The fortitude and courage of Epistinia Stepanova - the mother from whom the war took 9 sons

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the city of Timashevsk, Krasnodar Territory, you can see an unusual mosaic composition. There are nine young men on it, and although the mosaic was made in the Soviet years, the heroes are depicted almost according to Christian canons. Each has a name written above: Alexander, Fedor, Pavel, Vasily, Ivan, Ilya, Alexander, Philip, Nikolai. There is also a bronze monument in Timashevsk: an elderly woman in a headscarf sits on a bench and looks into the distance with hope. This is Epistinia Stepanova - a mother who lost nine sons in the war.

Blows of fate

The fate of Epistinia was difficult from the very beginning. At about the age of 8-10, she came to live with strangers: her mother gave her to work in a very wealthy Cossack family, and she and her younger children moved to Primorsko-Akhtarsk. The people with whom the girl lived treated her, although not cruelly, but very severely.

When Epistinia was 16, her future husband Michael laid eyes on her. The man married the girl from her older brother, who lived nearby. After the wedding, the father-in-law and mother-in-law, to whom the young people moved to live, also treated Epistinia harshly, however, the couple soon moved away from their parents and began to live separately.

The Stepanovs had many children, but, alas, instead of happiness throughout Epistinia's life, they had to receive news of their death. During the Civil War, the White Guards shot one of her sons. And when the Great Patriotic War came, the rest went to the front …

Even after receiving the funeral, the woman did not want to wear mourning and refused to believe that her sons were no more.

Throughout the war she waited at the gate, peering into the faces of people passing by "Isn't he coming?" Only Nikolai returned from the war. With his arrival, Epistinia revived, and she had a hope that, perhaps, the other sons would return, but gradually she faded away. The only surviving son, although he came from the war alive, all the remaining years suffered from wounds received at the front. He carried shards in his body. In his biography, it is indicated that he died of wounds, and historians put him on a par with his heroic brothers.

Each of the nine sons of Epistinia gave his life without breaking before the enemy.

Alexander - died in 1918. Shot by the White Guards because his family helped the Red Army.

Valentine - died in 1943. He was the squad commander of the 106th Infantry Division of the 9th Army. First, he was captured during the battles for Dzhanka in the Crimea. Then he fled, joined the underground, then the partisans. During the mission, he was again captured by the Nazis. He was sent to prison and then shot.

Philip - died in 1945. He fought as a soldier in a rifle regiment, was captured, died three months before the end of the war in a German prisoner of war camp.

Fedor - died in 1939. In the rank of junior lieutenant he served in the Trans-Baikal Military District. He died heroically in battle near the Khalkhin-Gol River, defending the borders of our country. It is known that he raised a platoon and led the attack. For this feat he was posthumously awarded the medal "For Courage".

Ivan - died in 1942. He served in the army since 1937, during the war he was the commander of a machine-gun platoon. In 1941 he was captured and fled. In the fall of 1942, he reached a village near Minsk, stayed to live there, got married and joined the partisans. He was shot by the Germans.

Ilya - died in 1943. Before the war, he served as commander of the 250th tank brigade, he met the Great Patriotic War during his service in the Baltic States. He was wounded, came to his mother in the village to take further treatment, and having improved his health, he again went to the front. He fought at Stalingrad. He died during the battle on the Kyrskaya arc.

Paul - died in 1941. During the war he was an artilleryman. He disappeared without a trace during the battles for the Brest Fortress.

Alexander (named after his older brother) - died in 1943. Sasha was called Little Finger in the family, since he was the youngest son. During the battles at Stalingrad, he personally destroyed two machine-gun bunkers from a mortar. In the fall of 1943, being the commander of a rifle company, he was one of the first to cross the Dnieper, and then, together with his comrades, heroically held the bridgehead on the right bank of the river on the outskirts of Kiev. The soldiers fought off six serious attacks. When all his comrades were killed, Alexander alone repulsed the seventh attack, destroying a dozen German soldiers and officers. When the Nazis surrounded Sasha, he blew up them and himself with the last remaining grenade. For heroism, Alexander Stepanov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.

Nikolay - died in 1963 from wounds received during the war. During the war he fought against the Nazis in the North Caucasus, in the Ukraine. He returned from the front as an invalid, later he was seriously ill.

The Stepanovs still had children

This story and the tragedy of Epistinia Stepanova itself will be incomplete, if not to mention the other losses of this courageous and staunch woman. In addition to the nine sons-heroes, who gave their lives for the Fatherland, the woman had six more children. Alas, all of them, except for Varya's daughter, passed away very early.

Little Stesha, at the age of three, started playing and entered a cast-iron container with boiling water. Mother dipped her in cold water, and anointed the burnt places with goose fat. As a result, the girl died of pneumonia, overcooled in ice water.

Another tragedy did not break the woman: Epistinia wore twin boys under her heart, but, alas, they were born dead. Then five-year-old Grisha fell ill with mumps and died. And before the war, in 1939, the 18-year-old daughter Vera, who lived separately at that time, died. The girl got crazy in the apartment she was renting at that time.

Of all the children, only Varya survived (she did not like her name and asked to be called Valentina). She received the profession of a teacher, married an NKVD officer and was evacuated during the war.

In the family of Valentina, Epistinia Fedorovna lived the last years of her life. She took care of her grandchildren, often attended lessons of courage in local schools, telling students about the feat of her sons.

Epistinia Fedorovna, or grandmother Pestya, as everyone called her, died in 1969 at the age of 87. In 1977, she was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

A museum dedicated to the Stepanov family was subsequently opened in Timashevsk, and the “Mother” monument was erected in the city square - a bronze figure of an old woman, which the sculptor portrayed modestly sitting on a bench waiting for her sons. Nine blue firs have been planted around the monument.

Tenth son

Many years after the death of nine sons, the elderly woman had another son … the tenth. Named. In the 1960s, a young Rostovite Vladimir served in a secret unit in Georgia - there he came across an article about a mother and her dead sons. At that time, Epistinia Feorovna already lived in Rostov-on-Don, and the guy decided to write a letter to his heroic countrywoman. He signed the envelope as follows: "To the soldier's mother Stepanova Epistinia Fyodorovna," indicating only the city, because he did not know the exact address of the elderly woman. Nevertheless, the letter reached. A correspondence began between the serviceman and Epistinia Fedorovna, and at some point he asked her permission to call her mother.

And then the named mother invited Vladimir to her anniversary. When he arrived, they embraced as relatives, those close to Epistinia received the man very warmly. His real mother was not against such communication either, realizing that his son did not abandon her at all, and Stepanova for him is a symbol that personifies all the soldiers' mothers who have lost their sons at the front.

The heroic family of the Stepanovs will continue. According to data for 2020, Epistinia Fedorovna left behind 11 grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and more than 20 great-great-grandchildren.

In addition to adult heroes, brave little defenders of the Motherland will forever remain in our memory. An example of this is Maiden eagles, shot by the Nazis.