Roza Shanina

Roza Georgiyevna Shanina (Ро́за Гео́ргиевна Ша́нина, ; 3 April 1924 – 28 January 1945) was a Soviet sniper during World War II who was credited with over 50 kills.

Roza Shanina was born on 3 April 1924 in the Russian village of Edma in Arkhangelsk Oblast to Anna Alexeyevna Shanina, a kolkhoz milkmaid, and Georgiy (Yegor) Mikhailovich Shanin, a logger who had been disabled by a wound received during World War I.

Roza 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.

The Shanins also raised three orphans.

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

After finishing four classes of elementary school in Yedma, Shanina continued her education in the village of Bereznik.

As there was no school transport at the time, when she was in grades five through seven Roza had to walk 13 km to Bereznik to attend middle school.

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

At the age of fourteen, Shanina, against her parents' wishes, walked 200 km across the taiga to the rail station and travelled to Arkhangelsk to study at the college there (the trek was later attested by Shanina's school teacher Alexander Makaryin).

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, 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.

As the doors were locked by that time, the other students tied several bedsheets together to help Roza climb into her room.

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

Two years later, Soviet secondary education institutes introduced tuition fees, and the scholarship fund was cut.

Shanina volunteered for the military after the death of her brother in 1941 and chose to be a sniper on the front line.

Praised for her shooting accuracy, Shanina was capable of precisely hitting enemy personnel and making doublets (two target hits by two rounds fired in quick succession).

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

She studied in the evenings and worked in the kindergarten during the daytime.

The children liked Shanina and their parents appreciated her.

Shanina graduated from college in the 1941–42 academic year, when the Soviet Union was in the grip of World War II.

Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Arkhangelsk was bombed by the Luftwaffe, and Shanina and other townspeople were involved in firefighting and mounted voluntary vigils on rooftops to protect the kindergarten.

Shanina's two elder brothers had volunteered for the military.

In December 1941, a death notification was received for her 19-year-old brother Mikhail, who had died during the siege of Leningrad.

In response, Shanina went to the military commissariat to ask for permission to serve.

Two more of Shanina's brothers died in the war.

At that time the Soviet Union had begun deploying female snipers because they had flexible limbs, and it was believed that they were patient, careful and cunning.

In 1941–1945 a total of 2,484 Soviet female snipers were deployed for the war and their combined tally of kills is estimated to be at least 11,280.

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

She first learned to shoot at a shooting range.

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

After Shanina's several applications, the military commissariat finally allowed her to enroll in the Central Women’s Sniper Training School, where she met Aleksandra "Sasha" Yekimova and Kaleriya "Kalya" Petrova, who became her closest friends, with Shanina calling them "the vagrant three".

Honed to a fine point, Shanina scored highly in training and graduated from the academy with honours.

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

In 1944, a Canadian newspaper described Shanina as "the unseen terror of East Prussia".

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

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

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

After the momentous victory in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviets mounted nationwide counter-offensives and Shanina on 2 April 1944 joined the 184th Rifle Division, where a separate female sniper platoon had been formed.

Her combat diary was first published in 1965.