Horse awards. Marshal Konev: biography. Interwar period

Born on December 28, 1897 in the village of Lodeyno, Shchetkinsky volost, Nikolsky district, Vologda province (now Podosinovsky district, Kirov region), in a peasant family. Father - Stepan Ivanovich, mother - Evdokia Stepanovna. The main occupations of the father are carting and arable farming. From his first wife, Anna Efimovna Voloshina, Ivan Stepanovich had two children: daughter Maya (born in 1923) and son Helium (born in 1928). No one is left alive. From the second marriage with Antonina Vasilievna Vasilyeva - daughter Natalia (born in 1947), professor at the Department of Linguistics and Literature of the Military University.
In 1916, Ivan Konev was drafted into the tsarist army. As a junior non-commissioned officer of the 2nd separate artillery division, he participates in the First World War. In December 1917, Konev was demobilized, returned to his native land, and was appointed military commissar of the Nikolsky district.
In 1919 he arrived on the Eastern Front, was an artilleryman in the 3rd Army, later - the commissar of the armored train No. 102, which made a combat journey from Bugulma through Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan to Omsk and Chita.
In 1921-1922, I. Konev was the commissar of the headquarters of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. After civil war Ivan Stepanovich - Commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps, and then - the 17th Rifle Division in Siberia and Transbaikalia. When in 1924 the division was redeployed to the Moscow Military District, its commander K. E. Voroshilov said: “You, Comrade Konev, according to our observations, are a commissar with a commanding vein. This is a happy combination. Go to team courses, learn.”
In 1926, Konev successfully completed advanced training courses for senior officers at the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze. And in 1934 he completed his studies at a special faculty of the same academy. He consistently commands a regiment, division, corps, army, troops of the Trans-Baikal, then the North Caucasian military districts. In July 1938, he was awarded the rank of commander, and in March 1939, commander of the 2nd rank.
On the night of June 26, 1941, I. S. Konev received an order to urgently redeploy the formations of the 19th Army from Ukraine to the Vitebsk region. A defensive line was created there with the main strip along the line of Sushchevo, Vitebsk, the Dnieper River. Here, first on the distant (Yelnya - Smolensk), and then on the near approaches to Moscow, the 19th Army participated in bloody battles, covering the capital from the enemy. For successful fighting Konev was promoted to the rank of Colonel General.
September 12, 1941 was followed by a high appointment - the commander of the Western Front. Only one month Konev commanded this front. But he had probably never experienced such a heavy strain of forces. It was from that time until the end of the war that Konev fought as commander of the troops of the fronts. Ivan Stepanovich headed Kalininsky (from October 1941), again Western (August 1942 - February 1943), North-Western (from March 1943), Stepnoy (from July 1943), 2nd Ukrainian (since October 1943) and the 1st Ukrainian (May 1944 - May 1945) fronts.

The greatest successes in battles with the Nazi hordes were achieved by the troops of the Steppe, and later the 1st and 2nd Ukrainian fronts. Participating in the famous Battle of Kursk in 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front, as a result of a swift counteroffensive, liberated Belgorod and Kharkov from the enemy with a powerful blow and crossed the Dnieper in its middle reaches.
The Korsun-Shevchenkovsky operation of the beginning of 1944 was classic in encircling and destroying a huge group of enemy troops. It is rightly called "Stalingrad on the Dnieper". In this operation, I. S. Konev outplayed Field Marshal E. Manstein in many ways. At first, having regrouped his troops in conditions of complete impassibility, Konev dealt an unexpected powerful blow to the enemy forces. As a result, about 80 thousand people, more than 230 tanks and assault guns were surrounded in the Zvenigorodka area. And when E. Manstein made an attempt to break through, Konev prevented it by transferring his 5th Guards Tank Army to the threat area. For excellent leadership of the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian Front, General of the Army I.S. Konev in February 1944 was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
In the spring of 1944, a new major operation - Uman-Botoshanskaya. And again success: the enemy was defeated, the troops of the front were the first to reach the State border of the USSR - with Romania and Czechoslovakia.
Complex military-political tasks were solved by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under the command of Marshal Konev in the Lvov-Sandomierz offensive operation in the summer of 1944. One front carried out two simultaneous strategic strikes against enemy forces.
“In the Lvov-Sandomierz operation,” Hero of the Soviet Union, General of the Army P. Lashchenko, later wrote, “by decision of Ivan Stepanovich, two tank armies were sequentially brought into battle along a narrow six-kilometer corridor pierced by rifle formations in conditions when the Nazis carried out a counterattack with the goal of close the gap in your defenses. As a participant in that battle, the degree of risk of the marshal is especially clear to me. Another thing is also clear: this risk was justified, backed up by comprehensive support for the entry of tank armies, the subsequent actions of which predetermined the defeat of the fascist group.
During this very complex operation eight enemy divisions were surrounded and defeated in the area of the city of Brody, released western regions The USSR, the southeastern regions of Poland, occupy the vast Sandomierz bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula.
The talent of the commander was again worthy of appreciation. Ivan Stepanovich Konev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on July 29, 1944. Thousands of soldiers of his front were marked with high awards.
Having cleared their native land of the enemy and crushed his main forces in numerous battles, the troops led by Konev entered into a qualitatively new stage war. The purpose of this stage is to provide armed assistance to the peoples of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe in their struggle against the fascist invaders for the democratic development of these countries and the establishment of friendly relations with them. Providing assistance to the Slovaks who rebelled against Hitlerism, Konev successfully carried out the East Carpathian operation in September 1944, together with the 1st Czechoslovak Corps and individual units of the 4th Ukrainian Front.
On January 12, 1945, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, together with the 1st Belorussian Front, launched the largest offensive operation - the Vistula-Oder. In mid-January, tankers captured the city of Czestochowa. Two days later, as a result of a complex detour, the 3rd Guards Tank Army and the 59th Combined Arms Army liberated Krakow. At the same time, the entire Upper Silesian industrial region was cleared of the enemy. He began to produce products necessary for Poland. On January 27, troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, where at that time there were several thousand prisoners.
On the morning of April 17, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts, with the assistance of the 2nd Belorussian Front and the Baltic Fleet, launched the largest offensive operation in the entire war in the Berlin direction.
On April 18, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front broke through the enemy defenses erected along the Oder and Neisse rivers, reached the Spree River and created conditions for the successful development of the offensive. On April 25, the Berlin grouping of German troops was cut into two parts and surrounded in the Berlin area and to the southeast of it. At the same time, the soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front on the Elbe River near the city of Torgau met with the Americans.
A day earlier, tankers of the 1st Ukrainian and 1st Belorussian fronts met southeast of Berlin. The joint destruction of the troops of the Berlin garrison began. On April 30, the red Banner of Victory was raised over the Reichstag, and on May 2, Berlin capitulated.
In the midst of the Berlin operation in the capital of Czechoslovakia - Prague, a popular uprising began against the fascist invaders.

Stalin called Konev:
We need to help our brothers. I wanted you to take the capital of Czechoslovakia. Understood?
“Understood, Comrade Stalin. Malinovsky (3rd Ukrainian Front) is further than our troops ...
- What does Malinovsky have to do with it? Stalin objected.
“I mean that we are closer than our friends,” Konev emphasized the last word, referring to the Americans advancing from the west, who also sought to quickly occupy the capital of Czechoslovakia.
“That’s right now,” Stalin confirmed. – But the city should not be bombed: it is necessary to save the ancient capital from destruction...
According to the plan approved by the Headquarters, in addition to the 1st Ukrainian Front, the troops of the 2nd Ukrainian (R. Ya. Malinovsky) and 4th Ukrainian (A. I. Eremenko) fronts, moving around Prague from the southeast, took part in the Prague operation in Prague and the east. Field Marshal Schörner's main blow to the Army Group Center was delivered by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, advancing from the Berlin and Dresden directions through the impenetrable Ore Mountains. The forced march was unprecedentedly difficult and swift: it took only five days and nights. This was the last offensive operation carried out under the leadership of Marshal I. S. Konev. On the morning of May 9, joyful citizens of Prague greeted the Soviet soldiers with flowers.
The chronicles of the front have preserved for history an exciting picture: along the streets of jubilant Prague, saved from destruction by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, its commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev, is driving in an open car.
By orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the capital of our Motherland, Moscow, saluted the troops commanded by I. S. Konev more than 50 times.
A lot has been written and said about the outstanding military leadership abilities of I. S. Konev. Here is the opinion of General of the Army I.E. Petrov, Chief of Staff of the 1st Ukrainian Front at the end of the war: “Our commander has an amazing memory,” wrote Ivan Efimovich. “And a special gift for seeing the battlefield. There are chess players who can play without looking at the board: the whole board, the arrangement of the pieces, is in their mind. So he can imagine the arrangement of parts without looking at the map. And even to say exactly what is against them and on what terrain ... He skillfully and accurately calculates everything. Everything is as it is. And the possibilities of transport, and supply, even take into account the nature of their commanders and enemy commanders. Only when everything is calculated, arranged, delivered, then the order to attack is given ... "
Assessing his participation in the war against the fascist states, Ivan Stepanovich will later say with legitimate pride: “I took part in many major events of the war, I saw and knew a lot ...” Yes, it is. And this long, difficult and glorious military path gave him the full moral right to draw the main conclusion: "Centuries will pass, but the heroic deed of the Soviet people and its Armed Forces, who defeated Nazi Germany in the Patriotic War, will never be erased from the memory of future generations."
In peacetime, I. S. Konev held responsible military and state posts for many years: he was the commander-in-chief of the Central Group of Soviet Forces and at the same time the High Commissioner for Austria (1945-1946), commander-in-chief ground forces- Deputy and First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR (1946-1950; 1955-1956), Chief Inspector of the Soviet Army - Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR (1950-1951), Commander of the Carpathian Military District (1951-1955), 1st Deputy Minister of Defense USSR and at the same time Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the States Parties to the Warsaw Pact (1955–1960). Since 1960, he was part of the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense.
In 1961-1962, I. S. Konev was the commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.
From 1937, from the first elections, and until 1973, he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Until the very last days of his life, which ended on May 21, 1973, Ivan Stepanovich carried out a great and very important work on the heroic-patriotic education of Soviet people, especially young people. He headed the Central Headquarters of the All-Union Campaign to the places of revolutionary, military and labor glory of the Soviet people. It was under him that this popular youth movement reached its peak. Telling the truth about the mass feats shown during the years of the last war, Ivan Stepanovich instilled in young men and girls an ardent love for the Motherland, for his people.
“We, front-line soldiers, did not live in vain, we managed to defeat fascism and instill faith in the triumph of our common cause,” he said. “So let every young person remember and honor the conquests of their fathers and grandfathers, of the entire Soviet people.”
For outstanding services to the Fatherland, Ivan Stepanovich Konev was repeatedly awarded. He became a Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice he was awarded the high rank of Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), he was awarded the highest military Order of Victory, seven Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov I degree, two orders of Kutuzov I degree, the Order of the Red Star, honorary weapons, and many other state awards. Among his awards are 27 foreign orders, the highest awards of the United States - the "Order of Honor", France - the Order of the Legion of Honor. On the eve of the 100th anniversary of Ivan Stepanovich at the British Embassy in Moscow, the widow of Marshal Antonina Vasilievna and daughter Natalia Ivanovna, the Minister of Defense of Great Britain presented the highest English award that I. S. Konev was awarded after the Second World War - “The Order of the Cleansing Font”. He is a Hero of Czechoslovakia and a Hero of the MPR.
Imperishable is the memory of an outstanding commander. The urn with his ashes was buried on Red Square in the Kremlin wall. The name of I. S. Konev was given to a street in Moscow. In the homeland of Ivan Stepanovich, in the village of Lodeyno, Podosinovsky district, Kirov region, his bronze bust was installed.

Ivan Stepanovich Konev. Born on December 16 (28), 1897 in the village. Lodeino, Vologda province (now the Kirov region) - died on May 21, 1973 in Moscow. Soviet military leader. Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944). Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945).

Ivan Konev was born on December 16 (28 according to the new style) December 1897 in the village of Lodeyno, Shchetkinsky volost, Nikolsky district, Vologda province (now Podosinovsky district, Kirov region) into a peasant family.

By nationality - Russian.

Father - Stepan Ivanovich Konev, was a wealthy peasant.

Mother - Evdokia Stepanovna (nee Mergasova).

Grandfather - Ivan Stepanovich Konev. He was engaged in carting, had a small shop with goods necessary for the inhabitants of the village and the traveler, he had big house. In the village, grandfather was respected, a school was built on his initiative. In honor of his grandfather, he received his name and became a complete namesake.

Mother Evdokia Stepanovna died after giving birth to her daughter Maria. The boy was brought up by his aunt Claudia Ivanovna Mergasova. Father remarried Praskovya Ivanovna.

In 1912 he graduated from the Nikolo-Pushemskoe zemstvo school in the neighboring village of Shchetkino.

From the age of 15, he worked seasonally at timber exchanges in Podosinovets and Arkhangelsk.

During World War I, he was drafted in the spring of 1916. He graduated from a training artillery team, served in a reserve heavy artillery brigade in Moscow. He himself recalled: “Once officers visited the unit where I served to select people for the school of ensigns. I was selected for artillery, assigned to the 2nd reserve heavy artillery brigade in Moscow on Khodynka. we were not given time to serve. I had to prepare all the data for shooting, make calculations. I had to take up my studies, master geometry and trigonometry well."

Then the junior non-commissioned officer Konev in 1917 was sent to the South-Western Front. He fought in the 2nd separate heavy artillery battalion. Demobilized in January 1918.

In the same 1918 he joined the Bolshevik Party, was elected county military commissar in the city of Nikolsk, Vologda province.

After that, he fought in the ranks of the Red Army on the Eastern Front against units of the Russian Army, the Far Eastern Army and the Japanese interventionists in Transbaikalia and on Far East. He was the commissioner of the armored train No. 102 "Grozny", which was armed with 4 guns and 12 machine guns. The team consisted of 60 sailors of the Baltic Fleet. During the attack on Omsk, he led the crossing of an armored train on the ice of the Irtysh River. Then he was the commissar of a rifle brigade in the 2nd Verkhneudinsk rifle division, the commissar of this division, the commissar of the headquarters of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic.

Among other delegates to the 10th Congress of the RCP(b), he took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising in 1921.

After the end of the Civil War - the military commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps.

From August 1924 - Commissar and Head of the Political Department of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division. He graduated from the advanced training courses for senior command personnel at the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M.V. Frunze in 1926, then he was commander and commissar of the 50th rifle regiment of the same division.

From 1932 to 1934 he studied at the Special Group of the MV Frunze Military Academy.

From December 1934 he commanded the 37th Infantry Division, from March 1937 - the 2nd Infantry Division.

In 1935 he received the rank of division commander.

In August 1938 he was appointed commander of the Mongolian army reinforcement group, which was introduced into the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic, which, having united with the rest of the Soviet troops in Mongolia, became known as the 57th Special Corps in September, the first commander of which was Konev.

From September 1938 - commander of the 2nd separate Red Banner Army with headquarters in Khabarovsk.

From June 1940 he commanded the troops of the Trans-Baikal Military District, from January 1941 - the North Caucasian Military District.

During the Great Patriotic War, Lieutenant General I.S. Konev assumed the post of commander of the 19th Army, formed from the troops of the North Caucasian Military District.

On July 12, 1941, Army Commander Konev reported to the Chief of Staff of the Front, Lieutenant General G.K. Malandin: "During all this time I have not had a single full-blooded and combat formation. I keep the front at the expense of separate organized units. For four days I have not had the support of our aviation. The troops are fighting hard against the ground forces."

The army was initially sent to the Southwestern Front, but already in early July, due to the catastrophic development of the situation in the western direction, it was transferred to the Western Front. However, she did not have time to arrive in the Vitebsk region (see the Vitebsk battle), during the further Smolensk battle, the formations of the 19th army were surrounded, but I. S. Konev himself escaped capture and managed to withdraw the army headquarters from the encirclement with the communications regiment.

In August 1941, his 19th Army (with new divisions) took part in the Dukhovshchina operation.

Konev's actions as commander of the army were highly appreciated.

September 11, 1941 I.S. Konev was appointed commander of the Western Front, on September 12 he was awarded the rank of colonel general. He commanded the troops of the Western Front for just over a month (September - October 1941), during which time the front under his command suffered one of the worst defeats in the entire war in the Vyazemsky disaster. The losses of the troops of the front amounted, according to various estimates, from 400,000 to 700,000 people killed and captured.

To investigate the causes of the catastrophe of the front and punish Konev, a commission of the State Defense Committee headed by and. In historiography, it is generally accepted that Konev was saved from trial and possible execution by offering to leave him as deputy front commander, and a few days later recommending Konev to the post of commander of the Kalinin Front.

Konev commanded the Kalinin Front from October 1941 to August 1942, participated in the battle for Moscow, conducted the Kalinin defensive operation and the Kalinin offensive operation.

Since January 1942, the name of Konev has been closely associated with the most difficult and unsuccessful Rzhev battle for the Soviet troops, his troops participated in the Rzhev-Vyazemsky operation of 1942, suffered a new defeat in the Kholm-Zhirkovskaya defensive operation.

From August 1942 to February 1943, Konev was again appointed commander of the Western Front and, together with G.K. Zhukov, as a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command (actually under the leadership of Zhukov), conducted the First Rzhev-Sychev operation and Operation Mars, in which the troops of the Western Front with huge losses, they achieved only a slight advance of several tens of kilometers.

In February 1943, the Zhizdra operation was also unsuccessful, after which, at the end of February, Konev was removed from his post as commander of the Western Front and appointed to command the much less important Northwestern Front. However, even there he failed to distinguish himself, the troops of this front suffered heavy losses and did not achieve success in the Staraya Russian operation. By order of the Headquarters of the Supreme Command No. 0045 of February 27, 1943, he was removed from the post of commander of the troops of the Western Front as he had not coped with the tasks of leading the front.

In July 1943, Konev was appointed commander of the Steppe Front. This name was, in general, uncharacteristic for the Great Patriotic War - usually the fronts were called on a territorial basis. Konev told his relatives about how it appeared: when he was called to Headquarters, Stalin announced that he was being appointed commander of the Reserve Front. Describing the position of this front and its significance, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief mentioned several times that the troops were scattered over large expanses of the steppe. In the end, repeating the word "in the steppes" several times, Stalin said: "So let's call it the Steppe Front."

At the head of the Steppe Front, he managed to achieve success in the Battle of Kursk, in the Belgorod-Kharkov operation and in the battle for the Dnieper. In August 1943, the troops of the Konev Steppe Front liberated Belgorod and Kharkov, in September 1943 - Poltava and Kremenchug, acting during the Poltava-Kremenchug operation. At the end of September 1943, his armies crossed the Dnieper on the move.

In October 1943, the Steppe Front was renamed the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Konev remained its commander, and in October-December 1943 he carried out the Pyatikhat and Znamensky operations, and in January 1944, the Kirovograd operation. The grandiose success of Konev as a commander was the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, where for the first time after Stalingrad a large enemy group was surrounded and defeated. For skillful organization and excellent leadership of the troops in this operation, on February 20, 1944, Konev was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

In March - April 1944, he carried out one of the most successful offensives of the Soviet troops - the Uman-Botoshansky operation, in which, in a month of fighting, his troops marched over 300 kilometers to the west through mud and impassability and on March 26, 1944, they were the first in the Red Army to cross the state border entering the territory of Romania.

From May 1944 until the end of the war he commanded the 1st Ukrainian Front. In July - August 1944, under his command, the troops of the front defeated the army group "Northern Ukraine" of Colonel-General Josef Harpe in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, captured and in the subsequent two-month battles held the Sandomierz bridgehead, which became one of the springboards for an attack on Nazi Germany. Also, part of the forces of the front took part in the East Carpathian operation.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the medal " Golden Star» Ivan Stepanovich Konev was awarded on July 29, 1944 for the skillful leadership of the troops of the fronts in major operations in which strong enemy groups were defeated, personal courage and heroism.

In January 1945, the troops of the front, as a result of a swift strike and a detour in the Vistula-Oder operation, prevented the retreating enemy from destroying the industry of Silesia, which had a large economic importance. In February 1945, Konev's troops carried out the Lower Silesian operation, in March - the Upper Silesian operation, having achieved significant results in both. His armies performed brilliantly in the Berlin operation and in the Prague operation.

Marshal I. S. Konev was awarded the second Gold Star medal on June 1, 1945 for exemplary leadership of troops in the final operations of the Great Patriotic War.

After the war in 1945-1946 - Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces on the territory of Austria and High Commissioner for Austria.

Since 1946 - Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces - Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR.

Since 1950 - chief inspector of the Soviet army - Deputy Minister of War of the USSR.

In 1951-1955 - Commander of the Carpathian Military District.

In 1953, he was chairman of the Special Judicial Presence, which tried and sentenced him to death.

In 1955-1956 - 1st Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR and Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces.

In 1956-1960 - 1st Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, since 1955 - at the same time Commander-in-Chief of the United Armed Forces of the countries Warsaw Pact. In this capacity, he led the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956.

On October 25, 1957, during the expulsion of Marshal Zhukov from the Central Committee of the party, he took the side of his opponents. On November 3, 1957, the newspaper Pravda, the press organ of the Central Committee of the CPSU, published his article “The strength of the Soviet Army and Navy is in the leadership of the party, in inseparable connection with the people.” In it, in particular, it was stated that "Zhukov did not justify the confidence of the party," turned out to be a politically untenable figure, prone to adventurism in understanding the most important tasks foreign policy USSR and in the leadership of the Ministry of Defense".

In 1960-1961 and since April 1962 in the Group of General Inspectors of the USSR Ministry of Defense. In 1961-1962, during the Berlin crisis, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany.

Wrote memoirs "Forty-fifth" and "Notes of the Front Commander".

House Museum of Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev exists in his homeland, in the village of Lodeino.

Name I.S. Konev was assigned to the Alma-Ata Higher Military Combined Arms command school Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky spoke about Konev: “Perhaps, close to Zhukovsky in perseverance and willpower was the character of another outstanding commander of the Great Patriotic War - Marshal of the Soviet Union Ivan Stepanovich Konev ... Knowing him from his work at the front, I must first of all say that he loved to be in the army a lot. Usually, as soon as he decides to conduct an operation, he immediately goes to the armies, corps and divisions, and there, using his wealth of experience, he prepares the troops for combat operations. All other affairs according to the plan of the operation were carried out by him, as a rule, by his headquarters.

Marshal Konev

Personal life of Ivan Konev:

Was married twice.

The first wife is Anna Efimovna Voloshina. We met in 1920. In the book “Marshal Konev is my father”, Natalia Ivanovna Koneva (daughter from her second marriage) wrote: “No one knows the details of this love story, it is only known that Anna was heard by the passionate speeches of the young commissar, tall, fair-haired, with bright blue eyes. There are always people around him, he knows how to listen to them and is ready to help. Anna seems to be very educated, well-read. It did not go unnoticed and physical strength: on Sundays he easily carries weights, apparently, he is used to doing it in native land, where he worked as a peasant, and rafted timber, and worked in the port of Arkhangelsk. A romantic hero, and nothing more. Subsequently, she once said: “He is my Vronsky” ... In 1921, my father fell ill with typhus, was very seriously ill, spent a whole month in the hospital, but Anna nursed him, gave him cranberry juice, brought him homemade food - and went out, saved. He was terribly grateful to her and decided that when he recovered, he would ask her to become his wife. Anna was attractive girl- Energetic, charming.

The marriage produced a daughter Maya (born 1923) and a son Helium (born 1928).

Son Geliy married Irina, who was the daughter of Prince Alexei Dmitrievich Chagodaev-Sakansky, who was shot in 1937. Even before the war, she miraculously managed to enter the choreographic school of the Bolshoi Theater, after graduating from which she entered the State Folk Dance Ensemble and performed with him in front of fighters and in hospitals. Marshal said that his daughter-in-law, later People's Artist of the RSFSR, laureate of the Stalin Prize, honorably bears his name around the world. In 1965, Geliy and Irina divorced, and in 1974 she married the head of the ensemble, Igor Alexandrovich Moiseev.

Anna Voloshina - the first wife of Ivan Konev

The second wife is Antonina Vasilievna Koneva (nee Petrova), during the war she was a nurse.

My future wife met in 1941 near Kalinin. Konev at that moment - after the disaster near Vyazma - was in a very serious condition. Daughter Natalia said: “When he headed the Kalinin Front, which began with very small forces, with what he managed to collect, it was very important for him not only to stabilize the situation in his area, but also not to give up. In such a situation, he met mother. The army in which she served was defeated during the German offensive on Moscow, and my mother ended up on the Kalinin Front. She worked in the military trade network - they fed the fighters on the front line. A man from the front headquarters came there and said that the commander needed help housework. So my mother ended up at my father's headquarters. The headquarters - it's funny to say - it was a simple hut. She said that when she entered his room, she immediately saw that it was a very masculine dwelling. There was an iron bed in the room, covered with a soldier's blanket, and a pair of slippers was left under her forlornly. She began to put things in order there.

The situation in October 1941 was tense, the troops were preparing for a counteroffensive, which began on the Kalinin Front on December 5, and she saw the commander once when he arrived from the front. According to the memoirs of Natalia Ivanovna, Konev shook hands with the girl, looked carefully and said: "Be the hostess." “These words turned out to be prophetic: after some time and for many years she became the mistress. But my mother did not say that this first meeting caused her some kind of strong feeling. Rather, she was struck by how exhausted the commander looks, how thin he is, with circles under his eyes - at that time his father was still suffering from an ulcer. But he probably liked her right away. But the parents did not like to talk about this - they were very restrained in expressing their feelings. At first, of course, they could not even talk, look at each other. Later, when the situation became less tense, he began to ask questions about who she was, where from, who her parents were. She was just a girl, shortly before the start of the war she graduated from school and came to Moscow to work, rented a room on Meshchanskaya Street - this is now Mira Avenue. Mom went to the front as a volunteer when she was not yet 18 years old. For her, her father was a protector. Dad saw in her eyes that he could not allow any weakness in these relations. So they rise rushed off and never parted." Antonina Vasilyeva helped him survive the war - Konev had a severe stomach ulcer, he needed special food, and it was she who took care of it. Relatives joked: "You probably made your way into the trenches with a thermos?"

Ivan Stepanovich and Antonina Vasilievna lived together for 31 years.

In marriage, a daughter, Natalia, was born.

Ivan Konev's career:

Divisional commander - from November 26, 1935;
Komkor - from February 22, 1938;
Commander of the 2nd rank - from February 8, 1939;
Lieutenant General - from June 4, 1940;
Colonel General - from September 11, 1941;
Army General - from August 26, 1943;
Marshal of the Soviet Union - since February 20, 1944

Ivan Konev awards:

Twice Hero of the Soviet Union (July 29, 1944, June 1, 1945);
7 Orders of Lenin (07/29/1944, 02/21/1945, 12/27/1947, 12/18/1956, 12/27/1957, 12/27/1967, 12/28/1972);
Order of the October Revolution (02/22/1968), to the 50th anniversary of the Red Army;
3 orders of the Red Banner (02/22/1938, 11/3/1944, 06/20/1949);
order "Victory" (No. 4 - 03/30/1945);
2 orders of Suvorov, 1st degree (08/27/1943, 05/17/1944);
2 orders of Kutuzov 1st degree (04/09/1943, 07/28/1943);
Order of the Red Star (08/16/1936);
Medal "XX Years of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army" (02/22/1938);
Medal "For the Defense of Moscow" (05/01/1944);
Medal "For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1945);
Medal "For the capture of Berlin" (06/09/1945);
Medal "For the Liberation of Prague" (06/09/1945);
Medal "In memory of the 800th anniversary of Moscow" (09/21/1947);
Medal "30 Years of the Soviet Army and Navy" (22.02.1948);
Medal "40 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (02/17/1958);
Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" (1965);
Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR" (1968);
Medal "For military valor. In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin”;
Honorary weapon - personalized checker with a golden image of the State Emblem of the USSR (02/22/1968);
Hero of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (04/30/1970);
Hero of the Mongolian People's Republic (05/07/1971);
Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" in silver (GDR);
Order of the Cross of Grunwald, 1st class (Poland);
Star of the Order "For Military Valor" (Virtuti Militari), 1st class (Poland);
Star of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland, 1st class (Poland);
Two orders of Sukhe-Bator (1961, 1971, Mongolian People's Republic);
Order of the Red Banner (MPR);
Order of the Partisan Star, 1st class (SFRY);
Order of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, 1st degree (NRB);
Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia);
Star and badge of the Order of the White Lion 1st class (Czechoslovakia);
Order of the White Lion "For Victory", 1st class (Czechoslovakia);
Czechoslovak Military Cross 1939-1945 (Czechoslovakia);
Order of "Hungarian Freedom" (Hungary);
Order of Merit of the Hungarian People's Republic (HPR);
Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (Great Britain);
Order of the Legion of Honor 2nd class (France);
Military Cross (France);
Order of the Legion of Honor of the degree of Commander-in-Chief (USA);
Medal "Sino-Soviet Friendship" (PRC)

Bibliography of Ivan Konev:

1957 - The strength of the Soviet Army and Navy - in the leadership of the party, inextricably linked with the people
1966 - Forty-fifth
1972 - Notes of the front commander

The image of Marshal Konev in the cinema:

1949 - The fall of Berlin - actor Sergei Blinnikov as Konev
1972 - Liberation (films 1, 2) - actor Yuri Legkov as Konev
1972 - Liberation (films 3, 4, 5) - Vasily Shukshin as Konev
1982 - If the enemy does not surrender ... - actor Vladimir Menshov as Konev
1985 - Battle for Moscow - as Konev Mikk Mikiver

Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev entered the history of World War II as one of the most brilliant and talented commanders. His life and military activities will remain in the memory of the people and our Armed Forces as an example of selfless and highly professional service to the Fatherland.

Ivan Konev was born on December 28, 1897 in the village of Lodeyno, Kirov Region, into a peasant family. He graduated from the zemstvo school in the neighboring village of Pushma in 1912. From the age of 12 he worked as a timber rafting worker.

In the spring of 1916 he was drafted into the army. After a training artillery team, junior non-commissioned officer Konev was sent to the Southwestern Front in 1917. Demobilized in 1918.

In the same 1918 he joined the Bolshevik Party, was elected county military commissar in the city of Nikolsk, Vologda province. After that, he fought in the ranks of the Red Army on the Eastern Front against the troops of A. V. Kolchak and other White Guard formations in Transbaikalia and the Far East. He was the commissar of an armored train, the commissar of a rifle brigade, a division. In 1921, Konev became the commissar of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic.

Among other delegates to the Xth Congress of the RCP (b), he took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising in 1921.

After the end of the Civil War - the military commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps. From August 1924 - Commissar and Head of the Political Department of the 17th Nizhny Novgorod Rifle Division. He graduated from the advanced training courses for senior command personnel at the MV Frunze Military Academy in 1926, then was commander and commissar of the 50th Infantry Regiment. Graduated from the Military Academy named after M. V. Frunze in 1934. From December 1934 he commanded the 37th Infantry Division. In 1935 he received the rank of division commander. From March 1937 he commanded the 2nd Infantry Division.

In 1937, Konev served as commander of the special units of the Red Army on the border with Mongolia. The army grouping of the Red Army in this area experienced an acute shortage of all resources. The matter was aggravated by the fact that service in such regions was always considered by officers as extremely unpromising, and they got here either by distribution from military schools, or for misconduct. Of course, there were also romantic volunteers who were eager to serve where it was difficult, but they were few. These are the units that Konev had to command.

At first glance, he had a very responsible position, especially in a strategically important area - next to Japan, which was aggressive towards the USSR. However, in reality it was far from being the case. The Soviet Union took a rather strange and ambivalent position towards Japan. On the one hand, the USSR condemned the imperial habits of world domination by little Japan. But on the other hand, Japan was the militarily strongest state in the region, and the USSR, not having developed transport and industry in the Far East and not having enough troops there, was forced to act very carefully so as not to quarrel with a strong neighbor. Stalin practically turned a blind eye to the Japanese takeover of most of China. However, the Soviet leadership could no longer look calmly at the aggression in Mongolia, which was connected with the USSR by a military alliance treaty - the Japanese army, if successful, could come close to the state border, and in one of its most poorly protected places. Of course, the country's leadership began to transfer additional troops there, but it was not easy to change the situation.

In 1938, Konev was appointed commander of the Special Rifle Corps on the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic, from July 1938 - commander of the 2nd Special Red Banner Army, stationed in the Far East.

When fighting began in the region of the Khalkhin-Gol River, trained units were hastily transferred there and new technology, but in the first days of the fighting the situation was very difficult, and after a series of tactical failures, Stalin decided to change the leadership of the group. Zhukov was called from Moscow, and although other commanders, including Konev, did everything they could, the glory of victory went to practically one Zhukov.

Having failed to become famous in Mongolia, Konev was once again bypassed when conferring military ranks. He was not repressed like many others, but he owes his promotion to army commander in the period before the start of the war with Germany only to a long service record and an acute shortage of experienced command personnel as a result of massive repressions in the army. However, his reputation as a competent general remained with him.

Konev became commander of the 2nd rank in February 1939. From June 1940 he commanded the troops of the Trans-Baikal Military District, from January 1941 - the North Caucasian Military District. Lieutenant General from June 1940.

During the Great Patriotic War, Lieutenant-General I.S. Konev assumed the position of commander of the 19th Army, hastily formed from the troops of the North Caucasian Military District. The army was initially sent to the Southwestern Front, but already in early July, due to the catastrophic development of the situation in the western direction, it was transferred to the Western Front. During the battle of Smolensk, the army troops suffered big losses, but avoided defeat and stubbornly defended. Konev's actions as commander of the army were highly appreciated by I. V. Stalin, and in early September 1941 Konev was appointed commander of the troops of the Western Front, at the same time he was awarded the rank of colonel general.

He received the troops of the front, at the end of the Smolensk battle, they went on the defensive at the turn from Lake Seliger to Yelnya, when the German command, having regrouped and brought up additional forces, was preparing a new offensive operation in the Moscow direction, code-named "Typhoon".

Konev commanded the troops of the Western Front for just over a month (September - October 1941), during which time the front under his command suffered one of the most severe defeats in the entire war. He took command of that section of the Soviet defense, where the Germans, literally a few days later, launched a general offensive against Moscow. Three-quarters of the German armed forces on the Eastern Front, including all tank divisions, were to take part in this operation. The reinforced Army Group Center was opposed in this meat grinder by the formations of the Western Front of General Konev, the Bryansk and Reserve Fronts - a total of 13 combined arms armies. Their total number reached a million people, but almost all formations and units lacked artillery, anti-tank weapons, the mobility factor was very low - there were not enough vehicles and horses.

In terms of technical equipment and training, these units, which took the brunt in the initial period of the battle for Moscow, were the weakest of all the Soviet armies that entered the battlefield. Most of the soldiers and officers were called up from the reserve, did not have combat experience and sufficient military training. The Vyazemsko-Bryansk battle that unfolded in early October 1941, which became the result of the start of Operation Typhoon, gave the Germans a chance to end the war already in 1941.

The troops of the Western, Reserve and Bryansk fronts were unable to resist this enemy offensive and suffered a serious defeat. In particular, the troops of the Western Front suffered losses of up to half a million people, the defense was disorganized and collapsed. Enraged by this defeat, Stalin removed Konev, appointing Zhukov in his place. However, he did not stop the attack. Encircled, the former Konev units of the Western and Reserve Fronts continued to offer stubborn resistance, pinning down 28 German divisions. 14 of them were unable to free themselves until mid-October, which allowed the Soviet command to gain time to organize resistance on the Mozhaisk line of defense. The German offensive was stopped not by Soviet generals, but by ordinary soldiers and officers who died in the encirclement in thousands, and it was their heroic death that became the foundation on which victory in the battle for Moscow was later achieved.

G.K. Zhukov, who generally spoke highly of Konev's military leadership, was forced to note that he "did not find himself on the defensive." Konev, like General Pavlov, who had been shot at the beginning of the war, faced a difficult fate. The commission of the State Defense Committee, headed by V. M. Molotov and K. E. Voroshilov, was supposed to investigate the causes of the disaster. But Zhukov managed to defend him before Stalin, declaring that "Konev clever man and it will come in handy." Zhukov was not mistaken. Few of the great commanders, such as Suvorov, managed to avoid serious setbacks and defeats. But greatness is determined by the ability to learn lessons. G.K. Zhukov suggested leaving Konev as deputy front commander. Konev, after the failures in the Vyazemsky defensive operation, retained his composure, drew the right conclusions for himself. Already in mid-October 1941, leading the right-flank formations of the Western Front, he managed to defeat the units of the 3rd German Panzer Group that had broken through to the city of Kalinin and stop their advance, thereby frustrating the enemy’s plans to bypass Moscow from the north. Then the Headquarters decided to create the Kalinin Front, the commander of which was appointed I. S. Konev.

This front Konev commanded from October 1941 to August 1942, participated in the battle for Moscow. He carried out the Kalinin defensive operation and the Kalinin offensive operation during the counteroffensive near Moscow against superior enemy forces. Despite the lack of forces and means, he secretly concentrated the main efforts on the directions of the strikes and broke through the defenses to the west and southwest of Kalinin. This turned out to be so unexpected for the enemy that the commander of the German 9th Army, under the threat of encirclement, was forced to begin the withdrawal of his troops.

From August 1942 to February 1943, Konev again commanded the Western Front and, together with G.K. Zhukov, carried out the extremely bloody First Rzhev-Sychev Operation and Operation Mars, in which the troops of his front, with huge losses, achieved only a slight advance of several dozen kilometers. In February 1943, the Zhizdra operation was also unsuccessful, after which, in early March, Konev was removed from his post as commander of the Western Front and appointed to command the much less important Northwestern Front. However, even there he failed to distinguish himself, the troops of this front suffered heavy losses and did not achieve success in the Staraya Russian operation.

I. S. Konev's military leadership talent was most convincingly and vividly manifested in offensive operations. Ivan Stepanovich, according to Vasilevsky, was closest to Zhukov in perseverance and willpower. He had an unusually good intuition, skillfully combined the power of artillery and aviation with the speed, onslaught and suddenness of the strike. Foreign military historians call him "the genius of surprise." He strove to see the battlefield with his own eyes, carefully preparing each operation. In the second half of the war, most of the offensive operations of our troops were accompanied by the encirclement and destruction of large enemy groupings, and many commanders succeeded in this. But, apparently, it was Konev who was the greatest master of this business. Long before the Stalingrad operation, he discerned the fear of the Germans to be surrounded and then more than once skillfully used this weakness of theirs. At the same time, he tried not to get involved in protracted battles in large cities, by detours he forced the enemy to leave the city, which made it possible to reduce his losses, prevent great destruction and casualties among the civilian population.

In July 1943, Konev was appointed commander of the Steppe Front, at the head of which he managed to achieve success in the Battle of Kursk. The Battle of Kursk, which took place in July - August 1943, went down in history as the largest tank battle of the war. Although Konev did not play a decisive role in it, but in this operation he showed himself from the very best side and returned Stalin's disposition. Parts of the Steppe Front entrusted to him were located behind the positions of the other two Soviet fronts as a reserve. Konev practically did not take part in defensive battles in this area. And when the Soviet troops launched a counteroffensive, his front supported the offensive of other units.

On August 3, 1943, the Steppe Front launched a blow from the area northwest of Belgorod in the direction of Bogodukhov, Novaya Vodolaga in order to cut into pieces the troops of Field Marshal Manstein's Army Group South and cut off their retreat from Kharkov. Characteristic of this operation was that the organization and regrouping of troops was carried out not as usual in a stable situation during the preparatory period, but in the course of fierce defensive battles. It was necessary to attack against very dense enemy groupings, created for the offensive and forced to go on the defensive. Therefore, the fighting was characterized by great tension and the troops with great difficulty overcame the fierce resistance of the enemy.

The situation required a quick exit to the Dnieper. But the encirclement and destruction of individual enemy groupings were not ruled out. Konev did not abandon his favorite form of operational maneuver this time either. So, when on August 13, 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front broke through the enemy’s defensive line on the outskirts of Kharkov, the commander set the task of the 53rd, 5th Guards Tank and 7th Guards Armies to cover the city from the west, southwest, east and south east. Manstein stubbornly resisted. But when there was only one highway and one Railway on Merefa and Krasnograd, the German troops faltered and began to leave Kharkov. In order to prevent major destruction and defeat the retreating enemy, on August 22 Konev ordered a night assault, while limiting air and artillery strikes on the city. The next day, the troops of his front captured Kharkov.

In September 1943, Poltava was liberated, in October - Kremenchug, which became part of the Poltava-Kremenchug operation. At the end of September 1943, his armies crossed the Dnieper on the move. August 26, 1943 I. S. Konev was awarded the military rank of General of the Army. In October 1943, the Steppe Front was renamed the 2nd Ukrainian Front, Konev remained its commander, and in October-December 1943 he carried out the Pyatikhat and Znamensky operations, and in January 1944, the Kirovograd operation. During the Kirovograd operation, the commander of the Steppe Front, General of the Army Konev, again made a skillful maneuver with tank forces, which, in cooperation with the combined arms armies, surrounded the enemy.

His art of generalship brought to perfection in encirclement and destruction in short time Konev showed large enemy groupings in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, which he carried out in cooperation with the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, General N.F. Vatutin. In this operation, the 2nd Ukrainian Front and the 1st Ukrainian Front were faced with the task of destroying 10 German divisions that had fortified themselves on the Kanevsky ledge in the bend of the Dnieper, which were part of the 1st Tank Army and the 8th Combined Arms Army. The surprise of the offensive was ensured by the fact that it was undertaken in early spring 1944, in the conditions of mud and impassability. Manstein did not expect that a major offensive could begin at such a time. Surprise was facilitated by the operational camouflage of the main strike and the demonstration of the concentration of forces in a secondary direction.

The 2nd Ukrainian Front went on the offensive on January 24, 1944. With the breakthrough of the enemy's main line of defense, the front commander brought the 5th Guards Tank Army into battle. The 6th Guards Tank Army was brought in to meet it in the zone of the 1st Ukrainian Front, and on January 28 these tank groups joined in the Zvenigorodka area, completing the encirclement of a group of about 80 thousand people, more than 230 tanks and a large number of other equipment. At the same time, the active actions of other tank formations and combined arms armies created a reliable outer front of the encirclement in order to prevent the release of the encircled grouping and provide favorable conditions for its rapid liquidation. At the same time, the encirclement and destruction of the enemy were not carried out sequentially, but almost simultaneously, as a single process. This was a new achievement in strategy and operational art.

For skillful organization and excellent leadership of the troops in this operation, on February 20, 1944, Konev was awarded the military rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.

The liberation of the Right-bank Ukraine began.

In May 1944, Konev was appointed commander of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

In July - August 1944, under his command, the troops of the front defeated the army group "Northern Ukraine" of Colonel-General Josef Harpe in the Lvov-Sandomierz operation. During the operation, when the troops in the Lvov direction met with great resistance, and success was indicated in the Rava-Russky direction, Konev transferred part of the forces from the Lvov direction to the Rava-Russky direction, sending them to the rear of the enemy grouping. At the same time, in the Brody area, eight enemy divisions were surrounded and destroyed within a few days. On July 27, Lvov, Przemysl, Stanislav were liberated, and at the end of the operation, the troops of the front crossed the Vistula and captured a bridgehead in the Sandomierz region. With great foresight, Konev advanced the 5th Guards Tank Army to the bridgehead, which ensured the successful repulsion of enemy counterattacks.

The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front captured and, in the subsequent two-month battles, held the Sandomierz bridgehead, which became one of the springboards for attacking Nazi Germany. Also, part of the forces of the front took part in the East Carpathian operation.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the award of the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal was awarded to Ivan Stepanovich Konev on July 29, 1944 for his skillful leadership of front troops in major operations in which strong enemy groups were defeated, personal courage and heroism.

After the operation was planned and organized, with the beginning of the offensive, Ivan Stepanovich with a small operational group and means of communication, as a rule, was in the combat formations of advanced formations performing the most important tasks. This allowed him to constantly feel the breath of battle, personally influence the troops and quickly respond to changes in the situation. In any situation, the commander knew how to maintain restraint and self-control, did not allow twitchiness and nervousness that were detrimental to command and control of the troops, and was very attentive to his subordinates. But when the interests of the cause demanded, he showed tough firmness and severe demands, especially in relation to commanders who broke away from the troops and showed irresponsibility. Once, in early October 1944, with the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovak territory, the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps was introduced into battle. As always, Konev considered it necessary to see for himself how everything would turn out. Arriving at the battle formations of the corps, he discovered that at this crucial moment, the corps commander, General Kratochvila, being 25 km from the advanced units, was holding a press conference with foreign journalists. The front commander was forced to immediately remove the corps commander from his post and appoint General Svoboda, the commander of the 1st brigade, which began hostilities in the most organized manner, to this position. This decision was approved by Stalin.

During the Sandomierz-Silesian front operation, Konev, with his supreme military art and ability to apply various flexible methods of action, saved the ancient capital of Poland - Krakow, from destruction. This city blocked the path of the troops of the front to Silesia, and without taking it, it was impossible to develop a further offensive. As Ivan Stepanovich recalled, “the front command refused to strike artillery and aviation on the city ... We did not set ourselves the task of cutting off the last escape route of the Nazis. If they had done this, we would have had to uproot them for a long time, and we would undoubtedly have destroyed the city.” The commander decided to surround the city with detour maneuvers, but leave the encircled troops a retreat route to the south, and Field Marshal Schroeder decided to use this corridor to withdraw the main forces from the city. But the far-sighted and cunning Ivan Stepanovich did not give the main grouping of German troops that left Krakow the opportunity to retreat. With their release outside the city, powerful air and artillery strikes were inflicted on them, they were attacked and pursued by the advanced detachments of our armies. In terms of the subtlety of strategic thought and the effectiveness of execution, this operation alone would give any commander world fame.

On January 12, Konev's troops went on the offensive on the Sandomierz bridgehead beyond the Vistula and 36 hours later broke through the main German defense line - the Hubertus line. The titanic efforts of the Wehrmacht high command came to nothing - the front was broken through, and Soviet tanks advanced up to 60 kilometers a day deep into the German defenses, soon entering German territory. On January 20, Konev ordered his troops to turn around and move along the Oder in order to destroy two German groups that were putting up stubborn resistance.

In February 1945, Konev's troops carried out the Lower Silesian operation, in March - the Upper Silesian operation, having achieved significant results in both.

During March 1945, three Soviet fronts, including the fronts under the command of Konev and Zhukov, did not move forward, but cleared the space between Stettin and Danzig from the remnants of German units.

When the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated Dresden, the commander was informed that paintings from the world-famous gallery had been found in the adits, including the Sistine Madonna by Raphael. Konev ordered that everything be done to save the canvases from destruction. But in the conditions of war, it was not possible to store canvases in accordance with all the rules. A group of restorers headed by Natalya Sokolova was urgently summoned from Moscow. It was decided to send the canvases to Moscow. Konev invited Sokolova to select the most valuable canvases for immediate evacuation by his private plane. He suggested: "Come on, I'll give you my plane." The woman threw up her hands and said: "Ivan Stepanovich, this is scary." - “Why is it scary? This is a very reliable aircraft. I myself fly on it, ”Konev answered. “Well, you are a marshal, and she is Madonna,” the restorer replied.

In April, Soviet troops, having suffered heavy losses, broke through the German defenses and launched an attack on Berlin. But Stalin stopped Konev's troops, giving Zhukov the opportunity to capture the capital of the Third Reich.

After the fall of Berlin, Konev was ordered to turn his front south to Prague. In addition to the 1st Ukrainian Front, troops of the 2nd Ukrainian (R. Ya. Malinovsky) and 4th Ukrainian (A.I. Eremenko) fronts, moving around Prague from the southeast and east, took part in the Prague operation. Field Marshal Schörner's main blow to Army Group Center was delivered by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, advancing from the Berlin and Dresden directions through the impenetrable Ore Mountains. The forced march was unprecedentedly difficult and swift: it took only five days and nights. This was the last offensive operation carried out under the leadership of Marshal I. S. Konev. When he approached the city, it turned out that the troops of the Russian Liberation Army of Vlasov had cleared the capital of the Czech Republic from the Germans. However, all Vlasovites were taken prisoner and handed over to the NKVD. On the morning of May 9, joyful citizens of Prague greeted the Soviet soldiers with flowers.

In almost all operations, Konev’s desire, through skillful maneuver and a sudden strike on the most vulnerable places of the enemy, to achieve encirclement and destruction of his main groupings or force them to leave fortified defensive lines, cities and fight in unfavorable conditions is visible. At the same time, when it was necessary for the situation, he prepared and carried out a breakthrough of defense, an assault on cities with the same skill and thoroughness.

Marshal I. S. Konev was awarded the second Gold Star medal on June 1, 1945 for exemplary leadership of troops in the final operations of the Great Patriotic War.

By orders of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, the capital of our Motherland, Moscow, saluted the troops commanded by I. S. Konev more than 50 times.

The organization of the Victory Parade was discussed at the Military Council in the Kremlin. Stalin offered Konev to command the Parade and was very unhappy when he refused, citing the fact that he was not a cavalryman and would like to walk along the square at the head of his front troops. Stalin grunted angrily: “You are arrogant, Comrade Konev. We will entrust this to Comrade Rokossovsky. Konev participated in the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945 at the head of a combined regiment of the 1st Ukrainian Front.

Marshal of the Soviet Union I. S. Konev not only won major victories, brilliantly organized and conducted a number of important operations, but also made a great contribution to the development of military art.

Many years after the end of the war, Ivan Stepanovich Konev met with the artists of the Moscow Art Theater. People's Artist Angelina Stepanova, struck by the purity and richness of his speech, asked the marshal where he was from. Konev replied: “My homeland is where there was no serfdom and no conqueror set foot. We have preserved the free and free language of the Slavs who lived near Veliky Ustyug.

Assessing his participation in the war against the fascist states, Ivan Stepanovich will later say with legitimate pride: “I took part in many major events of the war, I saw and knew a lot ...” Yes, it is. And this long, difficult and glorious military path gave him the full moral right to draw the main conclusion: "Centuries will pass, but the heroic deed of the Soviet people and its Armed Forces, who defeated Nazi Germany in the Patriotic War, will never be erased from the memory of future generations."

At the end of the war, Ivan Stepanovich Konev was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces and High Commissioner for Austria. In 1946, Marshal Konev was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR. The first post-war years organizational matters and technical re-equipment of the army. After the signing of the Warsaw Pact on May 14, 1955, he was appointed First Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces and Chairman of the Military Council of the Warsaw Pact countries. Since 1962, Marshal Konev worked as the Inspector General of the USSR Ministry of Defense.

He did a lot to generalize the experience of the Great Patriotic War, to use it creatively in the training of troops and the development of new problems of military art in connection with the appearance of nuclear missile weapons and other new means of armed struggle.

Ivan Stepanovich

Battles and victories

Marshal of the Soviet Union (1944), illustrious commander, commander of a number of fronts during the Great Patriotic War. Twice Hero of the Soviet Union.

He brilliantly organized and conducted a number of important operations, participated in the battle for Moscow, in the Battle of Kursk, the storming of Berlin, and liberated Prague. Decisiveness in carrying out operations brought Konev the fame of a master of encirclement, proximity to the soldiers - the rank of soldier's marshal.

The future marshal was born in the village of Lodeyno, Nikolsky district, Vologda province (now the Podosinovsky district, Kirov region) into a peasant family. According to the memoirs of the daughter of Marshal N.I. Koneva once, after his speech on the anniversary of the Victory in front of the artists of the Moscow Art Theater, the famous actress Angelina Stepanova approached him and asked: “Ivan Stepanovich! Where do you come from? You are so handsome correct language". The marshal replied: “My homeland is where there was no serfdom and the foot of the conquerors did not set foot. We preserved the freedom of the language of the Slavs who lived near Veliky Ustyug.

In 1916 Ivan Konev was drafted into the army. In the rank of non-commissioned officer of artillery he fought on the South-Western Front. After the collapse of the tsarist army, he returned to his homeland. He was elected a member of the Nikolsky district executive committee, then appointed military commissar of the district. Voluntarily joined the Red Army, fought against the army of A.V. Kolchak on the Eastern Front. In 1921 - Commissar of the Staff of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. As a delegate to the 10th Congress of the RCP(b), in March 1921 he fought against the rebellious sailors of Kronstadt.

Konev graduated from advanced training courses for senior officers. He commanded a regiment, then a division. He received his higher military education at the Academy. M.V. Frunze. After graduating from the Military Academy in 1934, he was sent to the Far East, where he was commander of a special group of troops in Mongolia, then the 2nd Separate Far Eastern Army and the troops of the Trans-Baikal Military District. In 1940, Konev was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, he was appointed to the post of commander of the North Caucasian Military District.

In 1924, the division, where I.S. Konev served, was redeployed to the Moscow Military District, its commander K.E. Voroshilov said: “You, Comrade Konev, according to our observations, are a commander with a commissar vein. This is a happy combination. Go to team courses, learn.”

From the book by K.M.Simonov “Through the eyes of a man of my generation (1988): “...Then I.S.Konev touched on his biography. He commanded a regiment for five years and for a total of seven years a division, then a corps, then an army, then a front. And he started out as a soldier. Almost went through all the military stages that exist. I went through all the positions, - as he put it, - and each one taught me. I was at the Frunze Academy, but still I went through the main academy in the regiment, for five years of service as a regiment commander. I am a man of the field. If I am capable of something, then on the battlefield, make decisions there and train troops, conduct exercises. I love it passionately. I love it and I know it and I know how to do it. I am inspired by the teachings. And always did. As a regimental commander, he was inspired by this. Without inspiration, there is no learning. And in general, when I told you about military operations, I don’t know if you felt it, whether I was able to convey it, but I wanted to show you that the leadership of military operations is, first of all, inspiration and intuition to make a number of decisions. Suvorov's words "It's hard in learning - it's easy in battle" for me is not a phrase, but the basis of life for many years, the basis of activity.

It was a great joy for me when, during the exercises in the Moscow Military District, Shaposhnikov, after I went out with my regiment on the command path of the “blue” division, mixing up all the cards and cutting off the essence of the exercises, Shaposhnikov told me face to face: you have the makings of leading troops, it is felt that you can become a master of maneuver. I was both pleased to hear this and even a little scary, as if imposing some kind of responsibility for my future actions.

Near Smolensk in July 1941

I.S. Konev was known as a great connoisseur of tactics, had the ability to see the new in military affairs, and rejected stereotyped approaches. He was active, energetic, straightforward, did not like to waste time in vain. He devoted his free time to reading books.

In the spring of 1941, Konev began the formation of the 19th Army. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the main forces of the 19th Army entered combat operations in July 1941 in the Vitebsk region. Then Konev's army distinguished itself in the battle of Smolensk. On September 11, 1941, Konev received an order to confer on him the rank of "Colonel General", and on September 12, he was appointed commander of the Western Front. In October 1941, Konev's troops were defeated near Vyazma, for which the commander was demoted to deputy front commander. The case went to return to the tribunal. But G.K. Zhukov stood up for Konev, who managed to defend him against I.V. Stalin.

G.K. Zhukov said that
Konev is a smart man, and he will still come in handy.

Zhukov was not mistaken. I.S. Konev's military talent was clearly and convincingly manifested in subsequent offensive operations.

According to A.M. Vasilevsky: I.S. Konev was closest to Zhukov in perseverance and willpower. Konev had good intuition, skillfully combined the power of artillery and aviation with the speed, onslaught and suddenness of the strike. Konev strove to see the battlefield with his own eyes, carefully preparing each operation.

In the fall of 1941, Konev was appointed commander of the newly created Kalinin Front. The troops of this front were the first to launch a counteroffensive near Moscow and already on December 5, 1941, broke through the defenses of the 9th German Army. On December 16, Kalinin was released. By the beginning of January 1942, the troops of I.S. Konev reached the Volga northwest of Rzhev. Most In 1942, the troops of the Kalinin Front acted against the Rzhev salient. The command of the Wehrmacht was forced to transfer here the forces previously intended for operations on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front. This facilitated the position of the Red Army troops fighting at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus.

At dawn on August 5, 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front stormed Belgorod, and by the evening of the same day the city was completely cleared of the Germans. To commemorate this victory, as well as the liberation of Orel, on August 5, a salute was fired in Moscow with 15 volleys of 120 guns - the first salute of the war.

As the daughter of Marshal Natalia Koneva recalls: “A small newspaper note by Alexei Tolstoy entitled “Salute to Victory” dated August 5, 1943 has been preserved in the father’s archive. It wrote: “Orel and Belgorod are bigger than Wagram and Austerlitz. That is why the Moscow cannons thundered under the arches with the Suvorov salute. Stalin's eagles flew around the plucked Berlin eagle.

And the Motherland named the heroes of the battle with immortal names from now on - Oryol and Belgorod. They were the first to break into our ancestral cities. On their bayonets they carried the victory through fire and smoke, earning the gratitude of contemporaries and descendants.

By August 13, Konev's troops approached Kharkov, and on August 22 a night assault on the city followed. By 12 o'clock the next day, the city was liberated. On August 28, 1943, I.S. Konev was awarded the rank of Army General and the Order of Suvorov, I degree. As Natalia Koneva writes in her book: “Field Marshal Manstein, whose troops opposed his father near Kharkov, left memoirs, where, in particular, he noted that “the command of the enemy’s Steppe Front was probably the most energetic.”

The art of generalship brought to perfection in encircling and eliminating the enemy grouping in a short time, Konev showed in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, which was almost classical in this sense. In this operation, he largely outplayed Field Marshal E. Manstein, who did not expect that a major offensive could begin in the spring of 1944. Konev dealt an unexpected powerful blow to the enemy forces. As a result, about 80 thousand people were surrounded in the Zvenigorodka area. When Manstein made an attempt to break through, Konev prevented it by transferring the 5th Guards Tank Army to the threatened area.

February 20, 1944 General of the Army I.S. Konev was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. In addition, 23 Soviet units and formations were given the honorary names "Korsun", 6 formations - "Zvenigorod". 73 servicemen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 9 of them posthumously.

On March 25, 1944, the troops of Marshal Konev reached the state border of the USSR on the Prut River, crossed it on the move and reached the Carpathians.

K.V. Krainyukov, member of the Military Council of the 1st Ukrainian Front: “I.S. Konev turned out to be somewhat older than Vatutin. He had an open, simple Russian face, breathing calm, and only sharp strong-willed folds at the mouth and imperious notes in his voice testified to a strong character, the ability to command. It is hardly possible to name another commander who would have acted so successfully both in defensive and offensive operations of the past war. Thanks to his broad military education, huge personal culture, skillful communication with his subordinates, whom he always treated with respect, never emphasizing his official position, strong-willed qualities and outstanding organizational skills, he earned himself indisputable authority, respect and love of all those with whom he had to fight. Possessing the gift of foresight, he almost always unmistakably guessed the intentions of the enemy, anticipated them and, as a rule, emerged victorious.

On July 13, 1944, the Lvov-Sandomierz operation began, which ended in a brilliant victory and entered the textbooks of the history of military art. “During the Lvov-Sandomierz operation,” Hero of the Soviet Union, Army General Pyotr Lashchenko later wrote, “by decision of Ivan Stepanovich, two tank armies were sequentially brought into battle along a narrow six-kilometer corridor pierced by rifle formations in conditions when the Nazis carried out a counterattack in order to close a hole in your defense. As a participant in that battle, the degree of risk of the marshal is especially clear to me. Another thing is also clear: this risk was justified, backed up by comprehensive support for the entry of tank armies, the subsequent actions of which predetermined the defeat of the fascist group.

During the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, eight enemy divisions were surrounded and defeated near the city of Brody, the western regions of the USSR, southeastern regions of Poland were liberated, and the vast Sandomierz bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula was occupied. The talent of the commander was again appreciated. On July 29, 1944, Ivan Stepanovich Konev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Thousands of soldiers of his front were marked with high awards. Having cleared their native land of the enemy and crushed his main forces in battle, the troops led by Konev entered a qualitatively new stage of the war.

Marshal Konev's character was direct, to engage in diplomacy, I must say frankly, he did not know how. A commissar since the days of the Civil War, he was accustomed to dealing with the masses of soldiers. In the troops he was called a soldier's marshal ... He was bold and resolute, sometimes going directly to battalions and companies for personal leadership of the battle, leaving the front headquarters, and consequently, the command and control of the troops. After suggestion from I.V. Stalin about the inadmissibility of such phenomena, he obeyed him and later stopped such trips, remaining, however, with his own opinion.
Air Chief Marshal A.E. Golovanov

The next successful operation was the Carpathian-Duklinskaya, carried out in the most difficult conditions mountainous area. “We are happy that, under your command, we were the first from the Czech Foreign Army to enter our native land,” General Ludwig Svoboda, the future president of Czechoslovakia, wrote to Ivan Stepanovich in those days.

The name of Marshal Konev is associated with brilliant victories on final stage war. The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under his command participated in three major strategic operations: the Vistula-Oder, Berlin and Prague.

Thanks to the highest military art of Marshal Konev and his ability to apply a variety of flexible methods of action, Krakow, the ancient capital of Poland, was saved from destruction. When Krakow was liberated, Marshal Konev decided to use his favorite trick - the "golden bridge". On his orders, the tankers of General Pavel Poluboyarov quickly went to the rear of the enemy group, threatening it with a mortal blow from the west. Soviet infantry advanced from the north. The only way out was to the south. Field Marshal F. Scherner rushed there with his troops. As soon as the fascists were in an open field, a flurry of artillery shells and aerial bombs fell upon them.

On January 19, 1945, Soviet troops entered the city, and soon all of Silesia was liberated from the invaders. In Moscow, Stalin issued an order to celebrate the capture of the city of Krakow with a salute - 24 volleys from 324 guns. One of their Soviet divisions that took Krakow was given the title of "Krakow".

In 1987, a monument to Konev was solemnly opened in Krakow (sculptor Anton Haidetsky). However, after the events of the "velvet" revolution of 1989-1990. in Poland, the monument was dismantled. It was decided to move the monument from Krakow to the "small" homeland of I.S. Konev in the city of Kirov. Local authorities and the Ministry of Defense made a lot of efforts to restore the monument, and then in 1995, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the victory, the monument was solemnly opened on one of the city squares.

The daughter of the famous Marshal N. Konev wrote: “I watched on a television news program how the figure of the father with a rope around his neck was pulled off the pedestal ... Hanged for crimes - only such an association arose then. Yes, I recognize the right of any nation to have monuments such as they want to have on their land, but any ruler must fulfill the will of his people with dignity, without violating the moral law. My father is not a war criminal in order to arouse the hatred of the people against him ... And, among other things, what about the fate of the soldiers whom he led forward, whose lives were cut short in Europe, for example, near Krakow or Auschwitz, where they saved other peoples sentenced to destruction?"

With skilful actions, Konev managed to capture the Silesian industrial region, preventing its destruction. In the galleries, Konev's soldiers found paintings from the collection of the Dresden Gallery, spoiled by groundwater. Among them was Raphael's painting "The Sistine Madonna" and paintings by other masters. Thanks to the help of Marshal Konev, the priceless finds were evacuated to Moscow for restoration. In 1955, 1240 restored paintings were returned to the Dresden Gallery.

By the 20th of January 1945, Konev's troops reached the Oder and crossed it. Konev had to carry out the Lower Silesian operation in order to defeat the Center armies. On February 8, 1945, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian broke through the Oder defensive line. On April 1, the 18,000-strong garrison of the fortress city of Glogau capitulated. In the Breslau area, a 40,000-strong enemy grouping was surrounded.

In the battle for Berlin, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, along with the troops of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front and Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, finished off the desperately resisting fascist beast in its lair. On April 18, 1945, Konev's armies broke through the enemy defenses erected along the Oder and Neisse rivers and reached the Spree river. On April 25, the Berlin grouping of German troops was cut into pieces and surrounded in the Berlin region and southeast of it.

At the same time, the soldiers of the 1st Ukrainian Front on the Elbe River near the city of Torgau met with American troops. Here is how N. Koneva writes about this in her book: “Regarding the historic meeting on the Elbe, I recall one funny story from the recent past. US President Bill Clinton made an official visit to Kyiv. During his speech, he decided to say something about the traditions of friendship between the Americans and the people of Ukraine, which has long roots: in April 1945, American troops met on the Elbe with soldiers of the Ukrainian Front, correlating the name of the front with the name of the country (whether it was an unsuccessful translation or, perhaps, a flaw in the speechwriters, I don’t know). In fact, the soldiers of the 12th met on the Elbe. American group troops under the command of General Omar Bradley and the 1st Ukrainian Front, which was commanded by my father.

On April 25, 1945, the troops of the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian fronts united west of Berlin. An enemy group of 200 thousand people was surrounded. On May 2, 1945, the capital of Germany capitulated.

In the midst of the Berlin operation, a popular uprising against the fascist invaders began in the capital of Czechoslovakia. According to the plan approved by the Headquarters, in addition to the 1st Ukrainian Front, troops of the 2nd Ukrainian (R.Ya. Malinovsky) and 4th Ukrainian (A.I. Eremenko) fronts took part in the Prague operation in addition to the 1st Ukrainian Front. The main blow to Field Marshal Scherner's Army Group Center was delivered by the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, advancing through the impenetrable Ore Mountains. The forced march was unprecedentedly difficult and swift: it took only five days and nights. On the morning of May 9, joyful citizens of Prague greeted the Soviet soldiers with flowers.

For victories at the final stage of the war, I.S. Konev was awarded the Order of Victory. Here is what N. Konev writes about further events (many facts were completely hushed up in Czechoslovakia for forty years): “The ring around the Sherner group that refused to lay down its arms was closed. More than half a million German soldiers and officers ended up in this giant cauldron. It must be said that separate skirmishes with those who did not want to surrender continued for almost a week. By the way, during this week the general and traitor to the homeland Vlasov was captured. It happened east of Pilsen. The troops of the tank corps of the Fomins captured the Vlasov division of Buinichenko. When the tankers began to disarm it, it turned out that Vlasov was in one of the cars, whom his own driver helped to find. Vlasov was brought to the headquarters of the 13th Army, and from there to the command post of the front. Father gave the order to deliver him immediately to Moscow.

In 1980, a monument to Marshal Konev was erected on the International Brigade Square in the Prague district of Dejvice (sculptor Zdeněk Krybus). In 2012, the lilac bushes around the monument were renewed. Natalia Koneva continues in her book: “In Prague, to this day, despite different political courses, there remains a monument to my father - a military man in an open overcoat and a bouquet of lilacs. Lilac was his favorite flower. Maybe because in Europe that year the lilac blossomed wildly, and this developed in his mind as a kind of symbol of war, freedom, victory, in the achievement of which he had to invest all his strength, all his life energy.

In 1945-1946. I.S.Konev - Commander-in-Chief of the Central Group of Forces and High Commissioner for Austria. He held the positions of Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR (1946 - 1950), Chief Inspector of the Soviet. Army - Deputy Minister of War of the USSR (1950 - 1951). From November 1951 to March 1955 Konev served in Lvov, where he commanded the troops of the Carpathian Military District. The district, which was formed from the troops of the 1st and 4th Ukrainian fronts, included the Western Ukrainian lands: Galicia, Volyn, Transcarpathia and Northern Bukovina. It was a time when the era of Stalin was leaving in the past. Konev talked a lot about the role of Stalin in the war with the writer K. Simonov. Already after the death of Simonov, the book “Through the Eyes of a Man of My Generation” was published, a large section of which is conversations with Marshal Konev.

In 1955 - 1956 I.S. Konev again took over as commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces. In 1955 - 1960. Marshal Konev - First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR. At the same time, from May 1955 to June 1960, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the States Parties to the Warsaw Pact. During the Hungarian uprising of 1956, Marshal Konev signed an order to suppress "the forces of reaction and counter-revolution." He also announced the decision to establish the Southern Group of Soviet Forces in Hungary. Natalia Koneva said in a newspaper interview: “... during the Hungarian events of 1956, my father, flying away, told my mother that he would call her from Budapest and, if the situation was terrible, he would say one phrase to her, and if it was completely terrible - another."

In 1957, I.S. Konev was an active participant in the October plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, at which the issue of G.K. Zhukov from the leadership of the country's armed forces. In 2001, the transcript of this plenum of the Central Committee and the text of Konev's speech at the plenum were published.

In this regard, N. Koneva wrote: “Father experienced moral pressure - he served with Zhukov, was his deputy, and under all circumstances he always had respect for Zhukov as a professional; Zhukov did not report to the Central Committee about “mistakes”, he did not write statements. For those who seek to condemn Zhukov - Konev is a "friend", for others who sincerely sympathize with the military - the situation is dramatic. Friends, even under pressure from the authorities, it is immoral to judge, it must be made clear that the words of condemnation are spoken by a party member who does not separate himself from its decisions ... "" ... Zhukov's meeting with his father, which became a landmark reconciliation meeting, took place on December 28, 1967, when he is seventy years old."

K.M.Simonov described the meeting of G.K.Zhukov and I.S.Konev in 1967: “Fate turned out so that for many years they were separated from each other by circumstances that were dramatic for both. And if you look even further, into the war, then life there, it happened, pushed them together in a dramatic setting. However, for all that, in the people's memory of the war, two names more often than anyone else stood side by side. And when at the evening both of these people embraced for the first time in many years, then before our eyes the secondary became secondary with such obviousness that it was impossible not to rejoice.

In 1961 - 1962 Konev was the commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, took an active part in the Berlin crisis of 1961.

Army General M.A. Gareev wrote: “Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev not only won major victories, brilliantly organized and conducted a number of important operations, but also made a great contribution to the development of military art. In the postwar years, commanding the troops of the Carpathian Military District, the Group of Forces in Germany, being the commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces, the Joint Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact, he did a lot to generalize the experience of the Great Patriotic War, its creative use in training troops and the development of new problems of military art in connection with the advent of nuclear missile weapons and other new means of armed struggle. For modern officers, he set a great example of innovation and unceasing creativity in the art of war, which all officers must tirelessly learn.

From the second half of the 60s - early 70s. I.S. Konev is working on the books of memoirs "Forty-Fifth" and "Notes of the Front Commander". From 1937, from the first elections, and until 1973, he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Until the very last days of his life, which ended on May 21, 1973, Ivan Stepanovich did a lot of work on the patriotic education of young people.

We, front-line soldiers, did not live in vain, we managed to defeat fascism and instill faith in the triumph of our common cause ...
- said I.S. Konev.

For outstanding services to the Fatherland, Ivan Stepanovich Konev was repeatedly awarded. He became a Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (1944, 1945), he was awarded the Order of Victory, seven Orders of Lenin, the Order October revolution, three Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov, I degree, the Order of the Red Star, an honorary weapon, and many other state awards. Among the awards are 27 foreign orders. I.S.Konev - Hero of Czechoslovakia and Hero of the MPR. The urn with his ashes was buried on Red Square in the Kremlin wall. The name of I.S. Konev was given to a street in Moscow. In the homeland of Ivan Stepanovich, in the village of Lodeyno, Podosinovsky district, Kirov region, his bronze bust was installed.

RYBAKOV S.P., Candidate of History, Associate Professor, MGIMO (U)

Literature

Polevoy B.N. Commander: A Biographical Tale. (About I.S. Konev). M., 1983.

Baskakov V.E. Marshal Konev. M., 1992.

Kozlov P.E. Commander: On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Marshal of the Soviet Union I.S. Konev. Kirov, 1997.

Marshal Konev: Son of the land of Podsinovskaya: Collection of essays, art., Memoirs. Editorial Borovskaya N.A. et al. Kirov, 1997.

Lubchenkov Yu.N. One hundred great commanders of the second world. (section "Front commanders": Konev I.S.). M., 2012.

Internet

Dokhturov Dmitry Sergeevich

Defense of Smolensk.
Command of the left flank on the Borodino field after the wounding of Bagration.
Tarutino battle.

Brusilov Alexey Alekseevich

To the first world war commander of the 8th Army in the Battle of Galicia. On August 15-16, 1914, during the Rogatin battles, he defeated the 2nd Austro-Hungarian army, capturing 20 thousand people. and 70 guns. Galich was taken on August 20. The 8th Army takes an active part in the battles near Rava-Russkaya and in the Battle of Gorodok. In September he commanded a group of troops from the 8th and 3rd armies. September 28 - October 11, his army withstood the counterattack of the 2nd and 3rd Austro-Hungarian armies in the battles on the San River and near the city of Stryi. During the successfully completed battles, 15 thousand enemy soldiers were captured, and at the end of October his army entered the foothills of the Carpathians.

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich

He was the Supreme Commander of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War! Under his leadership, the USSR won the Great Victory during the Great Patriotic War!

Vorotynsky Mikhail Ivanovich

"The compiler of the charter of the watchdog and border service' is, of course, good. For some reason, we have forgotten the battle of YOUTH from July 29 to August 2, 1572. But it was precisely from this victory that Moscow's right to a lot was recognized. The Ottomans were recaptured a lot of things, they were very sobered by the thousands of destroyed Janissaries, and unfortunately they helped Europe with this. The battle of YOUTH is very difficult to overestimate

Suvorov Alexander Vasilievich

For the highest art of military leadership and boundless love for the Russian soldier

Antonov Alexey Inokent'evich

Chief strategist of the USSR in 1943-45, practically unknown to society
"Kutuzov" World War II

Humble and dedicated. Victorious. The author of all operations since the spring of 1943 and the victory itself. Others gained fame - Stalin and the commanders of the fronts.

Pozharsky Dmitry Mikhailovich

In 1612, the most difficult time for Russia, he headed the Russian militia and liberated the capital from the hands of the conquerors.
Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Pozharsky (November 1, 1578 - April 30, 1642) - Russian national hero, military and political figure, head of the Second People's Militia, which liberated Moscow from the Polish-Lithuanian invaders. With his name and with the name of Kuzma Minin, the exit of the country from the Time of Troubles, which is currently celebrated in Russia on November 4, is closely connected.
After Mikhail Fedorovich was elected to the Russian throne, D. M. Pozharsky played a leading role in the royal court as a talented military leader and statesman. Despite the victory of the people's militia and the election of the tsar, the war in Russia still continued. In 1615-1616. Pozharsky, at the direction of the tsar, was sent at the head of a large army to fight against the detachments of the Polish colonel Lisovsky, who besieged the city of Bryansk and took Karachev. After the fight with Lisovsky, the tsar instructed Pozharsky in the spring of 1616 to collect the fifth money from the merchants to the treasury, since the wars did not stop, and the treasury was depleted. In 1617, the tsar instructed Pozharsky to conduct diplomatic negotiations with the English ambassador John Merik, appointing Pozharsky as governor of Kolomensky. In the same year, the Polish prince Vladislav came to the Moscow state. The inhabitants of Kaluga and neighboring cities turned to the tsar with a request to send them D. M. Pozharsky to protect them from the Poles. The tsar fulfilled the request of the people of Kaluga and ordered Pozharsky on October 18, 1617 to protect Kaluga and the surrounding cities with all available measures. Prince Pozharsky fulfilled the tsar's order with honor. Having successfully defended Kaluga, Pozharsky received an order from the tsar to go to the aid of Mozhaisk, namely, to the city of Borovsk, and began to disturb the troops of Prince Vladislav with flying detachments, inflicting significant damage on them. However, at the same time, Pozharsky fell seriously ill and, at the behest of the tsar, returned to Moscow. Pozharsky, barely recovering from his illness, took an active part in the defense of the capital from the troops of Vladislav, for which Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich rewarded him with new estates and estates.

Denikin Anton Ivanovich

The commander, under whose leadership the white army with smaller forces for 1.5 years won victories over the red army and captured the North Caucasus, Crimea, Novorossia, Donbass, Ukraine, the Don, part of the Volga region and the central black earth provinces of Russia. He retained the dignity of the Russian name during the Second World War, refusing to cooperate with the Nazis, despite his uncompromisingly anti-Soviet position

Senyavin Dmitry Nikolaevich

Dmitry Nikolaevich Senyavin (August 6 (17), 1763 - April 5 (17), 1831) - Russian naval commander, admiral.
for courage and outstanding diplomatic work shown during the blockade of the Russian fleet in Lisbon

Rurikovich Svyatoslav Igorevich

crushed Khazar Khaganate, expanded the limits of Russian lands, successfully fought with the Byzantine Empire.

Wrangel Pyotr Nikolaevich

Member of the Russo-Japanese and World War I, one of the main leaders (1918−1920) white movement during the years of the Civil War. Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in the Crimea and Poland (1920). General Staff Lieutenant General (1918). Georgievsky Cavalier.

Ushakov Fedor Fedorovich

During the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-1791, F.F. Ushakov made a serious contribution to the development of the tactics of the sailing fleet. Based on the totality of the principles of training the forces of the fleet and military art, having absorbed all the accumulated tactical experience, F. F. Ushakov acted creatively, based on the specific situation and common sense. His actions were distinguished by decisiveness and extraordinary courage. He did not hesitate to reorganize the fleet into battle formation already at a close approach to the enemy, minimizing the time of tactical deployment. Despite the established tactical rule of finding the commander in the middle of the battle formation, Ushakov, implementing the principle of concentration of forces, boldly put his ship in the forefront and at the same time occupied the most dangerous positions, encouraging his commanders with his own courage. He was distinguished by a quick assessment of the situation, an accurate calculation of all success factors and a decisive attack aimed at achieving complete victory over the enemy. In this regard, Admiral F.F. Ushakov can rightfully be considered the founder of the Russian tactical school in naval art.

Kolchak Alexander Vasilievich

Alexander Vasilievich Kolchak (November 4 (November 16), 1874, St. Petersburg - February 7, 1920, Irkutsk) - Russian oceanographer, one of the largest polar explorers late XIX- early XX centuries, military and political figure, naval commander, full member of the Imperial Russian geographical society(1906), admiral (1918), leader of the White movement, Supreme Ruler of Russia.

Participant Russo-Japanese War, Defense of Port Arthur. During the First World War, he commanded the mine division of the Baltic Fleet (1915-1916), the Black Sea Fleet (1916-1917). Georgievsky Cavalier.
The leader of the White movement both on an all-Russian scale and directly in the East of Russia. As the Supreme Ruler of Russia (1918-1920), he was recognized by all the leaders of the White movement, "de jure" - by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, "de facto" - by the Entente states.
Supreme Commander of the Russian Army.

Baklanov Yakov Petrovich

An outstanding strategist and a mighty warrior, he earned respect and fear of his name from the invincible highlanders who forgot the iron grip of the "Thunderstorm of the Caucasus". At the moment - Yakov Petrovich, a model of the spiritual strength of a Russian soldier in front of the proud Caucasus. His talent crushed the enemy and minimized the time frame of the Caucasian War, for which he received the nickname "Boklu" akin to the devil for his fearlessness.

Kappel Vladimir Oskarovich

Perhaps the most talented commander of the entire Civil War, even if compared with the commanders of all its sides. A man of powerful military talent, fighting spirit and Christian noble qualities is a real White Knight. Kappel's talent and personal qualities were noticed and respected even by his opponents. The author of many military operations and exploits - including the capture of Kazan, the Great Siberian Ice Campaign, etc. Many of his calculations, which were not evaluated in time and missed through no fault of his own, later turned out to be the most correct, which was shown by the course of the Civil War.

Makhno Nestor Ivanovich

Over the mountains, over the valleys
waiting for your blues for a long time
wise father, glorious father,
our kind father - Makhno ...

(peasant song from the Civil War)

He was able to create an army, led successful military operations against the Austro-Germans, against Denikin.

And for * carts * even if he was not awarded the Order of the Red Banner, then this should be done now

Skopin-Shuisky Mikhail Vasilievich

In the conditions of the decomposition of the Russian state during the Time of Troubles, with minimal material and human resources, he created an army that defeated the Polish-Lithuanian interventionists and liberated most of the Russian state.

Suvorov Alexander Vasilievich

He is a great commander who did not lose a single (!) Battle, the founder of Russian military affairs, brilliantly fought battles, regardless of its conditions.

Petrov Ivan Efimovich

Defense of Odessa, Defense of Sevastopol, Liberation of Slovakia

Suvorov Alexander Vasilievich

The greatest Russian commander! He has over 60 wins and no losses. Thanks to his talent to win, the whole world learned the power of Russian weapons.

Svyatoslav Igorevich

Grand Duke Novgorod, since 945 Kyiv. Son of Grand Duke Igor Rurikovich and Princess Olga. Svyatoslav became famous as a great commander, whom N.M. Karamzin called "Alexander (Macedonian) of our ancient history."

After the military campaigns of Svyatoslav Igorevich (965-972), the territory of the Russian land increased from the Volga region to the Caspian Sea, from North Caucasus to the Black Sea, from the Balkan Mountains to Byzantium. He defeated Khazaria and Volga Bulgaria, weakened and frightened the Byzantine Empire, opened the way for trade between Russia and Eastern countries

Ivan the Terrible

He conquered the Astrakhan kingdom, to which Russia paid tribute. Destroyed the Livonian Order. Expanded the borders of Russia far beyond the Urals.

Duke of Württemberg Eugene

Infantry general, cousin of the Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I. Served in the Russian Army since 1797 (enlisted as a colonel in the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment by the Decree of Emperor Paul I). Participated in military campaigns against Napoleon in 1806-1807. For participation in the battle near Pultusk in 1806 he was awarded the Order of St. George the Victorious 4th degree, for the campaign of 1807 he received a golden weapon "For Courage", distinguished himself in the campaign of 1812 (personally led the 4th Jaeger Regiment into battle in the battle of Smolensk), for participation in the Battle of Borodino he was awarded the Order of St. George the Victorious, 3rd degree. Since November 1812, the commander of the 2nd infantry corps in the army of Kutuzov. He took an active part in the foreign campaigns of the Russian army in 1813-1814, the units under his command especially distinguished themselves in the battle of Kulm in August 1813, and in the "battle of the peoples" at Leipzig. For courage at Leipzig, Duke Eugene was awarded the Order of St. George, 2nd degree. Parts of his corps were the first to enter the defeated Paris on April 30, 1814, for which Eugene of Württemberg received the rank of general of infantry. From 1818 to 1821 was the commander of the 1st Army Infantry Corps. Contemporaries considered Prince Eugene of Württemberg one of the best Russian infantry commanders during the Napoleonic Wars. On December 21, 1825, Nicholas I was appointed chief of the Tauride Grenadier Regiment, which became known as the Grenadier Regiment of His Royal Highness Prince Eugene of Württemberg. On August 22, 1826, he was awarded the Order of St. Apostle Andrew the First-Called. Participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1827-1828. as commander of the 7th Infantry Corps. On October 3, he defeated a large Turkish detachment on the Kamchik River.

Gavrilov Petr Mikhailovich

From the first days of the Great Patriotic War - in the army. Major Gavrilov P.M. from June 22 to July 23, 1941 led the defense of the Eastern Fort of the Brest Fortress. He managed to rally around him all the surviving fighters and commanders of various units and subunits, close the most vulnerable places for the enemy to break through. On July 23, he was seriously wounded by a shell explosion in the casemate and was captured in an unconscious state. He spent the war years in the Nazi concentration camps of Hammelburg and Revensburg, having experienced all the horrors of captivity. Liberated by Soviet troops in May 1945. http://warheroes.ru/hero/hero.asp?Hero_id=484

Peter I the Great

Emperor of All Russia (1721-1725), before that, Tsar of All Russia. Won a victory in northern war(1700-1721). This victory finally opened free access to Baltic Sea. Under his rule, Russia (the Russian Empire) became a Great Power.

Nevsky, Suvorov

Undoubtedly holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky and Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov

Most Serene Prince Wittgenstein Peter Khristianovich

For the defeat of the French units of Oudinot and MacDonald at Klyastits, thereby closing the road for the French army to St. Petersburg in 1812. Then in October 1812 he defeated the Saint-Cyr corps near Polotsk. He was the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian-Prussian armies in April-May 1813.

Ushakov Fedor Fedorovich

The great Russian naval commander, who won victories at Fedonisi, Kaliakria, at Cape Tendra and during the liberation of the islands of Malta (Ioanian Islands) and Corfu. He discovered and introduced a new tactic of naval combat, with the rejection of the linear formation of ships and showed the tactics of "alluvial formation" with an attack on the flagship of the enemy fleet. One of the founders of the Black Sea Fleet and its commander in 1790-1792

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich

"As a military leader, I.V. Stalin, I studied thoroughly, since I went through the whole war with him. I.V. Stalin mastered the organization of front-line operations and operations of groups of fronts and led them with complete knowledge of the matter, well versed in large strategic questions...
In leading the armed struggle as a whole, JV Stalin was assisted by his natural mind and rich intuition. He knew how to find the main link in a strategic situation and, seizing on it, to counteract the enemy, to conduct one or another major offensive operation. Undoubtedly, he was a worthy Supreme Commander"

(Zhukov G.K. Memoirs and reflections.)

Baklanov Yakov Petrovich

The Cossack general, the "thunderstorm of the Caucasus", Yakov Petrovich Baklanov, one of the most colorful heroes of the endless Caucasian war of the century before last, fits perfectly into the image of Russia familiar to the West. A gloomy two-meter hero, a tireless persecutor of mountaineers and Poles, an enemy of political correctness and democracy in all their manifestations. But it was precisely such people who obtained the most difficult victory for the empire in a long-term confrontation with the inhabitants of the North Caucasus and the unkind local nature.

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich

He led the armed struggle of the Soviet people in the war against Germany and its allies and satellites, as well as in the war against Japan.
He led the Red Army to Berlin and Port Arthur.

Rurik Svyatoslav Igorevich

Year of birth 942 date of death 972 Expansion of the borders of the state. 965 the conquest of the Khazars, 963 the campaign to the south to the Kuban region the capture of Tmutarakan, 969 the conquest of the Volga Bulgars, 971 the conquest of the Bulgarian kingdom, 968 the foundation of Pereyaslavets on the Danube (the new capital of Russia), 969 the defeat of the Pechenegs in the defense of Kyiv.

Paskevich Ivan Fyodorovich

Hero of Borodin, Leipzig, Paris (division commander)
As commander in chief, he won 4 companies (Russian-Persian 1826-1828, Russian-Turkish 1828-1829, Polish 1830-1831, Hungarian 1849).
Knight of the Order of St. George 1st class - for the capture of Warsaw (according to the statute, the order was awarded either for saving the fatherland or for taking the enemy capital).
Field Marshal.

Slashchev-Krymsky Yakov Alexandrovich

Defense of the Crimea in 1919-20 “The Reds are my enemies, but they did the main thing - my business: they revived great Russia!” (General Slashchev-Krymsky).

Kolovrat Evpaty Lvovich

Ryazan boyar and governor. During the Batu invasion of Ryazan, he was in Chernigov. Having learned about the invasion of the Mongols, he hastily moved to the city. Having caught Ryazan all incinerated, Evpaty Kolovrat with a detachment of 1700 people began to catch up with Batu's army. Having overtaken them, he destroyed their rearguard. He also killed the strong heroes of the Batyevs. He died on January 11, 1238.

Romanov Mikhail Timofeevich

The heroic defense of Mogilev, for the first time all-round anti-tank defense of the city.

Stessel Anatoly Mikhailovich

Commandant of Port Arthur during his heroic defense. The unprecedented ratio of losses of Russian and Japanese troops before the surrender of the fortress is 1:10.

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich

The largest figure in world history, whose life and state activity left the deepest mark not only in the fate of the Soviet people, but also of all mankind, will be the subject of careful study of historians for more than one century. The historical and biographical feature of this personality is that it will never be forgotten.
During Stalin's tenure as Supreme Commander-in-Chief and Chairman of the State Defense Committee, our country was marked by victory in the Great Patriotic War, massive labor and front-line heroism, the transformation of the USSR into a superpower with significant scientific, military and industrial potential, and the strengthening of our country's geopolitical influence in the world.
Ten Stalinist blows - common name a number of major offensive strategic operations in the Great Patriotic War carried out in 1944 by the armed forces of the USSR. Along with other offensive operations, they made a decisive contribution to the victory of the countries of the Anti-Hitler coalition over Nazi Germany and its allies in World War II.

Rurikovich (Grozny) Ivan Vasilyevich

In the variety of perceptions of Ivan the Terrible, they often forget about his unconditional talent and achievements as a commander. He personally led the capture of Kazan and organized military reform, leading a country that simultaneously waged 2-3 wars on different fronts.

Platov Matvei Ivanovich

Ataman of the Great Don Army (since 1801), cavalry general (1809), who took part in all wars Russian Empire late XVIII - early XIX century.
In 1771 he distinguished himself in the attack and capture of the Perekop line and Kinburn. From 1772 he began to command a Cossack regiment. 2nd Turkish war distinguished himself during the assault on Ochakov and Ishmael. Participated in the battle of Preussisch-Eylau.
During the Patriotic War of 1812, he first commanded all the Cossack regiments on the border, and then, covering the retreat of the army, defeated the enemy near the town of Mir and Romanovo. In the battle near the village of Semlevo, Platov's army defeated the French and captured a colonel from the army of Marshal Murat. During the retreat of the French army, Platov, pursuing her, defeated her at Gorodnya, the Kolotsk Monastery, Gzhatsk, Tsarevo-Zaimishcha, near Dukhovshchina and while crossing the Vop River. For merit he was elevated to the dignity of a count. In November, Platov occupied Smolensk from battle and defeated the troops of Marshal Ney near Dubrovna. At the beginning of January 1813 he entered the borders of Prussia and overlaid Danzig; in September, he received command of a special corps, with which he participated in the battle of Leipzig and, pursuing the enemy, captured about 15 thousand people. In 1814 he fought at the head of his regiments in the capture of Nemur, at Arcy-sur-Aube, Cezanne, Villeneuve. He was awarded the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called.

Voronov Nikolai Nikolaevich

N.N. Voronov - commander of the artillery of the Armed Forces of the USSR. For outstanding services to the Motherland Voronov N.N. the first in the Soviet Union were awarded the military ranks of "Marshal of Artillery" (1943) and "Chief Marshal of Artillery" (1944).
... carried out the general leadership of the liquidation of the Nazi group surrounded near Stalingrad.

Khvorostinin Dmitry Ivanovich

Outstanding commander of the second half of the XVI century. Oprichnik.
Genus. OK. 1520, died on August 7 (17), 1591. At the voivodship posts since 1560. Participated in almost all military enterprises during the independent reign of Ivan IV and the reign of Fyodor Ioannovich. He has won several field battles (including: the defeat of the Tatars near Zaraisk (1570), the Battle of Molodinskaya (during the decisive battle he led the Russian troops in Gulyai-gorod), the defeat of the Swedes at Lyamits (1582) and not far from Narva ( 1590)). He led the suppression of the Cheremis uprising in 1583-1584, for which he received the boyar rank.
According to the totality of the merits of D.I. Khvorostinin is much higher than M.I. Vorotynsky. Vorotynsky was more noble and therefore he was more often entrusted with the general leadership of the regiments. But, according to the commander's talents, he was far from Khvorostinin.

Batitsky

I served in the air defense and therefore I know this surname - Batitsky. Do you know? By the way, the father of air defense!

Barclay de Tolly Mikhail Bogdanovich

Participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1787-91 and the Russian-Swedish war of 1788-90. He distinguished himself during the war with France in 1806-07 at Preussisch-Eylau, from 1807 he commanded a division. During the Russo-Swedish War of 1808-09 he commanded a corps; led a successful crossing through the Kvarken Strait in the winter of 1809. In 1809-10, the Governor-General of Finland. From January 1810 to September 1812, the Minister of War, did a lot of work to strengthen the Russian army, singled out the intelligence and counterintelligence service into a separate production. In the Patriotic War of 1812 he commanded the 1st Western Army, and he, as Minister of War, was subordinate to the 2nd Western Army. In the conditions of a significant superiority of the enemy, he showed the talent of a commander and successfully carried out the withdrawal and connection of the two armies, which earned such words from M.I. Kutuzov as THANK YOU FATHER !!! SAVE THE ARMY!!! SAVE RUSSIA!!!. However, the retreat caused discontent in the noble circles and the army, and on August 17, Barclay handed over the command of the armies to M.I. Kutuzov. In the Battle of Borodino, he commanded the right wing of the Russian army, showing stamina and skill in defense. He recognized the position near Moscow chosen by L. L. Bennigsen as unsuccessful and supported the proposal of M. I. Kutuzov to leave Moscow at the military council in Fili. In September 1812 he left the army due to illness. In February 1813 he was appointed commander of the 3rd, and then the Russian-Prussian army, which he successfully commanded during the foreign campaigns of the Russian army of 1813-14 (Kulm, Leipzig, Paris). He was buried in the Beklor estate in Livonia (now Jõgeveste Estonia)

Kornilov Vladimir Alekseevich

During the outbreak of the war with England and France, he actually commanded the Black Sea Fleet, until his heroic death he was the immediate superior of P.S. Nakhimov and V.I. Istomin. After the landing of the Anglo-French troops in Evpatoria and the defeat of the Russian troops on the Alma, Kornilov received an order from the commander-in-chief in the Crimea, Prince Menshikov, to flood the ships of the fleet in the roadstead in order to use sailors to defend Sevastopol from land.

Eremenko Andrey Ivanovich

Commander of the Stalingrad and South-Eastern fronts. The fronts under his command in the summer and autumn of 1942 stopped the advance of the German 6 field and 4 tank armies to Stalingrad.
In December 1942, the Stalingrad Front of General Eremenko stopped the tank offensive of the group of General G. Goth on Stalingrad, in order to unblock the 6th army of Paulus.

Margelov Vasily Filippovich

Kotlyarevsky Petr Stepanovich

General Kotlyarevsky, son of a priest in the village of Olkhovatka, Kharkov province. He went from private to general in the tsarist army. You can call him great-grandfather Russian special forces. He carried out truly unique operations ... His name is worthy of being included in the list of the greatest commanders of Russia

Dovator Lev Mikhailovich

Soviet military leader, major general, Hero of the Soviet Union. Known successful operations on the destruction of German troops during the Great Patriotic War. The German command appointed a large reward for the head of Dovator.
Together with the 8th Guards Division named after Major General I.V. Panfilov, the 1st Guards Tank Brigade of General M.E. Katukov and other troops of the 16th Army, his corps defended the approaches to Moscow in the Volokolamsk direction.

Marshal of the Soviet Union. Chief of Staff of the Southwestern Front, then at the same time the headquarters of the troops of the Southwestern direction, commander of the 16th (11th Guards Army). From 1943 he commanded the troops of the 1st Baltic and 3rd Belorussian fronts. He showed military leadership talent and especially distinguished himself during the Belarusian and East Prussian operations. He stood out for his ability to prudently and flexibly respond to imminent changes in the situation.

generals Ancient Russia

Since ancient times. Vladimir Monomakh (fought with the Polovtsians), his sons Mstislav the Great (campaigns against the Chud and Lithuania) and Yaropolk (campaigns against the Don), Vsevood Big Nest(trips to Volga Bulgaria), Mstislav Udatny (Battle of Lipitsa), Yaroslav Vsevolodovich (defeated the knights of the Order of the Sword), Alexander Nevsky, Dmitry Donskoy, Vladimir the Brave (the second hero of the Mamaev Battle) ...

Ivan Konev was born on December 28, 1897 in the village of Lodeyno, Podosinovsky district, Kirov region. Grew up in a peasant family. In 1912 he graduated from the Nikolo-Pushemskoe zemstvo school in the neighboring village of Shchetkino. From the age of 15, he worked seasonally at timber exchanges in Podosinovets and Arkhangelsk.

Member of the First World War. In the spring of 1916 he was drafted into the Russian Imperial Army. He graduated from an artillery training team, served in the reserve heavy artillery brigade of Moscow, then junior non-commissioned officer Konev in 1917 was sent to the South-Western Front. He fought in the 2nd separate heavy artillery battalion. Demobilized in January 1918.

In the same 1918 he joined the Bolshevik Party. He was elected district military commissar in the city of Nikolsk, Vologda province. After that, he fought in the ranks of the Red Army on the eastern front against units of the Russian Army, the Far Eastern Army and the Japanese invaders in Transbaikalia and the Far East. He was the commissar of an armored train, the commissar of a rifle brigade in the 2nd Verkhneudinsk rifle division, the commissar of this division, the commissar of the headquarters of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. He took part in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising in 1921.

After the end of the Civil War, he was the military commissar of the 17th Primorsky Rifle Corps. In 1924, the division, where I.S. Konev served, was redeployed to the Moscow Military District, its commander K.E. Voroshilov said: “You, Comrade Konev, according to our observations, are a commander with a commissar vein. This is a happy combination. Go to team courses, learn.”

He graduated from the advanced training courses for senior command personnel at the Military Academy of the Red Army named after M.V. Frunze in 1926, then he was commander and commissar of the 50th rifle regiment of the same division. From 1932 to 1934 he studied at the Special Group of the MV Frunze Military Academy. From December 1934 he commanded the 37th Infantry Division, from March 1937 - the 2nd Infantry Division. In 1935 he received the rank of division commander. In August 1938 he was appointed commander of the Mongolian army reinforcement group, which was introduced into the territory of the Mongolian People's Republic, which, having united with the rest of the Soviet troops in Mongolia, became known as the 57th Special Corps in September, the first commander of which was Konev. Since September 1938 he was the commander of the 2nd separate Red Banner Army with headquarters in Khabarovsk.

In the spring of 1941, Konev began the formation of the 19th Army. At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the main forces of the 19th Army entered the fighting in July 1941 in the Vitebsk region. Then Konev's army distinguished itself in the battle of Smolensk. On September 11, 1941, Konev received an order to confer on him the rank of Colonel General, and on September 12, he was appointed commander of the Western Front. In October 1941, Konev's troops were defeated near Vyazma, for which the commander was demoted to deputy front commander. The case went to return to the tribunal. But G.K. Zhukov stood up for Konev, who managed to defend him against I.V. Stalin. Zhukov was not mistaken. I.S. Konev's military talent was clearly and convincingly manifested in subsequent offensive operations.

In the fall of 1941, Konev was appointed commander of the newly created Kalinin Front. The troops of this front were the first to launch a counteroffensive near Moscow and already on December 5, 1941, they broke through the defenses of the 9th German Army. On December 16, 1941, Kalinin was liberated. By the beginning of January 1942, the troops of I.S. Konev reached the Volga northwest of Rzhev. For most of 1942, the troops of the Kalinin Front acted against the Rzhev salient. The command of the Wehrmacht was forced to transfer here the forces previously intended for operations on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front. This facilitated the position of the Red Army troops fighting at Stalingrad and in the Caucasus.

In the spring of 1943, I.S. Konev was appointed commander of the Steppe Front. Already at the first stage of the battle on the Kursk Bulge, Konev had to introduce the 5th Guards Tank and 5th Guards Armies into the Voronezh Front, which played a decisive role in the battle of Prokhorovka. At dawn on August 5, 1943, the troops of the Steppe Front stormed Belgorod, and by the evening of the same day the city was completely cleared of the Germans. To commemorate this victory, as well as the liberation of Orel, on August 5, a salute was fired in Moscow with 15 volleys of 120 guns - the first salute of the war.

Konev's troops approached Kharkov by August 13, 1943, and on August 22, 1943, a night assault on the city followed. By 12 o'clock the next day, the city was liberated. On August 28, 1943, I.S. Konev was awarded the rank of Army General and the Order of Suvorov, I degree.

Army General I.S. Konev February 20, 1944 was awarded the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union. In addition, 23 Soviet units and formations were given the honorary names "Korsun", 6 formations - "Zvenigorod". 73 servicemen were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 9 of them posthumously.

On March 25, 1944, the troops of Marshal Konev reached the state border of the USSR on the Prut River, crossed it on the move and reached the Carpathians.

The Lviv-Sandomierz operation began on July 13, 1944, which ended in a brilliant victory and entered the textbooks of the history of military art. During the Lvov-Sandomierz operation, eight enemy divisions were surrounded and defeated near the city of Brody, the western regions of the USSR, southeastern regions of Poland were liberated, and the vast Sandomierz bridgehead on the western bank of the Vistula was occupied. The talent of the commander was again appreciated. Ivan Stepanovich Konev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on July 29, 1944. Thousands of soldiers of his front were marked with high awards. Having cleared their native land of the enemy and crushed his main forces in battle, the troops led by Konev entered a qualitatively new stage of the war.

The next successful operation was the Carpathian-Duklinskaya, carried out in the most difficult conditions of the mountainous terrain. “We are happy that, under your command, we were the first from the Czech Foreign Army to enter our native land,” General Ludwig Svoboda, the future president of Czechoslovakia, wrote to Ivan Stepanovich in those days.

Brilliant victories at the final stage of the war are associated with the name of Marshal Konev. The troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front under his command participated in three major strategic operations: the Vistula-Oder, Berlin and Prague.

In 1945, on January 19, Soviet troops entered the city, and soon all of Silesia was liberated from the invaders. In Moscow, Stalin issued an order to celebrate the capture of the city of Krakow with a salute - 24 volleys from 324 guns. One of their Soviet divisions that took Krakow was given the title of "Krakow".

By the 20th of January 1945, Konev's troops reached the Oder and crossed it. Konev had to carry out the Lower Silesian operation in order to defeat the Center armies. On February 8, 1945, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian broke through the Oder defensive line. On April 1, 1945, the 18,000th garrison of the fortress city of Glogau capitulated. In the Breslau area, a 40,000-strong enemy grouping was surrounded.

In the battle for Berlin, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front, along with the troops of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front and Rokossovsky's 2nd Belorussian Front, finished off the desperately resisting fascist beast in its lair. Already on April 18, 1945, Konev's armies broke through the enemy defenses erected along the Oder and Neisse rivers and reached the Spree river. On April 25, 1945, the Berlin grouping of German troops was cut into pieces and surrounded in the Berlin area and to the southeast of it.

For victories at the final stage of the war, I.S. Konev was awarded the Order of Victory. On June 1, 1945, for exemplary leadership of the troops in the final operations of the Great Patriotic War, he was awarded the second award of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

In the post-war years from 1945 to 1946, I.S. Konev was the commander-in-chief of the Central Group of Forces and the High Commissioner for Austria. He held the positions of Commander-in-Chief of the Ground Forces and Deputy Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR (1946 - 1950), Chief Inspector of the Soviet Army - Deputy Minister of War of the USSR (1950 - 1951). From November 1951 to March 1955, Konev served in Lvov, where he commanded the troops of the Carpathian Military District.

In 1955 - 1956 I.S. Konev again took over as commander-in-chief of the Ground Forces. In 1955 - 1960, Marshal Konev was the first deputy minister of defense of the USSR. At the same time, from May 1955 to June 1960, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the States Parties to the Warsaw Pact. During the Hungarian uprising of 1956, Marshal Konev signed an order to suppress "the forces of reaction and counter-revolution."

In 1961 - 1962, Konev was the commander-in-chief of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, and took an active part in the Berlin crisis of 1961.

From the second half of the 60s - early 70s, I.S. Konev worked on the books of memoirs "Forty-Fifth" and "Notes of the Front Commander".

In 1980, a monument to Marshal Konev was erected on the International Brigade Square in the Prague district of Dejvice. The monument to Konev was also opened in Krakow. However, after the events of the "velvet" revolution of 1989-1990 in Poland, the monument was dismantled. It was decided to move the monument from Krakow to the "small" homeland of I.S. Konev in the city of Kirov. Local authorities and the Ministry of Defense made a lot of efforts to restore the monument, and then in 1995, on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the victory, the monument was solemnly opened on one of the city squares.

The name Konev was given to a street in Moscow. In the homeland of Ivan Stepanovich, in the village of Lodeyno, Podosinovsky district, Kirov region, his bronze bust was installed.