51 Facts About Roza Shanina

Roza Shanina became the first servicewoman of the 3rd Belorussian Front to receive the Order of Glory.

Roza Shanina was killed in action during the East Prussian Offensive while shielding the severely wounded commander of an artillery unit.

Roza Shanina's actions received praise during her lifetime, but conflicted with the Soviet policy of sparing snipers from heavy battles.

Roza Shanina kept a war diary that was first published in 1965.

Roza Shanina was reportedly named after the Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg and had six siblings: one sister Yuliya and five brothers: Mikhail, Fyodor, Sergei, Pavel, and Marat.

Roza Shanina was above average height, with light brown hair and blue eyes, and spoke in a Northern Russian dialect.

On Saturdays, Roza Shanina again went to Bereznik to take care of her ill aunt Agnia Borisova.

Roza Shanina left home with little money and almost no possessions; and before moving to the college dormitory she lived with her elder brother Fyodor.

Later in her combat diary, Roza Shanina would recall Arkhangelsk's stadium Dinamo, and the cinemas, Ars and Pobeda.

Shanina's friend Anna Samsonova remembered that Roza sometimes returned from her friends in Ustyansky District to her college dormitory between 2:00 and 3:00 am.

In 1938, Roza Shanina became a member of the Soviet youth movement Komsomol.

Roza Shanina received little financial support from home and on 11 September 1941, she took a job in kindergarten No 2 in Arkhangelsk, with which she was offered a free apartment.

Roza Shanina studied in the evenings and worked in the kindergarten during the daytime.

In February 1942, Soviet women between the ages of 16 and 45 became eligible for the military draft, but Roza Shanina was not drafted that month, as the local military commissariat wanted to spare her from the draft.

Roza Shanina first learned to shoot at a shooting range.

On 22 June 1942, while still living in the dormitory, Roza Shanina was accepted into the Vsevobuch program for universal military training.

Roza Shanina was asked to stay as an instructor there, but refused due to a call of duty.

Three days later, southeast of Vitebsk, Roza Shanina killed her first German soldier.

Roza Shanina wrote that if she had to do everything over again, she would still strive to enter the sniper academy and go to the front again.

Roza Shanina became the first servicewoman of the 3rd Belorussian Front to receive that order.

Roza Shanina was later sanctioned for going to the front line without permission, but did not face a court martial.

Roza Shanina wanted to be attached to a battalion or a reconnaissance company, turning to the commander of the 5th Army, Nikolai Krylov.

Roza Shanina wrote twice to Joseph Stalin with the same request.

From her time at the military academy, Roza Shanina became known for her ability to score doublets.

Roza Shanina successfully used counter-sniper tactics against a German cuckoo sniper hidden in a tree, by waiting until dusk when the space between the tree branches would be backlit by sunlight and the sniper's nest became visible.

On one occasion, Roza Shanina made use of selective fire from a submachine gun.

Roza Shanina enjoyed writing and would often send letters to her home village and to her friends in Arkhangelsk.

Roza Shanina started writing a war diary; although diaries were strictly prohibited in the Soviet military, there were some furtive exceptions, such as The Front Diary by Izrael Kukuyev and The Chronicle of War by Muzagit Hayrutdinov.

Roza Shanina kept the diary from 6 October 1944 to 24 January 1945.

At that time, two Canadian newspapers, the Ottawa Citizen and Leader-Post, reported that according to an official dispatch from the Sesupe River front, Roza Shanina killed five Germans in one day as she crouched in a sniper hideout.

On 16 September 1944, Roza Shanina was awarded her second military distinction, the Order of Glory 2nd Class for intrepidity and bravery displayed in various battles against the Germans in that year.

On 26 October 1944 Roza Shanina became eligible for the Order of Glory 1st Class for her actions in a battle near Schlossberg, but ultimately received the Medal for Courage instead.

Roza Shanina was among the first female snipers to receive the Medal for Courage.

Roza Shanina, who served as an assistant platoon commander, was ordered to commit the female snipers to combat.

Roza Shanina reported in her diary that the previous day she had a prophetic dream in which she was wounded in exactly the same place.

On 8 January 1945, Nikolai Krylov formally allowed Roza Shanina to participate in front-line combat, albeit with great reluctance: previously Roza Shanina was denied that permission by the commander of the 184th Rifle Division and the military council of the 5th Army as well.

Roza Shanina had hoped to go to university after the war, or if that was not possible, to raise orphans.

Domestically, her achievements were acknowledged particularly by the war correspondent Ilya Ehrenburg and in the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda, which said that Roza Shanina was one of the best snipers in her unit and that even veteran soldiers were inferior to her in shooting accuracy.

Roza Shanina's exploits were reported in the Western press, particularly in Canadian newspapers, where she was called "the unseen terror of East Prussia".

Roza Shanina paid no special attention to the achieved renown, and once wrote that she had been overrated.

Nurse Yekaterina Radkina remembered Roza Shanina telling her that she regretted having done so little.

Roza Shanina was initially buried in Reichau or, according to some sources, under a spreading pear tree on the shore of the Alle River, and was later reinterred in Wehlau.

In 2000, Roza Shanina's name appeared on the war memorial stone of the Siberian State Technological University, although there is no evidence she had any affiliation with it during her life.

Russian author Viktor Logvinov controversially wrote in the 1970s that Roza Shanina had studied in the Siberian Forestry Institute and that she was the daughter of an "old Krasnoyarsk communist".

In 2013, a wall of memory, featuring graffiti portraits of six Russian war honorees, including Roza Shanina, was opened in Arkhangelsk.

Roza Shanina described herself as "boundlessly and recklessly talky" during her college years.

Roza Shanina typified her own character as like that of the Romantic poet, painter and writer Mikhail Lermontov, deciding, like him, to act as she saw fit.

Roza Shanina had a straightforward character and valued courage and the absence of egotism in people.

In November 1944, Roza Shanina wrote that she "is flogging into her head that [she] loves" a man named Nikolai, although he "doesn't shine in upbringing and education".

Roza Shanina later wrote that she "had it out" with Nikolai and "wrote him a note in the sense of 'but I'm given to the one and will love no other one".

Ultimately in her last diary record, filled with grim tones, Roza Shanina wrote that she "cannot find a solace" now and is "of no use to anyone".