The Women's Death Batallion

While researching the Russian Revolution, I came upon a photo of the Women's Death Battalion.  Intrigued by the image and accompanying article, I was determined to include their story in my trilogy.  Unfortunately the late 80's was in still the information Stone Age and I struggled to flesh out their story.  It was not until the advent of internet that I gathered enough data to incorporate the Battalion into my saga.

Women's Death Battalion

I chose to tell the story of the Women's Battalion through my character Kataya.  The groundwork for her enlisting in the Death Battalion was laid early in my the second book, Banners: For God, Tsar and Russia when Kataya expressed her budding belief in feminist power. 

* * *

“Who-needs-men?”  Kataya’s attempt at humor died without eliciting a response.  The women surrounding her just stared at the ground.  “It-is-true.  We-have-no-need of-men,” Kataya said again, not ready to give up on her profound statement.

* * *

Once war with Germany begun, her father Boris traded his vodka stores for several dozen Mauser rifles to protect Hutava.  He attempted to instruct his eldest daughter, Akulina, in the use of the weapon, but she failed miserably. 

German Mauser 98

Undaunted by her older sister's feeble attempt Kataya shouldered the fallen weapon and faithfully mimicked her father's instructions.

* * *

“Let-me-try, Papa.”  Before Boris could reply, Kataya lifted the rifle from the ground.  It was heavier than she thought; yet she smoothly raised it to her shoulder.  Kataya planted both feet firmly in the soft earth, placed her cheek against the cool wooden stock and peered through the sights.  Slowly she squeezed the trigger, relishing in the cold, metallic click of the firing pin.  Still looking straight ahead she lowered the rifle, quickly slapped the bolt open, injected the imaginary bullet and slammed it closed.  Again she brought the rifle up to click off another round.  The Hutawa defense force had its first recruit

* * *

At the age of fourteen, Kataya had her nephew Stefan cut her hair and then ran off to join the Russian Army.  Even though she was small and young, her stamina and weapons' skill won her a spot in the newly formed Women's Death Battalion, a women's unit conceived by combat veteran,  Maria Bochkareva.  Sergeant Bochkareva had convinced the Russian Provisional Government to create an all female combat military force, who by their spirit de core would bolster the morale of the collapsing German front.

Kataya's stature always placed her in the front row

After several months of training, Kataya served at the front as a sniper.  Her experience in her one and only battle did not fair well.

* * *

Mercifully, Kataya could not remember everything.  Tragically, she remembered enough.  Kataya can easily recall the excitement of the train ride west and the march to the front lines and how gooseflesh appeared on her arms when Maria Boshkareva announced the women would lead the assault and male battalions would be supporting their flanks.  Kataya can still feel the rush of adrenaline as she climbed to the dirt parapet with the other sharpshooters and prepared to protect her comrades.  She remembers seeing Mademoiselle Skridlova’s banner leading the way and the utter confusion that followed.  Her mind holds only bits and pieces of bursting shells, screams, bodies snared in the barbed wire like flies in a web, and her own body frozen in terror.

* * *

After suffering a concussion from a shell explosion, Kataya convalesced and returned to her barracks where she learned the cost of war.

* * *

Kataya went over to her old bunk and threw her kit atop the straw mattress.  She took a deep breath, turned to the comrade seated on the next bunk and asked the question to which she feared the answer.  “Where are the others?”

“There are no others.”

* * *

The Women's Death Battalion made their final stand guarding the Winter Palace against the Bolsheviks.  Out numbered and outgunned the women were forced to surrender.  Kataya spent her last days as a member of the battalion being chastised by a commissar before he shooed her off like a petulant child.

Eventually, the Red Army accepted Kataya and many other women into the combat arms during the Russian Civil War.  Two decades later, during the Great Patriotic War, women followed in the Death Battalions footsteps by serving not only as riflemen, but also as tankers, gunners and pilots.

Snipers from the Byelorussian Front

Food as a Vehicle in Fiction

Food is one of the threads that stitches together my stories.  From the opening welcome of bread and salt, to Massey and Akulina's wedding feast in Ikons, and then to Stepha's coming-of-age in Slogans with borscht and black bread, the importance of food in Russian culture is shown.

The “Bread and Salt” tradition / Alexander Tikhonov / foto-planeta

Being a family headed by a Russian father and a Slovak mother, we had our share of exotic, (meaning Yuk! to the following generations) Eastern European meals.  Our mother ladled up bowls of soup loaded with chicken hearts, livers, gizzards, and feet all swimming in a sea of yellow fat globules.  We enjoyed (?) meals of purple blood sausage, stuffed cabbage rolls, pickled herring, calf's brains with scrambled eggs, headcheese, borscht with sour cream, and an occasional serving of cow's tongue.  As my sister said after watching an episode of the television show Survivors' disgusting food challenge, "That was Sunday dinner."

But there were also the rewards.  After finishing our meal and we got dessert: nut or fruit filled kolaski, poviticia with cream cheese, or any of a variety of cookies.  They were well worth the wait.

Poviticia

The importance of food in my novels was expressed in one harrowing scene from Slogans: Our Children, Our Future, in which Stepha and Vanya are caught in an artillery bombardment.  Stepha comforts his little brother by conjuring up memories of meals past.

* * *

“I'm hungry,” Vanya said after several more distant explosions.

“Me, too.  When this is over maybe Mati will make us eggs.  Fried in butter with crispy brown edges.”  Ka-rump.  “And maybe sausage.  Do you like sausage?”

Vanya attempted to nod, but couldn't raise his head.  “Yes,” Vanya said, “but I would rather have blini.  I miss Babushka Koscik's blini.”  Ka-rump.  “With slivki and berries.”

“I like blini, too,” said Stepha. 

 

The two huddled together and talked of food.  They spoke of plemei with balls of minced meat and varenki filled with berries or potato.  Ka-rump.  Kolobok topped with a dollop of sour cream and buttermilk fresh from the churn.  They envisioned honey cakes, priohi and mushrooms in cream.  Ka-rump.  Ka-rump.

Vanya recalled the cream they scraped off the frozen milk when their mother wasn't looking and how they would eat it with their hands before it thawed.  “And Dadushka's lamb.  I liked how he cooked lamb.”

* * *

In another scene, the breaking of the Christmas fast is celebrated with generous helpings of Grandfather's sausage and customary Yuletide treats; and later in the story, Stepha is welcomed to manhood through a ritual of borscht and black bread.

Borscht and black bread.

* * *

After his fifth spoon, Boris pointed at his oldest grandson.  “Stefan Mataovich,” Boris said, “come sit with me.”  At first Stepha didn't move, but when his mother motioned to him, he followed his grandfather's command and took the spot to Boris' right.

“Lena, bring this young man a proper bowl.”  Stepha's mother scurried to the shelf and pulled down a wooden vessel, wiped it with her apron and placed it in front of her son.  “Give him borscht,” Boris said.  “If he is to be a man, he will have to learn to eat like a man.”

* * *

Stepha's grandfather shows him how to slurp soup and chump garlic seasoned black bread like a man.  Stepha later mimics his grandfather's lesson when he assumes the role as the head of the family and instructs Vanya through the same ritual.

I believe it is the small details, such as food, that transports the reader to foreign counties and customs, and brings the historic fiction genre to life.