Wars make fundamental adjustments to people's lives. So World War I changed the life of A.A. Zhdanova, who, at the call of her heart, became a sister of mercy and was then a driver for decades. In her difficult years, the girl described her life and the life of her people in diaries that were published in 2014 on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.
Biography
In 1892, in the Sergiev Posad of the Moscow Region, another daughter was born in the Zhdanov family, Anna. The husband and wife Zhdanov gave four children a home education. In the years 1910-1913, Anna Alexandrovna studied at the Tver Gymnasium.
Sister of Mercy
Anna Zhdanova was not concerned about her career. During the First World War, she sincerely wanted to serve Russia. The girl graduated from courses at the Zemstvo hospital and began working in the soldier’s infirmary.
During duty, Anna bandaged the wounded, helped to receive the fighters. She and her sister Elena talked with the soldiers about the war, played fortune-telling cards, checkers, argued about the benefits and necessity of the intelligentsia, even organized choral singing. The girl was a great inventor, a mischief. Once Anna and Elena took the wounded man by the arms, surrounded by a ring and began to dance around him. Around laughter and noise. Here came another, third
.They wanted to break free, but there was not enough strength from laughter.
Be useful
The life position of Anna Zhdanova was active. She sought to get into the army. According to Anna, it was impossible to live like in peacetime - to walk, dress up, and sit back. She believed that everyone at that time should have been aware of the terrible grief. The girl so wanted to be useful that she could not wait. Anna admitted in a diary that many called their plan madness and answered herself:"
what are we to blame
that were not born men
"She bought boots and a hat and sewed an overcoat.
Female driver, female engineer
In 1916-1918, together with her sister Elena, she was accepted by the driver into a sanitary convoy. Once during a battle women were bombarded with earth from an explosion. Then the orderlies noticed them. Anna recovered and returned to an active life.
After graduating from the Moscow Automobile and Road Institute, A. Zhdanova worked as an engineer at a car factory, and in the 1950s, at the Pravda publishing house.
Personal life
In youth, the personal life of Anna Zhdanova was full of mutual sympathies. One of the soldiers who was in love with her was Mikhail Zenov. His letters are touching and naive. In them, he asked her to take an oath of allegiance. In her diary, Anna wrote that she was not a lady of the Middle Ages to take such an oath. One of the wounded, Andrei Maslikov, also aroused her sympathy.
Zachary Leitash
Anna called him a "wounded swallow."
His lung was pierced through by a bullet. And he laughed and said: "Nothing." The sister of mercy sympathized with him so much that she even wanted to switch places with him and wrote in her diary that she would give everything if only he lived.
The famous woman was left without a family. She died in 1974.
