Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya – a female Red Army soldier of a sabotage and reconnaissance unit of the Western Front headquarters who ended up behind German lines in 1941. She was the first woman to be awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously) during the Great Patriotic War. Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born on 13 September 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai in the Tambov Governorate into a family of hereditary priests. In 1930 the family moved to Moscow.

 

On 31 October 1941 Zoya voluntarily joined the reconnaissance-sabotage unit of the Western Front. Already on 4 November she successfully completed her first mission of mining the road near Volokolamsk. In mid-November the Stavka of the Supreme High Command issued an order to destroy settlements in the enemy rear. Zoya was assigned to set fire to ten villages, including Petrishchevo, within five to seven days.

 

Her sabotage group came under fire and suffered losses. On the night of 27 November Zoya reached the village of Petrishchevo and set fire to three houses. After spending the night in the forest she returned to complete the task. The second attempt to set fires led to her arrest by the local elder. After torture, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was executed by hanging on 29 November 1941 in the village of Petrishchevo. She is buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. In 1942 she was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.