The country learned about the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya from the essay “Tanya” by war correspondent Pyotr Lidov, published in the newspaper Pravda on January 27, 1942. It told about a young partisan girl who was caught in a combat mission. German captivity, who survived the brutal bullying of the Nazis and steadfastly accepted death at their hands. This heroic image lasted until the end of perestroika.
“Not Zoya, but Lilya”
With the collapse of the USSR, a tendency appeared in the country to overthrow previous ideals, and it did not bypass the story of the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The new materials that were released claimed that Zoya, who suffered from schizophrenia, arbitrarily and indiscriminately burned rural houses, including those where there were no Nazis. Ultimately, angry local residents captured the saboteur and handed her over to the Germans.
According to another popular version, it was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya who was hiding under the pseudonym “Tanya”, but a completely different person – Lilya Ozolina.
The fact of the torture and execution of the girl was not questioned in these publications, but the emphasis was placed on the fact that Soviet propaganda artificially created the image of the martyr, separating it from real events.
Saboteur
In the troubled October days of 1941, when Muscovites were preparing for street battles, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, along with other Komsomol members, went to enroll in the newly created detachments for reconnaissance and sabotage work behind enemy lines.
At first, the candidacy of a fragile girl who had recently suffered from an acute form of meningitis and suffered from a “nervous illness” was rejected, but thanks to her persistence, Zoya convinced the military commission to accept her into the detachment.
As one of the members of Klavdiya Miloradov’s reconnaissance and sabotage group recalled, during classes in Kuntsevo they “went into the forest for three days, laid mines, blew up trees, learned to remove sentries, and use a map.” And already in early November, Zoya and her comrades received their first task - to mine the roads, which they successfully completed. The group returned to the unit without losses.
Exercise
On November 17, 1941, the military command issued an order which ordered to “deprive German army the opportunity to settle in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all populated areas into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all rooms and warm shelters and force them to freeze under open air».
In fulfillment of this order, on November 18 (according to other information - 20), the commanders of the sabotage groups were ordered to burn 10 villages occupied by the Germans. Everything was allocated from 5 to 7 days. One of the squads included Zoya.
Near the village of Golovkovo, the detachment came across an ambush and was scattered during the firefight. Some of the soldiers died, some were captured. Those who remained, including Zoya, united into 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 communications center, but she never arrived at the agreed upon meeting place.
Fatal task
According to various sources, Zoya spent one or two days in the forest and returned to the village to complete the task. This fact gave rise to the version that Kosmodemyanskaya set fire to houses without orders.
The Germans were ready to meet the partisan, and they also instructed the local residents. When trying to set fire to the house of S.A. Sviridov, the owner notified the Germans who were lodged there and Zoya was captured. The beaten girl was taken to the Kulik family house.
The owner P. Ya. Kulik recalls how a partisan with “bleeding lips and a swollen face” was brought into 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 Kulik asked who burned the houses, Zoya answered that “she.” According to the owner, the girl asked if there were any victims, to which she replied “no.” The Germans managed to run out, but only 20 horses died. Judging from the conversation, Zoya was surprised that there were still residents in the village, since, according to her, they should have “left the village long ago from the Germans.”
According to Kulik, at 9 am they came to interrogate Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. She was not present at the interrogation, and at 10:30 the girl was taken to execution. On the way to the gallows, local residents several times accused Zoya of setting houses on fire, trying to hit her with a stick or pour slop on her. According to eyewitnesses, the girl accepted her 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 Petrishchev, 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 village residents.
But to identify the girl, a photograph was needed. The next time he came with Pravda photojournalist Sergei Strunnikov. Having opened the grave, they took the necessary photographs.
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 mystery of 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 the identity of the girl executed in Petrishchev was finally confirmed only at the beginning of February 1942 by a special commission. In addition to the village residents, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s classmate and teacher took part in the identification. On February 10, Zoya’s mother and brother were shown photographs of the dead girl: “Yes, this is Zoya,” they both answered, although not very confidently.
To remove final doubts, Zoya’s mother, brother and friend Klavdiya Miloradova were asked to come to Petrishchevo. All of them, without hesitation, identified the murdered girl as Zoya.
Alternative versions
IN last years The version that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was betrayed to the Nazis by her comrade Vasily Klubkov became popular. At the beginning of 1942, Klubkov returned to his unit and reported that he had been captured by the Germans, but then escaped.
However, during interrogations, he gave other testimony, in particular, that he was captured along with Zoya, handed her over 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 incriminate Klubkov either for career reasons or for propaganda purposes. One way or another, this version has not received any confirmation.
When in the early 1990s information appeared 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 Research Institute of Forensic Expertise using photographs of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Lily Ozolina and photographs of the girl, executed in Petrishchevo, which were found in the possession of a captured German. The commission’s conclusion was unequivocal: “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is captured in German photographs.”
M. M. Gorinov wrote this about publications that exposed Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat: “They reflected some facts of the biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, which were hushed up in Soviet time, but were reflected as in a distorting mirror - in a monstrously distorted form.”
“Assigned” diagnoses
By the end of the 90s, some printed publications contained information that indicated Zoya had mental illness, including schizophrenia. This theory has no documentary evidence, so it can only be perceived as fiction. In reality, the girl grew up sick: she reacted heavily to injustice and betrayal. IN 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.
Hero of the Soviet Union
Knight of the Order of Lenin
Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region, into a family of hereditary local priests.
Her grandfather, priest Pyotr Ioannovich Kosmodemyansky, was executed by the Bolsheviks for hiding counter-revolutionaries in the church. On the night of August 27, 1918, the Bolsheviks captured him and, after severe torture, drowned him in a pond. Zoya's father Anatoly studied at the theological seminary, but did not graduate from it; married local teacher Lyubov Churikova.
In 1929, the family ended up in Siberia; according to some statements, they were exiled, but according to Zoya’s mother, Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya, they fled from denunciation. For a year, the family lived in the village of Shitkino on the Yenisei, but then managed to move to Moscow - perhaps thanks to the efforts of Lyubov Kosmodemyaskaya’s sister, who served in the People’s Commissariat for Education. In the children's book “The Tale of Zoya and Shura,” Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya also reports that the move to Moscow occurred after a letter from sister Olga.
Zoya’s father, Anatoly Kosmodemyansky, died in 1933 after intestinal surgery, and the children (Zoya and her younger brother Alexander) were left to be raised by their mother.
At school, Zoya studied well, was especially interested in history and literature, and dreamed of entering the Literary Institute. However, relationships with classmates were not always the best in the best possible way— in 1938 she was elected Komsomol group organizer, but then was not re-elected. According to Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya She had been suffering from a nervous disease since 1939, when she moved from 8th to 9th grade... Her peers did not understand her. She did not like the fickleness of her friends: Zoya often sat alone. But she was worried about all this, saying that she was a lonely person, that she could not find a girlfriend.
In 1940, she suffered from acute meningitis, after which she underwent rehabilitation in the winter of 1941 at a sanatorium for nervous diseases in Sokolniki, where she became friends with the writer Arkady Gaidar, who was also lying there. In the same year I graduated from 9th grade high school No. 201, despite a large number of classes missed due to illness.
On October 31, 1941, Zoya, among 2,000 Komsomol volunteers, came to the gathering place at the Colosseum cinema and from there was taken to the sabotage school, becoming a fighter in the reconnaissance and sabotage unit, officially called the “partisan unit 9903 of the headquarters of the Western Front.” After three days of training, Zoya as part of the group was transferred to the Volokolamsk area on November 4, where the group successfully dealt with the mining of the road.
On November 17, Stalin issued Order No. 0428, which ordered that “the German army be deprived of the opportunity to be stationed in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all populated areas into the cold fields, smoke them out of all rooms and warm shelters and force them to freeze in the open air,” with which the goal is “to destroy and burn to the ground all populated areas in the rear of German troops at a distance of 40-60 km in depth from the front line and 20-30 km to the right and left of the roads.”
To carry out this order, on November 18 (according to other sources, 20) the commanders of sabotage groups of unit No. 9903 P. S. Provorov (Zoya was included in his group) and B. S. Krainev were ordered to burn within 5-7 days 10 settlements, including the village of Petrishchevo (Ruzsky district, Moscow region). The group members each had 3 Molotov cocktails, a pistol (for Zoya it was a revolver), dry rations for 5 days and a bottle of vodka. Having gone out on a mission together, both groups (10 people each) came under fire near the village of Golovkovo (10 km from Petrishchev), suffered heavy losses and were partially scattered; their remnants united under the command of Boris Krainev.
On November 27 at 2 o’clock in the morning, Boris Krainev, Vasily Klubkov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya set fire to three houses in Petrishchev (residents of Karelova, Solntsev and Smirnov); At the same time, the Germans lost 20 horses.
What is known about the future is that Krainev did not wait for Zoya and Klubkov at the agreed upon meeting place and left, safely returning to his people; Klubkov was captured by the Germans; Zoya, having missed her comrades and being left alone, decided to return to Petrishchevo and continue the arson. However, both the Germans and local residents were already on guard, and the Germans created a guard of several Petrishchevsky men who were tasked with monitoring the appearance of arsonists.
With the onset of the evening of November 28, while trying to set fire to the barn of S. A. Sviridov (one of the “guards” appointed by the Germans), Zoya was noticed by the owner. The Germans who were called by the latter seized the girl (at about 7 o'clock in the evening). Sviridov was awarded a bottle of vodka for this (later sentenced by the court to death). During interrogation, she identified herself as Tanya and did not say anything definite. Having stripped her naked, she was flogged with belts, then the guard assigned to her for 4 hours led her barefoot, in only her underwear, along the street in the cold. Local residents Solina and Smirnova (a fire victim) also tried to join in the torture of Zoya, throwing a pot of slop at Zoya (Solina and Smirnova were subsequently sentenced to death).
At 10:30 the next morning, Zoya was taken outside, where a hanging noose had already been erected; They hung a sign on her chest that read “Arsonist.” When Zoya was led to the gallows, Smirnova hit her legs with a stick, shouting: “Who did you harm? She burned my house, but did nothing to the Germans...”
One of the witnesses describes the execution itself as follows:
They led her by the arms all the way to the gallows. She walked straight, with her head raised, silently, proudly. They brought him to the gallows. There were many Germans and civilians around the gallows. They brought her to the gallows, ordered her to expand the circle around the gallows and began to photograph her... She had a bag with bottles with her. She shouted: “Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement.” After that, one officer swung his arms, and others shouted at her. Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender.” The officer shouted angrily: “Rus!” “The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated,” she said all this at the moment when she was photographed... Then they framed the box. She stood on the box herself without any command. A German came up and began to put on the noose. At that time she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you won’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” She said this with a noose around her neck. She wanted to say something else, but at that moment the box was removed from under her feet, and she hung. She grabbed the rope with her hand, but the German hit her hands. After that everyone dispersed.
The footage of Zoe's execution shown here was taken by one of the Wehrmacht soldiers, who was soon killed.
Zoya's body hung on the gallows for about a month, repeatedly being abused by German soldiers passing through the village. On New Year's Day 1942, drunken Germans tore off the hanged woman's clothes and once again violated the body, stabbing it with knives and cutting off her chest. The next day, the Germans gave the order to remove the gallows and the body was buried by local residents outside the village.
Subsequently, Zoya was reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.
Zoya’s fate became widely known from the article “Tanya” by Pyotr Lidov, published in the newspaper Pravda on January 27, 1942. The author accidentally heard about the execution in Petrishchev from a witness - an elderly peasant who was shocked by the courage of the unknown girl: “They hanged her, and she spoke a speech. They hanged her, and she kept threatening them...” Lidov went to Petrishchevo, questioned the residents in detail and published an article based on their questions. It was claimed that the article was noted by Stalin, who allegedly said: “here is a national heroine,” and it was from this moment that the propaganda campaign around Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya began.
Her identity was soon established, as reported by Pravda in Lidov’s February 18 article “Who Was Tanya”; even earlier, on February 16, a decree was signed awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).
During and after perestroika, in the wake of anti-communist propaganda, new information about Zoya appeared in the press. As a rule, it was based on rumors, not always accurate recollections of eyewitnesses, and in some cases, speculation - which was inevitable in a situation where documentary information contradicting the official “myth” continued to be kept secret or was just being declassified. MM. Gorinov wrote about these publications that they “reflected some facts of the biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, which were hushed up during Soviet times, but were reflected, as in a distorting mirror, in a monstrously distorted form.”
Some of these publications claimed that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya suffered from schizophrenia, others that she arbitrarily set fire to houses in which there were no Germans, and was captured, beaten and handed over to the Germans by the Petrishchevites themselves. It was also suggested that in fact it was not Zoya who accomplished the feat, but another Komsomol saboteur, Lilya Azolina.
Some newspapers wrote that she was suspected of schizophrenia, based on the article “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya: Heroine or Symbol?” in the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” (1991, No. 43). The authors of the article - leading physician of the Scientific and Methodological Center for Child Psychiatry A. Melnikova, S. Yuryeva and N. Kasmelson - wrote:
Before the war in 1938-39, a 14-year-old girl named Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was repeatedly examined at the Leading Scientific and Methodological Center for Child Psychiatry and was hospitalized in children's department hospitals named after Kashchenko. She was suspected of schizophrenia. Immediately after the war, two people came to the archives of our hospital and took out Kosmodemyanskaya’s medical history.
No other evidence or documentary evidence of suspicion of schizophrenia was mentioned in the articles, although the memoirs of her mother and classmates do tell about a “nervous disease” that struck her in grades 8-9 (as a result of the mentioned conflict with classmates), for which she underwent examinations. In subsequent publications, newspapers citing Argumenty i Fakty often omitted the word “suspected.”
In recent years, there has been a version that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was betrayed by her squadmate (and Komsomol organizer) Vasily Klubkov. It is based on materials from the Klubkov case, declassified and published in the Izvestia newspaper in 2000. Klubkov, who appeared at his unit in early 1942, stated that he was captured by the Germans, escaped, was captured again, escaped again and managed to get to his people. However, during interrogations at SMERSH, he changed his testimony and stated that he was captured along with Zoya and betrayed her. Klubkov was shot “for treason to the Motherland” on April 16, 1942. His testimony contradicts the testimony of witnesses - village residents, and is also internally contradictory.
Researcher M.M. Gorinov suggests that the SMERSHists forced Klubkov to incriminate himself either for career reasons (in order to receive their share of dividends from the unfolding propaganda campaign around Zoya), or for propaganda reasons (to “justify” Zoya’s capture, which, according to the ideology of that time, was unworthy of a Soviet soldier). However, the version of betrayal was never put into propaganda circulation.
Prepared based on Wikipedia materials.
On September 13, 1923, a girl was born, on whose example more than one generation was raised. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - Hero of the Soviet Union, an 18-year-old schoolgirl yesterday, who withstood the the most severe torture fascists and did not betray their comrades partisan movement
Those who grew up and matured during the Soviet Union do not need to explain who she is. Zoya. She became a symbol, an icon, an example of unbending courage and self-sacrifice in the name of the Motherland. It is impossible to even imagine what kind of courage one must have to face certain death and torture. Few of them modern people I could decide on this.
But Zoya didn’t even think about it. As soon as the war began, she immediately went to the military registration and enlistment office and did not calm down until she was enrolled in a reconnaissance and sabotage group. Its leader immediately warned his fighters: 95% would die. It is likely that after brutal torture. But no one left: everyone was ready to die for their Motherland.
In the 90s, when dramatic changes took place in our country and much of what had previously been hidden and hushed up became known, there were people who wanted to question Zoya’s feat.
Version 1: Zoya was mentally ill
In 1991, the newspaper " TVNZ“A letter arrived, allegedly signed by doctors from the Scientific and Methodological Center for Child Psychiatry. They wrote that at the age of 14-15 Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya more than once she was in the children's hospital named after. Kashchenko with suspected schizophrenia. This letter was one of the responses to a previously published article in which the circumstances of Zoe’s death were revised.
Komsomol card of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Source: Wikimedia.org However, no documents confirming that Zoya suffered from schizophrenia were ever found. Moreover, in the archives they did not even find the names of the doctors who allegedly made this diagnosis to Kosmodemyanskaya’s patient. The only thing that is beyond doubt is the acute meningitis Zoya suffered at the age of 17. With this diagnosis, she was in the Botkin hospital, and then recovered in a sanatorium.
Particularly zealous “truth fighters” tried to subsume the phenomenon of Zoya’s courage under the version of “schizophrenia”: they say that schizophrenics generally do not have fear for their lives, they used this during the war, they formed combat groups of mentally ill people, and they calmly threw themselves under the train, to blow it up or they openly approached the headquarters of the fascists and set them on fire... So, they say, Zoya did not feel fear of the Germans, because she was sick: she was in a stupor. But the prosecutors again could not present any evidence of illness.
Some, however, still think that love for the Motherland, perseverance and courage are an abnormality that cannot be explained otherwise than by mental disorders.
Version 2: it was not Zoya who died, but Lilya
Around the same time that the Nazis were killing Zoya, near Moscow, not far from the village of Petrishcheva, another intelligence officer went missing - Lilya (Leilya) Ozolina. Some historians have suggested that it was Lilya who became the heroine who was executed in front of the villagers and who called herself Tanya, without revealing her real name. Several points spoke in favor of this version. For example, the identification of the mutilated body by the mother occurred more than a month after death.
One might doubt the objectivity of the inconsolable woman who lost her daughter. But as soon as the first voices were heard in favor of this version, the Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Justice of Russia carried out a forensic portrait examination, the results of which confirmed the unconditionality of Zoya’s identity.
Version 3: Zoya committed sabotage
This, in fact, is not a version, but a clarification of the essence of the task that Zoya received and during which she died. They tried to blame the Hero of the Soviet Union for the biggest mistake of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Joseph Stalin, who decided to apply “scorched earth tactics” to the fascists advancing on Moscow, issuing Order No. 428.
According to this order, Soviet sabotage groups were to destroy all the Moscow region settlements so that the Germans would have nowhere to hide from the cold and so that they would not be able to take Moscow.
Today, the criminality of such an order is already clear to everyone, because it left not only the Germans homeless and without a chance of salvation, but first of all the residents of villages near Moscow who found themselves in the occupied territory. But can Zoya be blamed for diligently carrying out an order that she could not help but fulfill?
How Zoe's mother was forced to become a "professional" mother of heroes
Zoya did not have time to get married and have children. However, the descendants of this family still live today: for example, the actress Zhenya Ogurtsova, known to viewers for her role in the TV series “Ranetki” and for her participation in the musical group of the same name, is the great-niece of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. More precisely, her grandfather was cousin Zoe.
After Zoya’s feat became known and she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously), and her younger brother Alexander also died and also received the same high rank, Lyubov Timofeevna Kosmodemyanskaya no longer belongs to herself. She was made into a professional “mother of heroes.”
She had to speak without a break in front of soldiers leaving for the front, in front of schoolchildren, workers, participants in the labor front... Of course, she could not tell people what she thought, share her pain: her every word was carefully verified and polished so that the listeners would be inspired by the example Zoe began to fight and work even more selflessly for the glory of the Motherland. Lyubov Timofeevna could not show any “personal” emotions.
After the war she was forced to become public figure. Lyubov Timofeevna was sent as part of delegations to socialist countries, where she repeated her speech once again. Every day - in public, every day - under the watchful eye of the special services... This went on for almost her entire life. In 1978, Zoya and Shura’s mother died.
A small bronze bust of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is kept in the house of Zhenya Ogurtsova. Zhenya knows about her brave relative from the very beginning. early childhood. Her mother, Tatyana Anatolyevna, Zoya’s niece, said that her father, as a relative of the Hero, had the right to many benefits, but never used them, because he believed that it was not entirely fair. Apparently, these traits - decency, modesty and hyper-honesty, which many consider abnormal - are hereditary.
The story of the young intelligence officer Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is well known to many generations. Soviet people. The feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was discussed in history lessons at school, articles were written about her and television programs were filmed. Her name was assigned to pioneer squads and Komsomol organizations, and schools still wore it today. In the village where the Germans executed her, a monument was erected, to which numerous excursions were organized. Streets were named in her honor...
What do we know
It seems that we knew everything that was possible to know about the heroic girl. However, quite often this “everything” came down to such cliched information: “...partisan, Hero of the Soviet Union. From a family of rural teachers. 1938 - became a member of the Komsomol. In October 1941, being a 10th grade student, she voluntarily went to partisan detachment. She was captured by the Nazis during an arson attempt, and after torture she was hanged. 1942 - Zoya was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. 1942, May - her ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery.”
Execution
1941, November 29, morning - Zoya was led to the place where the gallows were built. It was not her neck that they threw a sign with an inscription in German and Russian, on which it was written that the girl was a house arsonist. On the way, the partisan was attacked by one of the peasant women, who was left without a home due to her fault, and hit her in the legs with a stick. Then several Germans started taking photographs of the girl. Subsequently, the peasants, who were herded to watch the execution of the saboteur, told the investigators about another feat of the fearless patriot. Summary Their testimony is as follows: before the noose was thrown around her neck, the girl made a short speech in which she called for fighting the fascists, and ended it with words about the invincibility of the USSR. The girl’s body was not removed from the gallows for about a month. Then she was buried by local residents only on the eve of the New Year.
New details emerge
The decline of the communist era in the Soviet Union cast its shadow on those long-standing events of November 1941 that cost the life of a young girl. New interpretations of them, myths and legends began to appear. According to one of them, the girl who was executed in the village of Petrishchevo was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya at all. According to another version, Zoya was still there, but she was captured not by the Nazis, but by her own Soviet collective farmers, and then handed over to the Germans because she set fire to their houses. The third provides “evidence” of the absence of the partisan at the time of execution in the village of Petrishchevo.
Understanding the danger of becoming popularizers of yet another misconception, we will supplement the existing versions of another one, which was outlined by Vladimir Lot in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, as well as some of our own comments.
Version of real events
Relying on archival documents, he describes the following picture of what happened at the turn of autumn and winter of 1941 in the Moscow region. On the night of November 21-22, 1941, two groups were sent behind enemy lines on a combat mission Soviet intelligence officers. Both groups consisted of ten people. The first of them, which included Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, was commanded by Pavel Provorov, the second by Boris Krainov. The partisans were armed with three Molotov cocktails and food rations...
Fatal task
The task assigned to these groups was the same, the only difference being that they had to burn down different villages occupied by the Nazis. So, the group that Zoya was in received the order: “Penetrate behind the front line with the task of burning settlements in the enemy rear, in which German units are located. Burn the following settlements occupied by the Nazis: Anashkino, Petrishchevo, Ilyatino, Pushkino, Bugailovo, Gribtsovo, Usatnovo, Grachevo, Mikhailovskoye, Korovino.” To complete the task, 5–7 days were allotted from the moment of crossing the front line, after which it was considered completed. Then the partisans had to return to the location of the Red Army units and report not only on its implementation, but also report information received about the enemy.
Behind enemy lines
But, as often happens, events began to develop differently than planned by the commander of the saboteurs, Major Arthur Sprogis. The fact is that the situation at the front at that time was tense. The enemy approached Moscow itself, and the Soviet command took various measures to delay the enemy on the approaches to Moscow. Therefore, sabotage behind enemy lines became commonplace and happened quite often. This, of course, caused increased vigilance of the fascists and additional measures to protect their rear.
The Germans, who vigorously guarded not only the main roads, but also forest paths and every village, were able to detect groups of reconnaissance saboteurs making their way to their rear. The detachments of Pavel Provorov and Boris Krainov were fired upon by the Germans, and the fire was so strong that the partisans suffered serious losses. The commanders decided to unite into one group, which now numbered only 8 people. After another shelling, several partisans decided to return to their own, interrupting the mission. Several saboteurs remained behind enemy lines: Boris Krainov, Vasily Klubkov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. These three approached the village of Petrishchevo on the night of November 26-27, 1941.
After a short respite and designating a meeting place after completing the task, the partisans set off to set fire to the village. But failure awaited the group again. When the houses set on fire by Krainov and Kosmodemyanskaya were already burning, their comrade was captured by the Nazis. During the interrogation, he revealed the meeting place of the partisans after completing the mission. Soon the Germans brought Zoya...
In captivity. Witness testimony
The further development of events can now be judged mainly from the words of Vasily Klubkov. The fact is that some time after the interrogation, the occupiers offered Klubkov to work for their intelligence in the Soviet rear. Vasily agreed, was trained at the saboteur school, but, once on the Soviet side (already in 1942), he found the intelligence department of the Western Front, which he was sent on a mission, and he himself told Major Sprogis about what happened in the village of Petrishchevo.
From the interrogation report
1942, March 11 - Klubkov testified to the investigator of the special department of the NKVD of the Western Front, state security lieutenant Sushko:
Around two o’clock in the morning I was already in the village of Petrishchevo,” says Klubkov. - When I got to my site, I saw that the houses of Kosmodemyanskaya and Krainov had caught fire. I took out one bottle of flammable mixture and tried to set the house on fire. I saw two German sentries. I got cold feet. He started running towards the forest. I don’t remember how, but suddenly two German soldiers pounced on me, took away my revolver, two bags of ammunition, a bag of food containing canned food and alcohol. Delivered to headquarters. The officer began interrogating. At first I didn’t say that I was a partisan. He said he was a Red Army soldier. They started beating me. Then the officer put a revolver to his head. And then I told him that I had not come to the village alone, I told him about the meeting place in the forest. After some time they brought Zoya...
The interrogation protocol of Klubkov was 11 pages. The latter contains the line: “Recorded from my words, read by me personally, to which I sign.”
Klubkov was present when Zoya was interrogated, which he also told the investigator:
Were you present during the interrogation of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya? - they asked Klubkov.
Yes, I was present.
- What did the Germans ask Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and what did she answer?
The officer asked her a question about the assignment received from the command, which objects she was supposed to set on fire, where her comrades were. Kosmodemyanskaya remained stubbornly silent. After which the officer began to beat Zoya and demand evidence. But she remained silent.
Did the Germans turn to you for help in obtaining recognition from Kosmodemyanskaya?
Yes, I said that this girl is a partisan and intelligence officer Kosmodemyanskaya. But Zoya didn’t say anything after that. Seeing that she was stubbornly silent, the officers and soldiers stripped her naked and beat her with rubber truncheons for 2–3 hours. Exhausted from torture, Zoya shouted at her executioners: “Kill me, I won’t tell you anything.” After which she was taken away and I never saw her again.
Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya at Novodevichy Cemetery
conclusions
The information contained in the interrogation report of Klubkov would seem to add one very important circumstance to the Soviet version of the death of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya: she was betrayed by her own comrade in arms. Nevertheless, can this document be completely trusted, knowing about the methods of “extorting” testimony from the NKVD? Why was it necessary to keep the testimony of the traitor secret for many years? Why was it not immediately, back in 1942, that the entire Soviet people were told the name of the man who killed the Hero of the Soviet Union Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya? We can assume that the case of betrayal was fabricated by the NKVD. Thus, the culprit in the death of the heroine was found. And certainly publicity about betrayal would completely destroy official version the death of a girl, and the country needed not traitors, but heroes.
What the document cited by V. Lot did not change was the nature of the sabotage group’s mission. But it is precisely the nature of the task that rightly causes many, so to speak, mixed feelings. The order to set the villages on fire somehow completely ignores the fact that there were not only Germans in them, but also our own, Soviet people. A logical question arises: who did these types of methods of fighting the enemy cause more damage to - the enemy or their own compatriots, who were left on the threshold of winter without a roof over their heads and, most likely, without food? Of course, all the questions are addressed not to the young girl Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, but to the mature “uncles” who came up with methods of fighting the German invaders that were so merciless in relation to their own people, as well as to the social system in which similar methods were considered the norm...
Bibliographic description:
Nesterova I.A. The feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya [Electronic resource] // Educational encyclopedia website
The Great Patriotic War became a difficult test for the Soviet people. Countless feats in the name of the Fatherland showed the strength of the Soviet character and the unbending will to freedom. One of the most dramatic feats of the beginning of the war is the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.
The story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
The future intelligence officer Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was born in the small village of Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region. In 1930, Zoya and her family moved to Moscow. It is noteworthy that Kosmodemyanskaya’s grandfather was a priest. He was executed during difficult times Civil War. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya studied at a Moscow school. At the beginning of the war, namely in 1941, Zoya was a tenth-grader. At the beginning of the war, a serious danger loomed over our capital. During this difficult time, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, on her own initiative, went to the district Komsomol committee in order to join the detachment of Komsomol members who were supposed to conduct operations in the rear. Eighteen-year-old Zoya successfully passed the selection to participate in partisan activities. About two thousand volunteers went with her for training.
In November 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, as part of a large sabotage group, was sent on a serious mission. It was aimed at undermining the food supply of the fascist troops in the rear. Together with another sabotage detachment, the partisans had to destroy 10 villages that were located behind enemy lines in 7 days.
On November 27, 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Vasily Klubkov were sent to the village of Petrishchevo. The detachment commander decided that it was impossible to enter the settlement due to the fact that the Germans had mined all the approaches. He gave the order not to carry out the operation on Petrishchev territory.
However, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and her two comrades Boris and Vasily decided to break into the village. They carried out several successful arson attacks. During the operation, the soldiers lost each other. In Petrishchevo, Kosmodemyanskaya disabled a communications center and was captured by the Nazis. As it was later established, the young partisan damaged the communications center, making it impossible for some of them to interact German units occupying positions near Moscow.
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was treacherously betrayed by a local resident, namely the peasant S. Sviridov. After the liberation of the village from fascist occupation, Sviridov was shot.
Execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
Angered by the constant attacks of the partisans, the Nazis treated Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in accordance with their bestial nature - the poor girl was tortured, doused ice water in the cold. Zoya did not say a word to her enemies. The Nazis were furious. They prepared a gallows in the center of the village and hanged Zoya in front of the entire settlement.
Not everyone was happy about Zoya's exploits. Some villagers, due to their ignorance, blamed Zoya for their troubles. For this they were deservedly subsequently shot. Before her execution, a sign reading “House Arsonist” was hung around Zoya’s neck. Until her death, the girl never wavered.
The fascist monsters mocked the body of the unfortunate Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The body hung in the cold for a month.
On the same day as Zoya, just ten kilometers from Petrishchevo, her friend in the sabotage detachment, Vera Voloshina, was executed by the Nazis.
Memory of the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
The whole country learned about heroic feat Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya after the publication of Pyotr Lidov’s article “Tanya” in the Pravda newspaper in 1942. The title of the article is due to the fact that during torture Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya called herself Tanya. This was confirmed to the journalist by witnesses to those events. Zoya's feat became a symbol of the courage of the Russian people. On February 16, 1942, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
In honor of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat, museums were opened and monuments were erected throughout the USSR. In many cities there are streets named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. In 1943, a lilac variety was named in honor of the heroine of the Soviet people.
The village of Petrishchevo in the Ruza district of the Moscow region, as part of the rural settlement of Dorokhovskoye. The population is 28 people. Now in the village of Petrishchevo there is a monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and a museum. Both of them require restoration as of 2018.
The feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is still remembered today. No matter how much our Western partners tried to devalue the significance of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, no matter how much our liberals shouted that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat did not happen, all this is perceived in Russia only as the howl of hyenas.
The Russian people carefully preserve the memory of their heroes. Of course, there are exceptions, such as the boy Kolya from Urengoy, but these are rather sad exceptions associated with gaps in modern Russian education, insufficient professionalism of teachers and the consequences of the dashing nineties.