Angelina, Praskovia Nikitichna

Angelina, Praskov’ia Nikitichna 

Born Dec. 30, 1912 (Jan. 12, 1913), in the settlement of Starobeshevo, Donetsk Oblast; died Jan. 21, 1959, in Moscow. Organizer and team leader of the first women’s tractor brigade in the USSR; public figure. Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1947 and 1958). Member of the CPSU from 1937.

Angelina graduated from courses in tractor operation in 1929 and started to work as a tractor operator at the Starobeshevo Machine and Tractor Station (MTS) in Donetsk Oblast. She organized a women’s tractor brigade at this MTS in 1933 and led it for 25 years. In 1938 she made the appeal to Soviet women: “One hundred thousand friends—to the tractors!” Angelina’s appeal brought a response from 200,000 women.

In 1940 she graduated from the Moscow Timiriazev Agricultural Academy. During the war years, she worked as the leader of a women’s tractor brigade in the Kazakh SSR. She was deputy of the first five convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. She was a delegate to the 18th-21st congresses of the CPSU. Angelina was awarded three Orders of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. She received the State Prize of the USSR in 1946. She was the author of the book People of the Kolkhoz Fields (1948).