Summary the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, which was given in history textbooks to Soviet schoolchildren, for several decades was for them the best lesson in patriotism and love for the motherland, courage, and an example to follow. And for modern boys and girls, this woman, or rather girl, is an example of heroism. Zoya’s feat is still being discussed, new facts and evidence are emerging, controversy and even speculation are arising around it. Who was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya?

Biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

Zoya was a simple girl from the Tambov village of Osiny Gai. She was born into a family of school teachers on September 13, 1923. The family lived near Tambov until 1929, and then was forced to flee to Siberia, fearing denunciations and arrest. The fact is that Zoya’s grandfather was accused of anti-Soviet activities and executed for this. But the Kosmodemyanskys lived in Siberia for only a year, then moved to the outskirts of Moscow.

Zoya lived short life, and its significant milestones were a meager number of events, not all of which can be called happy:

• excellent studies at school, but lack of mutual understanding with classmates,
• meningitis, meeting Arkady Gaidar in a sanatorium during treatment,
• studying at a sabotage school and sending Zoya’s group behind the Nazi lines,
• successful completion of several tasks, capture and execution.

The difficult life of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, hardships and difficulties did not take away her patriotism and love for the Fatherland. The girl firmly believed in socialism and victory in the War, steadfastly endured all the hardships of captivity and accepted death with dignity - this is a fact that skeptics and pro-Soviet figures are unable to dispute.

Background to the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

In November 1941, when the Nazis were rapidly advancing and their troops were already on the approaches to the capital of the USSR, Stalin and the military commanders decided to use the so-called “Scythian” tactics in the fight against the enemy. Its essence was the complete destruction of populated areas and strategic objects on the path of advance of enemy forces. This task was to be carried out by sabotage groups, which were specially trained for this purpose in specialized schools, in accelerated courses. One of these groups included Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

In accordance with Stalin’s order No. 0428, the group was supposed to commit sabotage and destroy more than 10 villages in the Moscow region with Molotov cocktails:

• Anashkino and Petrishchevo,
• Gribtsovo and Usadkovo,
• Ilyatino and Pushkino,
• Grachevo and Mikhailovskoye,
• Korovino, Bugailovo and others.

The saboteurs set out on a mission on November 21, 1941, in two groups. They were ambushed near the village of Golovkovo, as a result of which only one group remained, which continued to carry out such a cruel, but necessary task in those realities.

Brief summary of the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

After the losses suffered as a result of shelling of groups near the village of Golovkovo, the task became more complicated, and the saboteurs, including Zoya, had to gather all their strength to complete the task of Stalin himself. Kosmodemyanskaya was supposed to burn the village of Petrishchevo near Moscow, which was a transport hub for fascist movements. The girl and her colleague, fighter Vasily Klubkov, partially completed the task, destroying 20 horses of the German army along the way. In addition, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya managed to disable German communications, which helped eliminate contact between several German units in the Moscow region and reduce their offensive activity, albeit for a short time.

The leader of the group of saboteurs who survived the ambush, Krainov, did not wait for Kosmodemyanskaya and Klubkov, and returned to the rear. Realizing this, Zoya decided to continue working behind enemy lines on her own and returned to Petrishchevo to start setting fires again. One of the village residents, who at that time was already serving the Germans, by the name of Sviridov, grabbed the girl and handed her over to the Nazis.

Captivity and execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was captured by the Nazis on November 28, 1941. The following facts are known for certain about her time in captivity and the torment that the young Komsomol member had to endure:

• regular beatings, including by two local residents,
• spanking with belts on naked bodies during interrogations,
• being driven through the streets of Petrishchev without clothes, in the bitter cold.

Despite all the horrors of torment, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya not only did not disclose any information about her groups or assignments, but did not even give her real name. She gave her name as Tanya and did not provide any other information about herself or her accomplices, even under torture. Such resilience amazed not only the local residents, who became unwitting witnesses to her torment, but also the torturers themselves, the fascist punishers and investigators.

Many years after the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, her captivity and execution, it became known that villagers who were then serving for the Germans, whose houses she burned - the wives of the elder Smirnov and the punisher Solin - took part in the torture. They were convicted and sentenced to death by the Soviet authorities.

The Nazis turned the execution of Zoya herself into a whole demonstration performance for local residents who did not show them due respect. The girl was paraded through the streets with an “arsonist” sign on her chest, and a photo was taken in front of Zoya, who was standing on the scaffold with a noose around her neck. But even in the face of death, she called for fighting fascism and not being afraid of invaders. The girl’s body was not allowed to be removed from the gallows for a whole month, and only on the eve of the New Year did local residents manage to bury Zoya.

Posthumous recognition of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat and new facts

After the liberation of the village of Petrishchevo from the Nazis, a special commission arrived there, identified the body and interviewed witnesses to the events. The data was provided to Stalin himself, and after studying it, he decided to posthumously award Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In addition, they were given a directive to publish material about the feat in the media so that the whole country would learn about the heroism of a simple Komsomol member.

Modern historians have already provided supposedly genuine facts that the girl was betrayed to the Nazis either by her partner or by the group commander, and her heroism and perseverance are just fiction. These data have not been confirmed by anything, nor have they been refuted. Despite attempts to denigrate socialism and everything connected with it, the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya to this day serves as an example of patriotism and heroism for Russians.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. And they didn’t just appropriate it, but created the biggest legend in the entire history of the war. Who doesn’t know Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Everyone knows... and, oddly enough, no one knows. What does everyone know:

“Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya, born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osinovye Gai, Tambov Region, died on November 29, 1941 in the village of Petrishchevo, Vereisky District, Moscow Region. Title of Hero Soviet Union awarded 16 February 1942, posthumously. In 1938 she joined the Komsomol. Student of the 201st Moscow high school. In October 1941 she voluntarily joined a partisan extermination detachment. Near the village of Obukhovo, Naro-Fominsk district, she crossed the front line with a group of Komsomol partisans. At the end of November 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya was caught while performing a combat mission and, after torture, was executed by the Germans. She became the first woman Hero of the Soviet Union and the heroine of a massive propaganda campaign. It was alleged that before her death, Kosmodemyanskaya made a speech that ended with the words: “Long live Comrade Stalin.” Many streets, collective farms, and pioneer organizations are named after her.”

Many people know this data, but they cannot answer the questions that some have repeatedly asked:

• How it was proven that the girl captured in Petrishchevo is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya


• Where did the sabotage group, which included Tanya-Zoya, go?


• How exactly was Tanya-Zoya caught?


• Were the Germans in Petrishchevo at the time of the unsuccessful arson?


• Where Tanya-Zoya was hanged.

November 1941. The Germans are 30 kilometers from Moscow. Hastily assembled divisions of the people's militia stood up to defend Moscow and blocked the path of the enemy's bloodless divisions. Everyone who could hold a weapon was sent to the trenches, and those who could not were sent behind the front line to use scorched earth tactics. Everything that could somehow delay German offensive. That is why the Komsomol saboteurs had no weapons, no grenades and mines, but only bottles of gasoline. If the command does not feel sorry for its saboteurs, will it feel sorry for civilians, whose houses should burn down and not fall to the Germans, even theoretically. Civilians ended up in temporarily occupied territory, which means they are accomplices of the occupiers, so there is no point in dealing with them. Civilians, mostly old people, women and children, were not to blame for anything, these are the vicissitudes of war. When the front line passed through the same Petrishchevo, most of the village was destroyed and all the surviving residents huddled in several huts. Everyone remembers the winter of 1941 for its severe cold. In such cold weather, staying without a home is certain death.

Members of the sabotage group were tasked with burning the village. If anyone thinks that the partisan girl lay calmly on the edge of the forest and watched all the movements in the village with binoculars, then she is deeply mistaken. You can't really lie down in such cold weather. The main task is to run to the first house you come across, set it on fire, and whether there is anyone there or not, it depends on your luck or... unlucky. Nobody cares whether there are Germans in the village or not at all. The main thing is to complete the task. A Komsomol saboteur, who later called herself Tanya, was caught carrying out this task. It was not possible to determine who caught her. But if documents have not yet been found in German archives that these were Wehrmacht soldiers, then it was not them. The civilians can be understood - they fought for their lives.

Why is the girl’s real name still not reliably known? The answer is simple in its tragedy. All the sabotage groups sent into this area died and it is not possible to document who this Tanya was. But no one cared about such trifles; the country needed Heroes. When news of the hanged partisan reached the political authorities, they sent to Petrishchevo, after his liberation, correspondents from not even front-line, but central newspapers - Pravda and Komsomolskaya Pravda. The correspondents also really liked everything that happened in Petrishchev. On January 27, 1942, Pyotr Lidov published the material “Tanya” in Pravda. On the same day, S. Lyubimov’s material “We will not forget you, Tanya” was published in Komsomolskaya Pravda. On February 18, 1942, Pyotr Lidov published the material “Who Was Tanya” in Pravda. The country's top leadership approved the material, and she was immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, her cult was created, the events in Petrishchev were embellished, reinterpreted and distorted, over the years a memorial was created, schools were named in her honor, everyone knew her.

True, sometimes it came to an incident: “The director and teachers of school No. 201 in Moscow named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya reported that in organizing and conducting excursions to the place of execution and the grave of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the existing shortcomings should be eliminated. To the village of Petrishchevo, where Zoya was brutally tortured by the Nazis , many excursions come, most of the participants are children and teenagers. But no one is in charge of these excursions. The excursions are accompanied by E. P. Voronina, 72 years old, in whose house the headquarters was located, where Zoya was interrogated and tortured, and citizen P. Ya Kulik ., who had Zoya before her execution, in her explanations about Zoya’s actions on assignment partisan detachment they celebrate her courage, courage and resilience. At the same time they say: “If she had continued to come to us, she would have brought a lot of damage to the village, burned many houses and livestock.” In their opinion, Zoya probably shouldn’t have done this. In their explanation of how Zoya was captured and taken prisoner, they say: “We really expected that Zoya would definitely be freed by the partisans, and we were very surprised when this did not happen.” This explanation does not help proper education youth." Only during perestroika did silent information begin to reach that not all was well in the "Kingdom of Denmark." According to the recollections of the few remaining local residents, Tanya-Zoya was not arrested by the Germans, but captured by peasants who were outraged that she was setting them on fire houses and outbuildings. The peasants took her to the commandant's office, located in another village (where she was captured, there were no Germans at all). After the liberation, most of the residents of Petrishchev and adjacent villages who had at least some connection to this incident were taken away in an unknown direction. The first question about the authenticity of the feat was raised by the writer Alexander Zhovtis, who published the story of the writer Nikolai Ivanov in “Arguments and Facts.” Residents of Petrishchev allegedly caught Zoya setting fire to a peaceful peasant hut and, having beaten him fairly, turned to the Germans for justice. There were supposedly no Germans stationed in Petrishchevo, but, having heeded the request of the village population, they came from a nearby village and protected the people from the partisans, which unwittingly won their sympathy. Elena Senyavskaya from the Institute of Russian History believes that Tanya was not Zoya: “I personally know people who still believed that the partisan Tanya, executed by the Germans in the village of Petrishchevo, was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.” There is a fairly convincing version that Komsomol member Lilya Azolina called herself Tanya. On that day, Vera Voloshina was hanged in Petrishchevo, and for some reason everyone forgot about her.

But where did Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya come from? Gradually everything turned into a tragic farce. V. Leonidov writes: “The Germans left. After some time, a commission came to the village, with 10 women with it. They dug up Tanya. No one identified their daughter in the corpse, they buried her again. Photographs of the abuse of Tanya appeared in the newspapers, the girl was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Soon after this decree, a commission with other women arrived. Tanya was pulled out of the grave for the second time. The performance began. Each woman in Tanya identified her daughter. Tears, lamentations for the deceased. And then, to the surprise of all village residents, a fight broke out for the right to recognize the deceased with his daughter. Everyone was dispersed by a long and thin woman, which later turned out to be Kosmodemyanskaya. So Tanya became Zoya."
There are several significant moments in this story that add up to a very ambiguous version.

First, for the first time a commission arrived with 10 candidates for the position of mother-heroine. The articles by Lidov and Lyubimov created a loud legend, and there were so many missing partisan girls. The press often published a trophy photograph of an unknown Komsomol member with a noose around her neck. Why didn’t anyone identify their daughter, and the correspondents didn’t take a post-mortem photograph? There is only one answer - the body was in such a condition that they thought it best to bury it. But the question could not hang in the air for long. They awarded him the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, which means pensions, benefits, fame, awards. Therefore, the future mother-heroines went for the second time not to restore historical justice and identify their own child, but to declare themselves as mother-heroines. That's why the show happened. This is how the country found Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

Elena Senyavskaya from the Institute of Russian History believes that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya really existed and was even sent to the German rear, but did not die, although her fate was bitter. When Zoya was liberated by our advancing troops from the German concentration camp and she returned home, her mother did not accept her and kicked her out. In the photograph of the hanged “Tanya” published in newspapers, many women recognized their daughter as their daughter - and there would apparently be a thousand times more of them if “Pravda” and “Komsomolskaya Pravda” were read in every home, if potential “mothers of the heroine” had documents there were precisely daughters, and of precisely the appropriate age, and if they had volunteered to fight. The “mother of the heroine” is knowable - not so much because she kicked her daughter in need of help out of the house, and then gave interviews for decades on the topic of how to raise young people to become Heroes, but because she was able to achieve recognition of her place in the system. Then a campaign began to exalt the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, her mother Lyubov Timofeevna actively joined the campaign, continuously speaking and being elected to various committees and councils at various levels.

The second is why she was hanged, and not just hanged, but tortured with extreme cruelty. Tanya-Zoya did not cause any damage to the German army and was too young to be trusted with secret information. Was she captured along with Vera Voloshina or was there a third girl, the real Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was sent to a concentration camp? The fact of execution and torture can be explained with only one assumption: the girls pretty much burned houses in Petrishchevo and neighboring villages. We will never know the whole truth; there are so many questions.

Author: Alexey Natalenko // Union of Citizens of Ukraine
On November 29, 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya died heroically. Her feat became a legend. She was the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War. Her name has become a household name and is inscribed in capital letters in heroic history. the Russian people - the victorious people.

The Nazis beat and tortured
Kicked out barefoot into the cold,
My hands were tied with ropes,
The interrogation lasted for five hours.
There are scars and abrasions on your face,
But silence is the answer to the enemy.
Wooden platform with crossbar,
You are standing barefoot in the snow.
A young voice sounds over the fire,

Above the silence of a frosty day:
- I’m not afraid to die, comrades,
My people will avenge me!

AGNIYA BARTO

For the first time, Zoya’s fate became widely known from an essay Peter Alexandrovich Lidov“Tanya”, published in the newspaper “Pravda” on January 27, 1942 and telling about the execution by the Nazis in the village of Petrishchevo near Moscow of a partisan girl who called herself Tanya during interrogation. A photograph was published nearby: a mutilated female body with a rope around his neck. At that time, the real name of the deceased was not yet known. Simultaneously with the publication in Pravda in "Komsomolskaya Pravda" material was published Sergei Lyubimov"We won't forget you, Tanya."

We had a cult of the feat of “Tanya” (Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya) and it firmly entered the ancestral memory of the people. Comrade Stalin introduced this cult personally . February 16 In 1942, she was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. And Lidov’s continuation article, “Who Was Tanya,” was published only two days later - 18th of Febuary 1942. Then the whole country learned the real name of the girl killed by the Nazis: Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya, tenth grade student at school No. 201 in the Oktyabrsky district of Moscow. Her school friends recognized her from the photograph that accompanied Lidov’s first essay.

“In early December 1941, in Petrishchevo, near the city of Vereya,” wrote Lidov, “the Germans executed an eighteen-year-old Komsomol member from Moscow, who called herself Tatyana... She died in enemy captivity on a fascist rack, without making a single sound, without betraying her suffering, without betraying her comrades. She accepted martyrdom as a heroine, as a daughter of a great people that no one can ever break! May her memory live forever!”

During interrogation German officer, according to Lidov, asked an eighteen-year-old girl main question: “Tell me, where is Stalin?” “Stalin is at his post,” Tatyana answered.

In the newspaper "Publicity". September 24, 1997 in the material of professor-historian Ivan Osadchy under the heading “Her name and her feat are immortal” An act drawn up in the village of Petrishchevo on January 25, 1942 was published:

“We, the undersigned, - a commission consisting of: Chairman of the Gribtsovsky Village Council Mikhail Ivanovich Berezin, Secretary Klavdiya Prokofyevna Strukova, collective farmers-eyewitnesses of the collective farm “8th of March” - Vasily Alexandrovich Kulik and Evdokia Petrovna Voronina - drew up this act as follows: During the period of occupation Vereisky district, a girl who called herself Tanya was hanged by German soldiers in the village of Petrishchevo. Later it turned out that it was a partisan girl from Moscow - Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya, born in 1923. German soldiers caught her while she was on a combat mission, setting fire to a stable containing more than 300 horses. The German sentry grabbed her from behind, and she did not have time to shoot.

She was taken to the house of Maria Ivanovna Sedova, undressed and interrogated. But there was no need to get any information from her. After interrogation by Sedova, barefoot and undressed, she was taken to Voronina’s house, where the headquarters was located. There they continued to interrogate, but she answered all questions: “No! Don't know!". Having achieved nothing, the officer ordered that they start beating her with belts. The housewife, who was forced onto the stove, counted about 200 blows. She didn't scream or even utter a single moan. And after this torture she answered again: “No! I will not say! Don't know!"

She was taken out of Voronina's house; She walked, stepping bare feet in the snow, and was brought to Kulik’s house. Exhausted and tormented, she was surrounded by enemies. German soldiers mocked her in every possible way. She asked for a drink - the German brought her a lighted lamp. And someone ran a saw across her back. Then all the soldiers left, only one sentry remained. Her hands were tied back. My feet are frostbitten. The guard ordered her to get up and led her out into the street under his rifle. And again she walked, stepping barefoot in the snow, and drove until she froze. The guards changed after 15 minutes. And so they continued to lead her along the street the whole night.

Narrated by P.Ya. Kulik ( maiden name Petrushina, 33 years old): “They brought her in and sat her on a bench, and she gasped. Her lips were black, baked black, and her face was swollen on her forehead. She asked my husband for a drink. We asked: “Can I?” They said, “No,” and one of them, instead of water, raised a burning kerosene lamp without glass to his chin.

When I talked to her, she told me: “Victory is still ours. Let them shoot me, let these monsters mock me, but still they won’t shoot us all. There are still 170 million of us, the Russian people have always won, and now victory will be ours.”

In the morning they brought her to the gallows and began to photograph her... She shouted: “Citizens! Don’t stand there, don’t look, but we need to help fight!” After that, one officer swung his arms, and others shouted at her.

Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender.” The officer shouted angrily: “Rus!” “The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated,” she said all this at the moment when she was photographed...

Then they set up the box. She stood on the box herself without any command. A German came up and began to put on the noose. At that time she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you won’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” She said this with a noose around her neck.”A few seconds before death, and a moment before Eternity she announced, with a noose around her neck, the verdict of the Soviet people: “ Stalin is with us! Stalin will come!

In the morning they built a gallows, gathered the population and publicly hanged him. But they continued to mock the hanged woman. She got cut off left breast, legs were cut with knives.

When our troops drove the Germans away from Moscow, they hastened to remove Zoya’s body and bury it outside the village; they burned the gallows at night, as if wanting to hide the traces of their crime. She was hanged in early December 1941. This is what the present act was drawn up for.”

And a little later, photographs found in the pocket of a murdered German were brought to the Pravda editorial office. 5 photographs captured the moments of the execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. At the same time, another essay by Pyotr Lidov appeared, dedicated to the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, under the title “5 photographs.”

Why did the young intelligence officer call herself by this name (or the name “Taon”) and why was it her feat that Comrade Stalin singled out? After all, at the same time, many Soviet people committed no less heroic deeds. For example, on the same day, November 29, 1942, in the same Moscow region, partisan Vera Voloshina was executed, for her feat she was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (1966) and the title of Hero of Russia (1994).

To successfully mobilize everything Soviet people, Russian civilization, Stalin used the language of symbols and those triggering moments that can extract a layer of heroic victories from the ancestral memory of Russians. We remember the famous speech at the parade on November 7, 1941, in which the great Russian commanders and the national liberation wars, in which we invariably emerged victorious, were mentioned. Thus, parallels were drawn between the victories of our ancestors and the current inevitable Victory. The surname Kosmodemyanskaya comes from the consecrated names of two Russian heroes - Kozma and Demyan. In the city of Murom there is a church named after them, erected by order of Ivan the Terrible.

Ivan the Terrible’s tent once stood on that spot, and Kuznetsky Posad was located nearby. The king was wondering how to cross the Oka, on the other bank of which there was an enemy camp. Then two blacksmith brothers, whose names were Kozma and Demyan, appeared in the tent and offered their help to the king. At night, in the dark, the brothers quietly crept into the enemy camp and set fire to the khan’s tent. While they were putting out the fire in the camp and looking for spies, the troops of Ivan the Terrible, taking advantage of the commotion in the enemy camp, crossed the river. Demyan and Kozma died, and in their honor a church was built and named after the heroes.

As a result - in one family, both children perform feats and are awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union! Streets were named after Heroes in the USSR. Normally there would be two streets named after each Hero. But in Moscow one the street, and not by chance, received a “double” name - Zoya and Alexandra Kosmodemyansky

In 1944, the film “Zoya” was shot, which received the award for best screenplay at the 1st International Film Festival in Cannes in 1946. Also, the film “Zoya” was awarded Stalin Prize, 1st degree, we received it Leo Arnstam(director), Galina Vodyanitskaya(performer of the role of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya) and Alexander Shelenkov(cameraman).

“She died in enemy captivity on a fascist rack, without making a single sound, without betraying her suffering, without betraying her comrades.

She accepted martyrdom as a heroine, as the daughter of a great people that no one can ever break!

May her memory live forever!”

Materials used.

Topic of the competition work:“Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya – stepping into eternity.”

Municipal educational institution secondary school s. Berdyuzhye

While studying the archival documents of the school museum on the history of my native school, I discovered the fact that the pioneer squad of my school until the 90s bore the name of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Here, I saw a photo of Zoya. A girl with a courageous face looked at me. I became interested in what this young and very beautiful girl had done and to find out about her heroic fate.

Museum worker and mine classroom teacher, Dyukova Galina Aleksandrovna laid out in front of me illustrations, photographs, printed material and journalistic books that I had to look through. The more I read into the life story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the more I wanted to know about her.

She was an ordinary girl, she was born on September 13, 1923. in the village of Osinovye Gai, Tambov region, in an intelligent family.

Father, Anatoly Petrovich, was in charge of the club and library; mother, Lyubov Timofeevna, was a teacher in a rural school.

In 1931 the family moved to Moscow, where Zoya and her younger brother Shura went to school. In October 1938, Zoya became a Komsomol member, successfully passing all commissions. And it was difficult not to accept this girl into the ranks of the Lenin Komsomol, since she studied well, was restrained, disciplined, and was awarded certificates of commendation. She especially loved literature and read a lot.

One day she read a book about heroes Civil War, which contained an essay about Tatyana Solomakha, a communist who was brutally tortured by the White Guards. The heroic image of Tanya shook Zoya to the core. She had someone to look up to! And it’s not for nothing that she will call herself Tatiana’s name before her execution.

Zoya successfully completed 9th grade, moved to 10th grade, the year was 1941. The war has begun...

During the fascist air raids on Moscow, Zoya and her brother Alexander kept watch on the roof of the house where they lived. In October 1941, Zoya, with a permit from the city Komsomol committee, volunteered for a reconnaissance detachment.

After a short training in the detachment, as part of a group, on November 4 she was transferred to the Volokolamsk area to carry out a combat mission.

A few days later, having completed the next task, the group returned home, but Zoya thought this was not enough, and she literally persuaded the commander to return to the area of ​​​​the village of Petrishchevo, where the headquarters of a large Nazi unit was located. The girl managed to cut the wires of the field telephone and set fire to the stable. But alarmed German sentries tracked down the girl and captured her. Zoya was stripped and beaten with fists, and after a while, beaten, barefoot, and wearing only a shirt, they led her through the entire village to the Voronins’ house, where the headquarters was located.

Officers began to converge on the Voronins’ house. The owners were ordered to leave. The senior officer himself interrogated the partisan in Russian.

The officer asked questions, and Zoya answered them without hesitation, loudly and boldly. Zoya was asked who sent her and who was with her. They demanded that she betray her friends. The answers were heard through the door: “No,” “I don’t know,” “I won’t tell.” Then the belts whistled and you could hear them lashing young body. Four men took off their belts and beat the girl. The hosts counted 200 shots. Zoya didn't make a single sound. And then there was another interrogation, she continued to answer: “No,” “I won’t tell,” only more quietly.

After interrogation, she was taken to the house of Vasily Aleksandrovich Kulik. She walked under escort, still undressed, walking barefoot in the snow. Zoya was pushed into the hut, the owners saw her tortured body. She was breathing heavily. The lips were bitten and drew blood. She sat down on the bench, sat calmly and motionless, then asked for a drink. Vasily Kulik wanted to serve water from a tub, but the guard, who was constantly in the hut, forced her to drink kerosene, holding a lamp to her mouth.

The soldiers living in the hut were allowed to mock the Russian partisan. Only having had enough fun, they went to bed.

Then the sentry, throwing his rifle at the ready, came up with the idea the new kind torture. Every hour he took the naked girl out into the yard and led her around the house for 15-20 minutes. The guards changed because they could not withstand the Russian frost, but a very young girl survived. She did not ask for mercy from her enemies. She despised and hated them, and this made her even stronger. The Nazis became even more brutal from their powerlessness.

On November 29, after terrible torture, Zoya was led to the gallows under heavy escort. The Nazis also drove the villagers here...

Zoya once wrote in her school notebook about Ilya Muromets: “When he is overcome by an evil boaster, the Russian land itself pours strength into him.” And in those fateful moments, as if she herself motherland gave her powerful, non-maiden strength. Even the enemy was forced to acknowledge this power with amazement.

At her death hour, the brave partisan looked with a contemptuous glance at the fascists crowding around the gallows. Brave girl The executioners lifted him up, placed him on a box and threw a noose around his neck. The Germans began to take photographs. The commandant made a sign to the soldiers performing the duty of executioners to wait. Zoya, taking advantage of the opportunity, shouted to the villagers:

“Be brave, fight, beat the Germans, burn them, poison them! I'm not afraid to die, comrades. It’s happiness to die for your people!”

Turning towards the German soldiers, Zoya continued: “You will hang me now, but I am not alone. There are two hundred million of us, you can’t outweigh them all. You will be avenged for me. Soldiers! Before it’s too late, surrender, victory will still be ours!” How much courage did it take to finally spit in the enemy’s face once again?!

The Russian people standing in the square were crying.

The executioner pulled the rope, and the noose squeezed Tanino’s throat. But she spread the noose with both hands, rose on her toes and shouted, straining all her strength: “Farewell, comrades! Fight, don’t be afraid!”…The executioner rested his shoe on the box. The box creaked and hit the ground loudly. The crowd recoiled...

She died in enemy captivity on a fascist rack, without expressing her suffering with a single sound, without betraying her comrades. She accepted martyrdom as a heroine, as the daughter of a great people that no one can ever break. Her memory lives forever!

For about a month, the body of a young partisan hung in the village square. Tanya was buried outside the village, under a birch tree; a blizzard covered the grave mound with snow.

The feat of the Moscow schoolgirl Zoya, her martyrdom, heroic death in Petrishchev was first learned at the end of January 1942, when the Red Army drove Hitler’s army to the west. And Pyotr Lidov’s story about Zoya came precisely at that time. He didn’t know the heroine’s real name, but Zoya called herself “Tanya” to the locals, and the article was published under that title. And only from the photographs (taken by the Nazis during the execution) accompanying the article, friends and relatives recognized Zoya, the Moscow schoolgirl, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya.

I look at the photo again and again: a regular, open face with strong features that reflect the strength of her character. It is much more difficult to answer the question for ourselves: where does this strength, this unbending courage come from? Zoya died when she was the age we are now. And there was something in her that gave her the courage to die a hero, having seen so little in life, without experiencing everything that is given to a person to experience. Zoya became a heroine because she, our age, already knew exactly what she needed from life and what it should give her. Only a person with very clear and firm principles could live his short life so beautifully and brightly.

Literature:

1.Victory addresses. – Tyumen: OJSC “Tyumen Publishing House”, 2010. – page 155

2. The Great Patriotic War. A brief illustrated history of the war for youth. – Moscow publishing house “Young Guard” 1975 – page 213

3. “Russian Patriot” Special issue, 2010.

4.The Path of Heroes - Art. Roads lead to Moscow. Publishing house "Young Guard", 1977. page 26

5. Archival documents of the school museum.

On November 29, 1941, in the village of Petrishchevo, Moscow Region, the Nazis executed Soviet partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born on September 13, 1923 in the Tambov province of the RSFSR. When the war began, 18-year-old Zoya volunteered for a sabotage school and was enrolled in reconnaissance and sabotage unit No. 9903.

On November 4, 1941, after three days of training, a group of saboteurs, which included Zoya, was transferred to the Volokolamsk area, where they successfully completed the task of mining the road.

On November 18, the group received the task of burning 10 settlements in the German rear within 5-7 days. With such actions, the Soviet command sought to deprive German army the opportunity to use the villages they occupied as transshipment bases and communication points.

Having gone out on a mission, the group was ambushed near the village of Golovkovo and suffered heavy losses. However, having regrouped, the Soviet saboteurs continued to carry out the task. On November 27, at 2 a.m., fighters Boris Krainov, Vasily Klubkov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya set fire to three houses in the village of Petrishchevo (Vereisky, now Ruzsky district, Moscow region). One of the burned houses was used as a German communications center. German soldiers spent the night in the remaining houses.

After completing the task, Zoya missed her comrades in the squad and decided to return to Petrishchevo to continue the arson. On the evening of November 28, she was captured by the Germans.

The Nazis interrogated Zoya, subjecting her to brutal torture. The girl did not give out any specific information and called herself Tanya. This name was chosen by her in memory of the revolutionary Tatyana Solomakha, executed during the Civil War.

The next morning, Kosmodemyanskaya was taken out into the street and led to the gallows. They hung a sign on her chest with an inscription in Russian and German languages: "House arsonist." Before her execution, while the Germans were photographing her, Zoya made a legendary speech.

She said: “Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement. Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender. Rus' and the Soviet Union are invincible and will not be defeated. No matter how much you hang us, you can’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me.”

Kosmodemyanskaya’s body hung on the gallows for about a month, repeatedly being abused by German soldiers passing through the village. Only on January 1, 1942, the Germans gave the order to remove the gallows, and local residents buried Zoya’s body outside the village. Subsequently, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was reburied at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow

The whole country learned about Zoya’s fate from Pyotr Lidov’s article “Tanya,” published in the Pravda newspaper on January 27, 1942. Having accidentally heard about the execution in Petrishchevo, Lidov went to Petrishchevo, where he asked local residents and published an article. On February 16, 1942, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

The brave partisan will forever remain in the memory of our people as a symbol of heroic dedication, true love to his homeland.