Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya

Red Army soldier of a reconnaissance and sabotage group, and the first woman to be made a Hero of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War (posthumously, 16 February 1942). Born on 13 September 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai, Tambov province. Her family moved to Moscow, where she attended School No. 201. In October 1941, aged 18, she volunteered for the reconnaissance and sabotage unit attached to Western Front headquarters (military unit 9903), which operated behind German lines on the approaches to Moscow. In November 1941 her group was assigned to the area of Petrishchevo, Vereya district, Moscow region. She was captured at Petrishchevo, interrogated and tortured, and hanged on 29 November 1941. The circumstances of her last days became publicly known after Pyotr Lidov's article "Tanya" appeared in Pravda on 27 January 1942; her name was established later. She was reburied at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Details of the events at Petrishchevo were the subject of public dispute during the 1990s; this page records what is fixed in the award and official documents and does not present contested versions as established.