• LOG IN
  • START FREE TRIAL
  • EXPLORE
    • Science
    • Natural World
    • Majestic Earth
    • Travel the World
    • History
    • Human Spirit
    • The Dark Side
  • GENRES
    • Biography
    • Space
    • Science & Tech
    • Mind & Body
    • Earth
    • Travel & Adventure
    • Nature
    • Ancient History
    • Early Modern
    • Current History
    • War & Military
    • True Crime
    • Historical Drama
    • Art & Culture
  • ARTICLES
  • EXPLORE
    • Science
    • Natural World
    • Majestic Earth
    • Travel the World
    • History
    • Human Spirit
    • The Dark Side
  • GENRES
    • Biography
    • Space
    • Science & Tech
    • Mind & Body
    • Earth
    • Travel & Adventure
    • Nature
    • Ancient History
    • Early Modern
    • Current History
    • War & Military
    • True Crime
    • Historical Drama
    • Art & Culture
  • ARTICLES
  • search
Woman at War:  Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the Sniper Who Shot Down Gender Norms Woman at War:  Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the Sniper Who Shot Down Gender Norms
share
War

Woman at War: Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the Sniper Who Shot Down Gender Norms

BY Justine Damiano PUBLISHED Mar 11, 2020
share

[Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in February 2019.]

 

The role of women in the military has been debated for centuries, but the Red Army of the former Soviet Union needed every soldier it could find to defend against the German invasion of 1941. One sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, was so skilled at her lethal assignment that she became known as Lady Death. She was feared by the enemy, and revered by her comrades. She also became a prime example of a successful woman soldier and was an inspiration to women warriors of the future, including in the U.S.

 

Smoke rose off the ground like a gateway to Hell. The grey sky bled into the grey landscape, colored only by the bullets that had rained down. The dirt-caked hands of German soldiers clawed at trenches as they scrambled to take cover and test their luck for one more day. Silence fell, covering the men like a blanket. But something pierced the barrier. A crisp, single shot rang out, and a cry quickly followed. The troops carefully looked out, searching for the source of the shot. They didn’t actually want to find it, though. Why would they? Finding it meant they wouldn’t be going home.

 

 

In the distance, out of view, a figure rose and tallied another mark to her list. She floated off, camouflaged from searching eyes. She was Lady Death, and she loomed over the enemy like a demonic angel. But Lady Death wasn’t an angel, and she wasn’t a demon.

 

Who was this mysterious figure? Was she fact, or was she fiction? Lady Death may seem like a character from a haunting tale – a warning to enemies, or a nationalistic bedtime story. But Lady Death was real. Her name was Lyudmila Pavlichenko, and she didn’t just battle enemies. She vanquished gender norms.

 

Women’s Roles in World War II

 

Lyudmila provided a powerful example of how effective a woman could be on the battlefield, but the policies of the U.S. military were dramatically different from those of the Soviet Union’s Red Army. In the American armed forces, women were generally restricted to “behind the lines” duties, such as nursing and clerical jobs. A few gained experience as pilots by ferrying aircraft from one base to another, but dropping bombs and shooting down fighters was reserved for men. An American equivalent to Lyudmila Pavlichenko was unthinkable.

 

The war did, however, open up certain other opportunities for women, especially in the civilian  workforce. And they were the targets of wildly successful propaganda campaigns – such as the famous “Rosie the Riveter” posters – that influenced them to trade in their homemaker aprons for trousers and work boots as they stepped in to fill assembly line jobs in factories and defense plants.

 

RosieTheRiveter


While American women struggled to find equality in the military during World War II, the situation in the Soviet Union was different. In contrast to the American policy of keeping women “out of harm’s way,” women in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine were recruited for combat duty in the Red Army. In fact, as many as 2,000 Ukrainian women became snipers whose role was to kill German soldiers who had invaded in June 1941.  

 

The U.S. military has historically resisted or restricted women in uniform. Until recent years, they were mostly limited to support duties behind the lines. In 2013, certain combat roles were opened to women.

 

As we learn from Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s empowering story, beautifully told in the historical drama Battle for Sevastopol, she was allowed to join her male comrades on the battlefield. And she wasn’t alone. But who was she really, and why did this elusive “Lady Death” stand out from the rest?

 

Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s Life, Pre-War

From early in her life, Lyudmila had deep ties to the Soviet military – her father served in both the Russian Revolution and Civil War. She was competitive and driven in everything she did, and she often found herself competing with the boys in her school – joining in their games and, in her own words, not allowing herself “to be outdone by boys in anything.” But her rowdy behavior did not hinder her educational development, and her ambition helped her finish school a year-and-a-half before her classmates. As a well-rounded teenager, she earned her Marksman certificate and Voroshilov Sharpshooter badge from her time training at OSOAVIAKhIM – a program for non-military citizens to prepare for future war.

 

After Lyudmila finished her primary schooling, she was admitted to Kiev University. Her mother was a professor of English, which, no doubt, laid the foundation for her academic interests. Though competitive and committed, the two sides of her personality were superficially contradictory. On one hand, she was rowdy and boisterous, tomboy-like and interested in following in her father’s footsteps. On the other, Lyudmila was bookish and dedicated to perfecting her studies. But she embodied both the Yin and Yang in herself – the power and fierce drive handed down from her father, and the studious and inquisitive nature inherited from her mother.

 

Lyudmila_Pavlichenko_in_trench

 

Lyudmila was studying history at the university when she heard the news that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union. Equipped with her previous training and her family’s military background, she marched down to the recruiting office to enlist in the Red Army. The recruiter, typically skeptical of women in uniform, doubted her fitness for combat and suggested she would be better suited for nursing or office work. Lyudmila, steadfast in her determination, changed his mind by showing him her previous training and awards.

 

While Lyudmila was but one of the 2,000 women recruited as snipers, her skills were virtually unique. She was made a private in the Red Army and assigned to a subsection of the 25th Chapayev Rifle Division. Demonstrating unparalleled skills with her weapon, she was then assigned to the 2nd Company sniper platoon.

 

Lady Death in Action

Lyudmila’s exploits on the battlefield were so impressive that she quickly won the respect of her fellow soldiers – and, perhaps even more important to the war effort, the affection of her country. She was nicknamed Lady Death (a harsh but complimentary moniker), which was perfect for propaganda purposes. In fact, with such a colorful nickname, she was believed by many to be a mythic figure created by some imaginative Soviet propagandist.

 

However, Lyudmila’s story was very much true. During the single year she served, she sniped 309 Axis soldiers – 36 of whom were themselves German snipers. Some believe her unconfirmed number of kills might actually have been closer to 500. (Now you can see how she got her nickname.) According to legend, Lyudmila went up against a prolific German sniper credited with over 500 confirmed kills, but the German was no match for Lady Death and joined her rapidly growing list of victims.

 

 

Unfortunately, even a legendary woman warrior like Lyudmila continued to battle gender norms. In one interview, one reporter rather patronizingly asked if she was allowed to wear makeup during her service. Quick thinking, she responded: “There is no rule against it … but who has time to think of her shiny nose when a battle is going on?”

 

Despite her success, Lyudmila’s career on the front line ended in June 1942. During the bloody battle for the port city of Sevastopol, she was injured and evacuated. After all, the country (and the Soviet propaganda machine) didn’t want their hero to die. Sadly, though her body recovered, her mind did not. The trauma she suffered during her relatively brief service on the battlefield left her with post-traumatic stress disorder – just like many soldiers throughout history.

 

The Legacy of the Ukrainian Heroine

To this day, Lyudmila Pavlichenko holds the record for the most confirmed kills of any female sniper in history – despite serving for only one year. She led an impressive life – excelling at everything she did and inspiring women (and men) around the world. She even became close friends with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Lyudmila traveled extensively abroad in support of the war effort, and became the muse for Woody Guthrie’s song “Miss Pavlichenko.” Her service, spunk, and courage has been a beacon to women wishing to serve in their countries’ military services.

 

Progress in the U.S. armed forces was gradual, to put it kindly, but the generals and government policymakers eventually saw the light. Today, approximately 200,000 women are on active duty in the military, many of them in combat roles such as fighter pilots, submariners, and infantry soldiers. Recently, a woman became the first to complete the initial round of training on her quest to become an elite U.S. Army Green Beret. I have to believe that Lyudmila would be proudly rooting for her to succeed.  

 

 

 

RELATED TITLES

1944: Le Havre Under the Allies' Bombs
52MIN
1944: Le Havre Under the Allies' Bombs
Seven Women: The Irish Suffragettes
54MIN
Seven Women: The Irish Suffragettes
In the Turmoil of the Russian Revolution
57MIN
In the Turmoil of the Russian Revolution
WWII Dambusters' Great Escape
46MIN
WWII Dambusters' Great Escape
The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire
3 EPISODES
The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire
Generals at War
6 EPISODES
Generals at War
Sex Revolutions
2 EPISODES
Sex Revolutions
Virago Women: Birth of the Women's Liberation Movement
56MIN
Virago Women: Birth of the Women's Liberation Movement
Battlefields of the World Wars
8 EPISODES
Battlefields of the World Wars
World War II: Battles Won and Lost
8 EPISODES
World War II: Battles Won and Lost
When We Go To War
6 EPISODES
When We Go To War
The Admiral: Love and Fate in a Time of War
10 EPISODES
The Admiral: Love and Fate in a Time of War
The Aces' War
2 EPISODES
The Aces' War
The War at Sea
2 EPISODES
The War at Sea

RELATED ARTICLES

History
Women’s Suffrage and 3 Activists Who Shaped Women’s Rights around the Globe

Women’s Suffrage and 3 Activists Who Shaped Women’s Rights around the Globe

by Justine Damiano | Nov 12, 2020

For decades, women around the world fought for their...

History
Our Carnegie Library: How a Robber Baron's Legacy Benefited One Small Town – and All of America

Our Carnegie Library: How a Robber Baron's Legacy Benefited One Small Town – and All of America

by Joe Gioia | Jul 24, 2020

Andrew Carnegie was the world's richest man, hated by many for his opposition to organized labor. But in his last years, he gave away most of his fortune to benefit working people, including funding hundreds of Carnegie Libraries across the U.S.

Astronomy
4 Women Astronomers Who Blazed a Trail to the Future of Women in Science

4 Women Astronomers Who Blazed a Trail to the Future of Women in Science

by Arthur M. Marx | Mar 06, 2020

Women are increasingly prominent in the field of astronomy, but haven’t always been. Here are four pioneering women astronomers who cleared a path for others.

History
Who Was the Real Pocahontas?

Who Was the Real Pocahontas?

by Eden Arielle Gordon | Feb 27, 2020

Popularized by the Disney film, the story of Pocahontas is a crown jewel of American folklore. But was any of it true, or was the tale invented by...

History
Cold War Capers:  Salyut-7 and the Bitter Memory of Submarine K-129

Cold War Capers: Salyut-7 and the Bitter Memory of Submarine K-129

by Arthur M. Marx | Jan 29, 2020

During the Cold War, the geopolitical stakes could not...

History
The Rise of Catherine the Great – In Life and Legend

The Rise of Catherine the Great – In Life and Legend

by Kevin Martin | Jan 09, 2020

Catherine the Great’s rise to power was marked by intrigue, betrayals, and other court chicanery. But from these...

War
Bravery from Above:  The Paratroopers of D-Day

Bravery from Above: The Paratroopers of D-Day

by Justine Damiano | Jun 05, 2019

Paratroopers played a critical role in the eventual success of the 3-month-long battle that began on June 6, 1944 –...

War
From German Jets to Double Agents: 5 Ways D-Day Could Have Been a Disaster for the Allies

From German Jets to Double Agents: 5 Ways D-Day Could Have Been a Disaster for the Allies

by Eden Arielle Gordon | May 29, 2019

D-Day was a pivotal moment in world history – but it...

War
War Correspondents: Risking It All for the Story

War Correspondents: Risking It All for the Story

by Kevin Martin | May 22, 2019

It’s a dangerous world for war correspondents, and getting riskier by the day. Reporter Lara Logan was brutally...

War
Secrets and Hollow Promises: How World War I Gave Rise to Arab Nationalism

Secrets and Hollow Promises: How World War I Gave Rise to Arab Nationalism

by Kevin Martin | Apr 30, 2019

The Middle East was an active theater of conflict...

History
Heads Will Roll:  The Life and Death of Mary Queen of Scots

Heads Will Roll: The Life and Death of Mary Queen of Scots

by Justine Damiano | Apr 25, 2019

Mary Queen of Scots served as queen of multiple kingdoms before she was dethroned for her faith and the controversies...

History
Notorious to Courageous: Women of the Bible

Notorious to Courageous: Women of the Bible

by Justine Damiano | Apr 03, 2019

Women in the Bible play many roles, and while few actually make it into the spotlight, the ones who do leave their...

Warfare
The Psychology of Propaganda: War Tool Turned Marketing Tactic

The Psychology of Propaganda: War Tool Turned Marketing Tactic

by Justine Damiano | Oct 16, 2018

“Propaganda” and “war” generally go hand in hand. After World War I, however, propaganda became a marketing...

Space
Salyut-7 and The New Cold War

Salyut-7 and The New Cold War

by Arthur M. Marx | Oct 11, 2018

More than three decades ago, the United States and the U.S.S.R. nearly came to blows over a disabled Soviet space station called Salyut-7. Or did...

War
Nuclear Weapons: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Nuclear Weapons: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

by Padraic Grumplestein | Feb 07, 2019

During the Cold War, accidents and other incidents involving nuclear weapons were more common than many people know,...

World War III Flashpoint: Cyberspace

World War III Flashpoint: Cyberspace

by Kevin Martin & Arthur M. Marx | Oct 17, 2018

The world wars of the 20th century were fought by soldiers, sailors, and airmen in clashes of steel across defined...

World War III Flashpoint: Taiwan

World War III Flashpoint: Taiwan

by Kevin Martin & Arthur M. Marx | Oct 31, 2018

With China ascendant, the era of the United States as the world’s lone superpower may be ending. Where is a...

World War III Flashpoint: North Korea

World War III Flashpoint: North Korea

by Arthur M. Marx | Nov 01, 2018

Has anything important changed since Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un first met? Kim still has his nukes, and the U.S....

Available On:

And More..

© MagellanTV, LLC 2018 - 2021

  • Gift MagellanTV
  • FAQ
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Contact Support
  • About
  • Accessibility