It should also be noted that if this was any time after 1943 or even after WWII, young men were in short supply in Soviet states. The young women's eagerness is what makes the photo interesting for modern eyes, but period eyes would understand that her eagerness is a nationwide phenomenon and a symptom of losing almost 10 million young men (10 million in uniform, in addition to the 15 million civilians dead which presumably affected men and women equally).

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ChrisMarshallNY a day ago | parent [-]

I think the Russians drafted a hell of a lot of young women into the Red Army, as well. They had women on the frontlines, getting shot up, as bad as the guys.

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dotancohen 16 hours ago | parent [-]

I had absolutely no idea!

Any old Russian woman (I mostly know Russians, not many from other Soviet states) will tell of the shortage of men. I never heard of the women on the front lines, I'll ask about that. I'm afraid we don't have much time to learn these things any more.

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ChrisMarshallNY 15 hours ago | parent [-]

This is not something that I have studied (thus the “I think”), but Stalin did “meat wave” attacks, long before Putin. It worked, but at terrible cost. I think he grabbed everyone he could, but mostly men, I would imagine. Maybe women volunteered, but weren't drafted. I do know they had them in the frontlines. You actually see them, in old footage.

I do know that he had women combat pilots. I think there was a movie, made about that.

	▲	dotancohen 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I will definitely look into this, thank you very much.