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badb_catha 's review for:
Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin's Sniper
by Martin Pegler, Lyudmila Pavlichenko
3.5 stars, good with some bad. The good : It’s a valuable look at the experiences of an eastern front sniper from the early period, and a mostly unvarnished look at the experiences of a female soldier in frontline combat, and dealing with the expectations of men around her. In that sense, there is a unique combination of what might be called feminism with a true love of and appreciation of shooting and weaponry that very much resonates with me as a female competitive shooter today. I feel as though I’d have loved to have spoken with her or spent an afternoon at the range with her. Some of her discussions of ballistics, shooting techniques,, specific weapons and glass, specific ammunition and so on almost feels like a chance to talk shop with her. And so much of what she said on these topics remains entirely relevant and accurate today - in fact the Mosin rifle she used is still seeing combat today in the Russo-Ukraine War.
I appreciated her professional competence and fury as a soldier with her full femininity understood in a mostly traditional sense. For her there was no tension, and here again it feels as though she was in part a kindred spirit.
There are also some interesting impressions from her visits to the USA and the UK, especially her impressions of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The bad - some gross factual errors, eg, her statement that as of 1942 (!) the USA had never had a bomb dropped on its territory, some omissions (no discussion of Russia’s complicity in the invasion of Poland, its uncalled-for invasion of Finland ) and some creepy hero worship of Stalin, one of history’s great mass murderers. There are also some troublingly racist descriptions of eg Romanian soldiers.
In all I think it’s a good read if you are interested in snipers and their weapons and techniques, in the female combat experience, and in experience of the Eastern Front, early war period, from the USSR side.
I appreciated her professional competence and fury as a soldier with her full femininity understood in a mostly traditional sense. For her there was no tension, and here again it feels as though she was in part a kindred spirit.
There are also some interesting impressions from her visits to the USA and the UK, especially her impressions of Eleanor Roosevelt.
The bad - some gross factual errors, eg, her statement that as of 1942 (!) the USA had never had a bomb dropped on its territory, some omissions (no discussion of Russia’s complicity in the invasion of Poland, its uncalled-for invasion of Finland ) and some creepy hero worship of Stalin, one of history’s great mass murderers. There are also some troublingly racist descriptions of eg Romanian soldiers.
In all I think it’s a good read if you are interested in snipers and their weapons and techniques, in the female combat experience, and in experience of the Eastern Front, early war period, from the USSR side.