Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region, into a family of hereditary local priests.
Her grandfather, priest Pyotr Ioannovich Kosmodemyansky, was executed by the Bolsheviks for hiding counter-revolutionaries in the church. On the night of August 27, 1918, the Bolsheviks captured him and, after severe torture, drowned him in a pond. Zoya's father Anatoly studied at the theological seminary, but did not graduate from it; married local teacher Lyubov Churikova.
In 1929, the family ended up in Siberia; according to some statements, they were exiled, but according to Zoya’s mother, Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya, they fled from denunciation. For a year, the family lived in the village of Shitkino on the Yenisei, but then managed to move to Moscow - perhaps thanks to the efforts of Lyubov Kosmodemyaskaya’s sister, who served in the People’s Commissariat for Education. In the children's book “The Tale of Zoya and Shura,” Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya also reports that the move to Moscow occurred after a letter from sister Olga.
Zoya's father, Anatoly Kosmodemyansky, died in 1933 after intestinal surgery, and the children (Zoya and her younger brother Alexander) were left to be raised by their mother.
At school, Zoya studied well, was especially interested in history and literature, and dreamed of entering the Literary Institute. However, relationships with classmates were not always the best in the best possible way— in 1938 she was elected Komsomol group organizer, but then was not re-elected. According to Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya, Zoya had been suffering from a nervous disease since 1939, when she moved from 8th to 9th grade... Her peers did not understand her. She did not like the fickleness of her friends: Zoya often sat alone. But she was worried about all this, saying that she was a lonely person, that she could not find a girlfriend.
In 1940, she suffered acute meningitis, after which she underwent rehabilitation in the winter of 1941 at a sanatorium for nervous diseases in Sokolniki, where she became friends with the writer Arkady Gaidar, who was also lying there. In the same year I graduated from 9th grade high school No. 201, despite a large number of classes missed due to illness.
On October 31, 1941, Zoya, among 2,000 Komsomol volunteers, came to the gathering place at the Colosseum cinema and from there was taken to the sabotage school, becoming a fighter in the reconnaissance and sabotage unit, officially called the “partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front.” After three days of training, Zoya as part of the group was transferred to the Volokolamsk area on November 4, where the group successfully dealt with the mining of the road.
On November 17, Stalin issued Order No. 0428, which ordered that “the German army be deprived of the opportunity to be stationed in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all populated areas into the cold fields, smoke them out of all rooms and warm shelters and force them to freeze in the open air,” with which the goal is “to destroy and burn to the ground all populated areas in the rear of German troops at a distance of 40-60 km in depth from the front line and 20-30 km to the right and left of the roads.”
To carry out this order, on November 18 (according to other sources, 20) the commanders of sabotage groups of unit No. 9903 P. S. Provorov (Zoya was included in his group) and B. S. Krainev were ordered to burn within 5-7 days 10 settlements, including the village of Petrishchevo (Ruzsky district, Moscow region). The group members each had 3 Molotov cocktails, a pistol (for Zoya it was a revolver), dry rations for 5 days and a bottle of vodka. Having gone out on a mission together, both groups (10 people each) came under fire near the village of Golovkovo (10 km from Petrishchev), suffered heavy losses and were partially scattered; their remnants united under the command of Boris Krainev.
On November 27 at 2 o’clock in the morning, Boris Krainev, Vasily Klubkov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya set fire to three houses in Petrishchev (residents of Karelova, Solntsev and Smirnov); At the same time, the Germans lost 20 horses.
What is known about the future is that Krainev did not wait for Zoya and Klubkov at the agreed upon meeting place and left, safely returning to his people; Klubkov was captured by the Germans; Zoya, having missed her comrades and being left alone, decided to return to Petrishchevo and continue the arson. However, both the Germans and local residents were already on guard, and the Germans created a guard of several Petrishchevsky men who were tasked with monitoring the appearance of arsonists.
With the onset of the evening of November 28, while trying to set fire to the barn of S. A. Sviridov (one of the “guards” appointed by the Germans), Zoya was noticed by the owner. The Germans who were called by the latter seized the girl (at about 7 o'clock in the evening). Sviridov was awarded a bottle of vodka for this (later sentenced by the court to death). During interrogation, she identified herself as Tanya and did not say anything definite. Having stripped her naked, she was flogged with belts, then the guard assigned to her for 4 hours led her barefoot, in only her underwear, along the street in the cold. Local residents Solina and Smirnova (a fire victim) also tried to join in the torture of Zoya, throwing a pot of slop at Zoya (Solina and Smirnova were subsequently sentenced to death).
At 10:30 the next morning, Zoya was taken outside, where a hanging noose had already been erected; a sign was hung on her chest that read “Arsonist.” When Zoya was led to the gallows, Smirnova hit her legs with a stick, shouting: “Who did you harm? She burned my house, but did nothing to the Germans...”
One of the witnesses describes the execution itself as follows:
They led her by the arms all the way to the gallows. She walked straight, with her head raised, silently, proudly. They brought him to the gallows. There were many Germans and civilians around the gallows. They brought her to the gallows, ordered her to expand the circle around the gallows and began to photograph her... She had a bag with bottles with her. She shouted: “Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement.” After that, one officer swung his arms, and others shouted at her. Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender.” The officer shouted angrily: “Rus!” “The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated,” she said all this at the moment when she was photographed... Then they framed the box. She stood on the box herself without any command. A German came up and began to put on the noose. At that time she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you won’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” She said this with a noose around her neck. She wanted to say something else, but at that moment the box was removed from under her feet, and she hung. She grabbed the rope with her hand, but the German hit her hands. After that everyone dispersed.
The footage of Zoe's execution shown here was taken by one of the Wehrmacht soldiers, who was soon killed.
Zoya's body hung on the gallows for about a month, repeatedly being abused by German soldiers passing through the village. On New Year's Day 1942, drunken Germans tore off the hanged woman's clothes and once again violated the body, stabbing it with knives and cutting off her chest. The next day, the Germans gave the order to remove the gallows and the body was buried by local residents outside the village.
Subsequently, Zoya was reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.
Zoya’s fate became widely known from the article “Tanya” by Pyotr Lidov, published in the newspaper Pravda on January 27, 1942. The author accidentally heard about the execution in Petrishchevo from a witness - an elderly peasant who was shocked by the courage of an unknown girl: “They hanged her, and she spoke a speech. They hanged her, and she kept threatening them...” Lidov went to Petrishchevo, questioned the residents in detail and published an article based on their questions. It was claimed that the article was noted by Stalin, who allegedly said: “here is a national heroine,” and it was from this moment that the propaganda campaign around Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya began.
Her identity was soon established, as reported by Pravda in Lidov’s February 18 article “Who Was Tanya”; even earlier, on February 16, a decree was signed awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).
During and after perestroika, in the wake of anti-communist propaganda, new information about Zoya appeared in the press. As a rule, it was based on rumors, not always accurate recollections of eyewitnesses, and in some cases, speculation - which was inevitable in a situation where documentary information contradicting the official “myth” continued to be kept secret or was just being declassified. MM. Gorinov wrote about these publications that they “reflected some facts of the biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, which were hushed up in Soviet time, but were reflected as in a distorting mirror - in a monstrously distorted form.”
Some of these publications claimed that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya suffered from schizophrenia, others that she arbitrarily set fire to houses in which there were no Germans, and was captured, beaten and handed over to the Germans by the Petrishchevites themselves. It was also suggested that in fact it was not Zoya who accomplished the feat, but another Komsomol saboteur, Lilya Azolina.
Some newspapers wrote that she was suspected of schizophrenia, based on the article “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya: Heroine or Symbol?” in the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” (1991, No. 43). The authors of the article - leading physician of the Scientific and Methodological Center for Child Psychiatry A. Melnikova, S. Yuryeva and N. Kasmelson - wrote:
Before the war in 1938-39, a 14-year-old girl named Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was repeatedly examined at the Leading Scientific and Methodological Center for Child Psychiatry and was an inpatient in the children's department of the hospital named after. Kashchenko. She was suspected of schizophrenia. Immediately after the war, two people came to the archives of our hospital and took out Kosmodemyanskaya’s medical history.
No other evidence or documentary evidence of suspicion of schizophrenia was mentioned in the articles, although the memoirs of her mother and classmates do tell about a “nervous disease” that struck her in grades 8-9 (as a result of the mentioned conflict with classmates), for which she underwent examinations. In subsequent publications, newspapers citing Argumenty i Fakty often omitted the word “suspected.”
IN last years there is a version that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was betrayed by her squadmate (and Komsomol organizer) Vasily Klubkov. It is based on materials from the Klubkov case, declassified and published in the Izvestia newspaper in 2000. Klubkov, who appeared at his unit in early 1942, stated that he was captured by the Germans, escaped, was captured again, escaped again and managed to reach his people. However, during interrogations at SMERSH, he changed his testimony and stated that he was captured along with Zoya and betrayed her. Klubkov was shot “for treason to the Motherland” on April 16, 1942. His testimony contradicts the testimony of witnesses - village residents, and is also internally contradictory.
Researcher M.M. Gorinov suggests that the SMERSHists forced Klubkov to incriminate himself either for career reasons (in order to receive their share of dividends from the unfolding propaganda campaign around Zoya), or for propaganda reasons (to “justify” Zoya’s capture, which, according to the ideology of that time, was unworthy of a Soviet soldier). However, the version of betrayal was never put into propaganda circulation.
Prepared based on Wikipedia materials.
The twentieth century was a terrible event in our country, which claimed many lives, broke a huge number of destinies, forcing people who lived in those days to live in fear of cold and hunger.
When the war began, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was only 18 years old. In 1941, she successfully passed an interview to recruit volunteers for the partisan unit. About two thousand volunteers went with her for training.
In November 1941, two sabotage groups No. 9903, one of which included Zoya, were given a combat mission to destroy 10 villages that were located behind enemy lines in 7 days. There were many losses on our side, which served to merge the groups under the command of B. Krainov. On November 27, Zoya, together with fighter Vasily Klubkov, goes to the village of Petrishchevo. They boldly set fire to three residential buildings with stables and destroyed several enemy horses. Also at this time, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was able to damage the German communications center.
Krainov did not wait for them. Zoya herself decided to carry out the order to the end. On November 28, the girl set fire, then was captured by local resident S. Sviridov, who handed her over to the Nazis. They tortured Zoya for a long time, trying to get an answer from her about the other partisans. But she was adamant. The most terrible thing was that local residents also participated in her beating.
November 29, 1941 Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was led to the gallows. All the locals were brought to watch the girl’s execution. Before her death, the girl said a few words: “I am not afraid to die for my people! Fight! Do not be afraid!". Her body hung until the new year.
A terrible war will make the hearts of many generations tremble, everyone will remember the price of our Victory. We won thanks to those who were strong in spirit, who believed in victory until their last breath, who were ready to give their lives for the sake of the Motherland, the people, future generations, enduring pain and torment. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was so fearless and brave.
The feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in detail, the truth
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. What does this name mean to us? Who is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya?
A heroine who suffered martyrdom, or a fictitious image of communist propaganda?
On September 13, 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya turned 18 years old. Working at a factory as a turner, she always dreamed of going to the front, defending Moscow, defending the Motherland.
An appeal was received in Moscow with a request to allocate at least a thousand boys and girls. The rule is that the farther from the front, the greater the desire to get there. Three thousand people came to the commission. In a matter of hours, squads of boys and girls ready for self-sacrifice are organized. Almost everyone was accepted, but there was one thing. A saboteur should not be too noticeable, especially beautiful girl. This is the main parameter for which Zoya did not fit. She was not accepted and sent home. Zoya did not leave and spent the night near the reception area. She seemed to be striving for death, and they took her, for which the unit commander greatly regretted and blamed himself.
On October 29, 1941, in a truck among young people like her, Zoya went to the front, rejoicing that she would finally be able to close Moscow. Zoya did not yet know that she had exactly a month to live. On October 29 she went to the front, and on November 29 she was executed.
The tasks for the group of young saboteurs included mining roads and bridges, setting fire to German headquarters and stables, which also served as a reference point for our aviation. Torch teams began to be created in the regiments, twenty to thirty people each from the most courageous fighters and commanders. Several thousand volunteer saboteurs, such as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, were also transferred behind the front line.
The village of Petrishchevo was a special gathering place for German troops. In this village the Nazis stationed part of the radio reconnaissance unit. The approach to the village was mined, the detachment commander considered that the task was impossible to complete, and deployed the detachment, but not all the soldiers obeyed him. Three fighters, three fearless people Boris, Vasily and Zoya continued to break into the village and carried out operations to set houses and stables on fire.
What happened in this village? During the sabotage, having set fire to several houses, Boris did not wait. Zoya and Vasily and left the village. The fighters lost each other and Zoya decided to continue the operation herself and went there again on the evening of November 28. This time she was unable to achieve her goals, as she was spotted by a German sentry and captured. The Nazis, tired of constant sabotage and the actions of Russian partisans, began to torture the girl, trying to find out from her how many more of our soldiers were or were planning to get into the village. Zoya did not answer a single question from the Nazis; she was ready to die in complete silence. Zoya was devoted to her Motherland to the last!
On November 29, the fragile girl was hanged in front of the village residents. Zoya's last words were: -I am dying for my People! For your Country! For the truth!
- Switzerland - message report (grades 3, 7. The world around us. Geography)
Switzerland is an amazing country, famous for its abundance of endless lakes and villages. The country also has high alpine Alps (extending 200 kilometers), in which there are a lot of mountain roads
There are topics that are difficult to put on a par. It is impossible to imagine together such sublime feelings as love for parents, for life, for friends, and the bitterness of war. But Ya.Yu. Yakovlevich, was a writer
Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya. Born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai, Tambov province, she died on November 29, 1941 in the village of Petrishchevo, Moscow region. Soviet intelligence officer-saboteur, fighter of the sabotage and reconnaissance group of the headquarters of the Western Front, abandoned in 1941 to the German rear. The first woman awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (February 16, 1942; posthumously) during the Great Patriotic War.
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai (Osinov Gai / Osinovye Gai) in the Tambov province (now Gavrilovsky district of the Tambov region). According to other sources, she was born on September 8.
Father - Anatoly Petrovich Kosmodemyansky, teacher, from the clergy.
Mother - Lyubov Timofeevna (nee Churikova), teacher.
The surname comes from the name of the church of Saints Kozma and Damian, where their ancestor served (in the language of worship it was written as “Kozmodemyansky”).
Grandfather - Pyotr Ioannovich Kozmodemyansky was a priest of the Znamenskaya Church in the village of Osino-Gai. According to the old-timers of the village, on the night of August 27, 1918, he was captured by the Bolsheviks and, after severe torture, drowned in the Sosulinsky pond. His corpse was discovered only in the spring of 1919 and was buried next to the church, which was closed by the Soviet authorities in 1927.
Younger brother - Alexander Kosmodemyansky, Soviet tanker, Hero of the Soviet Union. After the death of Zoe, he went to the front at the age of 17, wanting to avenge the death of his sister. He fought on a KV tank, on which he wrote the inscription “For Zoya.” Known for his exploits during the storming of Königsberg. On April 6, 1945, Alexander in Königsberg on a self-propelled gun SU-152 independently crossed the Landgraben Canal, destroyed an enemy battery there and held a bridgehead until the crossing of Soviet troops was created. On April 8, a battery of self-propelled guns SU-152 under his command captured the key defense point of Koenigsberg, Fort Queen Louise. On April 13, 1945, in a battle with an enemy anti-tank battery in the north-west of Köningsberg, after his self-propelled gun was knocked out, with the support of other self-propelled guns under his command, he entered into a shooting battle with German infantry and captured a key strong point in the town of Vierbrudenkrug, was fatally wounded in this battle.
In 1929, the Kosmodemyansky family ended up in Siberia. According to some reports, they were exiled for their father’s speech against collectivization. According to the mother’s testimony, published in 1986, they fled to Siberia to escape denunciation.
For a year, the family lived in the village of Shitkino (Irkutsk region) on Biryusa, but then managed to move to Moscow - perhaps thanks to the efforts of Lyubov’s sister Olga, who served in the People’s Commissariat for Education. In the book “The Tale of Zoya and Shura,” Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya reports that the move to Moscow occurred after a letter from her sister.
The family lived on the far outskirts of Moscow, not far from the Podmoskovnaya railway station, first on the Old Highway (now Vucheticha Street in the Timiryazevsky Park area), then in a two-story wooden house in Aleksandrovsky Proezd, house No. 7 (now the Koptevo district, along Zoya and Alexandra Kosmodemyansky Street , 35/1; the house has not survived).
In 1933, my father died after surgery. Zoya and her younger brother Alexander remained in the arms of their mother.
At school, Zoya studied well, was especially interested in history and literature, and dreamed of entering the Literary Institute. In October 1938, Zoya joined the ranks of the Lenin Komsomol.
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya during the war years:
On October 31, 1941, Zoya, among 2,000 Komsomol volunteers, came to the gathering place at the Colosseum cinema and from there was taken to the sabotage school, becoming a fighter in the reconnaissance and sabotage unit, officially called the “partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front.”
Secretary of the Komsomol MGK A. N. Shelepin and the leaders of reconnaissance and sabotage military unit No. 9903 warned recruits that the participants in the operations were essentially suicide bombers, since their expected level of losses for reconnaissance and sabotage groups was 95%, with a significant part of saboteur recruits most likely will die from torture by the Germans if captured, so those who do not agree to die painfully must leave the intelligence school.
Kosmodemyanskaya, like most of her comrades, remained in the intelligence school. After a short training lasting three days, Zoya as part of the group was transferred to the Volokolamsk area on November 4, where the group successfully completed the task of mining the road.
Documentary film:
♦ “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The truth about the feat" (2005);
♦ “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The truth about the feat" (2008);
♦ “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Difficult decision" (2012)
♦ M.I. Aliger dedicated the poem “Zoya” to Zoya. In 1943, the poem was awarded the Stalin Prize;
♦ L. T. Kosmodemyanskaya published “The Tale of Zoya and Shura (literary recording by F. A. Vigdorova, over 30 reprints);
♦ Soviet writer V. Kovalevsky created a dilogy about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The first part, the story “Brother and Sister,” describes the school years of Zoya and Shura Kosmodemyansky. The story "Don't be afraid of death!" is dedicated to Zoya’s activities during the Great Patriotic War;
♦ The Chuvash poet Pyotr Khuzangay, the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and the Chinese poet Ai Qing dedicated Kosmodemyanskaya’s poems; poems by A. L. Barto (“Partisan Tanya”, “At the Monument to Zoya”), R. I. Rozhdestvensky, Yu. V. Drunina, V. P. Turkin (“Zoya”) and other poets.
Music:
♦ Music by Dmitry Shostakovich for the 1944 film “Zoya” by Leo Arnstam;
♦ “Song about Tanya the Partisan”, lyrics by M. Kremer, music by V. Zhelobinsky;
♦ One-act opera “Tanya” by V. Dekhterev (1943);
♦ Orchestral suite “Zoya” (1955) and opera “Zoya” (1963) by N. Makarova;
♦ Ballet “Tatyana” by A. Crane (1943);
♦ Musical and dramatic poem “Zoya” by V. Yurovsky, lyrics by M. Aliger;
♦ “Song about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya”, lyrics by P. Gradov, music by Y. Milyutin.
Painting:
♦ Kukryniksy. “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya” (1942-1947);
♦ Dmitry Mochalsky “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya”;
♦ K. N. Shchekotov “The Last Night (Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya)”
Works of art:
♦ Borisov N. A. With the name Zoya;
♦ Kovalevsky V. Do not be afraid of death;
♦ Lachin Samed-zade Hell's Honor (excerpt from the novel “God Sneaks Unnoticed”);
♦ Frida Vigdorova Heroes are next to you (excerpt from the book “My Class”);
♦ Uspensky V. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya;
♦ Titov V. Be useful! (story);
♦ Aliger M. Zoya (poem);
♦ Frolov G. Immortality (excerpt from the book “Part No. 9903”);
♦ Argutinskaya L. Tatyana Solomakha (essay);
♦ Emelyanov B. Zoya and Gaidar (published in the magazine “Smena”);
♦ Kosmodemyanskaya L. T. The Tale of Zoya and Shura;
♦ Karpel R., Shvetsov I. Museum in Petrishchevo
Articles:
♦ P. Lidov. Tanya (“Pravda”, January 27, 1942);
♦ P. Lidov. Who was Tanya (“Pravda”, February 18, 1942);
♦ P. Lidov. Partisan Tanya (Pioneer magazine, January-February 1942);
♦ P. Lidov. Five German photographs (Pravda, October 24, 1943);
♦ S. Lyubimov. We won't forget you, Tanya! (“Komsomolskaya Pravda”, January 27, 1942);
♦ P. Nilin. Meanness (essay about the trial of the Military Tribunal over a resident of the village of Petrishchevo, Agrafena Smirnova, who beat Zoya, September 1942);
♦ Ya. Miletsky. Who betrayed Tanya (“Red Star”, April 22, 1942);
♦ Letter to young people from L. T. Kosmodemyanskaya “Avenge my daughter” (Pyatigorsk, 1942);
♦ A. Kosmodemyansky. My sister (February-May 1942);
♦ A. Kosmodemyansky. I take revenge on the murderers of my sister (newspaper “On the Enemy”, October 1943).
Name: Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya
State: USSR
Field of activity: Partisan
Greatest Achievement: While carrying out a partisan mission, she was captured and brutally executed by the Nazis. She didn’t give anyone away during the interrogation. The first woman is a hero of the USSR.
Each period of history has its own hero. And Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya undoubtedly became a symbol of wartime in Russia. Parks, squares, streets were named in her honor, pioneer squads were named after her, and monuments were erected to her. The personality of Zoe, an eighteen-year-old girl who died heroically on the scaffold, was monumentalized. And behind her the features of a living, young girl were visible less and less.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this heroine suffered the fate of many - her image began to be debunked. New evidence has appeared - some false, some genuine - that the girl was not a heroine and did not have time to accomplish feats. Some researchers put forward versions that the girl was mentally unstable, and therefore her heroic behavior at the execution was only due to her lack of understanding of the danger. Is it so? Let's try to figure it out.
Family of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya Anatolyevna was born on September 13, 1923 in the Tambov region, in the village of Osino-Gai. Two years after Zoya was born, she had a younger brother, Alexander, who also later became posthumously. What kind of family was it that gave the Motherland two heroes at once?
The grandfather of the future heroine was a hereditary priest Orthodox Church, executed for his beliefs in 1918. His son, Zoya’s father, did not follow in his footsteps - although he entered a theological seminary, he did not complete his studies and subsequently began working as a librarian, his mother was a teacher.
Fear for their origins forced the family to leave the Tambov region, first to Siberia, and then to Moscow. It is difficult now to understand what was behind these meager lines of the official biography describing this movement. Perhaps, in this way, the family managed to avoid Stalin’s purges?
Komsomol member Zoya
1938 was a significant year for Zoya - she joined the Komsomol. The girl is ideologically savvy, devoted to the ideas of communism, while contemporaries noted her outstanding education and great love of literature. , Tolstoy. Books from the school curriculum and beyond. Her classmates considered her to be categorical, strict and principled, and this did little to promote her friendship with them. But she didn’t need that - best friends the girl had books.
In 1941, Zoya, still a high school student, decides to go fight the Nazis. Her mother’s admonitions have no effect on her - brought up on books, convinced and romantic, she answers like this: “The enemy is close.” And she believes that she must personally help the Motherland win. But they don’t take her to the front - and Zoya shows persistence - again and again she comes to the military registration and enlistment office demanding that she be sent to fight. Her physical characteristics were excellent - the girl was fond of sports - swimming, running, and was an excellent shooter. She is enrolled in intelligence school.
In October 1941, after a short training, she found herself in the partisan detachment 9903, on the Western Front. In fact, a suicide squad - out of the thousand who entered it, only half survived. And, strictly speaking, it cannot be called partisan - it was a sabotage and reconnaissance group.
Deadly mission
Zoya and her comrades were sent on a mission. The crossing of the front line took place in the Naro-Fominsk area. The group carried out sabotage behind enemy lines - mining roads, depriving the enemy of communications.
At the same time, Stalin’s Order 0428 of November 17, 1941 was issued. It spoke of the need to evict German soldiers and officers who did not tolerate the harsh Russian winters from all the premises in which they were located, by destroying both these premises and populated areas as a whole. The fact that these huts, barns and houses belonged to Soviet people should have been forgotten. How effective this measure was in the fight against invaders is a big question. But Stalin's order had to be carried out at any cost.
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and her comrade Boris Krainov were given the task of burning down a populated area - the village of Petrishchevo - where the 332nd regiment of the 197th German division was located. At the same point, a radio center was supposedly located, which intercepted messages from the Soviet group of forces. And since the Soviet command was planning large-scale operations, the center had to be destroyed.
On the night of November 25-26, Boris and Zoya set fire to four huts, then Krainov went to an appointed place to cover Zoya’s retreat. But the group missed each other. Not finding her comrades, Zoya continued to complete the task.
The next night, Kosmodemyanskaya went to the stable, where there were two hundred horses. But she didn’t have time to set it on fire - she was tied up.
Execution of partisan "Tanya"
After hastily conducting the first interrogation, during which the girl was silent, she, barefoot and undressed, was taken to headquarters, where Colonel Ruederer personally began to extract testimony from her. But, despite the beatings and bullying, Zoya remained silent, hiding even her name - she called herself Tanya. The Germans were interested in who sent her on the mission, the number of people in the reconnaissance detachment, its structure, and leaders. They did not receive any information. The torture continued all night. Local residents also took part in them - representatives of those families whose houses were burned.
In the morning, a piece of plywood with the inscription “Arsonist” was hung around Zoya’s neck and she was escorted to a hastily constructed gallows. As local residents said, Zoya walked straight and proud. Near the gallows, the Germans began to photograph her. These photographs were later found on one of the killed German soldiers. The girl’s courage made a strong impression on both the Germans and local residents. Before her death, she shouted: “Hey, comrades! Why are you looking sad? Be bolder, fight, beat the Germans, burn them, poison them!”
She stood on the box, under the rope, on her own. She wanted to say something else, but the German soldier knocked the support from under her feet. The body hung on the gallows for another month to the mockery of passing German units. Then the command ordered him to be buried.
They say that upon learning about this story, Stalin gave instructions not to take prisoners of the soldiers and officers of the 332nd regiment. And the Soviet people learned about Zoya’s heroism in 1942 - after the essay “Tanya” by Pyotr Lidov, which was published by the newspaper Pravda.
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is a symbol of the heroism of Soviet citizens, who became for Russia an example of perseverance and readiness to help her Motherland, like Joan of Arc for her country. In difficult times, many remember her feat, are interested in her biography, photos of the torture and execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. You can find out more about her life in this article.
Childhood and youth
Zoya was born on September 13, 1923, in the Tambov region, in a village called Osinov Gai. Her parents were school teachers, and her grandfather worked as a priest in the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian - from the name of this church the surname Kosmodemyanskaya came from.
Soon their family moved to Moscow, where Zoya went to school. Their father had died by that time, and their mother alone raised her and Sasha, Zoya’s younger brother. The girl was an excellent student, her favorite subjects were history and literature. Zoya wanted to enter the Literary Institute, but the outbreak of war interrupted her plans.
While still at school, Kosmodemyanskaya had a conflict with her classmates, as a result of which she developed a nervous illness.
Some said that Zoya allegedly had schizophrenia, and even showed her medical history. However, no one knew the doctors who treated her, and it is quite possible that the story about schizophrenia was invented to discredit her feat.
In 1940, Kosmodemyanskaya fell ill with an acute form of meningitis, and only in 1941 was she able to recover. Zoya was treated in Sokolniki, where she met her favorite writer, Arkady Gaidar.
On October 31, 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya came to the recruiting station, after which she was sent to combat training for saboteurs. At that time, the famous Order number 428 was announced, ordering the burning and blowing up of houses and railways that the Nazis use for their own purposes. The order was received ambiguously; there are still debates about its necessity and success, because Soviet citizens lost their homes and roads, and many even went over to the side of the Germans. But the Russian command had nothing to do - Nazi troops were rapidly approaching Moscow, and they had to be stopped at any cost.
The training was very short - only three days, where Zoya and other recruits were taught the basics. During the exercises they were warned that 95 percent would die from terrible torture, or they would simply be shot, so those who were afraid of pain and death were not allowed to fight.
Basically, they preferred to hire athletes as people who were persistent and hardy. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya successfully passed all the tests and was enrolled in the sabotage detachment of the Western Front. Her first task was to mine the Volokolamsk railway, which she successfully did.
Zoya's feat
On November 27, 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya was preparing for a new task, which consisted of the following: it was necessary to set fire to the houses in which the Germans were located in several villages. In addition to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, several young people went on the mission. Zoya was given an incendiary mixture, a pistol and a bottle of vodka to keep warm on the frosty night. Together with her comrades, Klubkov and Krainov, she sets fire to several houses in the village of Petrishchevo, one of which was a Nazi communications center, and the other was a stable.
After the execution, Klubkov, Krainov and Zoya were supposed to meet, but Krainov, without waiting for his comrades, went to the camp, Krainov was discovered and captured, and Kosmodemyanskaya began to continue the arson alone.
On November 28, at night, Zoya went to set fire to the hut of Sviridov, the village elder, who was helping the Germans. Kosmodemyanskaya failed to commit arson, as the headman noticed her and handed her over to the Nazis. Zoya could not shoot because her gun was faulty.
The Germans brought the girl into the house and began interrogating her. Zoya was silent, only saying that her name was Tatyana. The Germans continued to interrogate her through torture - they beat her with belts for several hours, and then drove her naked all night on the street, in thirty-degree frost, but Zoya never said anything.
Execution
The next morning, the Germans prepared the public execution of Zoya. The Germans photographed the execution and torture of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - these photos were later found in the house of a Nazi.
There was a gallows set up on the street with two boxes underneath. Zoya was taken outside with a sign tied to her chest that read: “Arsonist of houses.” Some villagers condemned her for burning houses and also helped in erecting the gallows.
They were later shot by Soviet soldiers for helping the Germans. While she was being led to the place of execution, Zoya gave a speech that inspired millions of Soviet citizens to help their army, their country. However, it was not possible to finish the speech - the boxes were pushed over, and Kosmodemyanskaya was hanged.
After that, she hung on the gallows for a whole month; one day, passing Germans took off her clothes and cut off her breasts. Until the end, no one knew the girl’s real name and surname, because everyone thought she was Tanya. For a long time, after her remains were discovered, she could not be identified, but it was soon confirmed that this girl was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.
Her mother and brother, after receiving a letter that Zoya had disappeared, were sure that this girl, hanged in the village of Petrishchevo, was their daughter and sister. Brother Sasha then went to serve at the front as a tank driver, and wrote “For Zoya” on his tank. Alexander died in the battle near Koenigsberg and became a hero, like his sister.
Only a month later, village residents removed Kosmodemyanskaya’s body and buried it in an unknown grave. After the village was liberated from the Germans, Zoya’s grave was found by soldiers and then buried in the Novodevichy cemetery.
Monuments to her began to be erected throughout Russia, and soon she was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union - Zoya was the first woman to be given this title.
Poets wrote poems in her honor. City streets and the names of schools, geographical objects, and even the BT-5 tank - all of this was named after her. The whole world learned about the heroic act of the young girl, as well as about her inspiring speech. The memory of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is still alive.
