Remembering The Unacknowledged Sacrifices Of The Red Army’s Female Snipers

On a chilly March day successful Poland, 1945, Guards Lieutenant Nina Lobovskaya, commandant of a Red Army female snipers’ platoon, had orders akin to nan conflict of David and Goliath: take sides a captious conception of road from a ample Nazi portion pinch 15 snipers. Twenty-one year-old Lobkovskaya, pinch pome cheeks and a fresh grin that belied her determination to termination fascists, had already triumphed successful a weeklong sniper duel pinch a German serviceman (who was training subordinates to stalk Soviet snipers), and she’d taken portion successful nan liberations of Nevel, Belorussia, and Warsaw.

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I became fascinated pinch Lobovskaya while doing investigation for my caller novel, The Night Sparrow, and I wondered why she is not portion of nan WWII narrative. “Red Army females” were nan only women successful combat during WWII yet their names and stories person much often than not been forgotten. These women bespeak a captious portion of history that is vastly different from their antheral combatants’ constituent of view. “Everything we cognize astir warfare we cognize pinch a ‘man’s voice,’  wrote Svetlana Alexievich, successful her Nobel Prize winning book, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women successful World War II. “Women’s’ warfare has its ain colors, its ain smells, its ain lighting, and its ain scope of feelings. Its ain words.”

As we commemorate nan 80th day of VE Day, it’s imperative to springiness sound to those women who were silenced by nan state they fought to protect. We request to adhd their names and stories to nan humanities communicative successful bid to afloat spot each sides of war.

Lobovskaya was 1 of 2,500 women snipers, pinch a mixed tally of 11,000 kills. The mostly spent six months astatine nan recently created Central Women’s Sniper Training School. Vera Samarina, a “frail redhead,” arsenic described successful Soviet Women connected nan Frontline successful nan Second World War, had a fearfulness of rifles and shooting erstwhile she arrived for training. By nan clip she sewage to nan front, she was ready, shouting, “Let’s get ourselves into gear, guidelines up to nan Nazis and thrust them back!” Other women, for illustration Sergeant Roza Shanina, thrived connected nan action; she wrote successful her oil-cloth-bound diary: “I thirst, thirst for battle, nan power of battle. I would springiness everything, including my life, if only I could fulfill this whim. It torments me….I didn’t spell anyplace until dark, and aft acheronian went to Nikolay and quarrelled pinch him astir Lena—my rival from nan aesculapian battalion.”

Any concerns astir women’s effectiveness successful combat were alleviated by General V.A. Yushkevich, successful a missive to nan Central Women’s Sniper Training School 1 twelvemonth aft they’d arrived: “The pupils of your school, participating successful nan subject operations of nan armies, exterminated 2,138 German fascist monsters…” There were countless newspaper and mag articles praising nan women, too. “Nina Lobkovskaya has a crisp oculus and dependable hand,” a newsman wrote successful a front-line newspaper. “Her firearm ne'er misses. Dozens of Nazis person been sent to Kingdom travel by nan fearless woman sniper.”

Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, immoderate women combatants knowledgeable intersexual assaults by men wrong their ain regiments, and had small to nary opportunity for recourse. Sniper Polina Galanina testified earlier nan Academy of Sciences Commission: “In fact, men do harass us. We had a conception head, Dugman, who tried to get what he wanted by giving maine orders…He summoned maine to his barrack…I made my study and he began emotion maine up. I pushed him off, he fell, sewage furious, and started each complete again. I screamed, a patrol came and opened nan door. They…gave him 5 days arrest.”

Almost 2,000 female snipers died successful combat. Senior Sergeant Nina Onilova destroyed 2 force instrumentality weapon nests, and past sacrificed her life to screen nan retreat of her comrades. Corporal Tatyana Barazmina was captured while defending wounded soldiers, tortured and killed. After moving retired of ammunition, Natalya Koshova and Mariya Polivanova waited until nan force was adjacent earlier detonating grenades successful their hands.

As triumph drew near, nan women’s value was radically diminished, arsenic seen successful this editorial successful Pravda (Truth), published connected International Women’s Day, March, 1945 (the aforesaid period arsenic Lobovskaya secured nan highway): “In nan Red Army…women person very energetically proved themselves arsenic pilots, snipers, submachine gunners [etc.]…But they don’t hide their superior work to federation and state, that of motherhood.”

Two months later, connected May 8, Berlin fell to nan Soviets and, arsenic citizens cried pinch joyousness and nan skies were lit pinch triumphant weapon salutes, Nina and nan different 500 surviving female snipers wrote nan names of their fallen comrades connected nan columns of nan Brandenburg Gate.

But arsenic nan skies cleared and these young women returned to nan Soviet Union, their expectations of being greeted arsenic heroes, for illustration their antheral comrades, were dashed. “How did nan Motherland meet us? I can’t speak without sobbing…” said Klavdia S. to Alexievich, recounting her return to nan Soviet Union. “It was forty years ago, but my cheeks still burn. The men said nothing, but nan women…They shouted to us, ‘We cognize what you did there! You lured our men pinch your young c—-! Army whores…Military bitches…’ They insulted america successful each imaginable ways…The Russian vocabulary is rich…”

On Victory successful Europe Day, nan female snipers’ identities and achievements, each nan gains they’d made successful position of equality, were buried on pinch nan names of those who’d died. One period later, President Kalinin told a group of demobilized female soldiers, “Do not talk astir nan services you rendered.”

In Girl pinch a Sniper Rifle: An Eastern Front Memoir, Yulia Zhukova writes: “I strove to hide everything to do pinch nan war…I did not show my photographs from nan warfare years to anyone. I burnt each nan letters I had sent home…”

Remembering was vulnerable successful a state wherever hundreds of thousands of citizens had mysteriously vanished during Stalin’s 1930’s purges. Truth and equality vanished pinch victory.

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The semipermanent consequences of nan forgotten, neglected, and expunged history of female snipers are evident successful nan erroneous conclusions drawn by historians for illustration nan UK’s John Keegan, who wrote nan pursuing successful his 1994 book, A History of Warfare: “Warfare is nan 1 quality activity from which women, pinch nan astir insignificant exceptions, person ever and everyplace stood apart…Women do not fight…and they never, successful immoderate subject sense, conflict men.”

Shortly aft Keegan’s book was published, American women were accepted into combat roles successful nan Air Force and Navy—approximately 50 years aft nan female snipers’ debut successful WWII, and 50 years aft Lobovskaya’s all-female platoon defended nan Polish highway.

Now, 80 years aft VE Day, location is an alarming displacement backwards to a Soviet-esque era. The caller US government’s bid to region subject web pages that grant women—‘Women successful Army History’ and ‘Navy Women of Courage and Intelligence’—is eerily parallel to nan Soviet’s authorities of soundlessness and lies successful WWII. If this suppression continues, if women’s authorities proceed to beryllium eroded, their voices and their sacrifices will beryllium stifled by nan state they’ve defended.

In these precarious times, we request to beryllium inspired by women who risked everything to conclusion fascism. We request to capable nan blank pages of history pinch nan truth, to cognize what’s possible. We request to admit and grant female sacrifices and triumphs, to speak retired connected VE Day against diminishing women successful nan military. Remembering should not beryllium dangerous.

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The Night Sparrow by Shelly Sanders will beryllium disposable from Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers connected July 1, 2025. Image courtesy of: Keystone-France via Getty Images.