Podcast review Soviet Women Snipers of World War II - Lyuba Vinogradova ‘

I just listened to an informative history podcast on the book ` Soviet Women Snipers of World War II - Lyuba Vinogradova ‘ on `SoundCloud’ account of ‘History Hit Podcast Network’.  Writer, - Lyuba Vinogradova is a Russian historian and author. Her most recent book is entitled Avenging Angels: Soviet women snipers on the Eastern front (1941–45). The podcast was presented by Dan Snow, British television presenter, who presents history programs for the BBC.

I found this program exceptionally rich in content, one rarely witness anchors displaying their fine understanding of modern history with the ability to listen. Lyuba Vinogradova, the writer of the book is Russian; she was speaking in broken English yet narrating excellent snippets of history, a gentle reminder of fake firangi accent walas of our dear motherland.

Book tells a fascinating story and paints a realistic picture of Soviet women snipers. The writer says that considering the enormous territory of USSR, the state decided to employ to in the battle field since 1942. Women were allotted slightly inferior positions but never the less, given them some kind of authority. Being the first state to employ women in the actual combat, this was very progressive stride.

Credit- Daily Mail

The writer has narrated one incident; one female sniper was captured by Hitler’s Territorial Army. The German soldiers who caught female sniper were astonished as they did not expect a female to fight with but surprising they treated her well. There were also allegedly fake female snipers like Lyudmila Pavlichenko who were used as propaganda machines by the USSR to the first world.  Lyudmila Pavlichenko claims impossible kill count such as 300 which is nearly impossible considering the contemporary warfare & technology.

Yet to read a book to comment more on it, but this seems an interesting affair.

The major problem writer faced during researching for the book is that most of the snipers are dead and gone; they remain only in their tombs. There are memories of their male colleagues but very few of their female counterparts. When the podcast presenter asked the writer that did male historians had biased for female snipers, the writer rejected it. I think us, as readers can agree to this. So society grows it starts to be heterogeneous, removing layers of monoculture of patriotism.

March 8, 2017, marked the 100th anniversary of the start of the Russian Revolution. An event that created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. This event in the human history was very significant and gave fresh inspiration for many because revolution wished to create a new human. However failed, the Soviet experiment was interesting to study as a case for statecraft. I wish the internet brings out more about the Soviet.

(Originally, I wanted to write this in Marathi but time did not permit me to search for the alternative Marathi words.)