Lyudmila Pavlichenko Was a Real Girl Boss

A while back, I did an article about psychobitches throughout history.

Since every idiot online wants to pretend that every woman in history was a misunderstood victim of the patriarchy, and because I was going through a divorce, I figured it was worth reminding people that women are just as capable of being horrible as men.

But in the interest of fairness, today we’re going in the other direction.

Today we’re talking about one of the baddest bitches to ever live, Lyudmila Pavlichenko.

Many of you probably haven’t heard of her, because most of you didn’t pay attention in history class, and because modern culture is too busy pretending some actress crying during an awards speech is the peak of female courage.

Pavlichenko was a Soviet sniper during World War 2. She fought at Odessa and Sevastopol, and killed Nazis by the hundreds, making her one of the deadliest snipers in history.

You want a real girl boss? Here you go.

She wasn’t some corporate dipshit selling empowerment seminars or an influencer posing in front of a ring light and calling herself brave for posting a selfie without a filter. Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a real one. She didn’t need a slogan, a brand, or a stupid hashtag. She had a rifle and a job to do.

Pavlichenko was born in 1916 in what’s now Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire and later the Soviet Union. Before the war, she studied history at Kiev University and planned to become a teacher.

So naturally, I already like her.

She wanted to study the past and teach people about it, which means she had more sense than the average teenager currently rotting his brain on TikTok. She was also trained as a marksman. Most of my students can’t aim a paper ball at a trash can from six feet away without hitting a poster of Frederick Douglass in the face.

Then, in 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

This was Operation Barbarossa, the largest invasion in history and one of the dumbest decisions Hitler ever made. The Germans came smashing into Soviet territory with millions of men, thousands of tanks and aircraft, and balls the size of cantaloupes. What followed was some of the most brutal fighting human beings have ever experienced. The Eastern Front was a bloody fucking mess full of mud, blood, hunger, frostbite, artillery, executions, burning cities, and millions of dead people.

This is the world Pavlichenko stepped into at 24 years old.

When she tried to enlist, the Red Army wanted to make her a nurse. There’s nothing wrong with nurses. They work hard, deal with disgusting injuries, and put up with more human stupidity than almost anyone except public school teachers.

But Pavlichenko didn’t show up to wrap bandages. She showed up to fight.

She had already trained as a shooter, and she proved she belonged with a rifle. Once the army figured out that maybe the woman who could shoot should be allowed to shoot, she was assigned to the 25th Rifle Division as a sniper.

Let me explain something to you people. Being a sniper isn’t sitting on your ass playing Call of Duty while your mommy brings you pizza rolls. A sniper has to wait. They have to stay still, or they have to crawl through the dirt, mud, rubble, and grass while knowing the enemy may be doing the exact same thing. Every little movement matters, and even a quick flash of light can give you away. It takes discipline, patience, nerve, and the ability to sit without letting your fear control you. I can’t get my students to sit still for ten minutes without one of them acting like his skeleton is trying to escape his body.

Pavlichenko fought at Odessa first, where she recorded 187 confirmed kills. Then she fought at Sevastopol, where the Germans and Romanians threw everything they had at the Soviet defenses. Sevastopol was a hellish nightmare full of bombing, shelling, sniper fire, street fighting, constant pressure, and constant death.

By the time Pavlichenko was pulled from combat after being wounded by mortar shrapnel in 1942, she had 309 confirmed kills.

Three hundred and nine.

That’s not a video game score, or some internet tough guy’s fake body count. That’s 309 enemy soldiers removed from the battlefield by one woman with a rifle. Among those kills were enemy snipers, including one duel that reportedly lasted three days. Three days. My students need a “brain break” after reading two paragraphs, and this woman played deadly hide-and-seek with trained German snipers for days at a time.

Pavlichenko’s famous nickname was “Lady Death,” which sounds like some comic book bullshit, until you remember that it belonged to an actual woman delivering death to Nazis.

Her other nickname, coined by the Germans, was “the Russian bitch from hell.” I don’t think I need to explain this one much more, do I?

The Germans reportedly tried to get her to defect. They offered her candy and an officer’s rank over loudspeakers. When that didn’t work, they threatened to tear her into pieces.

She was apparently pleased that they at least had her kill count right.

That’s the kind of response you get from someone who has more balls than most men. Pavlichenko had courage, discipline, toughness, and nerve. Real nerve, not the fake kind where some guy grows a beard, buys a truck, wears a skull shirt, and thinks he’s a warrior because he listens to Joe Rogan podcasts. Pavlichenko was being threatened by Nazis over loudspeaker and basically thought, good, they’re keeping track.

Now, because Americans need an American comparison or their brains shut off, let’s talk about Chris Kyle for a second.

Kyle is generally credited with 160 confirmed kills, making him the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history. He became so famous that they made a whole movie about him, American Sniper. I’m not going to compare Iraq to the Eastern Front like they’re the same thing, because they weren’t.

But Pavlichenko had 309 confirmed kills.

So if you know Chris Kyle’s name, you should absolutely know Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s name too. She killed nearly twice as many enemy soldiers, fought Nazis during World War 2, survived some of the worst fighting on Earth, and most people today have never even heard of her. Not because her story isn’t impressive, but because people don’t give a fuck about history unless Hollywood hands it to them with dramatic music and Bradley Cooper squinting down a rifle scope.

Even though the Soviets used her for their propaganda, as most governments do with their heroes, Pavlichenko wasn’t just some poster with a rifle. It wasn’t a propaganda poster that fought at Odessa and survived Sevastopol sitting in the dirt waiting out German snipers and getting hit with mortar shrapnel. She was a symbol, and the symbol worked because the person behind it was real.

Modern society loves calling people brave for doing next to nothing. Some celebrity goes outside without makeup and suddenly she’s “redefining courage.” Some corporate executive posts about women in leadership while paying her employees like crap and now she’s a “trailblazer.” Some influencer says she’s entering her healing era because she stopped dating a jerk and bought a journal. Shut up. Please, for the love of God, shut up.

Pavlichenko was 25 years old and had killed 309 fascist invaders.

Pavlichenko fought the Nazis, got wounded, and still kept serving. Most people today can’t even handle being mildly embarrassed in public.

After she was wounded, the Soviets pulled her from combat because she was too valuable to lose. Stalin wanted the Western Allies to open a second front in Europe, because the Soviet Union was taking a beating and needed Germany forced to split its strength. So Pavlichenko was sent abroad as part of a Soviet delegation.

In 1942, she came to the United States, and met President Franklin Roosevelt. She then toured the country with Eleanor Roosevelt and spoke to crowds about the war and about the need to fight fascism. This was a woman who had already seen combat, death, destruction, and injury on a level most Americans couldn’t imagine.

So naturally, the American press asked her about makeup.

They asked her hard-hitting questions about all kinds of stupid shit, like whether women at the front used powder, whether she curled her hair, and whether her skirt was too long.

This is why I hate people.

You have one of the deadliest snipers in history standing in front of you, a woman who fought at Odessa and Sevastopol, and you’re asking her if she wears lipstick. Are you kidding me?

Pavlichenko wasn’t amused either. She basically asked if these people understood there was a war going on. Apparently they didn’t, since they had a soldier in front of them and treated her like a novelty act.

Pavlichenko had done more to fight fascism than the men asking her stupid questions, and they were still reducing her to appearance.

She later stood in front of a crowd in Chicago and said, “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist invaders by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?”

In two simple sentences, she emasculated every man in the room.

That line worked because she had earned it. Anybody can talk tough, but Pavlichenko had the receipts. When she said she had killed 309 fascist invaders, that wasn’t a metaphor so much as it was her resume.

This is why I think history matters. It gives us a measuring stick, so you can look at the people we celebrate today and ask, “Are we serious?” I’m not saying every woman needs to go to war, but if we’re going to use words like strength, courage, empowerment, and heroism, we should use them for people who actually earned them. Pavlichenko earned them in mud, blood, gunfire, and shrapnel. She didn’t need any social validation. She picked up her rifle, went out, and got shit done.

Was she perfect? No, because nobody is. Pavlichenko served the Soviet Union, a brutal regime with plenty of blood on its own hands. But that doesn’t invalidate her accomplishments. History isn’t some fairy tale, heroes can come from ugly systems.

And after all of that, Pavlichenko finished her education and worked as a historian.

I like that part. She started out studying history, got dragged into one of the most important wars in human history, helped win it, and then went back to preserving the past. That’s a hell of a life.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko didn’t need a publicist or a movement. When her country was invaded, she enlisted. When they tried to push her into a safer role, she proved she belonged in combat. When the Germans threatened her, she kept fighting. When reporters treated her like a curiosity, she made them look like idiots. When American men dragged their feet, she reminded them that she had already done more than enough fighting for one lifetime.

All of that, at 25 years old.

So if you want a real girl boss, stop looking at celebrities, influencers, corporate slogans, and whatever fake hero the algorithm is shoving in your face this week. Look at Lyudmila Pavlichenko, one of the deadliest snipers in history.

J. R. Heston

Joseph “J.R.” Heston is a Rutgers University graduate and a Philadelphia public high school teacher with over 15 years of experience. A lifelong student of history, his writing compares people who actually did things with people who can’t sit still for five minutes. He also writes for AJnet Magazine because teachers are severely underpaid.

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