Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya[1] (Russian: Зо́я Анато́льевна Космодемья́нская, IPA: [ˈzojə kəsmədʲɪˈmʲjanskəjə]; September 13, 1923 – November 29, 1941) was a Soviet partisan.

[11] At the village of Obukhovo near Naro-Fominsk, Kosmodemyanskaya and other partisans crossed the front line and entered territory occupied by the Germans.

On November 27, 1941, Kosmodemyanskaya received an assignment to burn the village of Petrishchevo, where a German cavalry regiment was stationed.

Together with fellow partisans Boris Krainov and Vasily Klubkov, she set fire to three houses in the village.

[10] The writer A. Zhovtis has disputed these claims, arguing that officially Petrishchevo was not a point of permanent deployment of German troops.

[10] After the first attempt at arson, Krainov did not wait for Kosmodemyanskaya and Klubkov at the agreed meeting place and left, returning to his own.

Kosmodemyanskaya, having missed her comrades and left alone, decided to return to Petrishchevo and continue the arson campaign.

However, the German military authorities in the village had by then organized a gathering of local residents, forming a militia in order to avoid further arson.

After being arrested, Kosmodemyanskaya was stripped, beaten, interrogated and tortured with 200 lashes and her body burnt,[12] but refused to give any information.

[11] The story of Kosmodemyanskaya's death became popular after Pravda published an article written by Pyotr Lidov on January 27, 1942.

"[citation needed] Lidov travelled to Petrishchevo, collected details from local residents and published an article about the then-unknown partisan girl.

The Komsomol and educational system introduced young people to Zoya through organized museum visits, presenta- tions and politically correct readings... Zoya quickly became the most revered Soviet heroine, and numerous Soviet public monuments to her were commissioned, in a top-down manner.

Her portrait became a part of ceremonial procedures of commemoration performed by pioneers, and was used as a symbol of the highest distinction awarded to the best class in school.

A minor planet 1793 Zoya, discovered in 1968 by Soviet astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova, is named after her.

[citation needed] In the Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, a Kosmodemyanskaya monument was destroyed on 21 April 2022 amidst a derussification campaign.

In September 1991, an article by Aleksandr Zhovtis was published in the weekly Russian magazine Argumenty i Fakty.

One researcher claimed that the person executed in Petrishchevo was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya but a "missing in action" partisan, although later official conclusion from the Institute for Criminal Expertise and the Department of Justice of the Russian Federation stated otherwise.

In 1997, the newspaper Glasnost published the previously unknown protocols[clarification needed] of the official commission of residents of Petrishchevo village and Gribtsovsky selsoviet from January 25, 1942 (two months after Zoya's execution).

The case was declassified in 2002, and then reviewed by Russia's Chief Military Prosecutor Office, and it was decided that Vasily Klubkov, who betrayed Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, was not eligible for rehabilitation.

According to the case, three Soviet combatants, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Vasily Klubkov, and their commander Boris Krainov, had to perform acts of sabotage in Reichskommissariat Ostland.