concept,” did not bother to read the publication of M.I. Kalinin’s speech in Russian.

Currently, 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 enlistment in the Red Army. The term “mobilized patriotism” appeared. At the same time, a number of problems or incompletely explored subjects remain. If women warriors are written about more often; especially about the Heroes of the Soviet Union, about women at the labor front, about women at the rear, there are fewer and fewer generalizing works. Obviously, it is forgotten that it was possible to “participate directly in the war, and one could participate by working in industry, in all possible military and logistical institutions.” In the USSR, when assessing the contribution made by Soviet women to the defense of the Motherland, they were guided by the words of the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee 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 shoulder straps will live in our memory as a shining example of selflessness and patriotism.” Correctly, figuratively said, but... where are the women of the home front? What is their role? Let us 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: “... everything previous pales before the great epic of the current war, before the heroism and the sacrifice of Soviet women, showing civic valor, endurance in the loss of loved ones and enthusiasm in the struggle with such strength and, I would say, majesty, which have never been seen in the past.”

About the civil valor of women on the home front in 1941-1945. one can say in the words of M. Isakovsky, dedicated to “Russian Woman” (1945):

...Can you really tell me about this?
What years did you live in?
What an immeasurable burden
It fell on women's shoulders!..

But without facts, it is difficult for the current generation to understand. Let us remind you that under the slogan “Everything for the front, everything for victory!” All the teams of the Soviet rear worked. Sovinformburo in the most difficult time of 1941-1942. in its reports, along with reports about the exploits of Soviet soldiers, it also reported about the heroic deeds of home front workers. In connection with the departure to the front, to the people's militia, to the destruction battalions, the number of men in the Russian national economy by the fall of 1942 fell from 22.2 million to 9.5 million.

The men who went to the front were replaced by women and teenagers.

Among them were 550 thousand housewives, pensioners, and teenagers. In the food and light industry, the share of women during the war years was 80-95%. In transport, more than 40% (by the summer of 1943) were women. The “All-Russian Book of Memory of 1941-1945” in the review volume contains interesting figures that do not need commentary on the increase in the share of female labor throughout the country, especially in the first two years of the war. Thus, among steam engine operators - from 6% to at the beginning of 1941 to 33% at the end of 1942, compressor operators - from 27% to 44%, metal turners - from 16% to 33%, welders - from 17% to 31%, mechanics - from 3.9 % to 12%. At the end of the war, women in the Russian Federation made up 59% of workers and employees of the republic, instead of 41% on the eve of the war.

Up to 70% of women came to work at some enterprises where only men worked before the war. There were no enterprises, workshops, or areas in industry where women did not work; there were no professions that women could not master; the share of women in 1945 was 57.2% compared to 38.4% in 1940, and in agriculture - 58.0% in 1945 versus 26.1% in 1940. Among communication workers, he reached 69.1% in 1945. The share of women among industrial workers and apprentices 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. In the 145 thousand Komsomol youth brigades of the country, 48% of the total number of young people were employed by women. Only during the competition for increasing labor productivity, for manufacturing above-plan weapons for the front, more than 25 thousand women were awarded orders and medals of the USSR.

Women warriors and women on the home front began to talk about themselves, their friends, with whom they shared their joys and troubles, years after the end of the war. On the pages of these collections of memoirs, which were published locally and in capital publishing houses, the conversation was primarily about heroic military and labor exploits and very rarely about the everyday difficulties of the war years. And only decades later they began to call a spade a spade and not hesitate to remember what difficulties befell Soviet women and how they had to overcome them.

I would like our compatriots to know the following: on May 8, 1965, in the year of the 30th anniversary of the Great Victory, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the SR, International Women's Day March 8 became a holiday non-working day “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 we set one task: to help human memory, so that “the image of a Soviet woman - a patriot, a fighter, a worker, a soldier’s mother” will forever be preserved in the memory of the people.

NOTES

See: Law on General Military Duty, [dated September 1, 1939]. M., 1939. Art. 13.

Is it true. 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 a meeting at the Komsomol Central Committee with demobilized girl soldiers.

The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. M., 1985. P. 269.

RGASPI. F. M-1. He. 53. D. 17. L. 49.

The Great Patriotic War. 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 269.

See: Women of the Great Patriotic War.

The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 440.

Right 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: encyclopedia. P. 530.

Right there. P.270.

URL: 0ld. Bryanskovi.ru/projects/partisan/events.php?category-35

RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 13. L. 73–74.

Right there. D. 17. L. 18.

Right there.

Right there. F. M-7. Op. 3. D. 53. L. 148; The Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945: encyclopedia. C. 270; URL: http://www.great-country.ra/rabrika_articles/sov_eUte/0007.html

For more details, see: “Young Guard” (Krasnodon) - artistic image and historical reality: collection. 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.

Right there. L. 11.

Right there.

Right there. Op. 32. D. 331. L. 77–78. Emphasis added by the author of the article.

Right there. Op. 5. D. 245. L. 30.

See: Fieseler B. Women in War: The Unwritten History. Berlin, 2002. P. 13; URL: http://7r.net/foram/thread150.html

Kalinin M.I. Selected works. M., 1975. P. 315.

Same place. P. 401.

Right there.

All-Russian Book of Memory, 1941-1945. M., 2005. Review volume. P. 143.

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945: encyclopedia. P. 270.

All-Russian Book of Memory, 1941-1945. Review volume. P. 143.

RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 3. D. 331 a. L. 63.

Right there. Op. 6. D. 355. L. 73.

Quoted: from: Great Soviet Encyclopedia. 3rd ed. M., 1974. T. 15. P. 617.

CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses, conferences and plenums of the Central Committee. Ed. 8th, add. M., 1978. T 11. P. 509.

“Daughter, I put together a bundle for you. Go away... Go away... You still have two younger sisters growing up. Who will marry them? Everyone knows that you were at the front for four years, with men...” The truth about women in the war, which was not written about in the newspapers...
For Victory Day, blogger radulova published memoirs of women veterans from the book by Svetlana Alexievich.

“We drove for many days... We left with the girls at some station with a bucket to get water. They looked around and gasped: one train after another was coming, and there were only girls there. They sing. They wave at us, some with headscarves, some with caps. It became clear: there weren’t enough men, they were dead in the ground. Or in captivity. Now we, instead of them... Mom wrote me a prayer. I put it in the locket. Maybe it helped - I returned home. I kissed the medallion before the fight...”

“Once at night a whole company conducted reconnaissance in force in our regiment’s sector. By dawn she had moved away, and a groan was heard from the no-man's land. Left wounded. “Don’t go, they’ll kill you,” the soldiers wouldn’t let me in, “you see, it’s already dawn.” She didn’t listen and crawled. She found a wounded man and dragged him for eight hours, tying his arm with a belt. She dragged a living one. The commander found out and rashly announced five days of arrest for unauthorized absence. But the deputy regiment commander reacted differently: “Deserves a reward.” At the age of nineteen I had a medal “For Courage”. At nineteen she turned gray. At the age of nineteen, in the last battle, both lungs were shot, the second bullet passed between two vertebrae. My legs were paralyzed... And they considered me dead... At nineteen... My granddaughter is like that now. I look at her and don’t believe it. Child!”

“I was on night duty... I went into the ward of the seriously wounded. The captain is lying there... The doctors warned me before duty that he would die at night... He wouldn’t live until the morning... I asked him: “Well, how? How can I help you?" I’ll never forget... He suddenly smiled, such a bright smile on his exhausted face: “Unbutton your robe... Show me your breasts... I haven’t seen my wife for a long time...” I felt ashamed, I answered him something. She left and returned an hour later. He lies dead. And that smile on his face..."

…………………………………………………………………….

“And when he appeared for the third time, in one moment - he would appear and then disappear - I decided to shoot. I made up my mind, and suddenly such a thought flashed: this is a man, even though he is an enemy, but a man, and my hands somehow began to tremble, trembling and chills began to spread throughout my body. Some kind of fear... Sometimes in my dreams this feeling comes back to me... After the plywood targets, it was difficult to shoot at a living person. I see him through the optical sight, I see him well. It’s as if he’s close... And something inside me resists... Something doesn’t give, I can’t make up my mind. But I pulled myself together, pulled the trigger... We didn’t succeed right away. It’s not a woman’s business to hate and kill. Not ours... We had to convince ourselves. Persuade…"

“And the girls were eager to go to the front voluntarily, but a coward himself would not go to war. These were brave, extraordinary girls. There are statistics: losses among frontline medics ranked second after losses in rifle battalions. In the infantry. What does it mean, for example, to pull a wounded man out of the battlefield? I’ll tell you now... We went on the attack, and let’s mow us down with a machine gun. And the battalion was gone. Everyone was lying down. They were not all killed, many were wounded. The Germans are hitting and they don’t stop firing. Quite unexpectedly for everyone, first one girl jumps out of the trench, then a second, a third... They began to bandage and drag away the wounded, even the Germans were speechless with amazement for a while. By ten o'clock in the evening, all the girls were seriously wounded, and each saved a maximum of two or three people. They were awarded sparingly; at the beginning of the war, awards were not scattered. The wounded man had to be pulled out along with his personal weapon. The first question in the medical battalion: where are the weapons? At the beginning of the war there was not enough of him. A rifle, a machine gun, a machine gun - these also had to be carried. In forty-one, order number two hundred and eighty-one was issued on the presentation of awards for saving the lives of soldiers: for fifteen seriously wounded people carried out from the battlefield along with personal weapons - the medal “For Military Merit”, for saving twenty-five people - the Order of the Red Star, for saving forty - the Order of the Red Banner, for saving eighty - the Order of Lenin. And I described to you what it meant to save at least one person in battle... From the bullets...”

“What was going on in our souls, the kind of people we were then will probably never exist again. Never! So naive and so sincere. With such faith! When our regiment commander received the banner and gave the command: “Regiment, under the banner! On your knees!”, we all felt happy. We stand and cry, everyone has tears in their eyes. You won’t believe it now, my whole body tensed up from this shock, my illness, and I got “night blindness”, it happened from malnutrition, from nervous fatigue, and so, my night blindness went away. You see, the next day I was healthy, I recovered, through such a shock to my whole soul...”

…………………………………………

“I was thrown against a brick wall by a hurricane wave. I lost consciousness... When I came to my senses, it was already evening. She raised her head, tried to squeeze her fingers - they seemed to be moving, barely opened her left eye and went to the department, covered in blood. In the corridor I meet our older sister, she didn’t recognize me and asked: “Who are you? Where?" She came closer, gasped and said: “Where have you been for so long, Ksenya? The wounded are hungry, but you are not there.” They quickly bandaged my head and my left arm above the elbow, and I went to get dinner. It was getting dark before my eyes and sweat was pouring out. She started handing out dinner and fell. They brought me back to consciousness, and all I could hear was: “Hurry! Hurry up!” And again - “Hurry! Hurry up!” A few days later they took more blood from me for the seriously wounded.”

“We were young and went to the front. Girls. I even grew up during the war. Mom tried it on at home... I have grown ten centimeters..."

……………………………………

“They organized nursing courses, and my father took my sister and me there. I am fifteen years old, and my sister is fourteen. He said: “This is all I can give to win. My girls...” There was no other thought then. A year later I went to the front...”

……………………………………

“Our mother had no sons... And when Stalingrad was besieged, we voluntarily went to the front. Together. The whole family: mother and five daughters, and by this time the father had already fought…”

………………………………………..

“I was mobilized, I was a doctor. I left with a sense of duty. And my dad was happy that his daughter was at the front. Defends the Motherland. Dad went to the military registration and enlistment office early in the morning. He went to receive my certificate and went early in the morning specifically so that everyone in the village would see that his daughter was at the front...”

……………………………………….

“I remember they let me go on leave. Before going to my aunt, I went to the store. Before the war, I really loved candy. I say:
- Give me some sweets.
The saleswoman looks at me like I'm crazy. I didn’t understand: what are cards, what is a blockade? All the people in line turned to me, and I had a rifle bigger than me. When they gave them to us, I looked and thought: “When will I grow up to this rifle?” And everyone suddenly began to ask, the whole line:
- Give her some sweets. Cut out the coupons from us.
And they gave it to me.”

“And for the first time in my life, it happened... Ours... Women's... I saw blood on myself, and I screamed:
- I was hurt...
During reconnaissance, we had a paramedic with us, an elderly man. He comes to me:
- Where did it hurt?
- I don’t know where... But blood...
He, like a father, told me everything... I went to reconnaissance after the war for about fifteen years. Every night. And the dreams are like this: either my machine gun failed, or we were surrounded. You wake up and your teeth are grinding. Do you remember where you are? There or here?”

…………………………………………..

“I went to the front as a materialist. An atheist. She left as a good Soviet schoolgirl, who was taught well. And there... There I began to pray... I always prayed before the battle, read my prayers. The words are simple... My words... The meaning is one, that I return to mom and dad. I didn’t know real prayers, and I didn’t read the Bible. No one saw me pray. I am secretly. She secretly prayed. Carefully. Because... We were different then, different people lived then. You understand?"

“It was impossible to attack us with uniforms: they were always in the blood. My first wounded was Senior Lieutenant Belov, my last wounded was Sergei Petrovich Trofimov, sergeant of the mortar platoon. In 1970, he came to visit me, and I showed my daughters his wounded head, which still has a large scar on it. In total, I carried out four hundred and eighty-one wounded from under fire. One of the journalists calculated: a whole rifle battalion... They were carrying men two to three times heavier than us. And they are even more seriously wounded. You are dragging him and his weapon, and he is also wearing an overcoat and boots. You put eighty kilograms on yourself and drag it. You lose... You go after the next one, and again seventy-eighty kilograms... And so five or six times in one attack. And you yourself have forty-eight kilograms - ballet weight. Now I can’t believe it anymore...”

……………………………………

“I later became a squad commander. The entire squad is made up of young boys. We're on the boat all day. The boat is small, there are no latrines. The guys can go overboard if necessary, and that’s it. Well, what about me? A couple of times I got so bad that I jumped straight overboard and started swimming. They shout: “The foreman is overboard!” They'll pull you out. This is such an elementary little thing... But what kind of little thing is this? I then received treatment...

………………………………………

“I returned from the war gray-haired. Twenty-one years old, and I’m all white. I was seriously wounded, concussed, and I couldn’t hear well in one ear. My mother greeted me with the words: “I believed that you would come. I prayed for you day and night.” My brother died at the front. She cried: “It’s the same now - give birth to girls or boys.”

“But I’ll say something else... The worst thing for me in war is wearing men’s underpants. That was scary. And this somehow... I can’t express myself... Well, first of all, it’s very ugly... You’re at war, you’re going to die for your Motherland, and you’re wearing men’s underpants. Overall, you look funny. Ridiculous. Men's underpants were long then. Wide. Sewed from satin. Ten girls in our dugout, and all of them are wearing men's underpants. Oh my God! In winter and summer. Four years... We crossed the Soviet border... We finished off, as our commissar said during political classes, the beast in its own den. Near the first Polish village they changed our clothes, gave us new uniforms and... And! AND! AND! They brought women's panties and bras for the first time. For the first time throughout the war. Haaaa... Well, I see... We saw normal women's underwear... Why aren't you laughing? Are you crying... Well, why?”

……………………………………..

“At the age of eighteen, on the Kursk Bulge, I was awarded the medal “For Military Merit” and the Order of the Red Star, at the age of nineteen - the Order of the Patriotic War, second degree. When new recruits arrived, the guys were all young, of course, they were surprised. They were also eighteen to nineteen years old, and they asked with ridicule: “What did you get your medals for?” or “Have you been in battle?” They pester you with jokes: “Do bullets penetrate the armor of a tank?” I later bandaged one of these on the battlefield, under fire, and I remembered his last name - Shchegolevatykh. His leg was broken. I splint him, and he asks me for forgiveness: “Sister, I’m sorry that I offended you then...”

“We disguised ourselves. We are sitting. We are waiting for night to finally make an attempt to break through. And Lieutenant Misha T., the battalion commander was wounded, and he was performing the duties of a battalion commander, he was twenty years old, and began to remember how he loved to dance and play the guitar. Then he asks:
-Have you even tried it?
- What? What have you tried? “But I was terribly hungry.”
- Not what, but who... Babu!
And before the war there were cakes like this. With that name.
- No-no...
- I haven’t tried it yet either. You’ll die and won’t know what love is... They’ll kill us at night...
- Fuck you, fool! “It dawned on me what he meant.”
They died for life, not yet knowing what life was. We have only read about everything in books. I loved movies about love...”

…………………………………………

“She shielded her loved one from the mine fragment. The fragments fly - it's just a fraction of a second... How did she make it? She saved Lieutenant Petya Boychevsky, she loved him. And he stayed to live. Thirty years later, Petya Boychevsky came from Krasnodar and found me at our front-line meeting, and told me all this. We went with him to Borisov and found the clearing where Tonya died. He took the earth from her grave... He carried it and kissed... There were five of us, Konakovo girls... And I alone returned to my mother...”

……………………………………………

“A separate smoke masking detachment was organized, commanded by the former commander of the torpedo boat division, Lieutenant Commander Alexander Bogdanov. Girls, mostly with secondary technical education or after the first years of college. Our task is to protect the ships and cover them with smoke. The shelling will begin, the sailors are waiting: “I wish the girls would put up some smoke. It’s calmer with him.” They drove out in cars with a special mixture, and at that time everyone hid in a bomb shelter. We, as they say, invited fire upon ourselves. The Germans were hitting this smoke screen...”

“I’m bandaging the tanker... The battle is on, there’s a roar. He asks: “Girl, what’s your name?” Even some kind of compliment. It was so strange for me to pronounce my name, Olya, in this roar, in this horror.”

………………………………………

“And here I am the gun commander. And that means I am in the one thousand three hundred and fifty-seventh anti-aircraft regiment. At first, there was bleeding from the nose and ears, complete indigestion set in... My throat was dry to the point of vomiting... At night it was not so scary, but during the day it was very scary. It seems that the plane is flying straight at you, specifically at your gun. It's ramming at you! This is one moment... Now it will turn all, all of you into nothing. Everything is over!”

…………………………………….

“And by the time they found me, my legs were severely frostbitten. Apparently, I was covered in snow, but I was breathing, and a hole appeared in the snow... Such a tube... The ambulance dogs found me. They dug up the snow and brought me my earflap hat. There I had a passport of death, everyone had such passports: which relatives, where to report. They dug me out, put me on a raincoat, my sheepskin coat was full of blood... But no one paid attention to my legs... I was in the hospital for six months. They wanted to amputate the leg, amputate it above the knee, because gangrene was setting in. And here I was a little faint-hearted, I didn’t want to remain living as a cripple. Why should I live? Who needs me? Neither father nor mother. A burden in life. Well, who needs me, stump! I’ll choke..."

………………………………………

“We received a tank there. We were both senior driver mechanics, and there should only be one driver in a tank. The command decided to appoint me as commander of the IS-122 tank, and my husband as senior mechanic-driver. And so we reached Germany. Both are wounded. We have awards. There were quite a few female tankers on medium tanks, but on heavy tanks I was the only one.”

“We were told to dress in military uniform, and I’m about fifty meters. I got into my trousers, and the girls upstairs tied them around me.”

…………………………………..

“As long as he hears... Until the last moment you tell him that no, no, is it really possible to die. You kiss him, hug him: what are you, what are you? He’s already dead, his eyes are on the ceiling, and I’m still whispering something to him... I’m calming him down... The names have been erased, gone from memory, but the faces remain...”

…………………………………

“We had a nurse captured... A day later, when we recaptured that village, dead horses, motorcycles, and armored personnel carriers were lying everywhere. They found her: her eyes were gouged out, her breasts were cut off... She was impaled... It was frosty, and she was white and white, and her hair was all gray. She was nineteen years old. In her backpack we found letters from home and a green rubber bird. A children's toy..."

……………………………….

“Near Sevsk, the Germans attacked us seven to eight times a day. And even that day I carried out the wounded with their weapons. I crawled up to the last one, and his arm was completely broken. Dangling in pieces... On the veins... Covered in blood... He urgently needs to cut off his hand to bandage it. No other way. And I have neither a knife nor scissors. The bag shifted and shifted on its side, and they fell out. What to do? And I chewed this pulp with my teeth. I gnawed it, bandaged it... I bandaged it, and the wounded man: “Hurry, sister. I’ll fight again.” In a fever..."

“The whole war I was afraid that my legs would be crippled. I had beautiful legs. What to a man? He’s not so scared even if he loses his legs. Still a hero. Groom! If a woman gets hurt, then her fate will be decided. Women's destiny..."

…………………………………

“The men will build a fire at the bus stop, shake out the lice, and dry themselves. Where are we? Let's run for some shelter and undress there. I had a knitted sweater, so lice sat on every millimeter, in every loop. Look, you'll feel nauseous. There are head lice, body lice, pubic lice... I had them all...”

………………………………….

“Near Makeyevka, in Donbass, I was wounded, wounded in the thigh. This little fragment came in and sat there like a pebble. I feel it’s blood, I put an individual bag there too. And then I run and bandage it. It’s a shame to tell anyone, the girl was wounded, but where – in the buttock. In the ass... At sixteen years old, this is a shame to say to anyone. It's awkward to admit. Well, so I ran and bandaged until I lost consciousness from loss of blood. The boots are full..."

………………………………….

“The doctor arrived, did a cardiogram, and they asked me:
- When did you have a heart attack?
- What heart attack?
- Your whole heart is scarred.
And these scars are apparently from the war. You approach the target, you are shaking all over. The whole body is covered with trembling, because there is fire below: fighters are shooting, anti-aircraft guns are shooting... We flew mainly at night. For a while they tried to send us on missions during the day, but they immediately abandoned this idea. Our “Po-2” shot down from a machine gun... We made up to twelve sorties per night. I saw the famous ace pilot Pokryshkin when he arrived from a combat flight. He was a strong man, he was not twenty or twenty-three years old like us: while the plane was being refueled, the technician managed to take off his shirt and unscrew it. It was dripping as if he had been in the rain. Now you can easily imagine what happened to us. You arrive and you can’t even get out of the cabin, they pulled us out. They couldn’t carry the tablet anymore, they dragged it along the ground.”

………………………………

“We strived... We didn’t want people to say about us: “Oh, those women!” And we tried harder than men, we still had to prove that we were no worse than men. And for a long time there was an arrogant, condescending attitude towards us: “These women will fight…”

“Wounded three times and shell-shocked three times. During the war, everyone dreamed of what: some to return home, some to reach Berlin, but I only dreamed of one thing - to live to see my birthday, so that I would turn eighteen. For some reason, I was afraid to die earlier, not even live to see eighteen. I walked around in trousers and a cap, always in tatters, because you are always crawling on your knees, and even under the weight of a wounded person. I couldn’t believe that one day it would be possible to get up and walk on the ground instead of crawling. It was a dream! One day the division commander arrived, saw me and asked: “What kind of teenager is this? Why are you holding him? He should be sent to study.”

…………………………………

“We were happy when we took out a pot of water to wash our hair. If you walked for a long time, you looked for soft grass. They also tore her legs... Well, you know, they washed them off with grass... We had our own characteristics, girls... The army didn’t think about it... Our legs were green... It’s good if the foreman was an elderly man and understood everything, didn’t take excess underwear from his duffel bag, and if he’s young, he’ll definitely throw away the excess. And what a waste it is for girls who need to change clothes twice a day. We tore the sleeves off our undershirts, and there were only two of them. These are only four sleeves...”

“Let’s go... There are about two hundred girls, and behind us there are about two hundred men. It's hot. Hot Summer. March throw - thirty kilometers. The heat is wild... And after us there are red spots on the sand... Red footprints... Well, these things... Ours... How can you hide anything here? The soldiers follow behind and pretend that they don’t notice anything... They don’t look at their feet... Our trousers dried up, as if they were made of glass. They cut it. There were wounds there, and the smell of blood could be heard all the time. They didn’t give us anything... We kept watch: when the soldiers hung their shirts on the bushes. We’ll steal a couple of pieces... Later they guessed and laughed: “Master, give us some other underwear. The girls took ours.” There was not enough cotton wool and bandages for the wounded... Not that... Women's underwear, perhaps, appeared only two years later. We wore men's shorts and T-shirts... Well, let's go... Wearing boots! My legs were also fried. Let's go... To the crossing, ferries are waiting there. We got to the crossing, and then they started bombing us. The bombing is terrible, men - who knows where to hide. Our name is... But we don’t hear the bombing, we have no time for bombing, we’d rather go to the river. To the water... Water! Water! And they sat there until they got wet... Under the fragments... Here it is... The shame was worse than death. And several girls died in the water...”

“Finally got the appointment. They brought me to my platoon... The soldiers looked: some with mockery, some even with anger, and others shrugging their shoulders - everything was immediately clear. When the battalion commander introduced that, supposedly, you have a new platoon commander, everyone immediately howled: “Oooh…” One even spat: “Ugh!” And a year later, when I was awarded the Order of the Red Star, the same guys who survived carried me in their arms to my dugout. They were proud of me.”

……………………………………..

“We set out on a mission in a quick march. The weather was warm, we walked light. When the positions of long-range artillerymen began to pass, suddenly one jumped out of the trench and shouted: “Air! Frame!" I raised my head and looked for a “frame” in the sky. I don't detect any plane. It's quiet all around, not a sound. Where is that “frame”? Then one of my sappers asked permission to leave the ranks. I see him heading towards that artilleryman and slapping him in the face. Before I had time to think of anything, the artilleryman shouted: “Boys, they’re beating our people!” Other artillerymen jumped out of the trench and surrounded our sapper. My platoon, without hesitation, threw down the probes, mine detectors, and duffel bags and rushed to his rescue. A fight ensued. I couldn't understand what happened? Why did the platoon get involved in a fight? Every minute counts, and there’s such a mess here. I give the command: “Platoon, get into formation!” Nobody pays attention to me. Then I pulled out a pistol and shot into the air. Officers jumped out of the dugout. By the time everyone was calmed down, a significant amount of time had passed. The captain approached my platoon and asked: “Who is the eldest here?” I reported. His eyes widened, he was even confused. Then he asked: “What happened here?” I couldn't answer because I didn't really know the reason. Then my platoon commander came out and told me how it all happened. This is how I learned what “frame” was, what an offensive word it was for a woman. Something like a whore. Frontline curse..."

“Are you asking about love? I’m not afraid to tell the truth... I was a pepezhe, which stands for “field wife.” Wife at war. Second. Illegal. The first battalion commander... I didn’t love him. He was a good man, but I didn't love him. And I went to his dugout a few months later. Where to go? There are only men around, it’s better to live with one than to be afraid of everyone. During the battle it was not as scary as after the battle, especially when we were resting and re-forming. As they shoot, fire, they call: “Sister! Little sister!”, and after the battle everyone will guard you... You won’t get out of the dugout at night... Did the other girls tell you this or didn’t they admit it? They were ashamed, I think... They remained silent. Proud! And it all happened... But they are silent about it... It is not accepted... No... For example, I was the only woman in the battalion who lived in a common dugout. Together with men. They gave me a place, but what a separate place it is, the whole dugout is six meters. I woke up at night from waving my arms, then I would hit one on the cheeks, on the hands, then on the other. I was wounded, ended up in the hospital and waved my hands there. The nanny will wake you up at night: “What are you doing?” Who will you tell?"

…………………………………

“We buried him... He was lying on a raincoat, he had just been killed. The Germans are firing at us. We need to bury it quickly... Right now... We found old birch trees and chose the one that stood at a distance from the old oak tree. The biggest. Near it... I tried to remember so that I could come back and find this place later. Here the village ends, here there is a fork... But how to remember? How to remember if one birch tree is already burning before our eyes... How? They began to say goodbye... They told me: “You are the first!” My heart jumped, I realized... What... Everyone, it turns out, knows about my love. Everyone knows... The thought struck: maybe he knew too? Here... He lies... Now they will lower him into the ground... They will bury him. They’ll cover it with sand... But I was terribly happy at the thought that maybe he knew too. What if he liked me too? As if he was alive and would answer me something now... I remembered how on New Year’s Day he gave me a German chocolate bar. I didn’t eat it for a month, I carried it in my pocket. Now it doesn’t reach me, I remember all my life... This moment... Bombs are flying... He... Lying on a raincoat... This moment... And I am happy... I stand and smile to myself. Abnormal. I’m glad that maybe he knew about my love... I came up and kissed him. I’ve never kissed a man before... This was the first...”

“How did the Motherland greet us? I can’t do without sobbing... Forty years have passed, and my cheeks are still burning. The men were silent, and the women... They shouted to us: “We know what you were doing there!” They lured our men with young p...s. Front-line b... Military bitches..." They insulted me in every way... The Russian dictionary is rich... A guy is seeing me off from the dance, I suddenly feel bad, my heart is pounding. I'll go and sit in a snowdrift. "What happened to you?" - "Never mind. I danced." And these are my two wounds... This is war... And we must learn to be gentle. To be weak and fragile, and your feet in boots were worn out - size forty. It's unusual for someone to hug me. I'm used to being responsible for myself. I was waiting for kind words, but I didn’t understand them. They are like children's to me. At the front among the men there is a strong Russian mate. I'm used to it. A friend taught me, she worked in the library: “Read poetry. Read Yesenin.”

“My legs disappeared... My legs were cut off... They saved me there, in the forest... The operation took place in the most primitive conditions. They put me on the table to operate, and there wasn’t even iodine; they sawed my legs, both legs, with a simple saw... They put me on the table, and there was no iodine. Six kilometers away, we went to another partisan detachment to get iodine, and I was lying on the table. Without anesthesia. Without... Instead of anesthesia - a bottle of moonshine. There was nothing but an ordinary saw... A carpenter's saw... We had a surgeon, he himself also had no legs, he talked about me, other doctors said this: “I bow to her. I have operated on so many men, but I have never seen such men. He won’t scream.” I held on... I'm used to being strong in public..."

……………………………………..

Running up to the car, she opened the door and began to report:
- Comrade General, on your orders...
I heard:
- Leave...
She stood at attention. The general didn’t even turn to me, but looked at the road through the car window. He is nervous and often looks at his watch. I am standing. He turns to his orderly:
- Where is that sapper commander?
I tried to report again:
- Comrade General...
He finally turned to me and with annoyance:
- Why the hell do I need you!
I understood everything and almost burst out laughing. Then his orderly was the first to guess:
- Comrade General, maybe she is the commander of the sappers?
The general stared at me:
- Who are you?
- Comrade General, sapper platoon commander.
-Are you a platoon commander? – he was indignant.

- Are these your sappers working?
- That's right, Comrade General!
- Got it wrong: general, general...
He got out of the car, walked a few steps forward, then came back to me. He stood and looked around. And to his orderly:

……………………………………….

“My husband was a senior driver, and I was a driver. For four years we traveled in a heated vehicle, and our son came with us. During the entire war he didn’t even see a cat. When he caught a cat near Kiev, our train was terribly bombed, five planes flew in, and he hugged her: “Dear little kitty, how glad I am that I saw you. I don't see anyone, well, sit with me. Let me kiss you.” A child... Everything about a child should be childish... He fell asleep with the words: “Mommy, we have a cat. We have a real home now.”

“Anya Kaburova is lying on the grass... Our signalman. She dies - a bullet hit her heart. At this time, a wedge of cranes flies over us. Everyone raised their heads to the sky, and she opened her eyes. She looked: “What a pity, girls.” Then she paused and smiled at us: “Girls, am I really going to die?” At this time, our postman, our Klava, is running, she shouts: “Don’t die! Do not die! You have a letter from home...” Anya does not close her eyes, she is waiting... Our Klava sat down next to her and opened the envelope. A letter from my mother: “My dear, beloved daughter...” A doctor is standing next to me, he says: “This is a miracle. Miracle!! She lives contrary to all the laws of medicine...” They finished reading the letter... And only then Anya closed her eyes...”

…………………………………

“I stayed with him one day, then the second, and I decided: “Go to headquarters and report. I’ll stay here with you.” He went to the authorities, but I couldn’t breathe: well, how can they say that she wouldn’t be able to walk for twenty-four hours? This is the front, that’s clear. And suddenly I see the authorities coming into the dugout: major, colonel. Everyone shakes hands. Then, of course, we sat down in the dugout, drank, and everyone said their word that the wife found her husband in the trench, this is a real wife, there are documents. This is such a woman! Let me look at such a woman! They said such words, they all cried. I remember that evening all my life... What do I still have left? Enlisted as a nurse. I went with him on reconnaissance. The mortar hits, I see - it fell. I think: killed or wounded? I run there, and the mortar hits, and the commander shouts: “Where are you going, damn woman!!” I’ll crawl up - alive... Alive!”

…………………………………

“Two years ago, our chief of staff Ivan Mikhailovich Grinko visited me. He has been retired for a long time. He sat at the same table. I also baked pies. She and her husband are talking, reminiscing... They started talking about our girls... And I started to roar: “Honor, you say, respect. And the girls are almost all single. Unmarried. They live in communal apartments. Who took pity on them? Defended? Where did you all go after the war? Traitors!!” In a word, I ruined their festive mood... The chief of staff was sitting in your place. “Show me,” he banged his fist on the table, “who offended you.” Just show it to me!” He asked for forgiveness: “Valya, I can’t tell you anything except tears.”

………………………………..

“I reached Berlin with the army... I returned to my village with two Orders of Glory and medals. I lived for three days, and on the fourth my mother lifted me out of bed and said: “Daughter, I put together a bundle for you. Go away... Go away... You still have two younger sisters growing up. Who will marry them? Everyone knows that you were at the front for four years, with men...” “Don’t touch my soul. Write, like others, about my awards...”

………………………………..

“Near Stalingrad... I’m dragging two wounded. If I drag one through, I leave it, then the other. And so I pull them one by one, because the wounded are very serious, they cannot be left, both, as it is easier to explain, have their legs cut off high, they are bleeding. Here a minute counts, every minute. And suddenly, when I crawled further away from the battle, there was less smoke, suddenly I discovered that I was dragging one of our tankers and one German... I was horrified: our people were dying there, and I was saving a German. I was in a panic... There, in the smoke, I couldn’t figure it out... I see: a man is dying, a man is screaming... Ah-ah... They are both burnt, black. The same. And then I saw: someone else’s medallion, someone else’s watch, everything was someone else’s. This form is cursed. So what now? I pull our wounded man and think: “Should I go back for the German or not?” I understood that if I left him, he would soon die. From loss of blood... And I crawled after him. I continued to drag them both... This is Stalingrad... The most terrible battles. The best of the best. My you are diamond... There cannot be one heart for hatred and another for love. A person has only one.”

“The war ended, they found themselves terribly unprotected. Here's my wife. She is a smart woman, and she has a bad attitude towards military girls. He believes that they were going to war to find suitors, that they were all having affairs there. Although in fact, we are having a sincere conversation; most often these were honest girls. Clean. But after the war... After the dirt, after the lice, after the deaths... I wanted something beautiful. Bright. Beautiful women... I had a friend, one beautiful girl, as I now understand, loved him at the front. Nurse. But he didn’t marry her, he was demobilized and found himself another, prettier one. And he is unhappy with his wife. Now he remembers that one, his military love, she would have been his friend. And after the front, he didn’t want to marry her, because for four years he saw her only in worn-out boots and a man’s quilted jacket. We tried to forget the war. And they forgot their girls too...”

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“My friend... I won’t give her last name, in case she gets offended... Military paramedic... Wounded three times. The war ended, I entered medical school. She didn’t find any of her relatives; they all died. She was terribly poor, washing the entrances at night to feed herself. But she didn’t admit to anyone that she was a disabled war veteran and had benefits; she tore up all the documents. I ask: “Why did you break it?” She cries: “Who would marry me?” “Well,” I say, “I did the right thing.” She cries even louder: “I could use these pieces of paper now. I’m seriously ill.” Can you imagine? Crying.”

…………………………………….

“We went to Kineshma, this is the Ivanovo region, to his parents. I was traveling like a heroine, I never thought that you could meet a front-line girl like that. We have gone through so much, saved so many mothers of children, wives of husbands. And suddenly... I recognized the insult, I heard offensive words. Before this, except for: “dear sister”, “dear sister”, I had not heard anything else... We sat down to drink tea in the evening, the mother took her son to the kitchen and cried: “Who did you marry? At the front... You have two younger sisters. Who will marry them now?” And now, when I remember this, I want to cry. Imagine: I brought the record, I loved it very much. There were these words: and you have the right to walk in the most fashionable shoes... This is about a front-line girl. I set it up, the older sister came up and broke it in front of my eyes, saying, “You have no rights.” They destroyed all my front-line photographs... We, front-line girls, have had enough. And after the war it happened, after the war we had another war. Also scary. Somehow the men left us. They didn't cover it. It was different at the front.”

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“It was then that they began to honor us, thirty years later... They invited us to meetings... But at first we hid, we didn’t even wear awards. Men wore them, but women did not. Men are winners, heroes, suitors, they had a war, but they looked at us with completely different eyes. Completely different... Let me tell you, they took away our victory... They did not share the victory with us. And it was a shame... It’s unclear...”

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“The first medal “For Courage”... The battle began. The fire is heavy. The soldiers lay down. Command: “Forward! For the Motherland!”, and they lie there. Again the command, again they lie down. I took off my hat so they could see: the girl stood up... And they all stood up, and we went into battle...”

That terrible period of time, when military operations were carried out on the territories of several countries at once, left its mark on many areas of people’s lives. Women in the occupied territories fought for the right to freedom shoulder to shoulder with men. Despite the economic difficulties that arose, the lack of provisions and the harsh living conditions, women tried their best to look attractive and feminine (as much as possible during the war). Despite the fact that there was no global revolution in the fashion industry of the 40s, women's style undoubtedly transformed. The Second World War brought a large number of details of men's clothing to women's fashion during the war years, which, however, turned out to be in demand, and which we can see in the modern women's wardrobe to this day.

Details of men's wardrobe in women's clothing. During this period, many women became their own designers: the production of civilian clothing practically stopped. The ladies cut and sewed their own clothes. At that time, military details appeared for the first time in women's fashion: large patch pockets, belts with buckles, epaulettes.

Trousers. The casual outfit includes trousers. Moreover, not sophisticated and feminine, but masculine: broad and practical. Tights and stockings were considered an unprecedented luxury. They were worn only for some very important events, the cost was too high, and it was very difficult to get them.

"Hanger." In order to somehow keep the silhouette feminine, linings called “shoulders” were invented, making the shoulders visually wider. This made the waist look narrower. Jackets with shoulders were combined with a circle skirt or trousers to achieve the effect of an hourglass figure.

Elegant hats were also a luxury during the war years. They were worn mostly in the rear. Women who were near the war zone wore men's military clothing, or combined parts of a men's wardrobe with women's. Very often, scarves and scarves were tied on the head, since hygiene was not as good as we would like: the hairstyle could not always be in a presentable form. Therefore, scarves were very helpful. Naturally, the clothes of the privileged segments of the population were different, but at the same time they maintained the tendency to borrow items from men's wardrobe.

Clothes without collars. Another interesting detail that wartime brought into fashion was the absence of collars. With this trick, women tried to emphasize the shoulder line. It looked very natural and elegant.

The war, fortunately, ended long ago, but in the fashion industry the mood of that time was firmly entrenched. Power dressing - a style that is still relevant and often quoted by modern fashion, suggests combining practical things that over time have been transformed into something more stylish: baggy unisex trousers, wide overalls, various paramilitary styles and, of course, colored items military. Looking at such clothes now, it is difficult to believe that they once appeared due to strict necessity and lack of choice.

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Interesting

In war, two main aspects of reality exist and are closely intertwined: the danger of battle and the everyday life. As Konstantin Simonov noted: “War is not continuous danger, the expectation of death and thoughts about it. If this were so, then not a single person would withstand its weight... even for a month. War is a combination of mortal danger, the constant possibility of being killed, chance and all the features and details of everyday life that are always present in our lives... A man at the front is busy with an endless number of things that he constantly needs to think about and because of which he often He doesn’t have time to think about his safety at all. That is why the feeling of fear is dulled at the front, and not at all because people suddenly become fearless.”

Soldier's service included, first of all, hard, exhausting work at the limit of human strength. Therefore, along with the danger of battle, the most important factor in the war that influenced the consciousness of its participants was the special conditions of front-line life, or the way of everyday life in a combat situation. Everyday life in war has never been a priority topic for historical research; aspects of the life of men and women at the front were not emphasized.

During the Great Patriotic War, the participation of women in combat operations and meeting the needs of the front became widespread and became a social phenomenon that required special study. In the 1950s - 1980s. sought to show the military feats of Soviet women, the scale of mobilization and military training of women, the procedure for serving in all branches of the Armed Forces and branches of the military. In the scientific works of M.P. Chechneva, B.C. Murmantseva, F. Kochieva, A.B. Zhinkin in the 1970s - 1980s, some features of women's military service were considered, primarily in the matter of their everyday life, establishing correct relationships with male colleagues. Recognizing that when women joined the army they were faced with problems of a moral, psychological and everyday nature, the researchers still assessed the situation of the female contingent in it as satisfactory, since, in their opinion, political bodies and party organizations were able to rebuild their educational work.

Among modern historical research, we note the project “Women. Memory. War”, which is implemented by employees of the Center for Gender Studies of the European Humanities University. The idea of ​​the project is to analyze women's individual and collective memories of the war in their relation to official history, ideological restrictions and the politics of constructing memory (of the war) in the USSR and Belarus (during and after the Soviet period). Thus, the study of everyday aspects of everyday life at the front is also relevant for the regions of Russia, including the Bryansk region.

This study is based on interviews with women participants in the Great Patriotic War, as well as memoirs published in regional periodicals, collected from both women and men who mentioned any details of life at the front.

First of all, we remembered the uniform. Many women said that they were given men’s uniforms: “At that time (1942) there were no women’s uniforms in the division and we were given men’s uniforms,” recalls Olga Efimovna Sakharova. - The gymnasts are wide, two people can fit into the trousers... The underwear is also for men. The boots have the smallest size - 40... The girls put them on and gasped: who do they look like?! We started laughing at each other...”

“The soldiers were given overcoats, but I got a simple sweatshirt. It was terribly cold in there, but we had no other options. At night we covered ourselves with it, either over our heads or over our legs. Everyone had tarpaulin boots on their feet, heavy and uncomfortable. In winter, we wore several pairs of socks, our feet sweated a lot and were constantly wet. Clothes were not changed, only washed occasionally.”

Front-line nurse Maria Ionovna Ilyushenkova notes: “Skirts were worn by medical battalions in the emergency room. At the front, skirts get in the way; you can’t do anything with them.” She had been at the front since October 1941. and remembers how the most difficult times were being on the North-Western Front in the winter and spring of 1942. in forests and swamps as part of a cavalry ambulance company: “Nurses barely had time to provide medical care to the wounded, hiding them in the forest, ditches and craters from shells and bombs. If you manage to put the wounded on a raincoat or overcoat and drag him, then good, but if not, then crawl on your bellies under the continuous whistling of bullets and shell explosions and pull them out." He describes his clothes in detail: Budenovka, overcoat that does not fit his size , buttons on the right side. There was no women's room. Everything is men's: shirts, tapered trousers, long johns. Boots were for rank and file; smaller boots were selected for women. In winter there were pea coats, sheepskin coats, a hat with earflaps and a balaclava, felt boots, and wadded trousers."

Women associated improvements in clothing and some variety with successes in the war: “Then there were stockings. At first we sewed them with men's windings. There was a shoemaker in the cavalry ambulance company who sewed clothes. I sewed beautiful overcoats for eight girls from even the wrong material....” .

Memories vary about how they were fed at the front, but all the women connect this with the situation at the front: “Olga Vasilievna Belotserkovets recalls the difficult autumn of 1942, the offensive on the Kalinin front: Our rear fell behind. We found ourselves in swamps, surviving on nothing but breadcrumbs. They were dropped on us from airplanes: four crackers of black bread for the wounded, two for the soldiers.”

How they were fed in a field hospital in 1943. Faina Yakovlevna Etina recalls: “We ate mostly porridge. The most common was pearl barley porridge. There were also “field lunches”: plain water with fish. Liver sausage was considered a delicacy. We spread it on bread and ate it with particular greed; it seemed incredibly tasty.”

Maria Ionovna Ilyushenkova considers the front-line ration to be good and explains this by the fact that the North-Western Front was very difficult and they tried to supply the troops better: “The North-Western Front is the heaviest. We were fed well, only everything was dried: compote, carrots, onions, potatoes. Concentrates - buckwheat, millet, pearl barley in square bags. There was meat. China then supplied stewed meat and the Americans sent it too. There was sausage in cans, covered in lard. Officers were given additional rations. We didn't starve. People died, there was no one to eat...”

Let us note that food sometimes plays in people’s memories the role of a small miracle associated with salvation, liberation, a bright page in life. We found a mention of this in a man’s story about the war: “In the hospital I fell ill with malaria. Suddenly I really wanted herring with potatoes! It seemed: eat it and the disease will go away. And what do you think - I ate it and got better. During the rounds, the doctor tells me: well done fighter, you are getting better, which means our treatment is helping. And take the soldier who was lying with us in the ward and say: it wasn’t your quinine that helped him, but herring and potatoes.”

Women veterans remember “front-line hundred grams” with a smile: “Yes, indeed, there were front-line hundred grams for men, but what’s worse for us women? We drank too."

“They gave one hundred grams to everyone. I drank only in severe frosts. More often I gave it away for exchange. I exchanged it for soap and oil.”

Another important recurring everyday memory of the war among men and women was the thirst for restful sleep, fatigue from debilitating insomnia: “We used to doze off while walking. There is a column of four people in a line. You lean on the arm of a friend, and you yourself sleep. As soon as you hear the command “Halt!” all the soldiers are fast asleep." Her daughter Lyudmila tells about nurse Evdokia Pakhotnik: “Mom said that they worked in the hospital around the clock,” writes her daughter. “As soon as you close your eyes, you need to get up - a train with wounded soldiers has arrived. And so every day." It is more common for women to describe war not as a feat, but as hard everyday work. Military doctor Nadezhda Nikiforova recalls her participation in the Battle of Stalingrad: “We were sent on ships that carried the wounded from Stalingrad along the Volga and sent them to hospitals. How many times did steamships fire at fascist planes, but we were lucky... On the ship, there were up to five hundred wounded for every two doctors. They lay everywhere: under the stairs, in the hold, and on decks in the open air. And here’s the round: you start in the morning, and by the evening you only have time to get around everyone. We’ll rest for two or three days and then go down the Volga again to get the wounded.”

Ilyushenkova M.I. speaks about her front-line awards when she recalls how she returned to her native village: “After the war, my father and I returned home together. They approached their native village of Petrishchevo in the Smolensk region early in the morning. At the outskirts, she took off her military uniform and put on a silk dress. His father pinned him with the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Red Star, and the medals “For Courage,” “For Military Merit,” and “For the Capture of Koenigsberg.”

The most difficult aspect of a woman’s life during war was discussing hygiene, including intimate hygiene. Of course, in the hospital, doctors could get hot water, alcohol, bandages, cotton wool, as military doctor Nikiforova and laboratory assistant Etina recall: “This case was very difficult. I had to get together with the girls and go wash together. Some wash, others stand and watch that men are not around. In the summer we went to the lake when it was warm, but in the winter it was more difficult: we melted the snow and washed ourselves. It happened that they rubbed each other with alcohol to kill bacteria.”

Many women cut their hair at the front, but nurse Ilyushenkova proudly shows a photo with a braid around her head: “I went through the whole war with such a braid. My girlfriend and I washed each other’s hair in the tent. They melted the snow and exchanged “one hundred grams” for soap.” Olga Efimovna Sakharova’s long hair almost killed the young girl: “The platoon came under fire. She lay down on the ground..., pressed into the snow. ...When the shelling ended, I heard the order: “Get to the cars!” I try to get up - it didn’t happen. The braids are long, tight... They are caught in the frost so hard that I can’t turn my head... And I can’t scream... well, I keep thinking that my platoon will leave, and the Germans will find me. Luckily for me, one of the girls noticed that I was gone. Let’s go look and help free the braids.” Not everyone agrees that there were lice. But F.Ya. Etina states: “Literally everyone had lice! Nobody was ashamed of this. It happened that we were sitting, and they were jumping both on clothes and on the bed, openly crushing them like seeds. There was no time to take them out, and there was no point, they had to be taken out at once and from everyone.” Belotserkovets O.V. recalls everyday hygienic difficulties due to the fact that in films now the everyday life of women at the front is often embellished: “You sleep for three or four hours, sometimes right at the table, and then go back to work. What kind of lipstick is there, earrings, like they sometimes show in the movies. There was nowhere to wash, and there was nothing to comb with.”

The following is recalled about moments of relaxation during the war: “... Front-line brigades of artists arrived... Everyone gathered in the hospital and sang songs. I really liked the song “Dark Night”. ...There was a gramophone, they played rumba, they danced.” It’s more difficult to ask about relationships with men. All respondents denied the facts of harassment or any threats to themselves personally, mainly referring to the old age of the soldiers they served next to - 45-47 years. Doctor N.N. Nikiforova recalls that she had to travel alone, accompanied by a soldier-driver and an officer, several tens of kilometers to the wounded man at night, and only now she thinks about why she did not doubt and was not afraid? Nadezhda Nikolaevna claims that the officers treated the young doctors with respect and ceremony and invited them to holidays, about which a note was preserved.

So, the everyday experience of war, endured and preserved by women, is a significant layer of historical memory of the war in its everyday everyday manifestation. A woman's view is a mass of everyday details of life at the front without a touch of glorification. It is very difficult for women to remember mutual hatred with the population of liberated countries; they do not want to talk about whether they experienced violence or whether they had to kill enemies. Oral histories of participants in the Great Patriotic War require careful preservation and attention of researchers.