Marina Yurlova

Marina Yurlova
Born	Marina Maximilionovna Yurlova 25 February 1900 Raevskaya, Russian Empire
Died	1 April 1984 (aged 84) New York, New York
Nationality	Russian American
Occupation	soldier, writer, dancer
Notable work	Cossack Girl, Russia Farewell

Marina Yurlova (Russian: Мари́на Максимилиа́новна Ю́рлова; 25 February 1900 - 1 April 1984) was a Russian child soldier and author. She was born in Raevskaya, a small village near Krasnodar.^[1] The daughter of a colonel of the Kuban Cossacks, she was just 14 years old when her father went to war in August 1914. Caught up in the adventure and tradition of Cossack women following their men to the front, she became a child soldier in the Russian army at age 14.^[1] Specifically, she joined the Reconnaissance Sotnia (100 horse squadron) of the 3rd Ekaterinodar Regiment.^[2]

Marina Yurlova during World War I

Yurlova originally worked as a groom in Armenia; She was mentored and protected by a Sargeant in the army of the Causcasus named Kosel, who procured a uniform for Marina and made her a sort of mascot for his unit. ^[1] In 1915, she was on a dangerous mission in which Kosel was killed, and she was shot in the leg while blasting bridges across the Araxes River near Yerevan.^[1][3] She was treated at the Red Cross hospital in Baku and then returned to the Eastern Front, where she trained as an auto mechanic and became a military driver.^[1] In 1917, she was wounded, and spent nearly the entire year 1918 in a hospital in Moscow, suffering from concussion and shell shock - the result of an explosion. ^[1] After her release, she again joined the Russian forces under the command of Captain Kappel, and was shot through the shoulder by Bolsheviks while on patrol. According to her autobiography, she was wrongly sent to an asylum in Omsk for a period of about three weeks as she recovered from this wound and from shell shock. Due to the intervention of a friendly officer, she was released and given passage and 500 rubles to travel to the American hospital in Vladivostok. The train she was a passenger on was stopped in the middle of the Siberian wasteland, sandwiched between two Bolshevik armies. Led by a contingent of Russian officers, along with party of about 100 Royalists (both men and women) she walked through Siberia for a month, eventually reaching the American hospital in Vladivostok. The American hospital, Marina said, "was quite perfectly run, quite perfectly kind", and after recuperating there for three weeks, she was given passport and passage to Sulphur Springs, Japan.

In 1922, she immigrated to the United States, where she performed as a dancer.[4] She married filmmaker William C. Hyer and became a U.S. citizen in 1926.[1] 

Yurlova published two autobiographies, Cossack Girl (1934) and Russia Farewell (1936).^[1] In 1984, she died at the age of 84 years.

She won the Cross of Saint George for Bravery three times.^[2][5]

In popular culture

Yurlova is one of those whose wartime experiences are described in Women Heroes of World War I: 16 Remarkable Resisters, Soldiers, Spies, and Medics by Kathryn J. Atwood in the Chicago Review Press.

She is one of the 14 main characters of the series 14 - Diaries of the Great War. She is played by actress Natalia Witmer.

References

1. John Simkin. "Marina Yurlova". Spartacus Educational.
2. David Bullock (20 October 2012). The Russian Civil War 1918-22. Osprey Publishing. pp. 110–. ISBN 978-1-78200-536-0.
3. Elisabeth Shipton (15 July 2014). Female Tommies: The Frontline Women of the First World War. History Press Limited. pp. 200–. ISBN 978-0-7509-5748-9.
4. Martin, John (December 6, 1935). "Yurlova is seen in Spanish dances". The New York Times.
5. David M. Rosen (2012). Child Soldiers: A Reference Handbook. ABC-CLIO. pp. 153–. ISBN 978-1-59884-526-6.