History, Feminism
The Tank Driver Who Avenged Her Husband by Killing Nazis
You wouldn’t want to meet this woman on the battlefield
Though women contributed much to the Second World War (particularly on the home front), the overwhelming majority of soldiers were men.
The Soviet army was no exception, but there was one woman who brushed aside expectation and threw herself into combative action:
Mariya Vasilyevna Oktyabrskaya.
Catalyst for revenge
Mariya developed an interest in military matters after marrying her husband in 1925.
She went against the stereotypes of the time and engaged in all manner of activities. As well as enjoying reading and studying, she knew how to handle revolvers and machine guns. Mariya was also an amateur member of the Red Army and would sing Russian folk songs to the soldiers.
But her life took a tragic turn in August 1941 when her husband was killed in action whilst in Kyiv (the capital of Ukraine).
Enraged and saddened by her husband’s death, Mariya wrote the following letter to Stalin:
‘… In the battles for the homeland, my husband was killed … For his death, for the death of Soviet…
