Ziba Ganiyeva was an Azerbaijani philologist, a World War II female sniper and spy with 21 confirmed kills. She was born in Azerbaijan in 1923, and moved to Moscow in 1940 to enroll in the Russian Academy of Theater Arts. In 1941 Ziba volunteered for the army. During the war, Ziba was a radio operator and a spy who crossed the front line 16 times and she participated in The Battle of Moscow. Ziba's military service was discontinued after she was heavily wounded during the reconnaissance operation in Moscow suburbs in 1942. She was carried off the battlefield and spent 11 months in the hospital recovering from her injuries. After the war she continued her post secondary education and, in 1965, received a Candidate of Sciences degree in philology and remained involved in academia for the majority of her life. She also played a small role in the movie Takhir i Zukhra in 1946.