Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

In the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, a Kosmodemyanskaya monument was destroyed on 21 April 2022 amidst a derussification campaign. In December 2022 the Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya street in Ukraine's capital Kyiv was renamed to (World War I Ukrainian Sich Riflemen member) Sofia Galechko [hy; uk; ru] street.

Some details of Kosmodemyanskaya's assignment and arrest were classified for about sixty years because treachery might have been involved. The case was declassified in 2002, and then reviewed by Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor Office, and it was decided that Vasily Klubkov, who betrayed Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, was not eligible for rehabilitation. According to the case, three Soviet combatants, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Vasily Klubkov, and their commander Boris Krainov, had to perform acts of sabotage in Reichskommissariat Ostland. They had been given the task of setting fire to houses in the village of Petrishchevo, where German troops were quartered. Krainov was to operate in the central part of the village, Kosmodemyanskaya in the southern and Klubkov in the northern parts. Krainov was the first to carry out his task and returned to the base. Kosmodemyanskaya performed her task too, and three columns of flame in the southern part of Petrishchevo were seen from the base. Only the northern part was not set on fire. According to Klubkov, he was captured by two German soldiers and taken to their headquarters. A German officer threatened to kill him, and Klubkov gave him the names of Kosmodemyanskaya and Krainov. After this, Kosmodemyanskaya was captured by the Germans.

A slightly different story was recorded in the notes of researcher Pyotr Lidov, published in Parlamentskaya Gazeta in 1999. According to these, Kosmodemyanskaya and Vasily Klubkov were caught while asleep on the outskirts of Petrishchevo. The Germans were called by Petrishchevo resident Semyon Sviridov. Lidov's notes also included an interview with a German noncommissioned officer taken prisoner by the Red Army. The interview described the negative effect on the morale of the German soldiers who witnessed the burning of the houses.

Kosmodemyanskaya's life became a subject of media controversy during the 1990s. In September 1991, an article by Aleksandr Zhovtis was published in the weekly Russian magazine Argumenty i Fakty. The article alleged that there were no German troops in the village of Petrishchevo, in spite of several photos of her being hanged by German soldiers. Zhovtis blamed Stalin's scorched earth policy for the "unnecessary" death of the young woman. The newspaper subsequently published letters from readers, many of which included stories contradicting the mainstream version. One researcher claimed that the person executed in Petrishchevo was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya but a "missing in action" partisan, although later official conclusion from the Institute for Criminal Expertise and the Department of Justice of the Russian Federation stated otherwise. The Argumenty i Fakty articles prompted a response from Pravda observer Viktor Kozhemyaka in the form of an article titled "Fifty years after her death Zoya is tortured and executed again". Ten years later, Kozhemyaka wrote another article "Zoya is executed yet again", in which he lamented some "absurd material" on Internet discussion forums, which alleged that Zoya had hurt Russian peasants rather than German troops, that she suffered from schizophrenia, and that she was a fanatical Stalinist.

Kosmodemyanskaya's account was repeatedly published in Pravda. Numerous Soviet writers, artists, sculptors and poets dedicated their works to her. In 1944, the film Zoya was made about her. She was also referred to in the film Girl No. 217, which depicted atrocities committed against Soviet prisoners of war by the Nazis. Her image was also used frequently in anti-German propaganda which encouraged violence against the German occupying forces.

The Germans left her body hanging on the gallows for several weeks. One of her breasts was cut off by a drunk German near Christmas Eve, and her body desecrated by Germans or collaborators. Eventually she was hastily buried by the Germans to cover up their crimes just before the Soviets regained the territory in January 1942.

The story of Kosmodemyanskaya's death became popular after Pravda published an article written by Pyotr Lidov on January 27, 1942. The journalist had heard about her execution from an elderly peasant, and was impressed by her courage. The witness recounted: "They were hanging her and she was giving a speech. They were hanging her and she was threatening them." Lidov travelled to Petrishchevo, collected details from local residents and published an article about the then-unknown partisan girl. Soon after, Joseph Stalin noticed the article. He proclaimed: "Here is the people's heroine", which started a propaganda campaign honouring Kosmodemyanskaya. Stalin ordered that the soldiers and officers of the 197th Infantry Division (Wehrmacht), which participated in the execution, should not be taken prisoner. In February, she was identified and was awarded the order of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In 1997, the newspaper Glasnost published the previously unknown protocols of the official commission of residents of Petrishchevo village and Gribtsovsky selsoviet from January 25, 1942 (two months after Zoya's execution). The protocols stated that Kosmodemyanskaya was caught while trying to destroy a stable containing more than 300 German horses. They also described her torture and execution.

On November 27, 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya received an assignment to burn the village of Petrishchevo, where a German cavalry regiment was stationed. Together with fellow partisans Boris Krainov and Vasily Klubkov, she set fire to three houses in the village. The partisans believed that one of the houses was being used as a German communications center and that occupying forces were using others for accommodation. The writer A. Zhovtis has disputed these claims, arguing that officially Petrishchevo was not a point of permanent deployment of German troops. However, the villagers said that virtually all the houses of the village were used for accommodation by the German troops transported along the main roads near the village.

Kosmodemyanskaya joined the Komsomol in 1938. In October 1941, still a high school student in Moscow, she volunteered for a partisan unit. During the course of her army service, she idealized Tatiana Solomakha, a Red Army soldier who was tortured and killed during the course of the Russian Civil War. She was assigned to the partisan unit 9903 (Staff of the Western Front). At the village of Obukhovo near Naro-Fominsk, Kosmodemyanskaya and other partisans crossed the front line and entered territory occupied by the Germans. They mined roads and cut communication lines.

In 1929, the family moved to Siberia for fear of persecution. In 1930, they moved to Moscow.

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya (Russian: Зо́я Анато́льевна Космодемья́нская, IPA: [ˈzojə kəsmədʲɪˈmʲjanskəjə]; September 13, 1923 – November 29, 1941) was a Soviet partisan. She was executed after acts of sabotage against the invading armies of Nazi Germany; after stories emerged of her defiance towards her captors, she was posthumously declared a Hero of the Soviet Union. She became one of the most revered heroines of the Soviet Union.

Zoya (her name is a Russian form of the Greek name Zoe, which means "life") was born in 1923 in the village of Osino-Gay (Осино-Гай) (meaning Aspen Woods), near the city of Tambov. Her father, Anatoly Kosmodemyansky, studied in a theological seminary, but did not graduate. He later worked as a librarian. Her mother, Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya (née Churikova), was a school teacher. In 1925, Zoya's brother, Aleksandr Kosmodemyansky, was born. Like his sister, he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union, and, like Zoya, posthumously.

The Kosmodemyansky family name was constructed by joining the names of Saints Cosmas and Damian (Косма (Kosma) and Дамиан (Demyan) in Russian). From the 17th century, the Kosmodemyansky were priests in the Russian Orthodox Church. Zoya's grandfather Pyotr Kosmodemyansky was murdered in 1918 by militant atheists for his opposition to blasphemy.