La mort rouge - Les mémoires de guerre de Lioudmila Pavlichenko

On June 22, 1941, when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, Lyudmila Pavlichenko was a young history student. Refusing to remain a mere spectator to the invasion of her country, she volunteered for the Red Army and soon joined its sniper units.

In these memoirs—published here in French for the first time—she recounts her training as a sniper, her early missions, counter-sniper duels, perilous reconnaissance operations, and the fierce fighting she endured in Odessa and later in Sevastopol. Her account immerses the reader in a world where patience, discretion, and self-control are the keys to survival.

Through her recollections, Lyudmila Pavlichenko also describes the daily reality faced by Soviet soldiers during the German invasion, while offering a clear-eyed perspective on the workings of Stalinist propaganda and the way the Soviet authorities leveraged her own public persona.

Withdrawn from the front in 1942 after becoming one of the Soviet Union’s most celebrated figures, she was sent to the United States as part of an extensive diplomatic tour, becoming the first Soviet citizen to be officially received on American soil.

Part war testimony, part human narrative, and a first-rate historical document, *Red Death* (*La Mort Rouge*) is an essential read for understanding the experience of Soviet snipers on the Eastern Front and the extraordinary life of Lyudmila Pavlichenko.