How Soviet tanker Alexandra Rashchupkina successfully pretended to be a man for 3 years

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

It was in February 1945 in Poland when Soviet tanks broke into Bunzlau. One of our combat vehicles was ambushed by the fascist "Tigers" and was knocked out. Crew member, driver-mechanic Alexander Rashchupkin received a thigh wound and concussion. Comrades pulled him out of the burning T-34. Fighter Viktor Pozharsky cut his clothes on to bandage the wound, and then he discovered that in front of him was not Sashka the tomboy, as they used to call Rashchupkin in the regiment, but … a woman.

During the Great Patriotic War, there were several cases when the fairer sex pretended to be men and fought on an equal basis with everyone, leading comrades and commanders by the nose for a long time. But it is Aleksandra Rashchupkina who is usually compared with the famous female fighter - the prototype of the Soviet film "The Hussar Ballad" by Nadezhda Durova.

“A woman always remains a woman - even in a man's guise,” Alexandra Mitrofanovna often said after the war. However, this did not prevent her from playing the role of a man for three years, so much to get used to her that no one even suspected that a female body was hidden under the front tunic of tanker Sasha Rashchupkin.

Couldn't stay at home

Alexandra was born in 1914 in Uzbekistan. In her youth, she early mastered a tractor and a combine, worked on a collective farm as a tractor driver, working together with men. After marriage, she moved with her husband to Tashkent, gave birth to two children, but both babies died shortly after birth. In 1941, her husband was drafted to the front, and Alexander was left alone …

It is quite logical that a young and energetic childless woman who was never afraid of hard work, at such a difficult time for the country, wanted to go to the front. However, the military registration and enlistment office refused her. After several such unsuccessful attempts, Alexandra made a rather risky and seemingly insane decision: she shaved herself almost bald, put on men's clothes and came to the military registration and enlistment office disguised as a young man, introducing herself as Alexander Rashchupkin. In 1942, she still received the coveted direction to the front. In some incredible way, no one suspected anything at the military registration and enlistment office (perhaps in the process of general confusion with documents), and she was sent to study at the courses of military drivers, and then tank mechanics in Stalingrad.

The first person to find out her secret was a doctor. Examining the recruits to be sent to the front and finding that in front of him was not a guy, but a girl, he was shocked. However, another miracle happened here: Alexandra was able to convince the doctor that she simply had to go to war, and he agreed not to extradite her.

However, not only the doctor knew that Rashchupkin was a woman. If in the film "Hussar Ballad" Kutuzov kept the secret of the heroine, then in the life of Rashchupkina there was also such a high-ranking "patron". It is assumed that General of the 62nd Army Chuikov, under whose command Alexandra served, also knew everything, but just like the doctor, he preferred not to tell anyone anything.

Portraying a man was easy

As Alexandra later recalled, it was easy for her to impersonate a man: she had an almost masculine figure (narrow hips, broad shoulders, small breasts), and she successfully changed her voice, gait and movements, since she had previously worked in a male team for a long time and perfectly studied demeanor of men. For his perky and desperate character, the comrades even called the tanker Sashka the tomboy. Well, as for hygiene issues, there were no problems here either: during the war, the soldiers did not manage to wash themselves so often, and when this happened, Alexandra tried to take water procedures separately from her comrades, for which she even received good-natured ridicule: they say, well, the kid - shy as a girl.

However, in her heart, of course, she remained a woman - for example, as Rashchupkina admitted after the war, she was very worried every time if her uniform was badly dirty or worn out.

For three years of service, tanker Alexander Rashchupkin went through fire and water with his comrades. I also had a chance to take part in the battles of Stalingrad.

In the winter of 1945, Soviet T-34s reached Poland. It was then that the secret of Alexandra was revealed. The tanks were ambushed by the German Tigers. Having received a severe wound in the thigh and a concussion, the fighter Rashchupkin was pulled out of the tank by his comrades. The driver-mechanic of the neighboring tank Viktor Pozharsky decided to bandage the wounded man …

She became a woman again

One can only guess what scandal broke out in the regiment when everyone found out the truth. However, General Vasily Chuikov stood up for the young woman and helped her avoid punishment. Moreover, like the heroine of The Hussar Ballad, she was allowed to continue serving until the end of the war. All her documents were reissued to her real name - Alexandra Rashchupkina.

After being treated in the hospital, Sasha returned to her regiment as a woman.

In the post-war wars, Rashchupkina returned to ordinary life: her husband came from the front, they moved to Kuibyshev. The couple lived together for almost three decades.

After the death of her husband, Alexandra Mitrofanovna did not lose heart - she actively participated in the work of a public organization of women at the front, kept in touch with local schoolchildren, and gave interviews. The only thing that offended her was the questioning of journalists about the physiological details of her life in the war and whether she had something with her fellow soldiers or not. She considered such conversations tactless.

Commander of the Order of the Red Veil, Alexandra Rashchupkina, lived a very long life and died at the age of 96.

Read also: 7 historical characters posing as men