Soviet Women in WWII

Published by

Clarissa

June 21, 2013

Stille left this link to a very weird tumblr on the Soviet post-war customs:

In Soviet Union women participating in WWII were erased from history, remaining as the occasional anecdote of a female sniper or simply as medical staff or, at best, radio specialists. The word “front-line girl” (frontovichka) became a terrible insult, synonimous to “whore”. Hundreds thousand of girls who went to war to protect their homeland with their very lives, who came back injured or disabled, with medals for valor, had to hide it to protect themselves from public scorn.

I saw how many people linked to this bout of weirdness and decided to write about it.

What the tumblr says is completely ridiculous. War veterans of both genders were and still are venerated and celebrated. It has been so drilled into all of us that elderly people with medals are heroes that we see them as nearly mythical creatures. Disrespecting a WWII veteran, either male or female, was and is the greatest taboo. The word frontovichka was and is a word of the highest respect. Nobody concealed having fought in the war because there were all kinds of perks and benefits associated with that status.

The most touching Soviet movies about WWII are those that have to do with female heroism in the war. (Here is one example.) Erased from history? This is just bizarre because it’s the exact opposite of what happened.

I think the tumblr’s author confuses female soldiers with “front-line wives”, women who went to the front-lines to live with married generals and high military command. These women lived in absolute luxury and never saw any military action. Not that anybody persecuted them or “erased” them form anywhere either.

Don’t trust tumblr, folks. It has very weird moments.

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22 responses to “Soviet Women in WWII”

Stille (@aperfectbalance)

June 21, 2013

I don’t, this is why I wanted to check things with someone who grew up in the Soviet Union. Is it ok if I link to this post in my comment on that particular bit of woe-is-the-women?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  June 21, 2013
  
  Of course!
  
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el

June 21, 2013

Have you read the short story by А.Н.Толстой – ГАДЮКА ? Though it is about the Communist Revolution, the topic is exactly the same. Interesting what you think about the story. In one analysis I saw long ago was written that she killed at the end because of not really being a new Soviet person till the end. Weird.
http://az.lib.ru/t/tolstoj_a_n/text_0100.shtml

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  June 21, 2013
  
  This is a very good story, thank you. It’s a tragedy of a woman who saw her femininity destroyed and trampled on by the upheavals of history. I’m shocked he wrote it as early as 1928. This is very prophetic of what happened to entire generations of women much later. Everything we are seeing in terms of gender in our FSU countries today is the reaction against the way in which Soviet women gave up their femininity in exchange for equal rights.
  
  I always thought he was a crappy writer. Turns out I was wrong.
  
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  1. el
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    // It’s a tragedy of a woman who saw her femininity destroyed
    
    Only about that? Her entire life was destroyed. I think Lyalichka is a completely vile and deeply bourgeois piece of ___, and the man is blind to fall for her, believing the lies. May be, without the slander, he would have noticed.
    
    Re writers, I loved Rubakov “The Heavy Sand”, but heard his other novels were worse. Some writers write a few good things or even 1 good thing.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      June 21, 2013
      
      “I think Lyalichka is a completely vile and deeply bourgeois piece of ___, and the man is blind to fall for her, believing the lies. ”
      
      – All that matters is that she is the most sexual woman in the story. She knows how to express her sexuality while the protagonist doesn’t.
      
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  2. el
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    I meant noticing the story’s heroine. She is very attractive and men do notice that, just not the one she wants.
    
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  3. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    Is there any English translation available for this?
    
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Wirbelwind

June 21, 2013

If whoever wrote that tumblr wants to talk about people who had it even worse than “normal” Red Army troops… look for books about shtrafbats, “tramplers” and how many POWs rescued by the Red Army from German clutches were treated after the war.
There really is no reason to invent more victims of Soviet Union, ’cause there are legions of them.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  June 21, 2013
  
  “If whoever wrote that tumblr wants to talk about people who had it even worse than “normal” Red Army troops… look for books about shtrafbats, “tramplers” and how many POWs rescued by the Red Army from German clutches were treated after the war.”
  
  – Exactly. In the first year of the war, a group of well-fed KGB employees walked behind every battalion and shot anybody who tried to turn back instead of advancing. This is one of the many tragedies of the war. And you are right, we should concentrate on the real victims instead of using this tragedy to promote completely unrelated agendas of other cultural milieus.
  
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  1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    Typical projection. Women are treated execrably in the US Army, so let’s talk about how horrible they had it in post-WW2 USSR instead!
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      June 21, 2013
      
      “Women are treated execrably in the US Army, so let’s talk about how horrible they had it in post-WW2 USSR instead!”
      
      – This is just like that quote from a student’s essay I quoted earlier today!
      
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  2. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    See, you have not lived your life in vain! The probllem with that student was psychological, and you’re neither trained nor paid to fix that!
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      June 21, 2013
      
      “See, you have not lived your life in vain! The probllem with that student was psychological, and you’re neither trained nor paid to fix that!”
      
      – Thank you, I do feel better now. I still have 28 more of them to grade.
      
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bloggerclarissa

June 21, 2013

And this is from Tolstoy #1: “Ведь мы, мужчины, только не знаем, и не знаем потому, что не хотим знать, женщины же знают очень хорошо, что самая возвышенная, поэтическая, как мы ее называем, любовь зависит не от нравственных достоинств, а от физической близости и притом прически, цвета, покроя платья. Скажите опытной кокетке, задавшей себе задачу пленить человека, чем она скорее хочет рисковать: тем, чтобы быть в присутствии того, кого она прельщает, изобличенной во лжи, жестокости, даже распутстве, или тем, чтобы показаться при нем в дурно сшитом и некрасивом платье, — всякая всегда предпочтет первое. Она знает, что наш брат все врет о высоких чувствах — ему нужно только тело, и потому он простит все гадости, а уродливого, безвкусного, дурного тона костюма не простит. Кокетка знает это сознательно, но всякая невинная девушка знает это бессознательно, как знают это животные.”

Brief translation: Tolstoy says that all men ever see in women is meat, even if they lie and say otherwise.

Priceless. One of the tragedies of the patriarchal order is that there can be nothing but hatred and contempt for each other between the sexes in it.

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1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  June 21, 2013
  
  “One of the tragedies of the patriarchal order is that there can be nothing but hatred and contempt for each other between the sexes in it.”
  
  I used to hang out on a feminist IRC channel where some members claimed men shouldn’t call themselves feminists because women’s fight against patriarchy shouldn’t be taken over by men – nevermind that patriarchy fucks up men as well. Same members didn’t believe that misandrist women could exist. I no longer frequent that IRC channel – while it managed to temporarily fix my chronically low blood pressure, it really wasn’t making my life any more pleasant, nor did it help me better oppose the ways in which sexism fucks up my life and the lives of the people I care about.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    “I no longer frequent that IRC channel – while it managed to temporarily fix my chronically low blood pressure, it really wasn’t making my life any more pleasant, nor did it help me better oppose the ways in which sexism fucks up my life and the lives of the people I care about.”
    
    – I have high blood pressure, so such websites are lethal to me. This is in the same ballpark as these weird ideas that it’s a feminist act to create female-only spaces. Has anybody heard of anything more ridiculous??? This is why I hate people who engage in gender wars and call themselves feminists. What they are doing is the most anti-feminist act by definition!
    
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2. el
  
  June 21, 2013
  
  Don’t you say the same, when you talk of importance of physical attraction? That to feel desire, physical side is important? When Tolstoy says “love,” he means “desire” in this excerpt, also called “falling in love” or “love from first sight”.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    No, I really don’t say the same. let’s not compare me to Tolstoy because ewwwww… 🙂
    
    Desire has absolutely nothing to do with clothes and hairstyles, like Tolstoy suggests. He sounds like some sort of a fetishist with his insistence that the cut and the color of a dress are so crucial to desire. I think that’s freaky. 🙂
    
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  2. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    Now now, there’s nothing wrong with fetishists. I’m quite partial to long-haired guys myself 😛
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      June 21, 2013
      
      I also have some secret fetishes. 🙂 🙂
      
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  3. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
    
    June 21, 2013
    
    But not dresses, I presume. It’s funny how fetishes seem entirely incomprehensible to people who don’t have them.
    
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