The 3 most famous female warriors in Russian history

1. Vasilisa Kozhina

“She was a woman of heroic height and enormous physical strength. Her face was beautiful, and her character was courageous and decisive…” is how contemporaries described Vasilisa Kozhina, the heroine of the Patriotic War of 1812 against the French.

Enemy soldiers plundered her native village in the Smolensk region and killed her husband. When they returned nine days later, Vasilisa kindly invited the French to a laid table and then locked the door and windows in the house and burned them alive.

Kozhina organized a partisan detachment that followed in the footsteps of the ‘Great Army’ and mercilessly dealt with stragglers and marauders. The woman fought with a pitchfork, which “worked with such force that a horse would fall dead from one blow.” 

After the end of the Patriotic War, Vasilisa Kozhina’s trail was lost. According to the most plausible version, she returned to her native village, where she died around 1840.

2. Nadezhda Durova

‘Cavalry Maiden’ and ‘Russian Amazon’ is what they called Nadezhda Durova, the heroine of the Patriotic War of 1812 against the French.

In her memoirs, Nadezhda admitted that, since childhood, she was more drawn to boyish games than to feminine hobbies and even had “disgust for her sex”: “The saddle was my first cradle; a horse, weapons, and regimental music – my first children’s toys and amusements.”

Marriage and the birth of a child did not bring her any joy. In 1806, Nadezhda cut off her braids, got hold of a military uniform and joined the army under a male name – she knew how to handle a sabre and ride a horse perfectly.

Durova took part in the war of the Fourth Coalition against the French and was even awarded the St. George Cross and promoted to non-commissioned officer for saving a wounded officer in the Battle of Guttstadt in early June 1807.

However, Durova was soon exposed and was about to be sent home. It was then that the woman asked Emperor Alexander I personally to let her stay in the army, so he met her halfway.

The ‘cavalry maiden’ bravely fought the enemy during the Patriotic War of 1812 and even served as an orderly to Mikhail Kutuzov, commander-in-chief of the Russian army.

The following year, she was dismissed. Durova returned home and devoted herself entirely to literary work.

3. Lyudmila Pavlichenko

She wanted to work as a historian, but, instead, became the most successful female sniper in world history. Lyudmila Pavlichenko officially has 309 enemy soldier and officer kills to her credit.

Lyudmila graduated from sniper school before the war began. After the German invasion, she volunteered for the front.

The brave girl defended Odessa and Sevastopol and so successfully that the enemy began a real hunt for her. Pavlichenko soon became so famous that, in 1942, she was sent to the United States as part of a Soviet delegation.

Initially, the Americans took Lyudmila extremely frivolously and asked stupid questions about what women wear at the front. The girl replied angrily in good English: “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have already managed to kill 309 fascist occupants. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?"

Pavlichenko met with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and even became friends with his wife Eleanor. After returning to the USSR, she became an instructor.

On October 25, 1943, she was awarded the title ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’.