Svetlana Alexievich_"I Am Loath to Recall": Russian Women Soldiers in World War II

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"I Am Loath to Recall": Russian Women Soldiers in World War II Author(s): Svetlana Alexievich, Keith Hammond and Ludmila Lezhneva Source: Women's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3/4, Rethinking Women's Peace Studies (Fall -

Winter, 1995), pp. 78-84Published by: Feminist Press at the City University of New YorkStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40003502Accessed: 12-10-2015 17:48 UTC

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"I Am Loath to Recall": Russian Women Soldiers in World War II

Svetlana Alexievich

Svetlana Alexievich is a writer and journalist from Belarus whose writing, based on ex- tensive interviews, combines detailed factual reporting with high literary quality and great variety of voice. Her first book, War's Unwomanly Tongue (Minsk, 1985), consists of interviews with women soldiers who fought in World War II. It was finished in 1983 but its publication was delayed two years because of accusations against her of pacifism.

Her best known work, the only one published in English, is Zinky Boys (1990; U.S. edition, Norton, 1993), an expose of the Afghani war. Because of press cen- sorship, people in the Soviet Union knew little about this war or the extent of casualties until the era of perestroika. Alexievich was among the first to docu- ment the atrocities and the symptoms of traumatic stress syndrome among survivors of what has become known as "Russia's Vietnam." A campaign of per- secution was organized against her by the KGB and military authorities, who in 1993 persuaded the mothers of two veterans who had originally cooperated with the author to sue her for slandering the Soviet Army. These lawsuits have dragged on for years and virtually exhausted Alexievich's financial resources. The court also confiscated all her tapes and files as evidence, preventing her from writing further on the Afghani war. Undeterred, she is now writing about Cher- nobyl, spending long periods of time inside the contaminated area doing interviews with survivors.

The following is a translation of an abridged excerpt from War's Unwomanly Tongue, which appeared in the Moscow magazine Progress in 1988.

-Meredith Tax, President, Women's WORLD (World Organization for Rights, Literature, and Development)

A small woman with a girlish crown of a long braid around her head, bearing little resemblance to the blurred photo in the newspaper, was seated in a big armchair, her face in her hands: "Excuse me, but I am loath to recall those days. . . ." She asked me not to use my tape recorder: "I have to see your eyes to be able to talk and the tape recorder will get in the way . . ." But a few minutes later she forgot all about it. ...

78


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Lance Corporal Maria lvanovna Morozova (Ivanushkina), sniper: When the war broke out I was not yet eighteen. I worked on a collective farm, then graduated from an accountants' training course and found a job. At the same time, I attended a course at the military registration and enlistment office, where I learned to fire a rifle. The course was attended by forty others, four of them from my village. All of them were young girls: men had already gone to the front, everyone who could.

Soon the Young Communist League (YCL) Central Committee ap- pealed to young people to volunteer in defense of their homeland, since the enemy was approaching Moscow. Not only I, but all the girls wanted to go to the front. My father was already there. We were subjected to rigorous selection. The first thing that was needed was, of course, hardy health. I was afraid lest I would be left out because I had often been ill in childhood and was rather weak. Girls were also refused if they were leaving their mothers alone. I had two sisters and brothers, much younger than I, but they still counted. There was another obstacle - namely, that the collective farm would have almost entirely been abandoned. Hence, the collective farm chairman was unwilling to let us go. . . .

A delegation from our district then went to the regional YCL committee, only to return empty-handed. As we were in Moscow, we decided then to proceed to the YCL Central Committee. . . . Young people from all over the Soviet Union had come there too, many of them from the occupied areas, seething to avenge the death of their near and dear.

We finally reached the secretary that evening and were asked, "Well, how are you going to fight at the front if you don't know how to shoot?" We answered that we had already been taught . . . [and also] how to bandage wounds. There were forty of us capable of shooting and giving first aid. We were told: "Go home and wait. You'll be given a positive answer." And a couple of days later we had call-up papers. . . .

At the military registration and enlistment office we were imme- diately taken in through one door and out through another. I had had a very beautiful braid that I was proud of, but I had no braid when I left . . . and my dress also remained there. I had no time to give either the dress or the braid to my mother. We were then clad in high- collared field shirts and field caps, given knapsacks, and put into a freight car. . . .

We still did not know where we were going. . . . Our only wish was to get to the front. Everybody was fighting, and we did not want to be left


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out. We were brought to the station of Shchelkovo, not far from which was a women's sniper school.

We began to study, learning garrison duty regulations, disciplinary regulations, camouflage terrain, and chemical warfare defense. All the girls tried to do their best. We learned to mount and dismount the sniper's rifle with closed eyes, to determine wind velocity, to evaluate the movement of the target and the distance to it, to dig in, and to crawl. We could do it all. Upon graduation I got top grades in shooting practice and drill. I remember that the most difficult thing was to get up at the sound of the alarm and to get ready in five minutes. We would take boots a size or so bigger so as not to lose much time when putting them on. We had five minutes to dress, put on our boots, and fall in. On some occasions we would fall in without any socks on. A girl once nearly had her feet frostbitten. The sergeant-major took notice, repri- manded her, and then taught us how to wind puttees. He would tower over us and grumble: "How am I, ladies, to make soldiers out of you instead of targets for the Germans?"

We eventually came to the front ... to join the Sixty- second Rifle Division . . . outside Orsha The commander, Colonel Borodkin - I remember it as if it were yesterday - grew angry upon seeing us: "They have thrust some girls upon me." But then he invited us to have lunch with him. We heard him ask one of his aides, "Do we have anything for the dessert?" We felt offended - what was he taking us for? We'd come to fight . . . and he was receiving us not as soldiers but as girls. We could have been his daughters, as far as age was concerned. "What ami to do with you, my darlings?" - that was how he treated us - whereas we already saw ourselves as real warriors.

The next day he made us show that we could shoot and camouflage ourselves on the terrain. We were quite good at shooting and even did better than the male snipers who had been recalled from the front line for a two-day course. Then came terrain camouflage. The colonel walked about inspecting the glade then stepped upon a hillock but still saw nothing. Suddenly the hillock under him begged, "Oh, Comrade Colonel, I can't stand it any longer, you're so heavy." What a big laugh everybody had. He just could not believe that it was possible to camouflage oneself so well. "Now," he said, "I wish I had not referred to you as 'some girls.' "Just the same, he was very anxious about us whenever we went to the front line and used to warn us to be careful and not to take risks for nothing.

I went "hunting" (in the snipers' idiom) for the first time with fellow sniper Masha Kozlova, camouflaging ourselves and lying in wait, with


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/

me observing the terrain and Masha holding the rifle. Suddenly I heard Masha say, "Shoot, shoot! See there's a German."

"I'm observing. You shoot!" "He'll be gone while we are here arguing," she said. "I have to make a fire map first," I persisted, "to designate the check

points, locating the shed and the birch tree. . . ." "Are you going to produce paper, as they do at school? I've come

here to shoot and not fiddle with papers!" I saw that Masha was already angry with me.

"Why don't you shoot then?" While we were arguing, the German officer indeed gave orders to

his soldiers. A cart appeared, and the soldiers passed some load down the line. The officer stood there for a while then said something and disappeared. Meanwhile, we went on arguing. I noticed that he had already appeared twice When he appeared the third time - it was only for an instant that he appeared and disappeared - I decided to shoot. I was full of resolve, and then it occurred to me that he was after all a human being. Even though he was an enemy, he still was a human being. My hands began to tremble, and a chill ran down my spine. I was seized with inexplicable fear. ... I could not bring myself to take a shot at a human after using plywood targets. Nevertheless, I braced myself and pulled the trigger. He swung his arms and fell. I don't know whether I killed him, but after that I began to shiver even worse from the thought that I had killed a human being.

Senior Sergeant Klavdia Grigoryevna Krokhina, sniper: We lay in wait, and I was busy observing the area. Then I saw a German rise. I fired, and he fell. You know, I began to shiver and tremble then burst out crying. I had never felt anything when I shot at the targets, but that time I had a nagging thought: Why had I killed a human being?

Later the feeling passed. We were passing through a small settlement in Eastern Prussia. Right by the roadside there was a hut or house - it was hard to tell because it had caught fire, and everything had already burned down; only cinders remained. Human bones and charred little red stars could be seen among them. Wounded or captured Soviet soldiers had been burned up. . . . After that I never felt pity whenever I killed. Once I had seen those burned bones I seemed to be unable to come to my senses. All I felt was fury and a desire to avenge.

I came back from the front with my hair gray. I was a twenty-one- year-old with gray hair. I had been wounded, shell-shocked, and had only one good ear left. My mother met me with the words: "I had faith


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that you would return. I prayed for you day and night." My brother had perished at the front. "It doesn't make much difference now," she cried, "whether you give birth to a girl or a boy. He was, after all, a man and had to defend his homeland, and you are a girl. I only begged that, should you be wounded, that you be killed rather than remain crippled."

Our scouts had captured a German officer. He was greatly surprised that so many soldiers had been put out of action in his lines, all of them exclusively with head wounds. "A simple marksman," he said, "would be incapable of such accurate shooting." "Show me," he asked, "the marksman who killed so many of my soldiers. I have received great reinforcements, and I have been losing up to ten people a day."

The regiment commander said, "Regrettably, I cannot meet your request: the sniper was a young girl, and she was killed."

She was Sasha Shlyakhova, betrayed by her red scarf. She was very fond of it. But a red scarf on the white snow is very visible. When the German officer heard that it had been a girl, he hung his head, not knowing what to say. . . .

We went on our missions in pairs: it was difficult to sit alone from morning till night. The strain made the eyes water and the body go numb. Winter with its snow melting under you was especially taxing. We would set out at daybreak and return from the front line at dusk. For twelve hours and sometimes even longer we had to lie in the snow or stay at the top of a tree or on the roof of a shed or a ruined house, camouflaged so that the enemy did not spot where we were. . . .

We were on the offensive, pushing forward with great speed. Soon we came to a standstill, our support lagging far behind. We were short of ammunition and food, and, to make matters worse, our kitchen had been hit by a shell. We had been munching dry bread for three days in a row, and our tongues were chafed and barely moving.

My fellow sniper had been killed, and I marched to the front line with an aide. All of a sudden we noticed a foal between the lines. It looked very handsome with its fluffy tail, roaming unperturbed, as if there were no war around it. The Germans, too, we heard, became noisy, apparently having spotted it. . . .

I did not even pause to think what to do. I took aim and fired. The foal bent its legs, fell on its side, and the wind carried the sound of its pitiful neighing.

I realized it all only afterward - why did I do that? It was so handsome, and I killed it to make soup! I heard sobs behind my back, fumed, and saw that it was my aide.

"What is it?" I asked.


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"I feel sorry for the poor little thing," she said, her eyes full of tears. "Come, come! What a tender heart you have! And what about us,

hungry for three days now? You feel sorry because you haven't buried anybody yet and don't know what it means to walk thirty kilometers a day with full packs and empty stomachs. We'll have to drive the Germans away first and then have feelings."

I looked at the soldiers who, until a moment ago had been nudging me, shouting, and asking me to shoot. All of them looked away, as if they did not notice me. ... I was on the point of collapsing in tears, if I would not think twice before killing anybody. In fact . . . when I was still a schoolgirl our sick cow had to be slaughtered. I cried for two days. ...

In the evening the cooks brought us supper with the words: "That was a very good shot, sniper. We have meat in the cauldron today."

Needless to say, we talked much at night. What could we talk about? Of course, home. Everyone spoke about mother: some had fathers or brothers at the front. We also tried to picture what we'd be like when the war was over and how we would marry and whether our husbands would love us.

"Ah, ladies," our captain used to say with a laugh. "You may have everything going for you, but few men will date or marry you after the war. You are excellent shots, and, should you throw a plate at your husband's forehead, he is a goner."

I met my future husband during the war: we served in the same regiment. He was wounded twice and was shell-shocked. He had been a military man all his life. There was no need to explain to him that my nerves were frayed. Should I ever raise my voice, he'd either ignore me or say nothing. We've been living together for thirty-five years now in harmony. We raised two children and have seen them through the university.

What else can I tell you? I was demobilized and came to Moscow. From there I had to travel by bus and then walk several kilometers to reach my place. There is a metro station there now, but at that time there were cherry orchards and deep ravines. One of them was really big, and I had to cross it. It was already dark when I reached the place. Of course, I was afraid to cross that ravine. So I stood there, not knowing what to do - whether to go back and wait till morning or to pluck up courage and go. It may all seem funny now: there I was fresh from the front, where I had seen deaths and many other grim sights, frightened to cross some ravine. It turned out that war had changed precious little in us. When we were already returning home from Germany a mouse scurried out of somebody's rucksack in the train,


84 Women 's Studies Quarterly 1995: 3 &4

making all the women spring to their feet, and those in the upper bunks roll head over heels with shrieks. The captain, who was our traveling companion, was amazed: "How is it that you all have decora- tions for bravery but are afraid of mice?"

Back home I had to begin everything anew, even to learn how to walk in shoes. ... In the service we had no use for skirts and preferred trousers, which we used to wash in the evening then put under the mattress for the night for pressing. True, they were still a little damp in the morning and would become stiff in the frost. Even wearing a civilian dress and shoes, I would at times instinctively want to salute a passing officer.

We found Masha Alkhimova only quite recently, about eight years ago.

The artillery battalion commander had been wounded, and she went over to save him. As she crawled toward him, a shell exploded in front of her. The commander was killed, and both of her legs were crushed. While we were carrying her to the medical battalion, she kept asking us: "Girls, please, shoot me. . . . Nobody would want to have me like that." She begged us so. ... She was sent to hospital, and we went into an offensive. We lost track of her. . . . Finally, Young Pathfinders from School Number 73 of Moscow finally helped us find her in a hospital for invalids. All those years she had been moved from one hospital to another and been operated on a dozen times. She had not even let her mother know that she was alive. Can you imagine that? That's what war is. ... We brought her to our reunion. Seated in the presidium, she kept crying. Then she was taken to her mother . . . and they met after thirty years. . . .

Even now we still have nightmares that we are at war, now running for shelter, now changing position. I wake up and find it hard to believe that I am still alive. . . . And I don't want to recall it.

Translated by Keith Hammond and Ludmila Lezhneva.


Article Contentsp. 78p. 79p. 80p. 81p. 82p. 83p. 84

Issue Table of ContentsWomen's Studies Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 3/4, Rethinking Women's Peace Studies (Fall - Winter, 1995), pp. 1-250Front MatterCorrection: We Did Change Some Attitudes: Maida Springer-Kemp and the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union [p. 2-2]Editorial [pp. 3-8]New Directions for Feminist Peace StudiesWomen's Studies, Peace Studies, and the Difference Debate [pp. 9-14]Engendering a Peaceful Planet: Ecology, Economy, and Ecofeminism in Contemporary Context [pp. 15-21]New Historical Perspectives on Gendered Peace Studies [pp. 22-31]Jane Addams's Peace Activism, 1914-1922: A Model for Women Today [pp. 32-47]Introducing Feminist Perspectives into Peace and World Security Courses [pp. 48-57]

General and the Culture of MilitarismFeminism and Militarism: A Comment [pp. 58-64]"The Great War in Modern Memory": What Is Being Repressed? [pp. 65-77]"I Am Loath to Recall": Russian Women Soldiers in World War II [pp. 78-84]Another Record: A Different War [pp. 85-96]Forging a New Army out of Old Enemies: Women in the South African Military [pp. 97-111]Soldaderas: New Questions, New Sources [pp. 112-116]Gendered Identities in Conflict: The Israeli-Palestinian Case and Beyond [pp. 117-135]Riding the Hyphens of Feminism, Peace, and Place in Four-(or More) Part Cacophony [pp. 136-146]

PoetryIn San Salvador II [pp. 147-149]Don't Destroy the World [pp. 150-151]Wheat and Dried Flowers [p. 152-152]Into a War [p. 153-153]Birthing [p. 154-154]

Teaching: Reflections, Resources, and ReferencesDaughters, Fathers, and Vietnam: Reflections on Teaching the War at a Women's College [pp. 155-169]One Woman's Journey into the World of Women's Peace History [pp. 170-182]SyllabiWomen, War, and Revolution [pp. 183-187]The Promise and Pitfalls of Teaching Feminist International Relations [pp. 188-189]Syllabus: Gender in the International Political Economy [pp. 189-192]U.S. Women: War, Peace, and the Military [pp. 193-197]Militarism, Pacifism, and Feminism in Modern History [pp. 198-213]

BibliographyTeaching about Women from a Peace Studies Perspective: An Annotated Bibliography of Resources on Conf lict, Peace, and Justice [pp. 214-248]Newsbriefs [pp. 249-250]

Back Matter

Documents

Svetlana Alexievich_"I Am Loath to Recall": Russian Women Soldiers in World War II