Soviet Calendar: 1947

ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA (1923-1941)


Source: Thirty Years of the Soviet State Calendar
Published: Foreign Languages Press: Moscow, 1947gr
Transciption/HTML Markup: Mike Bessler for greeklish.org, March 2008
Public Domain: 2008. You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “gammacloud.org” as your source.


sculpture
Sculpture by M. Manizer

THE NAME OF ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA, a Moscow Young Communist League member, is known far beyond the borders of the Soviet country. In the days when the Germans were pushing toward Moscow, Zoya joined a partisan detachment. In the village of Petrishchevo, near the town of Vereya, a large German cavalry unit was stationed. Following the instructions given her by the commander of her detachment, Zoya stole into Petrishchevo one night and destroyed several huts occupied by Germans and a stable where horses of the cavalry unit were sheltered. Two days after her return to the detachment Zoya was given a fresh assignment. Again slipping into Petrishehevo she attempted to set fire to a large stable in which there were over two hundred horses, but was seized by a German guard.

She was interrogated personally by lieutenant-colonel Ruder, commander of the 332nd Infantry Regiment of the 197th Division. Zoya told nothing. She even concealed her name, calling herself "Tanya." She was whipped with leather belts, lead barefooted and half naked over the snow and tortured in many ways, but nothing could extort from her a confession, or break her will. On the day of her execution the Germans herded all the villagers to the gallows. Turning to her compatriots, Zoya cried out:

"Comrades! Why look so somber? Be bolder, fight, strike at the Germans, burn their stocks, harrow them!…I'm not afraid of death, comrades! It is an honour to die for one's people…"

The hangman tightened the noose and the knot pressed into Zoya's throat, She grabbed the noose in her hands, loosened it, stood up on tiptoe, and summoning her last strength cried out again:

"Farewell, comrades! Keep up the fight, don't fear! Stalin is with us! Stalin will come!…"

"Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya," wrote the late M. I. Kalinin, "the Young Communist League member and partisan, had risen to the highest level of patriotism and moral greatness. She seems to have absorbed all of the best sentiments and qualities brought out by our people in the course of its historical development. She is the daughter not only of the Russian people, but of all Soviet peoples, the daughter of the Lenin Young Communist League. Through barbarian cruelty fascism aimed to debase Soviet womanhood, to break its moral backbone. But in this it utterly failed. The moral stalwartness of Zoya and of other Soviet girls and women has triumphed over fascist beastliness."

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was awarded posthumously the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.