The feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Madness or courage? How Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya fought and died The life of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

Hero of the Soviet Union
Cavalier of the Order of Lenin

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region, in a family of hereditary local priests.

Her grandfather, the priest Pyotr Ioannovich Kosmodemyansky, was executed by the Bolsheviks for hiding counter-revolutionaries in the church. The Bolsheviks seized him on the night of August 27, 1918, and after severe torture drowned him in a pond. Zoya's father Anatoly studied at the theological seminary, but did not graduate from it. He married a local teacher Lyubov Churikova, and in 1929 the Kosmodemyansky family ended up in Siberia. According to some statements, they were exiled, but according to Zoya's mother, Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya, they fled from the denunciation. During the year, the family lived in the village of Shitkino on the Yenisei, then managed to move to Moscow - perhaps thanks to the efforts of sister Lyubov Kosmodemyaskaya, who served in the People's Commissariat of Education. In the children's book The Tale of Zoya and Shura, Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya also reported that the move to Moscow occurred after a letter from her sister Olga.

Zoya's father - Anatoly Kosmodemyansky - died in 1933 after an operation on the intestines, and the children (Zoya and her younger brother Alexander) were raised by their mother.

Zoya studied well at school, was especially fond of history and literature, dreamed of entering the Literary Institute. However, her relationship with her classmates did not always work out in the best way - in 1938 she was elected a Komsomol group organizer, but then she was not re-elected. According to Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya, Zoya had been suffering from a nervous illness since 1939, when she moved from the 8th to the 9th grade ... Her peers did not understand her. She did not like the fickleness of her friends: Zoya often sat alone, experienced this, said that she was a lonely person and that she could not find a girlfriend for herself.

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 lying there. In the same year, she graduated from the 9th grade of secondary school No. 201, despite the large number of missed classes due to illness.

On October 31, 1941, Zoya, among 2,000 Komsomol volunteers, came to the gathering place at the Coliseum cinema and from there was taken to a sabotage school, becoming a fighter of the reconnaissance and sabotage unit, which officially bore the name "partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front." After a three-day training, Zoya, as part of a group, was transferred on November 4 to the Volokolamsk region, where the group successfully coped with the mining of the road.

On November 17, Stalin's order No. 0428 was issued, ordering to deprive "the German army of the opportunity to be located in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all settlements into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all rooms and warm shelters and make them freeze in the open air", with which with the aim of "destroying and burning to the ground all settlements in the rear of the 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 fulfill this order, on November 18 (according to other sources, on November 20), the commanders of sabotage groups of unit No. 9903 P. S. Provorov (Zoya entered his group) and B. S. Krainev were ordered to burn 10 settlements, including the village of Petrishchevo (Ruzsky district of the Moscow region). The group members each had 3 Molotov cocktails, a pistol (Zoya had a revolver), dry rations for 5 days and a bottle of vodka. Having gone on a mission together, both groups (10 people each) came under fire near the village of Golovkovo (10 kilometers from Petrishchev), suffered heavy losses and partially scattered. Later, their remnants united under the command of Boris Krainev.

On November 27, at 2 am, Boris Krainev, Vasily Klubkov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya set fire to three houses of residents of Karelova, Solntsev and Smirnov in Petrishchev, while the Germans killed 20 horses.

It is known about the future that Krainev did not wait for Zoya and Klubkov at the agreed meeting place and left, safely returning to his own. Klubkov was captured by the Germans, and Zoya, having missed her comrades and left alone, decided to return to Petrishchevo and continue the arson. However, both the Germans and the locals were already on their guard, and the Germans created a guard of several Petrishchev's men who were instructed to monitor the appearance of arsonists.

With the onset of the evening of November 28, when 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 quartered by him seized the girl at about 7 pm. Sviridov was awarded a bottle of vodka by the Germans for this and subsequently sentenced to death by a Soviet court. During the interrogation, Kosmodemyanskaya called herself Tanya and did not say anything definite. Having stripped naked, she was flogged with belts, then the sentry assigned to her for 4 hours led her barefoot, in her underwear, down 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. Both Solina and Smirnova were subsequently sentenced to death.

At 10:30 the next morning, Zoya was taken outside, where a hanging loop had already been built, and a sign with the inscription "Pyro" was hung on her chest. When Zoya was brought to the gallows, Smirnova hit her on the legs with a stick, shouting: “Who did you hurt? She burned down my house, but did nothing to the Germans…”.

One of the witnesses describes the execution itself as follows: “Until the gallows, they led her by the arms. She walked straight, with her head held high, silently, proudly. They took me to the gallows. There were many Germans and civilians around the gallows. They led her to the gallows, ordered to expand the circle around the gallows and began to photograph her ... She had a bag with bottles with her. She shouted: “Citizens! You do not stand, do not look, but you need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement.” After that, one officer swung, while others shouted at her. Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it's too late, surrender." The officer yelled 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 set up a box. She, without any command, stood on the box herself. A German approached and began to put on a noose. At that time, she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you don’t hang everyone, we are 170 million. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” She said this already 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 on the hands. After that, everyone dispersed."

The given footage of Zoya's execution was made by one of the Wehrmacht soldiers, who was soon killed.

Zoya's body hung on the gallows for about a month, repeatedly abused by German soldiers passing through the village. On New Year's Eve, 1942, drunken Germans tore off clothes that had been hung up and once again abused the body, stabbing it with knives and cutting off the 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.

The fate of Zoya became widely known from the article "Tanya" by Pyotr Lidov, published in the Pravda newspaper on January 27, 1942. The author accidentally heard about the execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in Petrishchevo from a witness - an elderly peasant who was shocked by the courage of an unknown girl: “They hung her, and she spoke. They hung her, and she kept threatening them…” Lidov went to Petrishchevo, questioned the residents in detail, and published an article based on their inquiries. It was claimed that the article was noted by Stalin, who allegedly said: “Here is a national heroine,” and it was from that moment that the propaganda campaign around Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya began.

Her identity was soon established, Pravda reported in Lidov's February 18 article "Who Was Tanya." Even earlier, on February 16, a decree was signed conferring the posthumous title of Hero of the Soviet Union on her.

During and after perestroika, in the wake of anti-communist propaganda, new information about Zoya also appeared in the press. As a rule, it was based on rumors, not always accurate eyewitness accounts, and in some cases, speculation - which was inevitable in a situation where documentary information, contrary to the official "myth", continued to be kept secret or was just declassified. M. M. Gorinov wrote about these publications that they “reflected some facts of the biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, which were hushed up in Soviet times, but were reflected, as in a crooked 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 the feat was not accomplished by Zoya, but by 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, the leading physician of the Scientific and Methodological Center for Child Psychiatry A. Melnikova, S. Yuryeva and N. Kasmelson, wrote: center of child psychiatry and was in a hospital in the children's department of the hospital. Kashchenko. She was suspected of having schizophrenia. Immediately after the war, two people came to the archives of our hospital and seized Kosmodemyanskaya’s medical history.”

Other evidence or documentary evidence of suspicions of schizophrenia was not mentioned in the articles, although the memoirs of her mother and classmates really talked about the “nervous disease” that struck her in grades 8-9 (as a result of the mentioned conflict with classmates), about which she underwent examinations. In subsequent publications, newspapers referring to Arguments and Facts often omitted the word "suspected."

In recent years, there was a version that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was betrayed by her squadmate (and Komsomol organizer) Vasily Klubkov. It was based on the materials of the Klubkov case, declassified and published in the Izvestia newspaper in 2000. Klubkov, who appeared at the beginning of 1942 in his unit, stated that he was taken prisoner by the Germans, fled, was captured again, fled again and managed to get to his own. However, during interrogations at SMERSH, he changed his testimony and stated that he had been captured along with Zoya and betrayed her. Klubkov was shot "for treason" on April 16, 1942. His testimony contradicted the testimony of witnesses - the inhabitants of the village, and besides, they were contradictory.

The researcher M. M. Gorinov suggested that the SMERSHites forced Klubkov to incriminate himself either out of career considerations (in order to get their share of dividends from the unfolding propaganda campaign around Zoya), or out of propaganda (in order to “justify” Zoya’s capture, unworthy, according to the then ideology , Soviet fighter). However, the version of betrayal was never launched into propaganda circulation.

Text prepared by Andrey Goncharov

ANOTHER LOOK

"The truth about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya"

The history of the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya since the war is, in fact, a textbook. As they say, this is written and rewritten. Nevertheless, in the press, and recently on the Internet, no, no, and some “revelation” of a modern historian will appear: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was not a defender of the Fatherland, but an arsonist who destroyed villages near Moscow, dooming the local population to death in severe frosts. Therefore, they say, the inhabitants of Petrishchevo seized it themselves and handed it over to the occupation authorities. And when the girl was brought to execution, the peasants allegedly even cursed her.

"Secret" mission

Lies rarely arise from scratch, its breeding ground is all sorts of "secrets" and omissions of official interpretations of events. Some of the circumstances of Zoya's feat were classified, and because of this, they were somewhat distorted from the very beginning. Until recently, the official versions did not even clearly define who she was, what exactly she did in Petrishchevo. Zoya was called either a Moscow Komsomol member who went behind enemy lines to take revenge, or a reconnaissance partisan captured in Petrishchevo while performing a combat mission.

Not so long ago, I met Alexandra Potapovna Fedulina, a veteran of front-line intelligence, who knew Zoya well. The old spy said:

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was not a partisan.

She was a Red Army soldier of the sabotage brigade, led by the legendary Artur Karlovich Sprogis. In June 1941, he formed a special military unit No. 9903 to carry out sabotage operations in the rear of enemy troops. It was based on volunteers from the Komsomol organizations in Moscow and the Moscow region, and the command staff was recruited from students of the Frunze Military Academy. During the battle near Moscow, 50 combat groups and detachments were trained in this military unit of the intelligence department of the Western Front. In total, in September 1941-February 1942, they made 89 penetrations behind enemy lines, destroyed 3,500 German soldiers and officers, liquidated 36 traitors, blew up 13 fuel tanks, 14 tanks. In October 1941, we studied in the same group with Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya at the reconnaissance school of the brigade. Then together they went behind enemy lines on special missions. In November 1941, I was wounded, and when I returned from the hospital, I learned the tragic news of Zoya's martyrdom.

Why, then, was it silent for a long time that Zoya was a fighter in the active army? I asked Fedulina.

Because the documents that determined the field of activity, in particular, the Sprogis brigade, were classified.

Later, I happened to get acquainted with the not so long ago declassified order of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command No. 0428 of November 17, 1941, signed by Stalin. I quote: It is necessary “to deprive the German army of the opportunity to be located in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all settlements into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all premises and warm shelters and make them freeze in the open. Destroy and burn to the ground all settlements in the rear of the 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 destroy settlements within the indicated radius of action, immediately drop aircraft, make extensive use of artillery and mortar fire, teams of reconnaissance, skiers and sabotage groups equipped with Molotov cocktails, grenades and explosive devices. With the forced withdrawal of our units ... take the Soviet population with them and be sure to destroy all settlements without exception so that the enemy cannot use them.

This is the task performed in the Moscow region by the soldiers of the Sprogis brigade, including the Red Army soldier Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Probably, after the war, the leaders of the country and the Armed Forces did not want to exaggerate the information that the fighters of the active army burned villages near Moscow, therefore the above-mentioned order of the Stavka and other documents of this kind were not declassified for a long time.

Of course, this order reveals a very painful and controversial page of the Moscow battle. But the truth of war is much more cruel than our present ideas about it. It is not known how the bloodiest battle of the Second World War would have ended if the Nazis had been given the full opportunity to rest in the heated village huts and feed themselves on collective farm grubs. In addition, many fighters of the Sprogis brigade tried to blow up and set fire only to those huts where the Nazis lodged and headquarters were located. It should also be emphasized that when there is a struggle not for life, but for death, at least two truths are manifested in the actions of people: one is philistine (to survive at any cost), the other is heroic (readiness for self-sacrifice for the sake of Victory). It is precisely the clash of these two truths both in 1941 and today that takes place around the feat of Zoya.

What happened in Petrishchevo

On the night of November 21-22, 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya crossed the front line as part of a special sabotage and reconnaissance group of 10 people. Already in the occupied territory, the fighters in the depths of the forest ran into an enemy patrol. Someone died, someone, showing cowardice, turned back, and only three - the group commander Boris Krainov, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and the Komsomol organizer of the intelligence school Vasily Klubkov continued to move along the previously determined route. On the night of November 27-28, they reached the village of Petrishchevo, where, in addition to other military facilities of the Nazis, they were to destroy a field station for radio and electronic intelligence, carefully disguised as a stable.

The eldest, Boris Krainov, distributed the roles: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya penetrates into the southern part of the village and destroys the houses where the Germans lodge with Molotov cocktails, Boris Krainov himself - into the central part, where the headquarters is located, and Vasily Klubkov - into the north. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya successfully completed her combat mission - she destroyed two houses and an enemy car with bottles of "KS". However, when returning back to the forest, when she was already far from the place of sabotage, she was noticed by the local headman Sviridov. He called the Nazis. And Zoya was arrested. Grateful invaders poured Sviridov a glass of vodka, as local residents told about this after the liberation of Petrishchevo.

Zoya was tortured for a long time and brutally, but she did not give out any information either about the brigade or about where her comrades should be waiting.

However, soon the Nazis captured Vasily Klubkov. He showed cowardice and told everything he knew. Boris Krainov miraculously managed to escape into the forest.

Traitors

Subsequently, Klubkov was recruited by fascist intelligence officers and, with a “legend” about escaping from captivity, was sent back to the Sprogis brigade. But he was quickly exposed. During the interrogation, Klubkov spoke about the feat of Zoya.

“- Specify the circumstances under which you were captured?

Approaching the house I had identified, I broke a bottle of "KS" and threw it away, but it did not catch fire. At this time, I saw two German sentries not far from me and, showing cowardice, ran into the forest, located 300 meters from the village. As soon as I ran into the forest, two German soldiers fell on me, took away my revolver with cartridges, bags with five bottles of "KS" and a bag with provisions, among which there was also a liter of vodka.

What testimony did you give to an officer of the German army?

As soon as they handed me over to the officer, I showed cowardice and said that there were only three of us, naming the names of Krainov and Kosmodemyanskaya. The officer gave some order in German to the German soldiers, they quickly left the house and a few minutes later brought Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Whether they detained Krainov, I don't know.

Were you present at the interrogation of Kosmodemyanskaya?

Yes, I attended. The officer asked her how she set fire to the village. She replied that she did not set fire to the village. After that, the officer began to beat Zoya and demanded evidence, but she categorically refused to give any. In her presence, I showed the officer that this was really Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya, who arrived with me in the village to carry out acts of sabotage, and that she set fire to the southern outskirts of the village. Kosmodemyanskaya did not answer the officer's questions after that either. Seeing that Zoya was silent, several officers stripped her naked and beat her severely with rubber sticks for 2-3 hours, trying to get her to testify. Kosmodemyanskaya told the officers: "Kill me, I won't tell you anything." Then they took her away, and I never saw her again.”

From the protocol of interrogation by A. V. Smirnova dated May 12, 1942: “The next day after the fire, I was at my burnt house, a citizen Solina came up to me and said: “Come, I'll show you who burned you.” After these words spoken by her, we went together to the Kuliks' house, where we moved the headquarters. Entering the house, they saw Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was guarded by German soldiers. Solina and I began to scold her, in addition to swearing at Kosmodemyanskaya, I waved my mitten twice, and Solina hit her with her hand. Further, Valentina Kulik, who kicked us out of her house, did not allow us to mock the partisan. During the execution of Kosmodemyanskaya, when the Germans brought her to the gallows, I took a wooden stick, went up to the girl and, in front of everyone present, hit her on the legs. It was at the moment when the partisan stood under the gallows, I don’t remember what I said at the same time.

execution

From the testimony of a resident of the village of Petrishchevo V. A. Kulik: “They hung a sign on her chest, on which it was written in Russian and in German:“ Arsonist ”. Until the gallows, they led her by the arms, because due to torture, she could no longer walk on her own. There were many Germans and civilians around the gallows. They led her to the gallows and began to photograph her.

She shouted: “Citizens! You do not stand, do not look, but you need to help the army fight! My death for the Motherland is my achievement in life.” Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it's too late, surrender. The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated." All this she said at the moment when she was photographed.

Then they put up a box. Without any command, having gathered strength from somewhere, she stood on the box herself. A German approached and began to put on a noose. At that time, she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you don’t hang everyone, we are 170 million! But our comrades will avenge you for me.” She said this already 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 instinctively grabbed the rope with her hand, but the German hit her on the arm. After that, everyone dispersed."

For a whole month, the body of a girl hung in the center of Petrishchevo. Only on January 1, 1942, the Germans allowed the residents to bury Zoya.

To each his own

On a January night in 1942, during the battles for Mozhaisk, several journalists ended up in a village hut that had survived the fire in the Pushkino area. Pravda correspondent Pyotr Lidov talked to an elderly peasant who said that the occupation overtook him in the village of Petrishchevo, where he saw the execution of some Muscovite girl: “They hung her, and she spoke. They hung her, and she kept threatening them...”.

The old man's story shocked Lidov, and that very night he left for Petrishchevo. The correspondent did not calm down until he spoke with all the inhabitants of the village, did not find out all the details of the death of our Russian Joan of Arc - that is how he called the executed, as he believed, partisan. Soon he returned to Petrishchevo together with Pravda photojournalist Sergei Strunnikov. They opened the grave, took a photo, showed it to the partisans.

One of the partisans of the Vereya detachment recognized the executed girl, whom he had met in the forest on the eve of the tragedy that broke out in Petrishchevo. She called herself Tanya. Under this name, the heroine entered Lidov's article. And only later it was revealed that this is a pseudonym that Zoya used for conspiracy purposes.

The real name of the executed in Petrishchevo in early February 1942 was established by the commission of the Moscow City Committee of the Komsomol. The act of February 4 stated:

"1. Citizens of the village of Petrishchevo (surnames follow), according to the photographs presented by the intelligence department of the headquarters of the Western Front, identified that the Komsomol member Kosmodemyanskaya Z.A. was hanged.

2. The commission excavated the grave where Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya Anatolyevna was buried. Examination of the corpse ... once again confirmed that the hanged is comrade. Kosmodemyanskaya Z.A.

On February 5, 1942, the commission of the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League prepared a note to the Moscow City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with a proposal to present Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). And already on February 16, 1942, the corresponding Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR saw the light. As a result, the Red Army soldier Z. A. Kosmodemyanskaya became the first woman in the Great Patriotic War to be awarded the Golden Star of the Hero.

The headman Sviridov, the traitor Klubkov, the accomplices of the Nazis Solina and Smirnov were sentenced to capital punishment.

chtoby-pomnili.com

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II. And not just appropriated, but created the biggest legend in the history of the war. Who does not know Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Everyone knows ... and, oddly enough, no one knows. What does everyone know:

“Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya Anatolyevna, born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osinovye Gai, Tambov Region, died on November 29, 1941 in the village of Petrishchevo, Vereisky District, Moscow Region. The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded on February 16, 1942, posthumously. In 1938 she joined the Komsomol. Student of the 201st Moscow secondary school. In October 1941, she voluntarily joined a partisan fighter detachment. Near the village of Obukhovo, Naro-Fominsk District, she crossed the front line with a group of Komsomol partisans. At the end of November 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya was caught while performing a combat mission and, after torture, was executed by the Germans. She became the first woman - Hero of the Soviet Union and the heroine of a massive propaganda campaign. It was alleged that before her death, Kosmodemyanskaya delivered a speech that ended with the words: "Long live Comrade Stalin." Many streets, collective farms, pioneer organizations are named after her.

Many people know this data, but they cannot answer the questions that some people have more than once:

• As it was proved that the girl captured in Petrishchevo is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya


• Where did the sabotage group, which included Tanya-Zoya, go?


• How exactly Tanya-Zoya was caught


• Were the Germans in Petrishchevo at the time of the unsuccessful arson?


• Where Tanya-Zoya was hanged.

November 1941. The Germans are 30 kilometers from Moscow. The hastily assembled divisions of the people's volunteer corps rose to the defense of Moscow and blocked the path of the enemy's bloodless divisions. Everyone who could hold a weapon was sent to the trenches, and those who could not, used the scorched earth tactics behind the front line. Everything that could somehow delay the German offensive was burned. That is why the Komsomol saboteurs had no weapons, no grenades and mines, but only bottles of gasoline. If the command does not feel sorry for its saboteurs, will it feel sorry for civilians, whose houses should burn down and not get to the Germans, even theoretically. Civilians ended up in a temporarily occupied territory, which means they are accomplices of the invaders, so there is nothing to deal with them. Civilians, mostly old people, women and children were not to blame for anything, these are the vicissitudes of war. When the front line passed through the same Petrishchevo, most of the village was destroyed and all the surviving residents huddled in several huts. Everyone remembers the winter of 1941 with its fierce cold. In such a cold to be left without a home is certain death.

Members of the sabotage group were given the task of burning down the village. If someone thinks that the partisan girl lay calmly on the edge of the forest and watched all the movements in the village through binoculars, then she is deeply mistaken. In such a cold, you won’t lie down especially. The main task is to run to the first house that comes across, set it on fire, and is there anyone there, is it not, it’s either lucky or ... unlucky. Nobody cares if there are Germans in the village or not at all. The main thing is to complete the task. For the fulfillment of this task, a Komsomol saboteur was caught, who later called herself Tanya. It was not possible to establish by whom she was caught. But if so far no documents have been found in the German archives that they were Wehrmacht soldiers, then they were not them. Civilians can be understood - they fought for their lives.

Why is the real name of the girl still not known for certain? The answer is simple in its tragedy. All sabotage groups abandoned in this area died and it is not possible to document who this Tanya was. But such trifles did not bother anyone, the country needed Heroes. When the news of the hanged partisan reached the political administration, they sent to Petrishchevo, after his release, correspondents of not even front-line newspapers, but central ones - Pravda and Komsomolskaya Pravda. Correspondents also liked everything that happened in Petrishchevo. On January 27, 1942, the material "Tanya" was published by Pyotr Lidov in Pravda. On the same day, S. Lyubimov's material was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda "We will not forget you, Tanya." On February 18, 1942, Pyotr Lidov published the material "Who was Tanya" in Pravda. The top leadership of the country approved the material, and she was immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, her cult was created, the events in Petrishchev were embellished, reinterpreted and distorted, over the years a memorial was created, schools were named after her, everyone knew her.

True, sometimes it came to an incident: "The director and teachers of school No. 201 in Moscow named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya reported that in organizing and conducting excursions to the place of execution and the grave of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the existing shortcomings should be eliminated. To the village of Petrishchevo, where Zoya was brutally tortured by the Nazis ", there are many excursions, most of the participants of which are children, teenagers. But no one directs these excursions. The excursions are accompanied by Voronina E.P., 72 years old, in whose house the headquarters was located, where Zoya was interrogated and tortured, and citizen Kulik P. Ya ., who had Zoya before the execution. In their explanations about Zoya's actions on the instructions of the partisan detachment, they note her courage, courage and steadfastness. At the same time, they say: "If she continued to go to us, she would bring a lot of loss village, would burn many houses and livestock. "In their opinion, this, perhaps, Zoya should not have done. In explaining how Zoya was captured and captured, they say:" We really expected that Zoya I will definitely be released by the partisans, and were very surprised when this did not happen. Such an explanation does not contribute to the correct education of young people. Only in perestroika times began to reach deaf data that not everything is fine in the "Kingdom of Denmark". According to the recollections of the few remaining local residents, Tanya-Zoya was not arrested by the Germans, but captured by the peasants, who were outraged that she set fire to their houses and outbuildings. The peasants took her to the commandant's office, located in another village (there were no Germans at all where she was captured). After the release, most of the residents of Petrishchev and the surrounding villages, who had at least some relation to this incident, were taken to an unknown direction. The first question about the reliability of the feat was raised by the writer Alexander Zhovtis, who placed the story of the writer Nikolai Ivanov in Arguments and Facts. Residents of Petrishchev allegedly caught Zoya setting fire to a peaceful peasant hut and, after beating him pretty badly, turned to the Germans for justice. And there were no Germans camping in Petrishchev, but, having heeded the request of the village population, they came from the village nearby and protected the people from the partisans, which involuntarily won their sympathy. Elena Senyavskaya from the Institute of Russian History believes that Tanya was not Zoya: "I personally know people who still believed that the partisan Tanya, who was executed by the Germans in the village of Petrishchevo, was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya." There is a fairly convincing version that the Komsomol member Lily Azolina called herself Tanya. On that day, Vera Voloshina was also hanged in Petrishchevo, whom for some reason everyone forgot about.

But where did Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya come from? Gradually, everything turned into a tragedy. V. Leonidov writes: “The Germans left. After some time, a commission arrived in the village, with 10 women with it. They dug up Tanya. No one identified their daughter in the corpse, they buried her again. Union. Shortly after this decree, a commission arrived with other women. They pulled Tanya out of the grave for the second time. The performance began. Each woman in Tanya identified her daughter. Tears, lamentations for the deceased. And then, to the surprise of all the villagers, a fight broke out for the right to recognize the deceased her daughter. Everyone was dispersed by a long and thin woman, who later turned out to be Kosmodemyanskaya. So Tanya became Zoya. "
There are several iconic moments in this story that add up to a very ambiguous version.

First, for the first time, a commission arrived with 10 candidates for the position of mother-heroine. The articles of Lidov and Lyubimov created a loud legend, and there were oh so many missing partisan girls. The press often published a trophy photograph of an unknown Komsomol member with a noose around her neck. Why did no one identify their daughter, and the correspondents did not take a posthumous photograph. There is only one answer - the body was in such a state that they considered it best to bury it. But the question could not hang in the air for long. They were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and these are pensions, benefits, fame, awards. Therefore, the future mother-heroines went for the second time not to restore historical justice and identify their own child, but to declare themselves as a mother-heroine. That's why the show came about. So the country found Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

Elena Senyavskaya from the Institute of Russian History believes that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya really existed and was even sent to the German rear, but did not die, although her fate is bitter. When our advancing troops released Zoya from the German concentration camp and she returned home, her mother did not accept her and kicked her out. In the photo of the hanged "Tanya" published in the newspapers, it was many women who recognized their daughter - and there would apparently be a thousand times more if Pravda and Komsomolskaya Pravda were read in every house, if the potential "heroine's mothers" had documents there were precisely daughters, and precisely of the appropriate age, and if they had gone as volunteers to fight. The "mother of the heroine" is recognizable - not so much because she kicked her daughter out of the house in need of help, and then gave interviews for decades on the topic of how to raise the young to become Heroes, but because she was able to achieve recognition of her place in the system. Then a campaign began to glorify the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, her mother Lyubov Timofeevna actively joined the campaign, continuously speaking and being elected to various committees and councils of different levels.

The second is why she was hanged, and not just hanged, but tortured with particular cruelty. Tanya-Zoya did not inflict any damage on the German army and was too young to be trusted with secret information. Was she captured along with Vera Voloshina, or was there a third girl, the real Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was sent to a concentration camp? The fact of execution and torture can be explained by only one assumption: the girls pretty much burned houses in Petrishchevo and neighboring villages. Reliably, we will never know the whole truth, there are too many questions.

Name: Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya

State: USSR

Field of activity: partisan

Greatest Achievement: When performing a partisan mission, she was captured and brutally executed by the Nazis. During the interrogation, no one was extradited. 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. Parks, squares, streets were named in her honor, pioneer squads received her name, monuments were erected to her. The personality of Zoya, an eighteen-year-old girl who died heroically on the scaffold, was monumentalized. And behind her, the features of a lively, young girl were less and less visible.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, this heroine suffered the fate of many - her image began to be debunked. New evidence appeared - sometimes false, sometimes 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, because her heroic behavior at the execution was only because of her misunderstanding 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 the birth of Zoya, she had a younger brother, Alexander, who also later became posthumous. What kind of family was it that gave the Motherland two heroes at once?

The grandfather of the future heroine was a hereditary priest of the Orthodox Church, who was shot for his beliefs in 1918. His son, Zoya's father, did not follow in his footsteps - although he entered the theological seminary, he did not finish his studies and later began working as a librarian, his mother was a teacher.

Fear for their origin 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 mean lines of the official biography describing this movement. Maybe in this way the family managed to avoid Stalin's purges?

Komsomol member Zoya

1938 was a significant year for Zoya - she joins the Komsomol. The girl is ideologically savvy, devoted to the ideas of communism, while contemporaries noted her outstanding education and great love for literature. , Tolstoy. School curriculum books and beyond. Her classmates considered her categorical, strict and principled, and this contributed little to her friendship with them. But she did not need this - the girl's best friends were books.

In 1941, Zoya, still a high school student, decides to go to war with the Nazis. Her mother's exhortations 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 is stubborn - again and again she comes to the draft board with a demand to send her to fight. She had excellent physical data - the girl was fond of sports - swimming, running, shot perfectly. She is enrolled in intelligence school.

In October 1941, after a short training, she ended up in partisan detachment 9903 on the Western Front. In fact, a suicide squad - out of a thousand who arrived there, only half survived. Yes, and partisan, strictly speaking, it can not be called - it was a sabotage and reconnaissance group.

death mission

Zoya and her comrades were sent on a mission. The transition through 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 settlements in general. The fact that these huts, sheds and houses belonged to the Soviet people was to be forgotten. How effective this measure was in the fight against the 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 to burn down the settlement - the village of Petrishchevo - the 332nd regiment of the 197th German division was located there. In the same point, the radio center was supposedly located, which intercepted the messages of the Soviet group of troops. And since the Soviet command planned 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 the appointed place to cover Zoya's retreat. But the group parted ways. Finding no comrades, Zoya continued to carry out 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 - they twisted it.

Execution of the partisan "Tanya"

After a hasty first interrogation, during which the girl was silent, she, barefoot and undressed, was taken to the headquarters, where Colonel Rüderer personally began to beat testimony out of her. But, despite the beatings and bullying, Zoya was silent, hiding even her name - she called herself Tanya. The Germans were interested in who sent her on a mission, the number of people in the reconnaissance detachment, its structure, leaders. They received no information. The torture continued throughout the night. They were also attended by local residents - representatives of those families whose houses were burned down.

In the morning, plywood with the inscription "Pyro" was hung around Zoya's neck and escorted to a hastily built gallows. As the locals said, Zoya walked straight, proudly. Near the gallows, the Germans began to photograph her. These pictures were later found in one of the dead German soldiers. The courage of the girl made a strong impression on both the Germans and the locals. Before her death, she shouted: “Hey, comrades! What are you looking at sadly? Be bolder, fight, beat the Germans, burn, poison!

On the box, under the rope, she stood up on her own. She wanted to say something else, but a German soldier knocked the support out from under her feet. The body hung on the gallows for another month to mock the passing German units. Then the command ordered to bury him.

They say, having learned about this story, Stalin instructed 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 Peter Lidov's essay "Tanya", which was published by the Pravda newspaper.

Zoya was born in the village of Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region. Zoya's grandfather - a priest - was executed during the Civil War. In 1930 the Kosmodemyansky family moved to Moscow. Before the Great Patriotic War, Zoya studied at the 201st Moscow secondary school. In the autumn of 1941 she was a tenth grader. In October 1941, during the most difficult days for the defense of the capital, when the possibility of the capture of the city by the enemy was not ruled out, Zoya remained in Moscow. Upon learning that the selection of Komsomol members began in the capital to carry out tasks behind enemy lines, she, on her own initiative, went to the district committee of the Komsomol, received a ticket, passed an interview and was enlisted as a private in the reconnaissance and sabotage military unit No. 9903. Volunteers from Komsomol organizations formed its basis Moscow and the Moscow region, and the command staff was recruited from students of the Frunze Military Academy. During the battle near Moscow, 50 combat groups and detachments were trained in this military unit of the intelligence department of the Western Front. In total, in September 1941 - February 1942, they made 89 penetrations behind enemy lines, destroyed 3,500 German soldiers and officers, eliminated 36 traitors, blew up 13 fuel tanks, 14 tanks. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, among other volunteers, was taught intelligence skills, the ability to mine and blow up, cut wire communications, set fires, and obtain information.

In early November, Zoya and other fighters received their first assignment. They mined the roads behind enemy lines and returned safely to the location of the unit.

On November 17, 1941, secret order No. 0428 of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command appeared, which set the task of "driving the Nazi invaders from all settlements into the cold in the field, smoking them out of all rooms and warm shelters and making them freeze in the open air." For this, it was ordered “to destroy and burn to the ground all settlements in the rear of the 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 destroy settlements within the indicated radius of action, immediately drop aircraft, make extensive use of artillery and mortar fire, teams of reconnaissance, skiers and sabotage groups equipped with Molotov cocktails, grenades and explosive devices. With the forced withdrawal of our units ... take the Soviet population with them and be sure to destroy all settlements without exception so that the enemy cannot use them.

Soon, the commanders of the sabotage groups of military unit No. 9903 were given the task to burn 10 settlements in the Moscow region behind enemy lines within 5-7 days, which included the village of Petrishchevo, Vereisky district, Moscow region. Zoya, along with other fighters, was involved in this task. She managed to set fire to three houses in Petrishchevo, where the invaders were located. Then, after some time, she tried to carry out another arson, but was captured by the Nazis. Despite the torture and humiliation, Zoya did not betray any of her comrades, did not say the unit number and did not give any other information that was a military secret at that time. She did not even give her name, saying during interrogation that her name was Tanya.

To intimidate the population, the Nazis decided to hang Zoya in front of the entire village. The execution took place on November 29, 1941. Already with a noose thrown around her neck, Zoya managed to shout to the enemies: “No matter how many of us you hang, you don’t outweigh everyone, we are 170 million. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” The Germans did not allow the body of Zoya to be buried for a long time and mocked him. Only on January 1, 1942, the body of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was interred.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya managed to live only 18 years. But she, like many of her peers, laid her young life on the altar of the future and much-desired Victory. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a sublime and romantic person, with her painful death, she once again confirmed the truth of the gospel commandment: "There is no greater feat than to lay down one's soul for one's friends."

On February 16, 1942, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The streets of a number of cities were named after her, a monument was erected on the Minsk highway near the village of Petrishchevo.

You can contribute to the perpetuation of the memory of the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya on the website . The names of all donors will be mentioned in the credits of the film "The Passion for Zoya".

The country learned about the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya from the essay "Tanya" by war correspondent Pyotr Lidov, published in the Pravda newspaper on January 27, 1942. It told about a young partisan girl who, while performing a combat mission, was captured by the Germans, survived the brutal abuse of the Nazis and steadfastly accepted death at their hands. This heroic image lasted until the end of perestroika.

"Not Zoya, but Lily"

With the collapse of the USSR, a tendency appeared in the country to overthrow the old ideals; it did not bypass the story of the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The new materials that saw the light claimed that Zoya, who suffered from schizophrenia, arbitrarily and indiscriminately burned rural houses, including those where there were no fascists. In the end, angry locals grabbed the saboteur and handed her over to the Germans.

According to another popular version, under the pseudonym "Tanya" it was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya who was hiding, but a completely different person - Lilya Ozolina.
The fact of torture and execution of the girl in these publications was not questioned, however, the emphasis was placed on the fact that Soviet propaganda artificially created the image of a martyr, separating him from real events.

Saboteur

In the anxious October days of 1941, when Muscovites were preparing for street fighting, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, along with other Komsomol members, went to enlist in the detachments being created for reconnaissance and sabotage work behind enemy lines.
At first, the candidacy of a fragile girl who had recently suffered an acute form of meningitis and suffered from a “nervous illness” was rejected, but thanks to her perseverance, Zoya convinced the military commission to accept her into the detachment.

As one of the members of the reconnaissance and sabotage group, Claudia Miloradova, recalled, during classes in Kuntsevo, they “went into the forest for three days, laid mines, blew up trees, learned to remove sentries, use a map.” And already in early November, Zoya and her comrades received the first task - to mine the roads, which she successfully coped with. The group returned to the unit without loss.

Exercise

On November 17, 1941, the military command issued an order that ordered "to deprive the German army of the opportunity to be located in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all settlements into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all rooms and warm shelters and make them freeze in the open air."

In pursuance of this order, on November 18 (according to other sources - 20), the commanders of sabotage groups were ordered to burn 10 villages occupied by the Germans. Everything took 5 to 7 days. One of the units included Zoya.

Near the village of Golovkovo, the detachment stumbled upon an ambush and, during the skirmish, was dispersed. Some of the soldiers died, some were captured. The rest, including Zoya, united in a small group under the command of Boris Krainov.
The next target of the partisans was the village of Petrishchevo. Three people went there - Boris Krainov, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Vasily Klubkov. Zoya managed to set fire to three houses, one of which had a communication center, but she never came to the agreed meeting place.

fatal mission

According to various sources, Zoya spent one or two days in the forest and returned to the village to complete the task to the end. This fact was the reason for the appearance of the version that Kosmodemyanskaya carried out arson of houses without an order.

The Germans were ready to meet with the partisan, they also instructed the local residents. When trying to set fire to the house of S. A. Sviridov, the owner notified the Germans quartered there and Zoya was captured. The beaten girl was taken to the home of the Kulik family.
The hostess P. Ya. Kulik recalls how a partisan with “expired lips and a swollen face” was brought to her house, in which there were 20-25 Germans. The girl's hands were untied and she soon fell asleep.

The next morning, a small dialogue took place between the mistress of the house and Zoya. When asked by Kulik who burned the houses, Zoya answered that “she”. According to the hostess, the girl asked if there were victims, to which she answered “no”. The Germans managed to run out, and only 20 horses were killed. Judging from the conversation, Zoya was surprised that there were still residents in the village, since, according to her, they should have "long ago left the village from the Germans."

According to Kulik, at 9 am Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was interrogated. She was not present at the interrogation, and at 10:30 the girl was taken to be executed. On the way to the gallows, local residents several times accused Zoya of setting fire to houses, trying to hit her with a stick or pour mud over her. According to eyewitnesses, the girl accepted the death courageously.

In hot pursuit

When in January 1942, Pyotr Lidov heard from an old man a story about a Muscovite girl executed by the Germans in Petrishchevo, he immediately went to the village already abandoned by the Germans to find out the details of the tragedy. Lidov did not calm down until he spoke with all the inhabitants of the village.

But to identify the girl, a photograph was needed. The next time he arrived with Pravda photojournalist Sergei Strunnikov. Having opened the grave, they took the necessary pictures.
In those days, Lidov met a partisan who knew Zoya. In the photograph shown, he identified a girl who was going on a mission to Petrishchevo and called herself Tanya. With this name, the heroine entered the correspondent's story.

The riddle with the name Tanya was revealed later, when Zoya's mother said that that was the name of her daughter's favorite heroine, a participant in the civil war, Tatyana Solomakha.
But only at the beginning of February 1942, a special commission was able to finally confirm the identity of the girl executed in Petrishchev. In addition to the villagers, a classmate and teacher Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya participated in the identification. On February 10, Zoya's mother and brother were shown pictures of the deceased girl: “Yes, this is Zoya,” both answered, although not very confidently.
To remove the final doubts, Zoya's mother, brother and friend Claudia Miloradova were asked to come to Petrishchevo. All of them, without hesitation, identified Zoya in the murdered girl.

Alternative versions

In recent years, a version has become popular that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was betrayed to the Nazis by her friend Vasily Klubkov. In early 1942, Klubkov returned to his unit and reported that he had been taken prisoner by the Germans, but then escaped.
However, during interrogations, he already gave other testimonies, in particular, that he was captured along with Zoya, betrayed her to the Germans, and he himself agreed to cooperate with them. It should be noted that Klubkov's testimony was very confused and contradictory.

Historian M. M. Gorinov suggested that investigators forced themselves to slander Klubkov, either for career reasons or for propaganda purposes. One way or another, this version has not received any confirmation.
When information appeared in the early 1990s that the girl executed in the village of Petrishchevo was actually Lilya Ozolina, at the request of the leadership of the Central Archive of the Komsomol, a forensic portrait examination was carried out at the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Examinations based on photographs of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Lily Ozolina and pictures of the girl, executed in Petrishchev, who were found with a captured German. The conclusion of the commission was unequivocal: "Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is captured in German photographs."
M. M. Gorinov wrote about the publications that exposed the feat of Kosmodemyanskaya: “They reflected some facts of the biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, which were hushed up in Soviet times, but were reflected, as in a crooked mirror, in a monstrously distorted form.”

"Attributed" diagnoses

By the end of the 90s, in some print media there was information that testified to Zoya's mental illness, including schizophrenia. This theory has no documentary evidence, so it can only be taken as fiction. In fact, the girl grew up sickly: she reacted heavily to injustice and betrayal. During her school years, Zoya suffered from nervous disorders. A little later, in 1940, the girl was sent to a sanatorium for rehabilitation after a severe form of meningitis. But there was no talk of schizophrenia here.