Raisa Azarh

{{Short description|Russian physician (1897–1971)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2022}}

{{Orphan|date=January 2021}}

{{infobox person

| honorific_prefix =

| name = Raḯsa Mojséïvna Azárh

| image = Раиса-Моисеевна-Азарх-комиссар-3-й-красной-армии-1.jpeg

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1897|05|02|df=y}}

| birth_place = Shcherbinovka, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russia

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1971|11|09|1897|05|02|df=y}}

| death_place = Moscow

| burial_place = Novodevichy Cemetery

| alma_mater = Institute of Red Professors

| occupation = Physician, author

| party = Communist Party of the Soviet Union

| awards = {{ubl|Order of the Red Banner|Order of the Red Star| Order of Lenin{{cite news |last=Kross|first=Anna M.|title=Soviet Women Have Exploded the Legend of Feminine Inferiority|newspaper=Soviet Russia has Set Them Free|location=New York City|pages=31|language=English|publisher=Jewish Council for Russian War Relief|date=1943|url=http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/radical/SovietRussiaHasSetThemFree.pdf|access-date=12 May 2019}}}}

| organization = USSR Union of Writers

}}

Raḯsa Mojséïvna Azárh or Raisa Moyseyevna Azarkh (2 May 1897 – 9 November 1971) was a distinguished physician of the Soviet Union, and also an author, essayist and biographer.

She took part in the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. She alternated as the medical supervisor and a political commissar on the Far Eastern, Ukrainian and Volga Fronts in the period 1918–20. She was responsible for organizing field and hospital facilities in Vyatka, Kyiv, Omsk and Krasnoyarsk. As the Vyatka Special Division commissar, she headed the fight against the Whites in the Kama Valley in 1918.{{cite book |author-last= Bullock|author-first= David|title=Essential Histories: The Russian Civil War|year=2008|publisher=Osprey Publishing|location=Oxford}}

Azarkh was then sent to Ukraine in December 1918. While she performed her medical duties from a rail wagon, she also saw action against the armies of the Ukrainian People's Republic, Nykyfor Hryhoriv and Anton Denikin. She moved again in July 1919 to Siberia and the Far East, where she stayed until the autumn of 1920.

Azarkh served as military commissar of the 1st Special Vyatka Division, head of the Military Medical Administration of Ukraine, head of Medical Service in the 5th Army, and head of the Medical Administration of the Far Eastern Republic. In recognition of her service, she was awarded the Order of the Red Banner and later on the Order of Lenin.

Azarkh later volunteered as part of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, organizing the Spanish Republican Army's medical corps alongside Dr. Norman Bethune. She received the Order of the Red Star in 1937.{{cite news |last=Anon|title=Jewish Woman Veteran of Three Wars Lauded for Work with Red Army| newspaper=JTA News, Vol X, No 9|location=New York City|pages=3|language=English|publisher=Jewish Telegraphic Agency|date=12 January 1943|url=http://pdfs.jta.org/1943/1943-01-12_009.pdf|access-date=12 May 2019}} She wrote about her experiences in the Russian and Spanish civil wars in a memoir called Doroga Chesti ("The Path of Honour").

Azarkh also saw action in Finland in 1940 and later on the southwestern front during the Second World War.

Azarkh was born in Yekaterinoslav, in the town then known as Shcherbinovka (now Toretsk in Ukraine),{{cite web|last1=Charny|first1=Josif|last2=Charny|first2=Vitaly|title=Jewish Encyclopedia of Russia: Surnames starting with the letter A|website= JewishGen.org|publisher=Belarus Special Interest Group|url=https://www.jewishgen.org/Belarus/misc/JewishEncycRussia/a/index.html|access-date=12 May 2019}} and studied at the Institute of Red Professors. She died in Moscow.