Girl With A Sniper Rifle: An Eastern Front Memoir

by Yulia Zhukova, Martin Pegler (Foreword by)

Overview

A memoir of a graduate of Stalin’s Central Women’s Sniper School and her experience during World War II.
 
Yulia Zhukova was a dedicated member of the Soviet communist youth organization, the Komsomol, and her parents worked for Russia’s secret police, the NKVD. Yulia started at the sniper school near Podolsk in western Russian and eventually became a valued soldier during operations against Prussia. In this powerful account, she shares firsthand knowledge of the machinations of the NKVD, as well as the bravery of a female sniper and the grueling toll of war. 
 
Yulia persevered through eight months of training before leaving for the Front just days after qualifying. Joining the third Belorussian Front, her battalion endured rounds of German mortar, as well as loudspeaker announcements beckoning them to join the German side. She spent days in the field undergoing regular, terrifying one-on-one encounters with the enemy. Eventually she felt the euphoria of her first hit—while reflecting on ending a life. 
 
These feelings fade as Yulia recounts the barbarous actions of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. She recalls how the women were once nearly overrun by Germans at their house when other Red Army formations had moved off and failed to tell them. She also details a nine-day standoff they endured encircled by Germans in Landsberg. 
 
Regularly suffering ill-health, she took a shrapnel injury and underwent surgery without anesthetic. Eventually she would see the end of the war. Like her famous counterpart Pavlichenko, Zhukova gained recognition but struggled to come to terms with war service . . .
 
Includes notes by John Walter and an introduction by Martin Pegler

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784383992
Publisher:	Greenhill Books/Lionel Leventhal, Limited
Publication date:	11/12/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	283,170
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Luliia Konstantinovna Zhukova spent her early years in Uralsk but her parents moved from city to city through their work for the secret police, the NKVD. Despite suffering from ill-health in her youth she eventually enlisted and trained to be a sniper. After the war she finished her studies at Moscow University Pedagogical Institute and worked as a Komsomol secretary in Moscow. She then became a school director of a school and worked for the Communist Party.

Table of Contents

List of Plates vii

Foreword Martin Pegler ix

Preface to the English Edition xi

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 Beginnings 5

Chapter 2 Everything for the Front 16

Chapter 3 My Family's Tragedy 33

Chapter 4 An Unusual Friendship 43

Chapter 5 A Child of War 55

Chapter 6 Into Battle 104

Chapter 7 The Sounds of Battle Die Away 155

Chapter 8 Home! 163

Chapter 9 The Eternal Flame 172

Appendix The Order of Glory 202

Editorial Reviews

"...while Zhukova might not have experienced years on the front line, her few months left her with memories and experiences that help us better understand what Red Army forces experienced, survived, and what many Soviet women had to contend with in addition to the enemy during their time at the front."

WWII and other Book Reviews

" Providing an absolutely fascinating, impressively informative, deeply personal account, 'Girl With A Sniper Rifle: An Eastern Front Memoir' will prove to be an immediate and enduringly popular addition to community and academic library World War II Military History & Biography collections."

Midwest Book Review

"An insightful, thoroughly absorbing, first-person account of being a successful Russian female sniper."

Leatherneck Magazine