| Roza Georgiyevna Shanina | |
|---|---|
Shanina in 1944, holding a 1891/30 Mosin–Nagant with the 3.5x PU scope. |
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| Nickname | Horny[1] |
| Born | 3 April 1924 Yedma, Arkhangelsk Oblast, RSFSR |
| Died | 28 January 1945 (aged 20) East Prussia |
| Allegiance | Soviet Union |
| Service/branch | Red Army |
| Years of service | 1943–1945 |
| Rank | Senior Sergeant |
| Unit | 184th Rifle Division (3rd Belorussian Front) |
| Commands held | 1st Sniper Squad (184th Rifle Division) |
| Battles/wars | |
| Awards | Orders of Glory 3rd and 2nd Class Medal for Valor |
Roza Georgiyevna Shanina[note 1] (Russian: Ро́за Гео́ргиевна Ша́нина; April 3, 1924 – January 28, 1945) was a Soviet sniper during World War II, credited with 54 confirmed kills,[1][3] including 12 snipers during the Battle of Vilnius.[4] Praised for her shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of firing precise semi-automatic shots on moving enemy manpower.[5] Being highly courageous, she volunteered to serve as a marksman on the front line.
The Allied newspapers Ottawa Citizen, Leader-Post and U.S. News described Shanina as "the unseen terror of East Prussia".[6][7][8] She became the first Soviet female sniper to be awarded the Order of Glory[9] and the first servicewoman of the 3rd Belorussian Front to receive it.[10]
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Roza Shanina was born in the Russian village of Yedma (Ustyansky District in Arkhangelsk Oblast) to kolkhoz milkmaid Anna Alexeyevna Shanina and logger Georgiy (Yegor) Mikhailovich Shanin, who had become disabled from a wound received in World War I.[5] Apart from their own children, the Shanins also raised three orphans.[11] Roza was above average in height, with light brown hair and blue eyes, and spoke in a drawling Northern Russian dialect.[12] She finished four classes of elementary school in Yedma and continued her education in the village of Bereznik. As there was no school transport at the time, Roza and her friend in grades five through seven had to walk 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) to Bereznik to attend middle school.[5] There Shanina lived with her aunt Agnia Borisova.[11] On Saturdays Shanina went to the village Berezovka to take care of her ill aunt. At the age of fourteen, Shanina, against her parents' wishes, walked 200 kilometres (120 mi) across the taiga to the rail station and rode to Arkhangelsk to study in the college there.[12] Before moving to the dormitory Shanina lived with her elder brother. Arkhangelsk became Shanina's hometown and later in her combat diary she recalled the town's stadium Dinamo, the theater and the cinemas, Ars and Pobeda.[12] As recalled by Shanina's friend Anna Samsonova, Roza sometimes returned from her compatriots of Ustyansky District to her college hostel at 2–3 a.m., but as the doors by that time were locked, several bedsheets were tied together to help Roza climb into her room.[13] In 1938 Shanina became a member of Komsomol[14] and in June, 1939 she finished her middle school.
In 1940 the Soviet secondary education institutes introduced tuition fees, and the scholarship fund was cut.[15] Shanina received little from home, and on September 11, 1941, she took a job in kindergarten №2 (lately known as Beryozka) in Arkhangelsk.[5][15] There she was offered a free apartment. Shanina graduated college in the 1941–42 academic year, obtaining her certificate.[16]
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Shanina's two elder brothers volunteered for the military. In December 1941, a death notification for one of her brothers, nineteen year-old Mikhail, arrived, and Roza went to the military commissariat to ask for permission to serve herself.[5] At that time the Soviet Union had been deploying numerous female snipers, owing to them having small statures and flexible limbs, as well as being both patient and cunning. They were also reckoned to be more resilient under combat stress than the men, and more resistant to cold.[17] In February 1942, Soviet women between the ages of 16 and 45 were made eligible for the military draft,[18] but Shanina was initially refused. On June 22, 1943, Shanina was accepted in Vsevobuch military training while still living in the hostel. After applying several times, she was allowed by the military commissariat to enroll in the Central Female Sniper Academy,[12] which was moved to Podolsk in the fall of 1943. In the academy she met Aleksandra "Sasha" Yekimova and Kaleriya "Kalya" Petrova, who became her closest friends; they were referred to by Shanina as the "vagrant three". Of the three, only Petrova survived the war.[12] Shanina scored highly in training, and graduated from the academy with honors.[5]
On April 2, 1944 Shanina joined the 184th Rifle Division, where a separate female sniper platoon had been formed. Three days later south-east of Vitebsk, Shanina fired her first combat shot. By Shanina's own words recorded by an anonymous author, her legs gave way upon that first kill and she slid down into the trench, saying, "I've killed a man."[19] The other girls ran up concernedly, saying, "That was a fascist you finished off!"[19] Seven months later Shanina wrote in her diary that she was now killing the enemies in cold blood, and saw her current meaning of life in that.[12] Shanina noted that if she had to do everything over again, she would still strive to enter the sniper academy, and would go to the front again.[20]
In May 1944, Shanina became credited with 17 confirmed enemy kills,[12] and in the second half of May was praised as a precise and brave soldier.[15] Around that time she became a squad commander in the female sniper platoon. During her tour of duty, Shanina crawled each day at dawn through a muddy communications trench to a specially camouflaged pit to overlook German-controlled territory.[6] Shanina also successfully used counter-sniper tactics against a German cuckoo sniper.[21]
For her actions in the 1944 battle for the village Kozyi Gory (Smolensk Oblast), Shanina was awarded the 3rd Class Order of Glory on April 17 of that year. According to the report of the commander of the 1138th Rifle Division, Major Degtyarev, between April 6–11, Shanina killed thirteen enemy soldiers while subjected to artillery and machine gun fire.[14] Two months later, on June 22, the Soviets started a large-scale Operation Bagration in the Vitebsk region. The female snipers were to be retracted, but continued to voluntarily support the advancing infantry.[9] Shanina also pressed to be sent to the front line[22] despite Soviet policy of sparing snipers. Shanina was sanctioned for wilfully and unwarrantedly going to the front line but did not face a court martial.[21] She wanted to be attached to the battalion or a reconnaissance company, and finally turned to the commander of the 5th Army, Nikolai Krylov. He ultimately allowed Shanina to continue to serve at the front.[12] On June 9, 1944 the Soviet newspaper Unichtozhim Vraga featured Shanina's portrait on the first page. Later that year, from July 8 to July 13, Shanina and her sisters-in-arms participated in the fightings for Vilnius,[15] which has been under German occupation from June 24, 1941. In June 26–28, 1944 Shanina participated in the elimination of the encircled German troops near Vitebsk.[23] In the same year, around August, Shanina captured three Germans.[12]
Shanina loved writing and used to send letters to her home village and to the other girls in Arkhangelsk.[19] She started writing her combat diary. Although writing diaries was strictly prohibited in the Soviet military of that period,[24] there were some exceptions (like The Front Diary of Izrael Kukuyev and The Chronicle of War of Muzagit Hayrutdinov).[25][26] To preserve military secrecy in her diary Shanina termed the killed and wounded "blacks" and "reds", respectively.[22]
After Shanina's death her diary, consisting of three thick notebooks, has been kept by the war correspondent Pyotr Molchanov for twenty years in Kiev. Following the abridged publication of the diary in 1965, it was transferred to the Regional Museum of Arkhangelsk Oblast. Shanina's several letters have also been published.
By August 31, 1944, Shanina's battle count reached 42 kills.[12] In that month the advancing Soviet troops had reached the borders of East Prussia and in September crossed the Šešupė River. In September 1944, the Ottawa Citizen and Leader-Post newspapers reported that, according to an official dispatch from the Šešupė River front, Shanina killed five Germans in a single day as she crouched in a sniper hideout.[6][7] By that month her sniper tally had reached 46 kills,[6][7][8] and on September 17 Unichtozhim Vraga credited Shanina with 51 hits.[9] In the fall of 1944, Shanina was given a short furlough and visited Arkhangelsk. On October 17, Shanina returned to the front again for one day and later received an honorable certificate from the Central Committee of Komsomol.[12] On September 16, 1944 Shanina was awarded the 2nd Class Order of Glory for her bravery, displayed in the fight with Germans.[23]
Some time afterwards, on December 12, 1944, Shanina was shot in the right shoulder by an enemy sniper. She noted in her diary that she had not felt the pain – "the shoulder was just scalded with something hot."[12] Although the injury, described by Shanina as "two small holes", seemed minor to her, an operation was needed and she was incapacitated for several days.[12] She reported in her diary that a day before, she had seen a prophetic dream in which she was wounded in exactly the same place.[12] Later that month, on December 27, Shanina was among the first female snipers to be awarded the Medal for Valor[22][27] for the repulse of a counter-offensive.
On January 13, 1945, the Soviets launched the East Prussian Offensive, which prompted severe battles in East Prussia. Together with divisional logistics, by January 15 of that year, Shanina reached the East Prussian town of Eydtkuhnen (now Chernyshevskoye). On that day she used white military camouflage, although its color was judged to be too conspicuous during bad weather.[12] At the time Shanina joined the infantry offensive despite enemy fire from rocket mortars. Several days later she experienced friendly fire from Katyusha rocket launcher and wrote in her diary, "Now I understand why the Germans are so afraid of Katyushas. What a fire!"[12] At the border of East Prussia, Shanina eliminated 26 enemies.[21] The last unit she served in was the 144th Rifle Division. According to the Book of Memory of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Shanina served in the 205th Special Motorized Rifle Battalion of that division.[28] Shanina had hoped to go to university after the war, or if that was not possible, to raise orphans.[12] Her last diary entry was made on January 24, 1945, four days before her death. It reports tough German resistance and inability to shoot due to the heavy enemy fire.[29] The last sentence stated that Roza and three scouts had been the first to break through into the next house.[29]
Shanina's achievements were acknowledged particularly by Ilya Ehrenburg[30] and in the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda. The latter noted that Shanina was one of the best snipers in her unit and that even the veteran soldiers were inferior to her in shooting accuracy.[31] Yet Shanina paid no special attention to her popularity and once noted that she had been overrated. Ten days before her death she wrote in her combat diary: "I'm sitting and pondering about fame. They call me a famed sniper in the newspaper Unichtozhim Vraga, and Ogonyok has my portrait on the front page. It's strange even to imagine how those I know look at my picture... I know that I'm doing little so far... I have done no more than is my duty as a Soviet citizen, having stood up to defend the motherland."[15] In the diary Shanina noted in particular:
The essence of my happiness is fighting for the happiness of others. It's strange, why is it that in grammar, the word "happiness" can only be singular? That is counter to its meaning, after all. [...] If it turns necessary to die for the common happiness, then I'm ready to.[20]
(Содержание моего счастья – борьба за счастье других. Странно, почему в грамматике слово "счастье" имеет единственное число? Ведь это противопоказано его смыслу. [...] Если нужно для общего счастья погибнуть, то я готова к этому.)
Following the East Prussian Offensive, the Germans tried to strengthen every location. In a letter dated January 17, Shanina noted she might die soon because her battalion had lost 72 out of 78 people.[15] Her last diary entry reported that German fire had become so intense that the Soviet troops, including herself, were forced to shelter inside the self-propelled guns.[12] Shanina was wounded in the chest while shielding the heavily wounded commander of the artillery unit and despite medical efforts, died[5] near the estate Richau (subsequently the Soviet settlement Telmanovka) 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south-east of the East Prussian village of Ilmsdorf (Novobobruysk). As recalled by nurse Yekaterina Radkina, Shanina, while talking with her, said she regretted having done so little.[5] Shanina was initially buried under a sprawling pear tree on the shore of Allya River, now called Lava.[15] Subsequently her resting place became the settlement of Znamensk, Kaliningrad Oblast,[32] although it was claimed that she is the only person killed in these locations whose body was not transferred in 1953 to the mass grave of Soviet soldiers in Znamensk.[29] Shortly before her death, Shanina was made eligible for her third Order of Glory.[29]
Following Shanina's death, streets in Arkhangelsk and in the settlements of Shangaly and Stroyevskoye have been named after her. Recurring competitions among DOSAAF shooters for the Roza Shanina Prize were organized in Arkhangelsk,[21] while Novodvinsk organized the open shooting sports championship in memory of Shanina.[33] The Russian village Malinovka started to hold the annual cross-country skiings for the Roza Shanina Prize.[34] In 1985, Russian author N. Zhuravlyov published the book Posle boya vernulas (English: Returned After Battle). Its title refers to the Shanina's phrase "I will return after the battle," uttered upon receiving a note from battalion commander's messenger, which urged her to return to the rear immediately.[21] Verses about Shanina have also been composed, such as those by writer Nikolai Nabitovich.[35]
The war correspondent Pyotr Molchanov, who had frequently met Shanina on front, described her as a person of unusual will and genuine, bright nature.[19] Shanina marked herself as "boundlessly and recklessly talkative" during her college years[13] and described her own character as that of Mikhail Lermontov.[12] According to Shanina's sister-in-arms Lidiya Vdovina, Roza used to sing her favorite war song "Oy tumany moi, rastumany" ("O My Mists" in Russian) each time she cleaned her weapon.[19] Shanina had a straightforward character[36] and most of all, valued courage and absence of egoism in people.[12] She once told a story (subsequently published in 2006 by the newspaper Pravda Severa), when "about half a hundred frenzied fascists with wild cries" attacked the trench accommodating twelve female snipers, including Shanina herself: "Some fell from our well-aimed bullets, some we finished with our bayonets, grenades, shovels, and some we took prisoners, having restrained their arms."[19]
Shanina's personal life was thwarted by war. On October 10, 1944, she wrote in her diary: "I can't accept that Misha Panarin doesn't live anymore. What a good guy! [He] has been killed... He loved me, I know, and I him. [...] My heart is heavy, I'm twenty, but I have no close [male] friend."[12] Later in November, Shanina noted that she "is flogging into her head that [she] loves" a certain Nikolai, although he "doesn't shine in upbringing and education."[12] Shanina, however, noted in the same record, that she does not think about marriage because "it's not the time now".[12] She later outlined that she "had it out" with Nikolai and "wrote him a note in the sense of 'but I'm given to the one and will love no other one.'"[12]
Shanina had five siblings: one sister Yuliya, and four brothers, Mikhail, Fyodor, Sergey and Marat. Mikhail died during the Siege of Leningrad in 1941, while Fyodor was killed the same year during the Battle of Crimea.[15] Sergey was also killed, leaving Marat as the only surviving brother.[15]
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