Revolutionary sailors and war heroines: How women paved the way to the navy

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

Women have been out to sea since boats and rafts have existed. Women have been passengers-travelers, cooks, sailors and captains even in those days when sailing was considered only a man's occupation, and the saying that a woman on a ship was unfortunately not a joke at all. But the official history of the ladies in the navy does not begin so long ago.

Sailors of Petrograd

The first attempt to combine women and an official naval career was made in Russia after the February Revolution of 1917. At the initiative of the Petrograd women, Kerensky issued an order to form a female naval detachment, where they managed to recruit one hundred and twenty volunteers. They were supposed to have exactly the same uniform with trousers as men, and the already existing female death battalions, like the one commanded by Maria Bochkareva, were directly called the model for creating a detachment of sailors.

The press followed closely the training of the sailors. They were constantly photographed and constantly held reviews. In the meantime, it turned out to be a difficult task to find a captain willing to take women under his command. The sailors were full of prejudices and wrote protest letters to the government and offensive letters to sailors.

Finally, Rybaltovsky, the head of the Kola naval base, agreed to take the women under his command. The weather conditions on the Kola Peninsula are very harsh, a cold and very strong wind always blows from somewhere, so Rybaltovsky set a condition: only physically strong, strong and hardy "young ladies" should be sent to the service.

They began to train sailors in military service - working with weapons, crawling and running, and so on. In the course of training, women with unsuitable physical characteristics were eliminated, and in the end a detachment of about forty people remained. Kerensky personally continued to supervise the project, and then came October and the Bolshevik coup.

Soon after the coup, all women's units were disbanded by a special decree. Women could serve in the army only on a general basis, that is, together with men, with the inevitable predominance of men in the team. This gave clear risks and dampened many. In any case, it was the female naval detachment that no longer existed, although, without knowing this, the white emigrants, among the cartoons of the terrible new Soviet woman, who was opposed to the pre-revolutionary gentle lady, also drew a tall sailor in bells.

At the helm and at the helm

Although the disbandment of the women's units was or seemed to be a step backward in the cause of women's equality, nevertheless, the course towards equality in the professions was officially announced. Both for high motives - women's rights have been included in the political programs of various Russian oppositionists for about half a century, and for purely practical reasons: first the World War, then the Civil War, greatly reduced the number of men in the country. A conscientious Soviet woman was to come to their jobs, saving the collapsed economy. And she came and rescued.

At a time when in river navigation women more and more often found themselves on board as fishermen, sailors, captains, on ships crossing seas and oceans, it seemed that the matter did not budge. Nevertheless, when a girl named Anna Shchetinina went to study as a captain in the Far East, although she was warned about all future hardships, she was allowed to study together with other girls.

And the hardships were enough: in addition to the usual difficulties, the girls faced a very prejudiced attitude from their elders in terms of age and rank. They got not only grease and rude words, but also the most difficult physically and psychologically tasks nm practice. However, if you look at the percentage, at the end of the course there were more girls left than boys - they dropped out eighty percent, and almost half of the girls remained.

Soon, Shchetinina was entrusted first with the role of the captain's assistant, and then the captain of the ship, and immediately with a difficult task: to lead the ship through the ice, from Germany to the Far East. Captain Anna completed the task brilliantly: in the shortest possible time and managing not to get lost during an extreme situation. The ship was almost crushed by the ice, but Anna managed to break it out of the ice captivity. She became the first woman to serve as a sea captain.

True, her diploma was about secondary education. The first owner of a university captain's diploma was a girl from the other, western end of the country named Bertha Rappoport. Both women became famous among subordinates and coastal employees for their strong character and were later noted during the Great Patriotic War. Around the same years, the Canadian Molly Cool became the captain of the merchant marine. The history of female captaincy in the seas and oceans began.

Now, since 1974, there is a Women's Shipping and Trade Association. Its branches are located in thirty-five countries and employ over a thousand people. According to the International Labor Organization ILO, up to 2% of the world's seafarers are women. This is about 30,000 people.

Many women, not only sailors, distinguished themselves during the war. Duskin Platoon: How a 17-year-old nurse became the only female Marine platoon commander.