On April 28, 1907, Zoya Voskresenskaya was born - a colonel in the foreign intelligence of the USSR and a children's writer, whose works were published in the Soviet Union with a total circulation of more than 21 million copies.

According to historians, most of the results of her service in intelligence are still classified.

It is known that she warned the leadership of the USSR about the preparation of Nazi aggression, was one of those who stood at the origins of the partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War, and participated in the withdrawal of Finland from the war with the Soviet Union in 1944.

Youth in intelligence

Zoya Voskresenskaya was born in the Tula province in the family of a railway employee.

When the girl was 13, her father died of tuberculosis.

To help the family, Zoya decided to get a job.

An acquaintance of her father helped her become a librarian in the 42nd battalion of the troops of the Cheka of the Smolensk province.

Thus began her "chekist" career.

In 1923, Zoya became a political instructor in a colony for juvenile delinquents, and six years later she was accepted into the service of the Foreign Department (foreign intelligence) of the OGPU.

After preparation, Voskresenskaya was sent to Harbin.

Her cover was the position of head of the secret encryption department of the Soviet oil syndicate.

Today, Voskresenskaya's biographers have released the details of one of the first tasks she successfully completed.

Zoya convinced one of the Soviet workers who fled to Shanghai with a large amount of state funds to return to the USSR with a confession.

Upon returning from Harbin, Voskresenskaya's professional life took a sharp turn.

From the East it was reoriented to Europe.

She carried out the tasks of the Soviet foreign intelligence in Austria, Germany and the Scandinavian countries.

According to her biographers, once in Oslo, Voskresenskaya was under suspicion of the local counterintelligence, but did not lose her head - she depicted a loud scandal in an expensive hotel, and when the guests came running to the noise, in front of whom the special services did not dare to detain the elegant beauty, she disappeared, as if dissolving in air.

“In 1935, Zoya Voskresenskaya was sent to Finland as a deputy resident of Soviet intelligence under the cover of the position of head of the representative office of the Soviet Intourist,” Andrey Gorbunov, a researcher at the Victory Museum, said in a comment to RT.

According to him, Voskresenskaya for a long time could not find a common language with the resident, the Soviet consul Boris Rybkin.

Due to constant disputes with her boss, Zoya even asked the center for her recall from Finland.

But Rybkin arrived in Scandinavia recently, so an order came from Moscow to bring him up to date, and then return to discussing the issue of personal relationships.

But six months later, Rybkin and Voskresenskaya filed a completely different kind of petition with the center - for permission to marry.

Moscow did not object.

  • Zoya Voskresenskaya

  • © Wikimedia Commons

In Finland, Voskresenskaya got acquainted with the future initial 4th department of the NKVD, Pavel Sudoplatov.

For that, going to Finland was the first foreign job in his career.

Sudoplatov, under the guise of a young radical, was introduced into the European network of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

The leaders of the OUN looked closely at the "neophyte" for a long time, and he was left almost without a livelihood in Helsinki.

Rybkin and Voskresenskaya, who maintained contact with Sudoplatov, brought sandwiches and chocolate to meetings with the future chief Soviet saboteur.

The result of the operation was the liquidation of the OUN leader Yevgeny Konovalets by Sudoplatov in May 1938 in Rotterdam.

“At the end of the 1930s, Rybkin and Voskresenskaya conducted a sounding of the issue of the readiness of the Finnish leadership to conclude an alliance with the USSR and peacefully exchange territories, but the issue was removed from the agenda due to the lack of interest in such initiatives of Finnish politicians,” said GAUGN Associate Professor in an interview with RT Dmitry Surzhik.

From scouts to children's writers

Shortly before the start of the war with Finland, Voskresenskaya returned to Moscow and was transferred to analytical work.

Including she was entrusted with the processing of data from the then-legendary intelligence network "Red Chapel".

One of the key tasks of Voskresenskaya was to calculate the potential date for the attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR - she was part of the non-staff information and analytical group created for this.

In May 1941, Voskresenskaya was instructed, under the guise of a representative of the society for cultural relations with foreign countries, to attend a reception at the German embassy.

The intelligence officer quickly determined that the reception was organized in haste in order to create the appearance of normal relations between the USSR and Germany.

When the dancing began, Voskresenskaya was invited to the waltz by the German ambassador Werner von der Schulenburg.

When the diplomat circled the lady, she drew attention to the fact that pictures had been taken from the walls of the embassy.

In addition, during the reception, she noticed a mountain of suitcases in the open doors of one of the rooms.

This allowed her to draw a conclusion, which she reported to the leadership on the same evening: the German embassy was preparing to leave.

Voskresenskaya's conclusions that the USSR was on the verge of war with Germany were included in a memorandum handed over by foreign intelligence to Joseph Stalin on June 17, 1941.

But Stalin did not agree with the conclusions of the intelligence officers.

When the Great Patriotic War began, Zoya Voskresenskaya became a member of the Special Group of the NKVD, which was engaged in the deployment of reconnaissance and sabotage groups behind enemy lines and, according to experts, stood at the origins of the Soviet partisan movement.

She selected and trained future front-line scouts.

In the event of the occupation of the Moscow region, Voskresenskaya planned to remain in the occupied territory and, under the guise of a railway worker, collect information about the passage of enemy echelons.

But the command ordered otherwise.

In autumn 1941, Boris Rybkin became a Soviet resident in Sweden.

Voskresenskaya followed her husband.

The cover for her intelligence activities was the position of the head of the press bureau of the Soviet embassy.

During the day, she performed her official duties, helping the Soviet ambassador Alexandra Kollontai, and in the evenings she was engaged in intelligence work.

  • Soviet intelligence officers observe the combat situation

  • RIA News

  • © George Zelma

According to Dmitry Surzhik, helping Kollontai, Voskresenskaya did a lot to maintain the neutral status of Sweden during the war years.

But her finest hour, according to experts, was 1944.

“Voskresenskaya’s activities helped Finland, neighboring Sweden, which our intelligence officer knew well, break off relations with Germany, withdraw from the war and sign a peace treaty with the USSR,” said Valentina Sokolova, director of the Uzlovskaya city centralized library system, in a conversation with RT.

In 1944, Voskresenskaya returned to Moscow and began working in the central apparatus of the Soviet foreign intelligence.

Soon she became the head of the German department and traveled to Berlin on operational issues after the city was taken by the Red Army.

  • Alexandra Kollontai

  • RIA News

After the end of the war, misfortunes rained down on Voskresenskaya.

In 1947, during a special trip to Prague, Boris Rybkin died in a car accident under circumstances that were not fully clarified.

And in 1953, after the arrest of Lavrenty Beria, Pavel Sudoplatov fell out of favor with the new leadership of the USSR and was sent to jail.

Colonel Voskresenskaya publicly refused to condemn Sudoplatov, saying that she knew him only from the good side.

From foreign intelligence, she was almost immediately fired due to staff reductions.

She was given the opportunity to get two years of service as head of a special unit in one of the Gulag camps.

According to historians, at this time Voskresenskaya provided assistance to illegally convicted persons.

After retiring, Voskresenskaya decided to become a writer.

Her first works were devoted to intelligence.

But publishing houses reacted skeptically to them and said that the author "does not know the specifics" of the activities of the special services.

Resurrection could not tell who she really was and decided to turn to children's literature.

This experience turned out to be successful.

  • Zoya Voskresenskaya (center) at the premiere of the film "Mother's Heart", based on her book

  • RIA News

  • © Rudolf Alfimov

“Whole generations of citizens of the USSR grew up on Voskresenskaya’s books about children, about participants in the war, about the Ulyanov family.

Her works teach mutual assistance, friendship and love for the Motherland.

Zoya Voskresenskaya has become, without exaggeration, an excellent writer, ”said Irina Avdyushkina, head of the branch of the Tula Military History Museum, in a conversation with RT.

The total circulation of published books by Zoya Voskresenskaya is more than 21 million.

  • Cover of Voskresenskaya's book "Zoyka and her Uncle Sanka"

  • © Detgiz

In the early 1990s, in the wake of publicity in the USSR, KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov told the media in an interview that Voskresenskaya was in fact a Soviet intelligence officer.

Upon learning of her "declassification", she sat down at an autobiographical book, but did not have time to finish it.

Zoya Voskresenskaya died on January 8, 1992.

“It is believed that Zoya Voskresenskaya is one of the best analysts of the foreign intelligence of the USSR.

For years, she, performing super-important tasks, literally walked on the edge of a knife, but did not allow failure and brought great benefits to her country.

At the same time, she always showed iron integrity when communicating with management.

Her life is worthy of film adaptation, ”concluded Andrey Gorbunov.