The conclusion provides a brief discussion of pregnancy, which was both the fulfillment of women’s traditional role and generally led to the end of service for female soldiers. It will begin with a brief discussion of the prescribed behavior of “girls” in the army and progress to a discussion of sex and romance and the response of female soldiers to the mixed messages and various pressures on them in the Red Army.

7 A note on historiography: this work has been influenced by Elena Zdravomyslova and Ann Temkina’s wo (.)ĤThis article will explore the structural conditions for, and the policing and infringements of, this line between “girls” and “women” at the front during the Great Patriotic War.

The PPZh was a crystallization of the negative aspects of the “women” trope.

Indeed, a special slang term, PPZh ( Pokhodno-polevaia zhena or Polevaia pokhodnaia zhena – “Mobile Field Wife”) came into usage during the war to describe “women” who carried on relations with commanders, men often had families waiting at home.

To many, including Shliakhova, “girls” implied absolute loyalty to the cause and moral uprightness, while “women” could imply placing the personal above the political, a form of moral decay through sex. “Girls” also included a certain politeness that excluded the use of profanity. The term “woman”, which in Russian was generally associated with the loss of virginity, pointed to a person who was sexually active and potentially pregnant. The term “girls” implied sexual purity and the placing of duty above both personal happiness and the fulfillment of traditional roles of lover, wife and in particular, mother 6.

In the war years, happiness could be tied only to success at the front and romance was seen to have no place. Much of the propaganda produced during the war spoke of personal happiness, the realization of romance and families, as something that could happen only after victory. “Girls” was the term generally used to refer to female soldiers both among themselves and in officially produced texts. 6 The vast majority of female soldiers in the Red Army were young (18-25) and mobilized via the Komos (.)ģShliakhova was not alone in drawing this line.

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