The multifaceted and rich in historical events life of a prominent military leader and statesman Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov is of particular interest. Of the 73 years of his life, Gorodovikov devoted 33 years to military affairs, rising to the rank of lieutenant general, and for seventeen years he was engaged in the restoration and development of Kalmykia.
Children and teenagers
The area of ​​the Don Army, as the current Rostov Region was called before the revolution, was multinational, and among the Cossacks there were Kalmyks. In November 1910, a son was born in the family of a poor Cossack, a Kalmyk by birth Badmin Gorodovikov, who lives in the farm of Wet Elmut, who was named Basan. From the age of eight he went to a farm school, and continued his further education at the eight-year school of the village of Platovskaya. When the boy was fourteen, his father died, and three years later, after the death of his mother, he became an orphan. On the advice of his father’s brother, Gorodovikov volunteered for the Red Army and was enlisted as a student in the Caucasian Cavalry School. After graduating from school in 1930, he was appointed commander of a platoon of a cavalry regiment of the North Caucasus Military District.
The beginning of a military career
During the five years of service as a platoon commander, and then a squadron, he gained respect and authority from his comrades. Noticing the good organizational skills of the young commander, he was sent to the Moscow Military Academy. Frunze, which he graduated in 1938. Having received the rank of major before the graduation from the academy, he continued his service in the Primorsky Territory as the commander of the cavalry regiment. The desire to obtain thorough military knowledge led Gorodovikov to the military academy of the Air Force, where he was a student for six months, until April 1941. Basan received specific airplane control skills at the Serpukhov Aviation School, graduating from it after the start of World War II.
First battles
In early July 1941, Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov, whose photo is in the article, arrived in the army, having been appointed commander of a cavalry regiment in Ukraine. Relocated in October 1941 in the Crimea, the regiment as part of the division entered into heavy battles with Nazi troops. After stubborn bloody battles, the Red Army left the Crimea, and Gorodovikov was entrusted with the organization of the partisan movement. For the successful completion of a special task, the command of Gorodovikov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and in April 1942 he was awarded the rank of colonel. In Crimea, he was a partisan commander, organizing disparate Red Army units to resist behind enemy lines, and then was transferred to the mainland.
Participation in operations on the Western Front
After a short rest, Gorodovikov was appointed commander of the Vitebsk Rifle Division. Under the command of the colonel, five settlements were liberated in the summer of 1943, which created the prerequisites for the successful offensive of Soviet troops on the entire front. Thanks to the skillful actions of Gorodovikov, the perfectly fortified enemy defense was broken through, and then he earned the glory of the “master of breakthrough”. The division has accounted for the successful conduct of a number of military operations, many of which subsequently became the subject of study at military universities and academies.
Offensive operations
The normalization of the situation in the western direction allowed the transfer of General Gorodovikov’s division to the Baltic front, and then to the Belorussian one, where his military talent was fully manifested. During the famous Bagration operation, the division, together with the 45th Rifle Corps, liberated the city of Trakai in Lithuania. The brilliantly conducted operation to break through the German defenses and capture the enemy highway junction facilitated the entry of significant Wehrmacht forces into the encirclement in Kaunas. The division took upon itself the main blow of those seeking to break out of the encirclement of the enemy forces, not allowing them to leave the boiler. During fierce battles, a significant amount of military equipment and personnel of the enemy forces were destroyed.
Having gone on the offensive, the division entered East Prussia, successfully moving forward. The first parade of winners, which was received by the division commander, Hero of the Soviet Union Gorodoviks, took place in October 1944 on the territory of the city of Shirvindt. In December, the general was seriously injured and until February 1945 he was treated in the Moscow military hospital. After recovering, Gorodovikov, as a division commander, took an active part in military operations against Japan.
Post-war service in the SA
The huge combat experience accumulated by Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov during the Second World War was theoretically supported by studies at higher academic courses from September 1945 to February 1947. Further service of the general took place first in Brest, and since January 1950 - in the Far Eastern Military District. He was deputy commander of the rifle corps. In the summer of the same year, he was appointed head of the Directorate of Combat Training of the district, where he served until the reform of the district in 1953. Then there was a study at the Academy of the General Staff. After completing his studies in 1955, he was appointed first deputy commander of the 8th Guards Army and transferred to the Carpathian Military District deputy. the commander. In September 1960, Gorodovikov Basan Badminovich, a brief biography of which was presented to your attention in the article, by decision of the Central Committee of the CPSU was sent to party work in his native Kalmykia. The plenum of the Kalmyk regional party committee in January 1961 elected Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov the second secretary of the regional committee and since that time a period of constructive peaceful life for him began in Kalmykia.
Subsequent election of Basan Badminovich as first secretary of the CPSU regional committee
The subsequent election of Basan Badminovich as the first secretary of the regional committee of the CPSU of the Kalmyk Republic, the majority of residents accepted with enthusiasm. Knowing about his heroic exploits in the war against the fascists, organizational talent, they placed their hopes for the revival of the previously disbanded republic on Gorodovikov. In his character, exactingness and intolerance towards sloppiness and rudeness were combined with kind-heartedness and a benevolent attitude towards ordinary people. Gorodovikov knew firsthand about the plight in his small homeland. When visiting Elista in 1959, he saw a ruined burnt city, dirty streets without asphalt. During the management of the Germans, almost all the buildings were destroyed, except for the miraculously surviving cinema "Rodina" and the so-called "Red" house.
Gorodovikovsky call
The iron will, economic acumen and wisdom of the statesman made it possible to unite and send representatives of different peoples living in Kalmykia to the construction of the building. In the republic there was a catastrophic shortage of workers, and with a request to help the steppe region, Gorodovikov turned to soldiers serving in Germany. Hundreds of people who responded to the request of the people were nicknamed the "Gorodovikovsky call." Drivers, builders, machine operators who arrived at the Divnoye railway station were personally met by Basan Badminovich. In the future, he kept under constant control the issues of their livelihood in a new place.
Gorodovikov's contribution to the development of the republic
In the first years of his leadership of the republic, large-scale housing construction was launched, a number of infrastructure facilities were erected. Basan Badminovich achieved the renaming of a pedagogical institute into a university. Thanks to the insistence of Gorodovikov, a university campus was built with academic buildings and dormitories. The real boom was undergoing industrial construction. Seventeen large enterprises were commissioned, including a machine-building plant, a meat processing plant, and a meat canning factory. The first secretary of the regional committee paid special attention to the development of agriculture, delving deeply into all the subtleties. At the initiative of Gorodovikov, horse breeding, fat tail sheep breeding, camel breeding were restored, new breeding farms were created. He sought to implement promising projects in agriculture. The construction of irrigation systems began in the republic, rice cultivation was introduced in the northern regions. All the years of leadership of the Gorodovikov Autonomous Republic, until 1978, were years of active creation. Then Gorodovikov lived in Moscow, where he died and was buried in 1983.
Social work
After the retirement of Gorodovikov, Basan Badminovich, whose biography was never simple, actively participated in the work of various public organizations. The undoubted literary talent and the enormous factual material accumulated by him made it possible to create a series of vivid journalistic works. A significant place in understanding the image of the hero of the Kalmyk people is occupied by books written by Gorodovikov Basan Badminovich. The book "Orderly Kalmykia" was published in 1971. Its entire section is devoted to the development of the republic in the post-war period until 1970. An article by Gorodovikov in which the author talks about his childhood, about the influence of Uncle Oka Ivanovich on his formation as a person, appeared in 1974. The book of B. B. Gorodovikov “Soviet Kalmykia on the rise”, published by the publishing house “Soviet Russia” after the death of the author, describes the historical path of the republic as a part of Russia until 1981.
Dozens of books, essays, newspaper publications have been written about the life and work of Gorodovikov, his military career, and achievements in state building, and television films have been created. Of particular interest is Balakayev’s political novel People’s General, based on the recollections of people who were close to Gorodovikov during certain periods of his activity.
Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov: family and children
The fact that in Soviet times it was not customary to draw public attention to the personal lives of honored figures affected the lack of information. It is known that in the family of Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov there were still well-known personalities. He is the nephew of a civil war hero who also became a general, Oka Gorodovikova. In 1938, before graduation from the Military Academy. Frunze, Basan Badminovich married Nona Goryaevna. She was his faithful companion to the end of her life's journey. Did the hero have children? Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov and his wife raised three children - two daughters and a son.
The memoirs of the grandson of Basan Badminovich - Alexander Gorodovikov, who, like his grandfather and father, also devoted most of his life to the army, are interesting. According to the recollections of his grandmother, despite the undoubted leadership talent of Basan Badminovich, his promotion was hindered by the fact that he was a representative of the people repressed during the war.
Not only in their homeland, in Kalmykia, they well know who Basan Badminovich Gorodovikov is. Kingisepp, Sevastopol, Sychevka, Kaunas and many other cities, which he freed from the Nazis, honor his memory.