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Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko[a] (née Belova; 12 July 1916 – 10 October 1974) was a Soviet sniper in the Red Army during World War II,[1] credited with 309 confirmed kills(the number is probably higher since a third party must witness the kill for it to be confirmed).[2] She is regarded being in the top five military snipers of all time [3] and the most successful female sniper in history.[4][5] Lyudmila was nicknamed "Lady Death" due to her incredible ability with a sniper rifle.[6] She served in the Red Army during the Siege of Odessa and the Siege of Sevantspol, during the early stages of the Eastern Front in WWII. After she was injured in battle by a motar shell, she was evacuated to Moscow.[6]After Pavlichenko recovered from her injuries she trained other Red Army Snipers and was a public spokesperson for the Red Army.[7] In 1942, she visited the White House and toured the United States. There she befriended Elenor Roosevelt and the two became close friends, even throughout the Cold War.[6][8] After the war ended in 1945, she was reassigned as a Senior Resercher for the Soviet Navy. She later died at the age of 58 due to a stroke on 10 October 1974.[9][10]

Early life and education

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Born in Bila Tserkva (in today's Ukraine) in the Russian Empire on 12 July 1916, Pavlichenko (née Belova) moved to Kiev with her family at the age of fourteen. Her mother was a teacher and her father was a St. Petersburg factory worker.[8] As a child Lyudmila was self-described tomboy, who was fiercely competitive at athletic activities. In Kiev, she joined a OSOAVIAKhIM shooting club and developed into an amateur sharpshooter, earning her Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge and a marksman certificate. As a teenager, she attended evening school at night, as well as complete household chores.[11] During the day, she worked as a grinder at the Kiev Arsenal factory.[11][12] In 1932, at the age of 16, she married a doctor named Alexei Pavlichenko and gave birth to a son Rostislav (1932-2007), but he divorced her very soon after.[10] She enrolled at Kiev University in 1937 where she studied histrory, with an intent on being a scholor and teacher. While attending college, she competed on the university's teack team as a sprinter and pole vaulter.[8][6] She also enrolled in another elite sniping school.[6][13]

World War II

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Pavlichenko in a trench (1942).

In June 1941, 24-year-old Pavlichenko was in her fourth year studying history at Kiev University when Germany began its invasion of the Soviet Union.[12] Pavlichenko was among the first round of volunteers at the Odessa recruiting office, where she requested to join the infantry. The registrar pushed Pavlienchenko to be a nurse but she refused. After seeing that she had completed mulitple training courses they finally let her in the army as a sniper. Therefore was assigned to the Red Army's 25th Rifle Division;[12] There she became one of 2,000 female snipers in the Red Army(although female soldiers were still just 2 percent of the Red Army's total number)[6], of whom about 500 survived the war.[7][8][6] Although she was in a combat role, she was only given a frag grenade due to weapon shortages. On 8 August 1942 a fallen comrade would hand her his Mosin-Nagant model 1891 bolt-action rifle. She achevied her first two kills and proved herself to her fellow comrades. She described this event as her "baptism of fire", because after this she was offically a sniper.[6]

Pavlichenko fought for about two and a half months near Odessa, where she recorded 187 kills.[14] She was promoted to senior sergeant in August 1941 when she reached 100 confirmed kills. At age 25, she married a fellow sniper whose name was Alexei Kitsenko.[13][6] Soon after the marriage, Alexei was mortally wounded by a motor shell. Kitsenko died after a few days in the hospital.[13] When the Romanians gained control of Odessa on 15 October 1941, her unit was withdrawn by sea to Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula,[14] where she fought for more than eight months.[15][16] There she trained almost a dozen snipers, who killed over a hundred Axis soldiers during the battle.[16] In May 1942, newly promoted Lieutenant Pavlichenko was cited by the Southern Army Council for killing 257 Axis soldiers. Her total of confirmed kills during World War II was 309,[17][15] including 36 enemy snipers.

In June 1942, Pavlichenko was hit in the face with shrapenel from a motar shell. After her injury, the Soviet High Command ordered that she be evacuated from Sevastopol via submarine.[18] She was to valuble to lose as she was the perfect example of Soviet Womanhood.[10] She spent around a moth in the hospital, she did not go back to the Eastern Front after her injuries.[8] Instead she became a propagandist for the Red Army[6]. Due to her high kill count, she was nicknamed "Lady Death".[19][6][2] She also trained snipers for combat duty till the end of the war in 1945.[2][13]

Visits to Allied countries

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Pavlichenko (center) with Justice Robert Jackson (left) and first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in Washington DC.

In 1942, Pavlichenko was sent to Canada and the United States for a publicity visit and became the first Soviet citizen to be received by a US President when Franklin D. Roosevelt welcomed her to the White House.[20] Pavlichenko was later invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to tour America relating her experiences.[20] The purpose of this visit was to convince the allies to start a second front against Germany.[10] While visiting the United States, Pavlichenko was not taken seriously and was called "Girl Sniper" by the press.[6] While meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C., she was dumbfounded about the kind of questions put to her. "One reporter even criticized the length of the skirt of my uniform, saying that in America women wear shorter skirts and besides my uniform made me look fat."[21][22] She was described by the reporters as very blunt and unemotional in her responses.[8]

Pavlichenko appeared before the International Student Assembly being held in Washington, D.C., and later attended the meetings of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and made appearances and speeches in New York City and Chicago. In Chicago, she stood before large crowds, chiding the men to support the second front. "Gentlemen," she said, "I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist invaders by now. Don't you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?" Her words settled on the crowd, then caused a surging roar of support.[20] The United States gave her a Colt semi-automatic pistol. In Canada, she was presented with a sighted Winchester rifle now on display at the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow. While visiting in Canada along with fellow sniper Vladimir Pchelintsev and Moscow fuel commissioner Nikolai Kravchenko they were greeted by thousands of people at Toronto's Union Station.[8]

On a foggy Friday 21 November 1942, Pavlichenko visited Coventry, accepting donations of £4,516 from local workers to pay for three X-ray units for the Red Army. She also visited Coventry Cathedral ruins, then the Alfred Herbert works and Standard Motor Factory, from where most funds had been raised. She had inspected a factory in Birmingham earlier in the day.[23]

Having attained the rank of major, Pavlichenko never returned to combat but became an instructor and trained Soviet snipers until the war's end.[15] In 1943, she was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union,[24] as well as a the Order of Lenin twice.[8]

Later years and death

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After the war, she finished her education at Kiev University and began a career as a historian.[6][8] From 1945 to 1953, she was a research assistant of the Chief HQ of the Soviet Navy. She was later active in the Soviet Committee of the Veterans of War.[15] In 1957, Eleanot Roosevelt visited Pavlichenko in Moscow during a visit to the Soviet Union.[8] She struggled constantly with depression, due to the loss of her husband in the war.[10] She also suffered from PTSD and alcoholism and is to be thought of why she died so early.[10] Pavlichenko died from a stroke on 10 October 1974 at age 58 and was buried in the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow.[15]

A second Soviet commemorative stamp featuring Lyudmila Pavlichenko's portrait was issued in 1976.[8]

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Second Soviet Union-issued postage stamp dedicated to Pavlichenko

The American folk singer Woody Guthrie composed a song ("Miss Pavlichenko") as a tribute to her war record and to memorialize her visits to the United States and Canada.[25] It was released as part of The Asch Recordings.[26][27]

Pavlichenko was a subject of the 2015 film, Battle for Sevastopol (original Ukrainian title, "Незламна " ("Indestructible" / "Unbreakable")). A joint Russian-Ukrainian production, it was released in both countries on 2 April 2015.[28] The international premiere took place two weeks later at the Beijing International Film Festival. The film is a heavily romanticized version of her life, with several fictitious characters and many departures from the events related in her memoirs.

The first English language edition of her memoirs, titled Lady Death, was published by Greenhill Books in February 2018.[19] The book has a foreword by Martin Pegler and is part of the Greenhill Books Sniper Library series.[29] The book was serialised in the Mail on Sunday newspaper on Sunday 18 March 2018.[13]

Pavlichenko's story was featured in the fourth season of Drunk History in which she was played by Mae Whitman.[30]

She was featured in Jason Porath's website Rejected Princess.[31]

Awards and honors

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Pavlichenko's war record was recognized in the Soviet Union by two commemorative stamps with her portrait (see images above).[32] She was awarded the following:

See also

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  1. ^ Russian: Людми́ла Миха́йловна Павличе́нко; Ukrainian: Людмила Михайлівна Павличенко, romanized: Lyudmyla Mykhailivna Pavlychenko
  1. ^ Laws. "Secret Entertainment Today". secretentertainmenttoday.blogspot.de.
  2. ^ a b c Lockie, Alex. "Meet the world's deadliest female sniper who terrorized Hitler's Nazi army". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  3. ^ The 10 deadliest snipers of all time until Amber Coleman, Business Insider (September 8, 2015)
  4. ^ Lady Sniper, TIME Magazine (Monday, 28 September 1942)
  5. ^ Farey, Pat; Spicer, Mark (2009-05-05). Sniping: An Illustrated History. Voyageur Press. p. 129. ISBN 9780760337172.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Lady Death: Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the Greatest Female Sniper of All Time". mentalfloss.com. 2018-12-06. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  7. ^ a b "During WWII, Lyudmila Pavlichenko Sniped a Confirmed 309 Axis Soldiers, Including 36 German Snipers". Today I Found Out. 2012-06-02. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k King, Gilbert (February 21, 2013). "Eleanor Roosevelt and the Soviet Sniper". Smithsonian. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  9. ^ Lockie, Alex. "Meet the world's deadliest female sniper who terrorized Hitler's Nazi army". Business Insider. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Linge, Mary Kay (2018-05-12). "Soviet 'girl sniper' had 309 kills — and a best friend in the White House". New York Post. Retrieved 2019-10-20.
  11. ^ a b "Внучка снайперши Павличенко: На похороны прийти не решилась". sobesednik.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2019-10-24.
  12. ^ a b c Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-45 by Henry Skaida, Osprey Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841765988/ISBN 978-1841765983, page 31
  13. ^ a b c d e "Stalin's angel of death: The world's most successful female sniper". Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  14. ^ a b Women and War: A Historical Encyclopedia from Antiquity to the Present originally from Ukraine by Arthur Bernard Cook, ABC-CLIO, 2006, ISBN 1851097708/ISBN 978-1851097708, page 457
  15. ^ a b c d e Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-45 by Henry Skaida, Osprey Publishing, 2003, ISBN 1841765988/ISBN 978-1841765983, page 31
  16. ^ a b 1Павличенко Людмила Михайловна, Country's Heroes (warheroes.ru) (in Russian)
  17. ^ Pat Farey; Mark Spicer (5 May 2009). Sniping: An Illustrated History. MBI Publishing Company. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-7603-3717-2. Retrieved 18 March 2011.
  18. ^ "Mankiller: Major Lyudmila Pavlichenko by Henry Sakaida 1 of 2". soviet-awards.com. Retrieved 2019-10-28.
  19. ^ a b Pavlichenko, Lyudmila; Pegler, Martin (5 February 2018). "Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper". Greenhill Books. Retrieved 9 June 2018 – via Amazon.
  20. ^ a b c King, Gilbert (February 21, 2013). "Eleanor Roosevelt and the Soviet Sniper". Smithsonian. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
  21. ^ Lady Sniper, TIME Magazine (Monday, 28 September 1942)
  22. ^ The World War Two Reader by Gordon Martel, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0415224039/ISBN 978-0415224031, page 268
  23. ^ The Coventry Evening Telegraph, Saturday November 21st 1942
  24. ^ Henry Sakaida; Christa Hook (2003), Heroines of the Soviet Union 1941-45, vol. 90, Osprey Publishing, p. 21, ISBN 978-1-84176-598-3, OCLC 829740681, retrieved 2011-12-03
  25. ^ "Miss Pavlichenko" dated to 1942 at http://www.woodyguthrie.de/pavil.html
  26. ^ Hard Travelin': The Asch Recordings, Vol. 3,
  27. ^ "Amazon.com: Miss Pavlichenko: Woody Guthrie: MP3 Downloads". amazon.com.
  28. ^ Battle for Sevastopol, retrieved 2018-09-29
  29. ^ "Greenhill Books". www.greenhillbooks.com. Retrieved 9 June 2018.
  30. ^ Battle for Sevastopol
  31. ^ "Lyudmila Pavlichenko: The Deadliest Female Sniper in History". Rejected Princesses. Retrieved 2019-03-28.
  32. ^ Sakaida, Henry "Mankiller: Major Lyudmila Pavlichenko."http://www.soviet-awards.com/digest/pavlichenko/pavlichenko1.htm http://www.soviet-awards.com/digest/pavlichenko/pavlichenko2.htm
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