INTRODUCTION

Dear reader! You are holding a book that is very important for us, editors and authors - compilers,
and hopefully for you. Rosa Egorovna Shanina (1924 - 1945) - our countrywoman, the pride of the
Ustyansky district, and whole of the Arkhangelsk region. Her name was known during the war and
is now known everywhere: across our vast country and beyond.
Rosa Shanina is known as an excellent, legendary sniper during the Great Patriotic War, as a
fearless girl - a warrior, distinguished for her high moral qualities and beauty. She also kept a diary
- a document unique in its content, revealing to us the unknown side of the war. And it is best to
talk about her personality - a girl, a person of the most peaceful profession, who has come to
defend her homeland, compelled to defend the honor and dignity of her country in a ruthless
battle with the enemy.
Rosa Shanina is the best portrait of a person of her time: selfless, guided by a sense of duty,
subordinated to the overall great goal of liberating the country all her personal experiences and
dreams. But at the same time, the person who remained - someone who did not give in to feelings
of revenge, capable of empathy, having his weaknesses, alive and vulnerable. And this is best said
by the diary, to whom she trusted everything and through which she addressed all people - to her
unknown reader.
The publication of a diary - a very personal document - is clearly an uneasy task. We are faced with
a simple question: did the author want him to know about it? Do not we, even after many years,
invade her personal life, the lives of other people who are mentioned in the diary, and their
descendants? At once it is necessary to tell: many pages of a diary are ...