Russia, Women Recipients of the Order of St. George (Combatants/Military Personnel)

(1808-1917)

Award created in 1769 by Empress Catherine the Great for Russian officers. Until 1856 it was awarded to officers with at least twenty-five years of service or participation in eighteen to twenty naval campaigns. Two additional awards for enlisted personnel and noncommissioned officers were later added: the Cross of St. George (1807) and a four-level variant of the Cross (1856). Among the women who received these awards were:

Maria Leont’evna Bochkareva (b. 1889). The first Russian woman commander of a military unit, designated the 1st Petrograd Women’s Battalion—the so-called Battalion of Death. She was awarded the Cross of St. George, IV Class, for her previous service with the 28th Polotsk Infantry Regiment as a noncommissioned officer.

Members of the Women's Battalion of Death, a branch of the Russian military, 1917.

Members of the Women’s Battalion of Death, a branch of the Russian military, 1917.


Nadezhda Andreevna Durova (1783—1866). Durova, whose married name was Chernova, was also called Cavalry Maid/Maiden, and Alexandrov, the name assigned to her by Czar Alexander I. During the Napoleonic Wars, Durova served in three Russian cavalry regiments: the Polish Horse, the Mariupol Hussars, and the Lithuanian. She saw action against the French in East Prussia in 1807; during the invasion of Russia in 1812; and in the European campaign of 1813—1814. In 1808 Durova was decorated for bravery, at which time she was commissioned by Emperor Alexander I. She was the only woman to be awarded the Cross of St. George before the early twentieth century. In 1836—1841 she published remarkable journals and sensational fiction based on her nine years’ experience serving with the Russian cavalry. Two autobiographical works drawn from her sporadic diaries, The Cavalry Maiden (1836) and Notes (1839), are considered classic contributions to military history.

Rimma Mikhailovna Ivanova (1895-1915). Although a nurse, Ivanova led a successful attack on enemy trenches on September 9, 1915, after all officers from her unit, the No. 1 Company of 108th Orenburg Infantry Regiment, were put out of action. By protesting her participation in combat, the German Military Red Cross authorities made her deed famous. She was posthumously granted the Order of St. George, IV Class, on January 7, 1916.

Antonina Tikhonovna Pal’shina (b. 1897). Disguised as a man and called Anton Pal’shin, Pal’shina served as a private in the Russian army cavalry and infantry during World War I. Pal’shina joined the Cossack cavalry at the beginning the war. After being wounded, Pal’shina’s gender was discovered and she was compelled to train as a nurse in a hospital in Lvov (L’viv). She promptly ran away to join No. 6 Company of the 75th Sebastopol Infantry Regiment. Pal’shina is the only Russian woman to have been decorated with both the Order and the Cross of St. George, receiving two of each award.

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