Soviet Women on the Frontline in the Second World War

329 Pages·2012·2.899 MB·English

by  Roger D. Markwick, Euridice Charon Cardona (auth.)

Soviet Women on the Frontline in the Second World War
Wehrmacht frontlines: June 1941–November 1942
Also by Roger D. Markwick
REWRITING HISTORY IN SOVIET RUSSIA: THE POLITICS OF REVISIONIST
HISTORIOGRAPHY, 1956–1974
RUSSIA’S STILLBORN DEMOCRACY? FROM GORBACHEV TO YELTSIN
(with Graeme Gill)
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Soviet Women on the
Frontline in the Second
World War
Roger D. Markwick
Associate Professor of Modern European History
The University of Newcastle, Australia
and
Euridice Charon Cardona
Australian Research Council Senior Research Associate
The University of Newcastle, Australia
© Roger D. Markwick and Euridice Charon Cardona 2012
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-57952-1
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First published 2012 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-36816-7 ISBN 978-0-230-36254-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230362543
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12
To all those women who resisted fascism
No it’s not the huts that are burning
It is my youth in the fire.
Young women are going off to war
Looking like young fellows.
Yulya Drunina (1973), Ne Byvaet Lyubvi Neschastlivy
(Moskva), p. 177.
Even at war, love is all you think about! That’s women for you!
Soldier Ivan.
And what would you have done without us, Ivan! Marya.
Frontline graffiti, East Prussia, January 1945, in
L. N. Pushkarev (1995), ‘Pismennaya forma bytovaniya
frontovo folklora’, Etnograficheskoe obozreniye, 4 (7–8), 29.
Contents
List of Plates xii
List of Maps xiii
List of Tables xiv
Preface and Acknowledgements xv
List of Acronyms and Russian Terms xvii
Transliteration, Archival References and Pseudonyms xxi
Chronology of Soviet Women at War xxii
Introduction 1
1 The Making of the frontovichki 7
A passion for education 9
Komsomol mentality 11
Osoaviakhim 14
Commanders’ wives 17
Heroines and heroes 19
How the Steel was Tempered 20
Civil war legacy 21
A ‘new type’ of woman 23
Curtailing the heroine cult 27
2 ‘Not Women’s Business’: Volunteers 32
‘To the home front!’ 37
Civil and a nti- aircraft defence 38
The Labour Front 39
Secret training 43
Levée en masse 46
Baptism of fire 47
The first women snipers 51
3 Sisters of Mercy: Nurses 56
Raw recruits 57
Combative femininity 61
Casualties 66
Medsanbat sisters 68
Fighting field nurses 69
Sanitizing war 74
ix