Very little is known about the life of this folk heroine. Vasilisa was a peasant woman, and writing biographies of representatives of the "lower" classes in those days was not accepted. We can only say that she was born around the 1780s. She lived in the village of Gorshkovo in the Smolensk province. She was an elder, that is, the wife of the elder of the village. Under this name - "Elder Vasilisa" - she entered the history of the Patriotic War of 1812 ...
Partisans of the Patriotic War of 1812
Smolensk province found itself in the way of Napoleon, who was going to Moscow. The French army burned many villages. She used scorched earth tactics. There were many settlements behind the front line. The inhabitants of this region mostly joined the partisans to fight the aggressors. Was among these volunteers and Vasilisa Kozhina. The detachment of Kozhina consisted mainly of women and teenagers. The men who inhabited the villages had gone into the army even before that. After the French occupied the western provinces, the former state power here became untenable. There was no one to organize the partisans. This was done by people not authorized, but the most ordinary - residents of towns and farms. Was among these leaders and Vasilisa Kozhina. Vasilisa had a husband who worked as the headman of a rural settlement. When the French intervention began, he was killed. By nature, the elder had a lively and stubborn character. These qualities helped her to gather people.
Every village is a fortress.
When Napoleon began to suffer defeat, the atmosphere in his army noticeably heated up. The soldiers were embittered by the lost battles, the inconvenience, the disgusting climate, and the poor organization of the campaign. Their fury was vented on the peasants. After the bloody battle of Borodino and the fire of Moscow, there was no limit to the bitterness of the Russian peasants against the French. Now the peasants mercilessly killed all foreign soldiers who fell into their hands. After all, how much grief the French brought to Russian soil. Devastated lands, many dead Russian soldiers, ordinary people. All this was experienced by the Russian people from Napoleon's invasion of Russia. According to the memoirs of the French, nowhere in Europe (except Spain) did the peasantry in the villages resist them as much as in Russia. “Each village turned into a fire or a fortress at our approach,” the French wrote in their letters home.
Happening
There were cases when our Cossacks led the French prisoners, the peasants attacked them, pushing away the convoy, trying to personally tear the prisoners to pieces. The bitterness against the Napoleonic soldiers was terrible. It was at this moment that Russia first learned the name of Vasilisa Kozhina. Here is what the magazine “Son of the Fatherland” wrote in 1812: “The headman of a village in the Sychevsky district led a party of prisoners to the city. In his absence, the peasants brought a few more Frenchmen captured by them, and gave them to their elder Vasilisa to go where they should. Vasilisa gathered the peasants, mounted a horse, took a scythe in her hands and, driving around the prisoners, shouted in an important voice: “Well, French villains! In front! Go march!" One of the captured officers, being annoyed that the woman took it into her head to order them, did not listen to her. Vasilisa immediately finished him off on the spot. And she screamed: “All of you, thieves, dogs, will have the same thing, who only move a little! March to the city!
Vasilisa Women's Detachment
She created partisan detachment(a significant part of which were women) and began to fight the French. Vasilisa's detachment destroyed the detachments of foragers of the French army, who traveled through the villages of the Smolensk province and took food from the villagers. The partisans also attacked small units of the French.
The women in her squad were very brave and determined. So, one of them, named Praskovya, became famous for defending herself with pitchforks from six Frenchmen. She stabbed three in the battle, and the rest fled.
Soon, Vasilisa's detachment became a real problem for the Napoleonic army. Kozhina waged her war according to all the rules of partisan science: guards and pickets were set up at the parking lots, peasant women were trained to shoot from guns obtained in battle from the French. Kozhina's detachment entered into numerous battles with individual French units, beating off their carts with food and supplies. So during one of the sorties, the partisans recaptured 10 trucks with fodder, 30 cows and 20 sheep from the enemies. It would seem a trifle, but as science says, quantity often turns into quality. Losing every day grain, livestock, food, the French garrisons in the Smolensk province were on the verge of starvation.
They told such a case. The retreating Napoleon, entering Smolensk in November 1812, learned that there were no food supplies in the city. And the starving and frozen French soldiers pinned such hopes on them! Napoleon in anger ordered the immediate trial and execution of the Smolensk quartermaster Villeblanche. However, he managed to escape. The generals informed the emperor that he was not so guilty. It's all about the "Russian robbers", who here, near Smolensk, especially boldly attack French foragers and exterminate them. And Napoleon was informed about the elusive leader Vasilisa and her partisans. Napoleon's stories about the partisans were so constantly made to worry, but here he was seriously frightened. And he did the right thing, because in his guerrilla war, Vasilisa and her women's detachment did not spare the French at all. For the murdered husbands, the devastated villages, they avenged Russia.
folk heroine
After the expulsion of the French from the territory of Russia, traces of Vasilisa are lost. According to one version, she received a large amount of money and a commemorative medal from Emperor Alexander I as a token of her merits. Vasilisa Kozhina returned to her native province. She died in 1840 at the age of about 60. Vasilisa Kozhina was also dedicated to a series of popular prints of 1812-1813. The lubok of the artist Venitsianov became widespread: “The French are hungry rats in the team of the elder Vasilisa.” In 1813, the artist Alexander Smirnov painted a portrait of Vasilisa. That, in general, is all that society and the authorities have thanked their heroine for. It is impossible to say anything more about her, we can only know and remember that such a woman lived and defended her homeland as best she could and when she fought with the invaders, she did not think about awards.
Text: Evgeny Filippov
In the history of Russia there were many heroes, the details of whose life are practically unknown. This rule applies not only to distant epic times, but also to a very recent era. Vasilisa Kozhin, whose biography is just an example of such a "white spot", belongs to this glorious series.
photo: Portrait of Vasilisa Kozhina. Artist A. Smirnov
The Patriotic War of 1812 gave the world a large number of heroic names. This is due to the fact that the bloodshed for the first time in a very long time passed directly through the territory of Russia. It was defended not only by the regular army, but also civil uprising. One way or another, but from the war of 1812, the descendants left two famous female names. These are Nadezhda Durova and Vasilisa Kozhina, whose biography is practically unknown.
At the same time, the first of them served in the cavalry, thanks to which a lot of documentary evidence remained about her. Kozhina, by origin, was a peasant woman, which, of course, could not but affect her image. For example, in the USSR, people knew her only from a small footnote in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.
A brief biography of Vasilisa Kozhina contains the following facts. She was a native of the Sychevsky district in the Smolensk province. The peasant woman was the headman (wife of the headman) of a local farm called Gorshkov. Her way of life, in fact, determined the scarcity of sources about the early peaceful life. It is not even known exactly when the folk heroine Kozhina was born (approximately in 1780).
Smolensk province found itself in the way of Napoleon, who was going to Moscow. The French army burned many villages. She used scorched earth tactics. There were many settlements behind the front line. The inhabitants of this region mostly joined the partisans to fight the aggressors. Was among these volunteers and Vasilisa Kozhina. The biography of the elder contains many white spots, but there is still information about her active role in organizing the local militia.
The detachment of Kozhina consisted mainly of women and teenagers. The men who inhabited the villages had gone into the army even before that. After the French occupied the western provinces, the former state power here became untenable. There was no one to organize the partisans. This was done by people not authorized, but the most ordinary - residents of towns and farms. Was among these leaders and Vasilisa Kozhina. The biography of the peasant woman before that was not remarkable. However, by nature, the elder had a lively and stubborn character. These qualities helped her to gather people.
However, simply grouping up for the partisan detachment was not enough. People needed weapons. Usually it was scythes, axes, pitchforks - tools of ordinary rural implements. The active phase of the actions of the Kozhina detachment began with the retreat of the French from Moscow.
Napoleon "sat out" in the capital and unwittingly gave the strategic initiative into the hands of the Russians. Soon the "Great Army" set off on a hasty journey home. The way back ran through the devastated Smolensk province, whose native was Vasilisa Kozhina. Biography, children, previous relationships - all these circumstances from a peaceful life have lost their meaning. Now the woman had to become harsh and merciless.
The French in retreat lost their famous discipline. The army began to suffer from epidemics, hunger and cold. The harsh Russian winter climate hit hard on the strangers who crossed the border of the empire in the summer in thin overcoats. In addition, the soldiers had to return along the roads that they themselves had destroyed a few months before.
Often malnourished, the French detachments separated from the main army and went into the hinterland to find food. They hoped to find at least some food in the abandoned peasant farms. Instead, close-knit groups of partisans were waiting for the interventionists in the villages. One of the largest such gangs was led by Vasilisa Kozhina. Biography, the memory of the people about the heroin - researchers began to study all these questions much later. Then hardly anyone knew about her.
Very quickly, rumors spread in the French army about the leader of the partisan detachment, mercilessly cracking down on the invaders. That is why there are so many legends and so few facts around the personality of Kozhina. After World War II, no one collected and systematized data on the peasant resistance movement against the French. When the historians of the following generations realized it, it was already too late.
This fact partly explains the stinginess with which Kozhina was spoken of in Soviet textbooks. For the USSR, with its experience of the Great Patriotic War, it was not customary to hush up the exploits of the people among the ordinary inhabitants of the country.
In Russia early XIX century reigned fortification. It was based on the wealth and splendor of the aristocracy with its balls and parties. The peasants were treated as second-class people, so it never occurred to anyone to emphasize the exploits of ordinary villagers. When the war ended, the partisans who fought heroically returned to the manors and continued their slave labor.
Of all the folk images of the war of 1812, it was Vasilisa Kozhina who became most famous. Biography, family and other facts of her life are almost unknown. The researchers delineated the woman's age in the range from 30 to 40 years. Vasilisa had a husband who worked as the headman of a rural settlement. When the French intervention began, he was killed.
Apparently, it was precisely because of a sense of revenge that Kozhina embarked on the path of a merciless war with uninvited guests. This happened when the French were already retreating to their homeland. In the first months of the war, peasant resistance to them was rather passive. The serfs mostly hid in the forests and burned their farms so that they would not get to the enemy.
The French and their allies at first also did not deal with the poor. They only took food or fodder for the horses. However, when Napoleon began to suffer defeat, the atmosphere in his army noticeably heated up. The soldiers were embittered by the lost battles, the inconvenience, the disgusting climate, and the poor organization of the campaign. Their fury was vented on the peasants who fell under the hot hand.
Mutual hatred grew, and with it the size of the partisan detachments, one of which was led by Vasilisa Kozhina. Biography, film incarnations in modern TV series and many others Interesting Facts, associated with the elder, are now of interest to many citizens of our country. However, in 1812 she was only a simple Russian woman. And even after the war, during her lifetime, she was not as famous as she is now. It was time that made Kozhina a folk heroine and a character of folklore.
At first, Kozhina only organized ambushes on the roads. When the Russian army began to move west, Vasilisa managed to contact the headquarters. She began to take the French prisoners and hand them over to the regular troops.
The biography of Vasilisa Kozhina was first publicly mentioned in a small article in the magazine "Son of the Fatherland" in the same 1812. The material was called "Starostika". It was this definition that was imprinted in the people's memory. It has become synonymous with the image of Kozhina.
The note told about the case of a small French detachment being captured by partisans. The strangers were going to be taken to a neighboring city to be handed over to the Russian army. The main escort was Kozhina. One of the French was annoyed that a woman, and even a peasant woman, was trying to lead him. He refused to obey the elder's order. Then Kozhina hit the disobedient with a scythe on the head, and he fell dead under her feet.
Today, a photo and biography of Vasilisa Kozhina is in every Russian history textbook dedicated to XIX century. She became the head of the peasant partisan movement, and this despite the fact that then there was another "official" partisan army, led by the no less famous Denis Davydov.
The relationship between these two different formations were extremely difficult. Detachments of Cossacks and the regular army often suffered from the same peasants. The villagers could mistake their compatriots for the French and attack them from a roadside ambush. The reason for this was military suits sewn in the European manner. The leader of the partisans and Cossacks, Denis Davydov, even abandoned his uniform. He changed into ordinary peasant clothes and grew a beard to make it easier for him to find a common language with the villagers.
photo: Denis Davydov
After the end of the war, the leaders of the partisan movement were awarded state awards. The special commission was then interested in the biography of Vasilisa Kozhina. The personal life and detailed facts of her biography were almost unknown. Nevertheless, the officials found the elder and gave her a medal, as well as a cash allowance.
Such single awards could not please the peasants. At the end of the war, rumors became popular among them that Tsar Alexander I would soon abolish serfdom. For the long-awaited liberation, it was only necessary to complete the defeat of Napoleon. However, serfdom lasted another 50 years. In his youth, Alexander Pavlovich was a liberal. He wanted to reform, but was afraid of the resistance of the nobility.
Vasilisa Kozhina, with the advent of peace, returned to her native province. She died in 1840 at the age of about 60. In the 19th century, several popular prints (lubok picture or amusing leaf) were dedicated to her, which became popular works of art. Today, city streets and railway stations are named after Kozhina.
22.07.2015 0 15965
Very little is known about the life of this folk heroine. Vasilisa was a peasant woman, and it was not customary to write biographies of representatives of the lower classes in those days.
We can only say that she was born around the 1780s. She lived in the village of Gorshkovo in the Smolensk province. She was an elder - that is, the wife of an elder. Under this name - headman Vasilisa- she entered the history of the Patriotic War of 1812 ...
After the bloody battle of Borodino and the fire of Moscow, the bitterness of the Russian peasants towards foreign invaders reached its climax.
Now the peasants not only did not enter into any trade deals with the French (as happened in the first months of the invasion), on the contrary, they mercilessly killed all enemy soldiers who fell into their hands.
If the detachments of French foragers were too strong, then the peasants simply burned their stocks and fled into the forests.
The old woman did not like to joke
According to the memoirs of the French, nowhere in Europe (except Spain) did the peasantry in the villages offer them such fierce resistance as in Russia.
“Each village turned at our approach either into a fire or into a fortress,” wrote the French.
A characteristic touch - when the Cossacks led the French prisoners, the peasants pushed the convoy away, trying to tear the prisoners to pieces.
The bitterness against the Napoleonic soldiers was terrible. It was at this moment that Russia first learned the name of Vasilisa Kozhina.
Here is what the magazine "Son of the Fatherland" wrote in 1812:
“One local merchant, who recently traveled out of curiosity to Moscow and its environs, tells the following anecdote, which he witnessed.
The headman of a village in the Sychevsky district led a party of prisoners to the city. In his absence, the peasants brought a few more French people captured by them, and gave them to their elder Vasilisa to go where they should.
Vasilisa gathered the peasants, mounted a horse, took a scythe in her hands and, riding around the prisoners, shouted in an important voice: "Well, French villains! In front! Go, march!" One of the captured officers, being annoyed that the woman took it into her head to command them, did not obey her. Vasilisa immediately hit him on the head with a scythe, he fell dead at her feet, and she cried out: “All of you, thieves, dogs, will be the same, who only moves a little! city!""
But the simple escort of prisoners, apparently, did not correspond to the spiritual mood of Vasilisa. Soon she creates a partisan detachment (a significant part of which were women) and enters the "warpath".
Vasilisa's detachment begins to act on the communications of the Great Army: not only enemy foragers who hunt in the Smolensk province are destroyed, but also small units of the French who have fallen behind.
Don't be sorry!
The women in her squad crept up "serious". So, one of them named Praskovya became famous for the fact that one defended herself with a pitchfork from six Frenchmen. She stabbed three of them, the rest fled.
Very soon, Vasilisa's detachment became a "big problem" for the French. Kozhina waged war according to all the rules of partisan science: guards and pickets were set up at the detachment's camps, peasant women were trained to shoot from guns taken from dead soldiers.
Kozhina's detachment entered into numerous battles with individual French units, beating off their carts with food and supplies.
So, during one of the sorties, the partisans recaptured ten wagons with fodder, thirty heads of cattle and twenty sheep from the French. It would seem a trifle. But, as science says, quantity often turns into quality. Losing every day fodder, grain, livestock, food, the French garrisons in the Smolensk province were on the verge of starvation.
They told such a case. The retreating Napoleon, entering Smolensk in November 1812, learned that there were no food supplies in the city. And the starving and frozen French soldiers pinned such hopes on them! Napoleon in anger ordered the immediate trial and execution of the Smolensk quartermaster Villeblanche. However, he managed to escape.
The generals informed the emperor that the commissariat was not so much to blame. It's all about the "Russian robbers", who here, near Smolensk, especially boldly attack the French foragers and exterminate them. And Napoleon was informed about the elusive leader Vasilisa and her partisans. So the name of a simple Russian peasant woman reached the ears of the French emperor himself.
Of course, Vasilisa and other Russian partisans fought, by our standards, ruthlessly. Here is the instruction, for example, given by partisans to the inhabitants of one village:
“Receive the French in a friendly manner, offer with bows everything that you have to eat, and especially drink, put them to bed drunk and, when you realize that they have definitely fallen asleep, rush at them. Exterminate every single one and bury their bodies in a barn, in a forest or in some impassable place ... "
However, the peasants did not particularly need instructions. Unlike the "army" partisans, the "people's" partisans did not take prisoners in principle. Not only soldiers were exterminated, but everyone who was in the French convoy: women, children.
And there were quite a few of them: together with the French army, all the foreigners living there with their families left the burned Moscow. Russian officers, who had not “forgotten” how to speak French in time, got it from the peasants - they were mistaken for enemies and mercilessly killed.
"God will give..."
The activity of the Vasilisa detachment is all the more striking because it was carried out without any participation of the headquarters of the Russian army. This is the cardinal difference between Vasilisa and such famous partisans as Denis Davydov, Seslavin, Figner. All of them were regular officers of the Russian army.
Peasant detachments - Vasilisa Kozhina, Gerasim Kurin, Yermolai Chetvertakov - were formed spontaneously by the inhabitants of Russian villages themselves.
That is, in fact, in 1812 in Russia there were two parallel guerrilla war: army and folk. Moreover, the peasants were suspicious of the detachments under the command of officers. Often, armed peasants guarding their villages attacked the "army" partisans. So, for example, Davydov's partisans had to regularly prove that they were Russian soldiers before the peasants agreed to lower the pitchforks and stakes.
The reason is simple - "the clothes are too similar." For the peasants, any uniform ammunition looked hostile.
As Davydov wrote: “I learned from experience that in a people's war one must not only speak the language of the mob, but adapt to it both in customs and in clothes. I put on a man's caftan, began to grow a beard, hung up the image of St. Nicholas around his neck and spoke to them in the language of the people.
After the expulsion of the French from the territory of Russia, traces of Vasilisa Kozhina are lost. According to one version, in recognition of her services, she received a large amount of money and a commemorative medal from the emperor. But it is not possible to verify the authenticity of this information. Vasilisa Kozhina was also dedicated to a series of popular prints of 1812-1813.
Venetsianov's lubok became widespread: "The French are hungry rats in the team of the elder Vasilisa." In 1813, the artist Alexander Smirnov painted a portrait of Vasilisa Kozhina. That, in general, is all that society and the authorities have thanked their domestic "Jeanne d" Arc.
It is worth noting that for their merits in the fight against the Napoleonic invasion, the Russian peasants for the most part did not receive any award. As Emperor Alexander I said, "Let the peasants receive their reward from God." Therefore, if the awarding of Kozhina nevertheless took place, then it testifies to her exceptional exploits - the peasants were reluctantly given awards.
After the end of the war, Vasilisa returned to her native village and took up her usual rural activities. According to some reports, she had five children. Presumably, Vasilisa Kozhina died sometime around 1840.
Denis ORLOV
The story of the cavalry girl Durova is now known to almost everyone. The brave girl, dreaming of exploits, wanted to stand up for her homeland on a par with men. This unusual for that time woman in a man's suit fought in the Russian army in 1807, 1812 and 1813. When her story was revealed, Emperor Alexander I allowed her to continue serving as a hussar under the name Alexandrov Alexander Alexandrovich.
The fame and popularity of the life story of this woman is explained, first of all, by the fact that Nadezhda Vasilievna Durova left behind beautifully written "Notes", telling about her difficult fate. But her story was not unique. There were other women in the Russian army around the same time who refused to obey established military traditions.
Alexandra Tikhomirova She entered the military during the War of 1812. Her brother was killed in battle, and she, under his name, fought against Napoleon's army. Tikhomirova served in the Uhlan regiment, became a company commander. According to some reports, her service lasted for as long as 15 years.
Another woman who left her mark during the War of 1812 is Tatyana Markina. She served under the name of Captain Kurochkin.
These women have chosen for themselves a difficult path, full of anxieties and dangers. They served for the good of the motherland, considering it their duty.
One of the main motives that prompted Russian women to leave their usual way of life, their home, was a personal tragedy. The death of loved ones, the ruin of houses - all this could not leave women indifferent. Many stories appeared among the people about heroic women, simple peasant women who fought fiercely with the French, taking revenge on them for the horrors and misfortunes that they caused to the Russian land. There is no doubt that such women really existed. They were folk heroes.
One of these characters was Vasilisa Kozhina, better known as the headman Vasilisa. She lived in the Sychevsky district of the Smolensk province. According to one story, when the French came to her village, they announced that Napoleon would grant them freedom, and began to collect all the peasant products and supplies. Vasilisa's husband, headman Dmitry, who refused to comply with their demands, was hacked to death with a saber.
They wrote about Vasilisa Kozhina that she burned 18 Frenchmen alive in a hut. This was her first "folk" feat. Further, the fame of her spread throughout Russia.
She was credited with the following words: I can no longer serve the world, Orthodox! I decided to do my job, and my job is to take revenge, as long as I have enough strength, to our hater! I will go to the forest, to the road, and wherever I meet a Frenchman, I will exterminate him or I myself will perish at his hand!»
Of the many stories about Vasilisa Kozhina, only one has been documented. During the Patriotic War of 1812, helping the men, Vasilisa several times participated in the escort of the captured French prisoners to the city of Sychevka, and once she killed an obstinate captive with a scythe. In the “Complete Collection of Anecdotes of the Most Memorable War of the Russians with the French”, published in 1814, the following was said about the elder Vasilisa: “ The headman of a village in the Sychevsky district led a party of prisoners taken by the peasants to the city. In his absence, the settlers caught a few more Frenchmen and immediately brought them to the headman Vasilisa to go where they should. This latter, not wanting to distract the adults from their main occupation of beating and catching villains, gathered a small convoy of children, and, mounting a horse, set off in the form of a leader to escort the French herself ... In this intention, driving around the prisoners, she shouted to them in an imperative voice: “Well , French villains! In front! Line up! Go, march!” One of the captured officers, annoyed by the fact that a simple woman took it into her head to command them, did not obey her. Vasilisa, seeing this, jumped up to him instantly and, hitting him on the head with her scythe, threw him dead at her feet, crying out: “To all of you, thieves, dogs, it will be the same, who only dares to move a little! I have already cut off the heads of twenty-seven such mischievous people! March to the city!“ And after that, who will doubt that the prisoners recognized the power of the elder Vasilisa over themselves».
Later, there were stories that the headman organized her small partisan detachment, which carried out reprisals against stragglers, foragers, marauders: “ Hiding in an ambush, Vasilisa with her party suddenly jumped out onto the road. Her pitchfork worked with such force that a dead horse fell from one blow, and the enemies found death at the hands of angry peasants, under the command of Vasilisa. Soon her whole detachment was armed with sabers, pikes and guns; only Vasilisa remained with her terrible pitchfork».
It was also said that after the end of the war, having learned about the exploits of the peasant woman Vasilisa, Alexander I sent her a silver medal in memory of the Patriotic War.
Now it is already difficult to figure out what was true in the story about Vasilisa and what was fiction. Her exploits began to take on an epic character. The headman Vasilisa personified the people's defender, who came out of the common people.
Caricature of I.I. Terebeneva
Other stories subsequently developed about such simple female heroines. Lacemaker Praskovya, who lived in the village of Sokolova, defended her honor by hacking two Frenchmen with an ax. According to the “legend”, she gathered a detachment of 20 people armed with axes, scythes and pitchforks: “ At first they guarded the French along the road and attacked them when they saw no more than ten or twelve people, but soon scythes and axes were replaced by their guns and sabers.».
After the war, Praskovya returned to her work and again became a lacemaker: “ She returned to her bobbins, and no one would have recognized in a beautiful girl the recent leader of the detachment, whose name alone awed the brave soldiers of the "great" army". According to the story about Praskovya, she, like Vasilisa, was also sent a silver medal from St. Petersburg.
Another heroine folk stories - Anfisa. The French killed her father and fiancé before her eyes. The young girl soon also attacked the French, first with a club, then with a saber. Soon other women of the village joined Anfisa: “ Brave women knew neither fatigue nor deprivation. It happened that, following the detachment and lying in wait for the backward, they walked for whole days in the rain, making their way in the bushes along the road. Sometimes they didn't eat for whole days. They were seasoned warriors, not women».
Almost certainly most of these stories is fictional. But they were simply necessary for the people of that time. After all, the war was popular. And not only Kutuzov and his generals drove the French out of Russia. In their opinion, this became possible precisely because the whole people rose up against the enemy. The names of Vasilisa, Praskovya, Anfisa were the personification of that heroic impulse caused by the devastation of the Russian land by Napoleon's army.
Here is what was written about Vasilisa Kozhina in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: “Kozhina Vasilisa, partisan of the Patriotic War of 1812, peasant woman, headman of the village of Gorshkov, Sychevsky district, Smolensk province. Having organized a detachment of partisans from teenagers and women armed with scythes, pitchforks, axes, etc., Kozhina destroyed and captured soldiers Napoleonic army during their retreat from Russia. She was awarded a medal and a cash prize.
Vasilisa Kozhina in 1812 was about 30 to 40 years old. Most likely, Vasilisa's husband died at the hands of the French during their next expedition in search of food. The woman's hatred for the killers was shared by fellow villagers and residents of nearby villages, since Kozhina's husband was far from the only victim of French foragers.
Armed with axes, scythes and other similar equipment, the detachment began to ambush on the road. The French, completely unprepared for such a reception, began to suffer losses from the actions of the decisive Vasilisa.
Kozhina managed to contact the units of the Russian regular army, to whose location the prisoners were transferred.
The main mention of the actions of Vasilisa Kozhina is the note “Starosta Vasilisa” in the magazine “Son of the Fatherland” in 1812: “The head of a village in the Sychevsky district led a party of prisoners to the city. In his absence, the peasants brought a few more French people captured by them, and gave them to their elder Vasilisa to go where they should. Vasilisa gathered the peasants, mounted a horse, took a scythe in her hands and, driving around the prisoners, shouted in an important voice: “Well, French villains! In front! Go, march!" One of the captured officers, being annoyed that the woman took it into her head to command them, did not obey her. Vasilisa immediately hit him on the head with a scythe, he fell dead at her feet, and she cried out: “All of you, thieves, dogs, will be the same, who only stirs a little! I've torn off the heads of twenty-seven of your mischievous people! March to the city!“.
From the point of view of ideas about the war of that time, such an event seemed completely unbelievable and therefore, of course, was preserved in history. There is little information about Vasilisa Kozhina. But there are even fewer of the other peasants who fought with Napoleon.
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