The Other Veterans: Soviet Women’s Poetry of World War 2

Abstract

Women have tended to be peripheral characters in war literature. The archetypal image of Penelope as the faithful wife waiting for the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War has been powerful and enduring. But in the twentieth century women have been involved in warfare as never before. Nowhere else has this been so apparent as in the Soviet Union during World War 2, which offered Soviet women, like those in other countries, a chance to do men’s jobs, take on positions of real authority, and to carry out vital war work. Many young women volunteered for military service, adamant that they wanted to go to the front and actually shoot the enemy, instead of remaining in traditionally feminine occupations such as nursing. The prospect of genuine equality, including an equal share of danger and of responsibility, seemed to draw closer as women fought alongside men, although women often had to work hard to convince their male colleagues that they were just as skillful and courageous.¹