Maria Limanskaya

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Filippovna and the family name is Limanskaya.

Mariya Limanskaya
Detail of Yevgeny Khaldei's famous photograph of Limanskaya
Native name
Мария Филипповна Лиманская
Born(1924-04-12)12 April 1924
Staraya Poltavka, Volga German ASSR, Russian SFSR, USSR
Died26 November 2024(2024-11-26) (aged 100)
Saratov Oblast, Russia
Allegiance Soviet Union
Service / branchRed Army
Years of service1942–1945
RankCorporal
AwardsOrder of the Patriotic War, 2nd class
Medal of Zhukov

Mariya Filippovna Limanskaya (Russian: Мария Филипповна Лиманская; 12 April 1924 – 26 November 2024) was a Soviet military traffic guard – a female member of Red Army traffic control units, serving for three years during World War II. She became known as one of the Russian women who directed traffic at the Brandenburg Gate in 1945 after the Battle of Berlin. She then became a symbol of the Allied victory over Germany.[1][2]

Biography

Early life and military service

Born in 1924 as Mariya Limanskaya, she joined the Red Army in 1942, at the height of World War II. She was 18.[3][4] At that time the Soviet Stavka ("high command") increasingly lacked trained reserves to reinforce the entire 2,000-kilometre (1,200 mi) front, and as a result began to conscript underage boys and girls.[5] Almost 800,000 women would eventually serve in the Red Army throughout the war.[6] On several occasions she was nearly killed. At one point, she left a building a few seconds before it was leveled by a bomb attack. She also contracted malaria.[4][7] During the war, Limanskaya regulated the movement of troops across the Don under enemy fire, and participated in the Battle of Stalingrad and the liberation of Belarus and Poland.[8]

Brandenburg Gate and victory icon

Yevgeny Khaldei's famous photograph of Limanskaya, with his inscription from 1984
A different angle of Khaldei's photograph

After the Battle of Berlin ended in early May 1945, Limanskaya was assigned to direct traffic at the Brandenburg Gate during the Potsdam Conference in late July. While conducting her duties, she was photographed, filmed, and also interviewed by Yevgeny Khaldei, a journalist employed by TASS. Her picture was widely published in newspapers and magazines worldwide and she quickly became an iconic image of the victory over Germany. However, all of this is possibly confusion with Lydia Spivak, another regulator who was actually filmed and interviewed at the Brandenburg gate.[1] Limanskaya furthermore had a brief conversation with British prime minister Winston Churchill as his entourage was passing by the gate on their way to Potsdam.[3][4] Limanskaya later said about her meeting Churchill, "[he] looked precisely the way I imagined him, puffing on a cigar".[4][9]

Later life and death

After the war, Limanskaya returned to civilian life and got married. The marriage did not last and she was forced to bring up two daughters by herself. Limanskaya later remarried, this time to a fellow veteran named Viktor with whom she remained for 23 years, until his death.[3] She worked as a nurse, and then a school librarian in Volgograd. Since 1994, she lived with her daughter in the village of Zvonaryovka, in the Saratov region.[8]

Limanskaya turned 100 on 12 April 2024,[10] and died on 26 November.[8]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "The Brandenburg Gate Ballerina – the Ukrainian Soviet Soldier Who Became a WW2 Star". YouTube. 30 November 2022.
  2. ^ Бранденбургская мадонна Мария Лиманская. Она стала символом Победы над Германией — и отдала ей самое дорогое Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ a b c Mark Simner 2015.
  4. ^ a b c d Kulikov 2004.
  5. ^ Goldstein 2003, pp. 64–66.
  6. ^ Goldstein 2003, p. 65.
  7. ^ Kulikov, Andrei (13 May 2004). "The Fate of Russian Girl from WWII Photo". Pravda. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  8. ^ a b c "Умерла "регулировщица Победы" Мария Лиманская со знаменитого фото Евгения Халдея". Current Time. 26 November 2024. Retrieved 26 November 2024.
  9. ^ «Бранденбургская мадонна» Мария Лиманская Archived 2019-09-13 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "В Марксовском районе отметила столетний юбилей «Браденбургская Мадонна» Мария Лиманская". Свободные (in Russian). 12 April 2024. Retrieved 20 April 2024.

Sources

Printed

  • Goldstein, Joshua (2003). War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge University. ISBN 978-0521001809.

Online