The history of the young intelligence officer Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is well known to many generations of Soviet people. The feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was told in history lessons at school, articles were written about her and television programs were shot. Her name was assigned to pioneer squads and Komsomol organizations; it was and is still worn by schools in our time. In the village where the Germans executed her, a monument was erected, to which numerous excursions were organized. Streets were named in her honor …
What do we know
It seems that we knew everything there was to know about the heroic girl. However, quite often this “all” was reduced to such stereotyped information: “… a partisan, Hero of the Soviet Union. From a family of rural teachers. 1938 - became a member of the Komsomol. In October 1941, being a student of the 10th grade, she voluntarily joined a partisan detachment. She was taken prisoner by the Nazis while trying to set fire, and after torture she was hanged. 1942 - Zoya was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. May 1942 - her ashes were transferred to the Novodevichy cemetery.
Execution
1941, November 29, morning - Zoya was brought to the place where the gallows was built. Not her neck was thrown a plaque with an inscription in German and Russian, on which it was written that the girl was an arsonist of houses. On the way, the partisan was attacked by one of the peasants, who was left homeless through her fault, and hit her on the legs with a stick. Then several Germans began to photograph the girl. Subsequently, the peasants, who were driven to watch the execution of the saboteur, told the investigators about another feat of the fearless patriot. The summary of their testimony is as follows: before she was put on a noose around her neck, the girl made a short speech in which she called on to fight the Nazis, and ended it with words about the invincibility of the USSR. The girl's body was not removed from the gallows for about a month. Then she was buried by local residents only on the eve of the New Year.
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New details emerge
The decline of the communist era in the Soviet Union cast its shadow on those old events of November 1941, which cost the life of a young girl. Their new interpretations, myths and legends began to appear. According to one of them, the girl who was executed in the village of Petrishchevo was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya at all. According to another version, Zoya was nevertheless, however, she was captured not by the Nazis, but by her own Soviet collective farmers, and then surrendered to the Germans for setting fire to their houses. In the third, "evidence" of the absence of a partisan at the time of the execution in the village of Petrishchevo is given at all.
Realizing the danger of becoming popularizers of yet another delusion, we will supplement the existing versions with one more, which was presented by Vladimir Lot in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, as well as some of our own comments.
Version of real events
Based on archival documents, he describes such a picture of what happened at the turn of the autumn and winter of 1941 in the Moscow region. On the night of November 21-22, 1941, two groups of Soviet intelligence officers were sent to the enemy's rear on a combat mission. Both groups consisted of ten people. The first of them, which included Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, was commanded by Pavel Provorov, the second - Boris Krainov. The partisans were armed with three Molotov cocktails and food rations …
Fatal mission
The task assigned to these groups was the same, the only difference was that they had to burn down different villages occupied by the Nazis. So, the group in which Zoya was, received the order: “Penetrate behind the front line with the task of burning settlements in the enemy rear, in which the German units were located. Burn the following settlements occupied by the Nazis: Anashkino, Petrishchevo, Ilyatino, Pushkino, Bugailovo, Gribtsovo, Usatnovo, Grachevo, Mikhailovskoye, Korovino. To complete the mission, 5-7 days were allotted from the moment of crossing the front line, after which it was considered completed. Then the partisans had to return to the location of the units of the Red Army and report not only on its implementation, but also report information received about the enemy.
In the enemy rear
But, as often happens, events began to develop not as planned by the commander of the saboteurs, Major Artur Sprogis. The fact is that the situation at the front at that time was tense. The enemy approached Moscow itself, and the Soviet command took various measures in order to detain the enemy on the approaches to Moscow. Therefore, sabotage behind enemy lines became commonplace and happened quite often. This, of course, caused the increased vigilance of the Nazis and additional measures to protect their rear.
The Germans, who were strenuously guarding not only the large roads, but also forest paths and every village, were able to spot the groups of reconnaissance saboteurs making their way to their rear. The detachments of Pavel Provorov and Boris Krainov were fired upon by the Germans, while the fire was so strong that the partisans suffered serious losses. The commanders decided to unite into one group, which now consisted of only 8 people. After another shelling, several partisans decided to return to their own, interrupting the task. Several saboteurs remained in the enemy rear: Boris Krainov, Vasily Klubkov and Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. These three men came to the village of Petrishchevo on the night of November 26-27, 1941.
After a short respite and marking the meeting place after completing the mission, the partisans set out to set fire to the village. But the group again faced failure. When the houses set on fire by Krainov and Kosmodemyanskaya were already burning, their comrade was seized by the Nazis. During interrogation, he gave out the meeting place of the partisans after completing the assignment. Soon the Germans brought Zoya …
In captivity. Witness testimony
The further development of events can now be judged mainly from the words of Vasily Klubkov. The fact is that some time after the interrogation, the invaders offered Klubkov to work for their intelligence in the Soviet rear. Vasily agreed, was trained at the school of saboteurs, but, finding himself on the Soviet side (already in 1942), he found the intelligence department of the Western Front, which he was sent on a mission, and he himself told Major Sprogis about what had happened in the village of Petrishchevo.
From the interrogation protocol
1942, March 11 - Klubkov testified to the investigator of the special department of the NKVD of the Western Front, lieutenant of state security Sushko:
At about two o'clock in the morning I was already in the village of Petrishchevo, - says Klubkov. - When I got to my site, I saw that the houses of Kosmodemyanskaya and Krainov were on fire. I took out one bottle of flammable mixture and tried to set the house on fire. I saw two German sentries. I got cold feet. He rushed to run towards the forest. I don't remember how, but suddenly two German soldiers pounced on me, took a revolver, two bags of ammunition, a bag with food, which contained canned food and alcohol. They were taken to the headquarters. The officer began to conduct the interrogation. At first I did not say that I was a partisan. He said that he was a Red Army soldier. They began to beat me. Then the officer put a revolver to his temple. And then I said that I had not come to the village alone, told about the meeting place in the forest. After a while, they brought Zoya …
The interrogation protocol for Klubkov was 11 pages. The last one contains the line: "Written down from my words, I personally read it, and I sign it."
Klubkov was present when Zoya was interrogated, about which he also told the investigator:
- You were present during the interrogation of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya? - asked Klubkov.
- Yes, I was.
- What did the Germans ask Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and what did she answer?
- The officer asked her a question about the assignment received from the command, what objects should have been set on fire, where are her comrades. Kosmodemyanskaya was stubbornly silent. Then the officer began to beat Zoya and demand testimony. But she continued to be silent.
- Did the Germans ask you for help in obtaining recognition from Kosmodemyanskaya?
- Yes, I said that this girl is a partisan and a Kosmodemyanskaya scout. But Zoya didn't say anything even after that. Seeing that she was stubbornly silent, the officers and soldiers stripped her naked and beat her with rubber sticks for 2-3 hours. Exhausted from torture, Zoya threw in the face of her executioners: "Kill me, I won't tell you anything." Then they took her away and I never saw her again.
Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya at the Novodevichy cemetery.
conclusions
The information contained in the interrogation protocol of Klubkov seems to add one very important circumstance to the Soviet version of the death of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya: she was betrayed by her own comrade. Nevertheless, is it possible to fully trust the named document, knowing about the methods of "knocking out" testimony in the NKVD? Why was it necessary for many years to keep the testimony of a traitor a secret? Why was it not immediately, back in 1942, not to tell the entire Soviet people the name of the person who killed the Hero of the Soviet Union Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya? We can assume that the case of betrayal was fabricated by the NKVD. Thus, the culprit of the death of the heroine was found. And certainly the publicity about the betrayal would completely destroy the official version of the death of the girl, and the country needed not traitors, but heroes.
What the document cited by V. Lot did not change is the nature of the task of the sabotage group. But it is precisely the nature of the assignment that rightly evokes in many, so to speak, mixed feelings. The order to set fire to villages somehow completely ignores the fact that there are not only Germans in them, but also our own, Soviet people. A natural question arises: to whom did such methods of dealing with the enemy inflict more damage - the enemy or all the same to their compatriots, who remained on the threshold of winter without shelter and, most likely, without food? Of course, all the questions are addressed not to the young girl Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, but to mature "uncles" who invented methods of fighting the German invaders so merciless towards their own people, as well as to the social order, in which such methods were considered the norm …