She traveled to Belarus to get her grandparents out of Russia, but upon arriving learned that German invaders had already killed them.
[1] While on the way to the German front lines with a small team to assassinate the commander of the German Army at the Battle of Stalingrad, Field Marshall Friedrich Paulus, Chernova was badly wounded in her abdomen when the woman ahead of her stepped on a land mine.
[2]Part of Craig's book details a love triangle between Commissar Danilov, Chernova and Zaitsev, which has been described as a work of fiction by English military historian Antony Beevor.
[1] Historian Antony Beevor has questioned the veracity of Chernova's claims, due to his research indicating a lack of female Soviet snipers at Stalingrad.
A character based on Chernova, played by Rachel Weisz, appeared in the 2001 film Enemy at the Gates.
Most of the events experienced by the novel's main character, Tania Belova, are based on the real life experiences of Chernova.