[FEMALE SHARPSHOOTERS] Voroshilovskii strelok [i.e. Voroshilov Shooter] #5 for 1938

Item #8182

Moscow: Zhurgazob’edinenie, 1938. 16 pp.: ill. 29x21,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Slightly rubbed, ink note on back cover, few minor ink stains on front cover, otherwise mint.

An issue of the periodical published in 1929-1940. It was the organ of the All-Union organization ‘Osoaviakhim’ (The Society for the Assistance of Defense, Aircraft and Chemical Construction). It was the successor of Soviet airplane and chemical voluntary societies and located branches all over the country. Through this organization, mass military training was provided for Soviet people starting from the pre-school classes. On October 29, 1932, the Presidium of the Central Council of Osoaviakhim of the USSR approved the creation of the honorary title “Voroshilov Shooter”, and on December 29, 1932, the badge “Voroshilov Shooter”.
Women were equally engaged in military training. Millions of Soviet women got the title and badge of Voroshilov Shooter meaning those women were able to shoot accurately. This issue was printed with two female shooters portrayed in the cover design. The front cover shows a Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, shock-worker of the Metro construction, Tatiana Fedorova. In the photo, she is training to shoot from a prone position in a Metrostroi shooting range. This picture is the evidence of military classes held for builders of the Moscow Metro in their spare time. The rear side of the back cover features a Chuvash girl Maria Semenova who studied at evening courses of the Shoe Factory called after Voroshilov in Ufa. She was active in military training, had four Osoaviakhim badges and became a leader of a local Osoaviakhim group.
The issue came out shortly before Women’s Day. The articles cover stories about female shooters in collective farms and factories, where women participated in competitions. School clubs also held shooting competitions and a photograph of a girl team illustrates the text. The issue contains a program of the All-Union shooters’ spartakiade of the USSR that was supposed to be held in the summer of 1938. The first stage was sectionals organized in Soviet republics and autonomous oblasts. It included 300 meter military rifle shooting (standing, kneeling and prone shooting), dueling and 50 meter rifle shooting from a prone position. The second stage was a championship of masters in shooting. There 600 meter shooting was added, as well as Olympic 50 meter pistol shooting. Both stages were held for adult and children’s teams – with reduction of distances for young participants.
At the end, news of specialized clubs at factories and schools announce: “111 teams of enterprises and regional clubs attended all-Moscow shooting competition”, “In Frunze [now Bishkek], courses for shooting instructors have been organized”, “The Semipalatinsk University of Finance and Economics opened a shooting school. There are 30 students, including 8 girls”, and so on.
The rear side of the front cover features a montage on Papanin’s North expedition completed by that time. Portraits of four participants – leader Ivan Papanin, hydrobiologist Pyotr Shirshov, geophysicist Evgenii Fyodorov, radioman Ernst Krenkel – are placed above an illustration of the world’s first manned drifting station in the Arctic Ocean. On February 19, 1938 a Soviet ice breaker took four polar explorers off the station close to the eastern coast of Greenland. They arrived in Leningrad on March 15.

No paper copies are tracked in Worldcat.

Price: $450.00