Aleksey gordeevich eremenko is a famous battalion commander. Alexey Eremenko - junior political instructor. Photo history. Who are you hero

Junior political instructor Alexei Eremenko is raising soldiers to attack. This is perhaps the most famous photo of the Great Patriotic War, along with which is perhaps the photograph of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag. A. Eremenko died a few seconds after the photo was taken.

The photograph was named "Kombat" (that is, "battalion commander") by the author of the photograph by mistake. Max Alpert managed to take a couple of pictures of the commander, who raised the soldiers to attack, and immediately a shell fragment broke the camera. The photographer decided that the footage was spoiled and did not write down the name of the person he photographed. Later, developing the film, he saw that the shot was excellent. M. Alpert recalled that he had heard in that battle that “Kombat was killed” had been passed along the ranks and decided that he had photographed the battalion commander. Only after the photo gained world fame under the name "Combat" was the identity of the hero in the picture established: Aleksey Gordeevich Eremenko, born in 1906.

The photo was taken on July 12 near the village of Horoshee (now the village of Horosheye, Slavyanoserbsk district, Luhansk region) between the Lugan and Lozovaya rivers, in the area where the 220th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division held its defenses, waging stubborn bloody defensive battles with superior enemy forces.

Photo Information Location: Horosheye village, Luhansk region Time taken: 07/12/1942

Eremenko Alexey Gordeevich
Born: 18 (31) March 1906
Died: 12 July 1942 (Age 36)

Biography

Alexey Gordeevich Eremenko (March 18, 1906 - July 12, 1942) - junior political instructor of the 220th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division of the 18th army. He replaced the wounded company commander and died, raising the soldiers to counterattack. According to a more widespread version, a few moments before his death, he was captured in a photo that later became known as "Combat", according to another - he died a little later, but in a similar situation.

Born on March 18 (31), 1906 in the village of Tersyanka, Yekaterinoslavskaya province, in a large family, which is why, at the age of 14, he began working on the railway, then at a factory, helping his parents. He is Ukrainian by nationality. At the time of the creation of the first collective farm in the Zaporozhye region (it was then called "Avangard", according to other sources - the collective farm named after Krasin) Aleksey was the head of the Komsomol cell. Because of his ability to lead people, he was first appointed as a brigadier, then as a party organizer, and then as chairman of the aforementioned collective farm.

Despite the reservation from the draft, at the beginning of World War II, he voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army as a commissar. He fought in the 247th Infantry Division, then in the 220th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division [Note 1].

Doom

According to one version, he died in the summer of 1942 near the village of Horoshoe: while repelling an attack by German units, he gathered a group of retreating soldiers around him and raised them in a counterattack on the enemy's trenches, in which he died during hand-to-hand combat. However, the photo could not have been taken at that moment, as there were no photojournalists nearby.

According to the second version, he was killed replacing the wounded company commander, Senior Lieutenant Petrenko. The picture was taken at the time of the counterattack, but the camera was damaged and Max Alpert was forced to lie down in a trench; while he was assessing the damage caused to the camera (at that time he believed that the pictures were lost and the film was damaged or light-up), he heard a message transmitted through a chain of people: “The battalion commander was killed!”. Considering that this was the very commander, he subsequently titled the photo "Combat".

He was buried in a mass grave in the village of Horosheye, Slavyanoserbsk district, Luhansk region (Ukraine) in July 1942.

In history

For a long time, Max Alpert could not establish what kind of person was captured in the photo - many recognized their relatives on it, one even in 2005 stated that it was he who was captured on it. To identify the commander, Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists, together with activists from the Luhansk regional youth organization Molodogvards (Molodogvardeets), organized a search for the person's relatives from the photograph, and published an appeal to readers from the newspaper's pages. In 1974, Eremenko's relatives (mother and son) wrote to the editorial office with a request to find M. Alpert, since, in their opinion, it was their husband and father who were captured in the photograph. At first, this message caused skepticism, given the many previous such statements, and because of the funeral attached to the letter, received by the wife of Alexei Gordeevich Yevdokia Eremenko in 1943: “We inform you that your husband is junior political instructor Alexei Gordeevich Eremenko, born in 1906, January 14 1942 disappeared ”[Note 4]. But, since photographs were also attached to the letter, this allowed for an examination, which confirmed with a high degree of reliability that one person is depicted in Alpert's photo and photographs provided by Eremenko's wife.

The photograph "Kombat" has become one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War.

In numismatics

Photo of Max Alpert served as the basis for several commemorative coins dedicated to the anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. These include:

5 rubles "Commander raises soldiers to attack" from the set "50 years of Victory", 1995, Russian Federation.

10 rubles "55 years of Victory", 2000, Russian Federation. Curiously, collectors call the coin "Politruk", despite the fact that the photo is mistakenly called "Combat".

Monument at the site of death

The photograph served as a source of inspiration for the Luhansk sculptor Ivan Mikhailovich Chumak [Note 5], and he began to independently work on the monument to the hero of the photograph, which took him about ten years. Subsequently, with the participation of the entire region, an eleven-meter monument, cast from bronze by the masters of the Ukrainian Specialized Scientific and Production Directorate of restoration work, was installed near the alleged battle site where A.G. Eremenko died, at the elevated location of the observation post. The mound where the monument is erected is decorated with twenty-nine granite slabs, which were specially produced for this in the quarries of the Zhytomyr region. At the foot of the monument there is a marble slab with the inscription: "In honor of the heroic deed of political workers of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945." On July 12, 2012, 70 years after the death of Eremenko, a reconstruction of the battle was carried out on the mound at the foot of the monument.

70 years ago, on July 12, 1942, the junior political instructor of the 220th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division of the 18th army, Aleksey Eremenko, was killed by the death of the hero. The political instructor was killed replacing the wounded company commander, Senior Lieutenant Petrenko.

The moment when Eremenko raises the soldiers to counterattack is captured in the famous photograph of the famous Soviet photographer Max Alpert "Combat". This was Eremenko's last counterattack - successful, but in the same battle he died ... The photojournalist was on the battlefield near the village Horosheye between the rivers Lugan and Lozovaya, in a trench just ahead of the line of defense. He saw the commander ascended and immediately photographed him. At the same moment, a shrapnel broke the lens of the camera. The correspondent considered that the film was lost and the frame was lost irretrievably. Soon he heard how the chain was passed: "The battalion was killed." The name and position of the commander remained unknown to the author, but what he heard later gave a reason to call the picture that way.

Later it turned out that the film was intact and the frame with the battalion commander too. The photo was published in 1942 front-line newspapers. But when shoulder straps were introduced in the army, they did not print a snapshot of an officer with the old insignia. So this frame lay in the personal archive of Max Alpert for 23 years, until it got to the photo exhibition dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Great Victory, and was not published in the newspaper Pravda.

The author received many letters from various people who recognized their relative in the commander. However, only one application was confirmed. Ivan Eremenko, the son of the deceased political instructor, recognized his father as soon as he saw the photo in Pravda.

“My heart ached,” Ivan told the 2000 weekly. - I showed the picture to my older sisters Nina and Shura. They also recognized the father. " The hero's wife also "looked and immediately found out crying." “At that time I worked as a deputy director of the plant,” my son continues, “I wrote a letter to Moscow, to Pravda, asking them to tell me where this photo came from in the newspaper. I receive a letter from the editorial office - it contains the address of the author of the photograph, Max Vladimirovich Alpert. "

Then there was a personal meeting with a photographer, to whom Ivan gave 10 pre-war photographs of his father. The examination was carried out by specialists from the Institute of Decryption of the KGB of the USSR, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Medical Examination of the Ministry of Justice of the USSR. The military writer Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov, as well as the Ministry of Defense, helped a lot. They also carried out a forensic examination. It took the experts a long time to say with 100% certainty: yes, this is political instructor Eremenko.

It would seem that the truth has been established. It is also confirmed by eyewitnesses, for example, a former soldier of the military platoon of the 220th regiment, later a major political worker Alexander Matveyevich Makarov, who told the magazine "Science and Life" in 1987: “The Nazis rushed into attack after attack in a frenzy. There were many killed and wounded. Our greatly thinned regiment fought off the tenth or eleventh attack already. The Nazis climbed right through to Voroshilovgrad, which was about thirty kilometers away. By the end of the day, the company commander, Senior Lieutenant Petrenko, was wounded. After a fierce bombing, with the support of tanks and artillery, the Nazis launched another attack. And then, standing up to his full height, with the words: “Follow me! For the Motherland! Forward! " The attack was repulsed, but the political instructor was killed. "

A veteran of the 285th division, reserve lieutenant colonel Vasily Sevastyanovich Berezubchak later told the weekly 2000 the following: “For eight months our division was on the defensive, covering the Voroshilovgrad direction. Then, by order of General Grechko, she moved to a new line, taking up defenses near the village of Horoshoe. Here a heated battle broke out, during which political instructor Eremenko died. I find it hard to believe that the photo was taken elsewhere, during another battle. Because Eremenko was killed during the counterattack. However, in that battle there was no correspondent nearby ... But it was in the morning of July 12. A barrage of artillery fire fell on us. We repulsed the first attack. But during the second, the right flank of the division wavered. The soldiers began to withdraw. We were deaf, blind, many were bleeding from their ears - their eardrums burst! I received the order of the divisional commander to restore the situation, to stop the soldiers, because the situation was critical. He ran to meet the retreating ones. And then I saw Eremenko. He, too, ran across the path to the fighters. “Stop! Stop! " He shouted. We lay down. Gathered people around them. There weren't many of us, a handful. But Eremenko decided to counterattack in order to restore the situation. This is not forgotten. He rose to his full height, shouted, and rushed to the attack. We broke into the trenches, hand-to-hand fighting ensued. They fought with rifle butts and bayonets. The fascists wavered and ran. Soon I saw Eremenko in one of the trenches. He fell slowly. I ran to him and realized that the junior political instructor no longer needed help ... "

And yet, in the new century, there were those who doubted the truth of those events, the authenticity of the photograph, and the hero's deed. There were versions that the picture was staged, taken during exercises even before the war, that the political instructor was not a political instructor at all, that he had the wrong number of cubes in his buttonhole, that the political instructor could not be the commander at all. The photo is viewed under a magnifying glass, improperly dressed soldiers are seen in the background, the original entry in the documents of the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation is presented as an argument, according to which A.G. Eremenko was listed as missing in January 1942 (facts when even after the funeral, the soldiers returned home alive, as if it does not exist for the critics of "Combat").

And fans of the “historical truth”, which for some reason are always based on the exposure of some “lie”, in spite of the fact that the truth of this “lie” has been proven by numerous documents, must have a disgust for “communist propaganda” that has already set the teeth on edge. And again, it would seem, what is so propaganda about Alpert's photo? The victorious Russian soldier (however, Eremenko is Ukrainian, but still Russian ...), simple, not polished, no sickles or hammers to be seen, not a word, not a hint about Stalin, raises soldiers into the attack ... war and the dead! And the picture really turned out to be wonderful from all points of view. No wonder the whole world admired him. Such luck is rare for a photojournalist. He became a symbol of military courage, valor and courage of all defenders of the Fatherland. He stepped across the planet, as if having renounced his creator, stood on a par with such creations as the poster "The Motherland Calls!" and a monument to a Soviet soldier in Treptow Park.

So why is there such a lack of faith in the real existence of both the heroic deed and the hero? Everything becomes clear when you learn the biography of Alexei Eremenko: he is a communist, from a simple working family with many children, who had to start his career early. At the time of the creation of the first collective farm in the Zaporozhye region (he was then named Krasin), Aleksey was the head of the Komsomol cell. Because of the ability to lead people, he was first appointed a brigadier, then a party organizer, and then chairman of a collective farm.

The son of Alexei Eremenko says: “He was a famous person in the region. Three times represented the farm at VDNKh ... He spoke at the All-Union meeting of agricultural workers. He was the first to illuminate the villages in the region. " The last time Ivan Eremenko saw his father was in September 1941: “It was during the evacuation, in a forest belt under the city. My father was already a military man, although he had a reservation. His statement was preserved in the archives of the military registration and enlistment office: “Please send me to the front. I consider myself quite healthy to beat the fascist reptile ... "

Eremenko just turned out to be a real communist. Like this - who led the collective farm before the war, and in battle took over the leadership of the attack. Being a communist in those days meant having the only privilege - to be ahead and not expect any awards and honors. He did not wait, that is why the "Combat" was unknown for so long. Aleksey Eremenko's only award is the Order of the Badge of Honor, which he was presented with before the war for the hard work of the chairman of an advanced collective farm. The groom of the same collective farm received the Order of Lenin - Eremenko's farm annually sent 20 trotters to the Red Army.

And political instructor Eremenko, the famous "Combat", has no military awards ... In the 70s, they petitioned Brezhnev to award the hero posthumously. Brezhnev, upon learning, shed tears ... But the matter did not come to the paperwork. Already in independent Ukraine, the son of Eremenko appealed to the president of the country, but received an answer from the Administration: no awards are given for past achievements ...

And yet he was! Unknown "Kombat" who took on a name. The photograph itself speaks of the ordinariness and majesty of his feat. Everyone knows "Kombat", many now know that the photo shows Alexei Eremenko. Let's remember that he was a communist.

Who has not seen this photo! From the moment when Pravda published a photograph of a war correspondent Max Alpert, it was reprinted by dozens of publications in the USSR and hundreds - all over the world. So the nameless "Combat", raising the Red Army soldiers to attack, became one of the symbols of the Great Victory. But the real name of the hero, junior political instructor Alexey Eremenko, became known only decades after the feat.

Attack ...

At one time I was lucky enough to talk with the Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Karpov... So, answering the question what was the most difficult thing in the war, Vladimir Vasilyevich admitted that the most difficult thing was to force himself to get off the ground in order to launch an attack, when you know that the first bullet of the enemy can be yours. But this is exactly what happened to Alexei Eremenko, the junior political instructor of the 220th regiment of the 4th rifle division. In the summer of 1942, their company fought to death at the border near the village of Horosheye in the Slavyanoserbsky district of the Voroshilovgrad (now Luhansk) region.

Having repulsed thirteen (!) Attacks of the Nazis, the unit was already preparing for the worst. After all, a company commander, senior lieutenant Petrenko, severely wounded. And who will command the remaining fighters? And then Alexey Gordeevich took his place. Gathering around him the surviving Red Army men and waiting for the end of the next artillery preparation of the enemy, Eremenko got up from the trench and dragged his subordinates into a counterattack, commanding: “Forward! For the Motherland! "

It was this moment that was captured by the military journalist Max Alpert, who appeared at that time on the front line, filming for TASS. The company, or what was left of it, rushed at the enemy, engaging with him in a bayonet fight. But that was later. And just a moment after the photographer took the picture, a Nazi bullet overtook the junior political instructor. The camera itself was broken by a shrapnel. That is why Alpert did not write down the names of the hero. And while he was unsuccessfully trying to understand whether it was possible to fix the camera, the trenches swept through the trenches: "The battalion commander was killed!" Okay, the journalist decided, if the film still hasn't been torn, the picture can be titled “Combat”.

Who are you, hero?

Years have passed. Relatives of Eremenko only knew that on the eve of his death he had taken part in the defense of Debaltseve for 8 months. And then we received the news that Aleksey Gordeevich was missing. But he was buried after the battle, even in a mass grave. However, not all fighters knew the young political leader by sight, who had just taken over to replace the commander. Yes, and the fighters remained alive - nothing at all. Therefore, Eremenko was never identified.

This was possible only 20 years after the Victory, when a commemorative photo album was published in the Pravda publishing house, on the cover of which the photograph was placed. “As I saw the photo, I immediately realized that it was my father,” later recalled the hero’s son, Ivan, himself a former military man, a retired colonel. - True, it was embarrassing that at the bottom was signed "Combat". Although the family knew for sure that he was a junior political instructor. Both my sister and the rest of our relatives - all recognized in the photo of our father. To make sure that I was not mistaken, I showed the photo album to my mother. She, as she saw the picture, burst into tears, lamenting: "This is my Alyosha!"

The family's repeated appeals to various authorities did not clarify the situation. Indeed, hundreds of letters came to the editorial office, each of which stated that it was their father, son, brother or uncle depicted in the picture. In the mid-2000s, for example, the Internet even flashed information that 90-year-old front-line soldier Pavel Fedorovich Petrov is living out his life in Mariupol, who, in his own opinion, is the very “Combat”. And Evdokia, Eremenko's widow, was helped by the fact that in 1974, together with a copy of the funeral, she put it in a letter and his pre-war photographs. The carried out examination established their identity with the "kombat" one. So the country learned the name of the hero.

Secretary General's promise

Say what you like, but in Soviet times there were many real party bosses. It was these people who rightly decided that a person who has become a symbol of Victory must be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This is exactly what the first persons of the corresponding party regional committees of the Luhansk region (where Aleksey Gordeevich died) and Zaporozhye (where he was born in the village of Tersyanka) acted. By that time, a book about Eremenko had already been published. After waiting for the next anniversary of "dear Leonid Ilyich", the first secretaries, meeting with him in the Kremlin, presented a volume Brezhnev. And in words they said that we are talking about the same "Combat". And it would be nice for him to posthumously assign a Hero.

“It would be nice, it would be nice ... Especially since he is really a real hero,” the General Secretary allegedly replied. But the matter with the awarding did not get off the ground. But Leonid Ilyich during the war, in the rank of brigade commissar, led the political department of the same 18th army, which included, respectively, the 4th division and the 220th rifle regiment.

One can, of course, assume that it was not the Dnipropetrovsk party officials whom Brezhnev welcomed to put in the word for the hero. But Ilyich, sentimental in old age, treated his fellow soldiers favorably. Most likely, he simply forgot about this conversation.

The fight continues

And nowadays, Aleksey Gordeevich Eremenko does not manage to assign, albeit posthumously, the title of Hero. Cossacks from the public organizations "Slavic Guard" and the St. George Union of Youth, the then head of the regional administration, addressed the President of Ukraine at one time. Boris Petrov... But so far, initiators only receive replies, or their appeals remain unanswered at all. According to the still living Ivana Eremenko sent a petition Viktor Yushchenko and under the governorship Evgeniya Chervonenko... It is better not to remember what that appeal could lead to. After all, even the hero's surname seemed to have been deliberately distorted by writing in the document: "Aleksey Gordeevich Efremov." And could a person who awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine have signed this petition? Bandera?

In a word, so far nothing has been achieved with this noble deed. What can I say: they love today in Ukraine, and even in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe, to fight with veterans, with soldiers lying in mass graves, and with monuments erected in their honor. So, is it really impossible to pay tribute to the legendary hero in our country, the symbol of whose Victory in the hardest struggle against fascism he became? This would be the highest justice. And it would sound proudly and beautifully: Hero of Russia Alexey Gordeevich Eremenko!

This photograph has truly become a textbook, as it is printed in almost all publications that highlight the history of the Great Patriotic Mines. In terms of frequency of publications, it is comparable to photographic reproductions of the monuments "Motherland" in Stalingrad or "Soldier-Liberator in Treptower Park in Berlin. The photograph was first published in July 1942 in almost all newspapers in the USSR and even in a number of publications abroad under the title" The battalion commander. "The London Sunday Times wrote on the first page:" The battalion commander is raising the fighters to attack. This picture captures the heroic deed of the whole people ... "The" Combat "became a revelation for the entire world community.

"Kombat" is a famous photograph of the Great Patriotic War, taken by the Soviet photographer Max Vladimirovich Alpert. The photo shows a commander raising a soldier to attack, a few seconds before his death. "Kombat" is one of the brightest and most expressive photos of the times of the Great Patriotic War. For a long time, despite the fact that the picture was famous and popular, only the history of its creation and the name given to it by the photographer were known. The identity of the person depicted on it remained unknown.

This photo bears the name "Kombat" (that is, "battalion commander"), despite the fact that the author gave this name by mistake. This photo is not a staged photo and is not a still from a film. This happened on July 12, 1942 near the village of Horoshee between the rivers Lugan and Lozova (now the village of Horosheye in the Slavyanoserbsky district of the Luhansk region), in the area of ​​hostilities, in which the 220th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division took part, where in those days the Red Army fought stubborn bloody defensive battles with superior enemy forces.

The photographer took up a position in a trench just ahead of the line of defense. At that moment, the attack of the Germans began, an air raid passed and shelling began. Alpert saw the commander ascended and immediately photographed him. At the same moment, a shrapnel broke the lens of the camera. The correspondent considered that the film was lost and the frame was lost irretrievably, and did not write down the name of the person whom he photographed. Fumbling with a broken apparatus in his trench, he did not follow the situation for a while, but heard the chain-channeled message: "The battalion commander was killed." The name and position of the commander remained unknown to the author, but what he heard later gave a reason to call the picture that way. Later, developing the film, he saw that the frame was excellent.

After a while, the identity of the person in the photo was identified - his name was Alexey Gordeevich Eremenko.

And this is what attracts special attention here. Aleksey Gordeevich died a heroic death two weeks before the order No. 227 of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief was issued ("Not a step back!"). That is, in the most alarming period of the Great War, when the turning point in it had not yet come, when our troops with the hardest battles and losses retreated farther to the east, when other people of little faith had already put an end to the fate of their Motherland. And a hereditary grain grower, a native of the village of Tyrsyanka, Volnyansky district of the Zaporozhye region, before the war - the chairman of the leading Zaporizhzhya collective farm Alexei Eremenko, the father of four small, small, fewer children, who at that moment did not know anything about the fate of his family (were they alive, did they manage to evacuate? ), always firmly believed and knew that the enemy would be defeated and victory would be ours. It was not for nothing that he was eager to go to the front from the first day of the war, although he had a draft reservation, which was given to him as an economic leader for solving important national economic problems. And he got his way: on July 14 he was mobilized. Then there were short-term training courses for political workers in Zaporozhye and distribution as a political instructor in a rifle company ...

Attempt to establish an identity

In the early 1970s, journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda and members of the Luhansk regional youth organization Molodogvards attempted to establish the identity of the person captured in the famous photograph. He, allegedly, turned out to be a native of the village of Tersyanka, Volnyanskiy district, Zaporozhye region, Aleksey Gordeevich Eremenko, a junior political instructor of one of the companies of the 220th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division.

Here is what a former soldier of the military platoon of the 220th regiment, later a major-political worker, Alexander Matveyevich Makarov, told about those events: " The fascists rushed into attack after attack in a frenzy. There were many killed and wounded. Our greatly thinned regiment fought off the tenth or eleventh attack already. The Nazis climbed right through to Voroshilovgrad, which was about thirty kilometers away. By the end of the day, the company commander, Senior Lieutenant Petrenko, was wounded. After a fierce bombing, with the support of tanks and artillery, the Nazis launched another attack. And then, standing up to his full height, with the words: “Follow me! For the Motherland! Forward! " The political instructor died, but the attack was repulsed."(" Science and Life ", 11.1987," Combat ")

Former commander of the 4th Order of Suvorov, Bezhitskaya SD, Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant General Ivan Pavlovich Rosly, in his memoirs, speaks of his former subordinate as follows: “We defended Voroshilovgrad, covering the withdrawal of the 12th Army to a new line. In some areas, the Nazis wedged into the location of our division, but were thrown back by decisive counterattacks. Then the political instructor A.G. Eremenko led his company into a victorious counterattack. That fight was his last. But the memory of those killed in the battles for the Motherland is immortal ... ”(“ The last halt - in Berlin. ”M., Military Publishing House, 1983, p. 204).

Veteran of the 285th division, reserve lieutenant colonel Vasily Sevastyanovich Berezubchak describes these events as follows: " For eight months our division was on the defensive, covering the Voroshilovgrad direction. Then, by order of General Grechko, she moved to a new line, taking up defenses near the village of Horoshoe. Here a heated battle broke out, during which political instructor Eremenko died. I find it hard to believe that the photo was taken elsewhere, during another battle. Because Eremenko was killed during the counterattack. However, in that battle there was no correspondent nearby ... But it was in the morning of July 12. A barrage of artillery fire fell on us. We repulsed the first attack. But during the second, the right flank of the division wavered. The soldiers began to withdraw. We were deaf, blind, many were bleeding from their ears - their eardrums burst! I received the order of the divisional commander to restore the situation, to stop the soldiers, because the situation was critical. He ran to meet the retreating ones. And then I saw Eremenko. He, too, ran across the path to the fighters. “Stop! Stop! " He shouted. We lay down. Gathered people around them. There weren't many of us, a handful. But Eremenko decided to counterattack in order to restore the situation. This is not forgotten. He rose to his full height, shouted, and rushed to the attack. We broke into the trenches, hand-to-hand fighting ensued. They fought with rifle butts and bayonets. The fascists wavered and ran. Soon I saw Eremenko in one of the trenches. He fell slowly. I ran to him and realized that the junior political instructor no longer needed help ..."

On the other hand, according to TsAMO, political instructor A.G. Eremenko was listed as missing in January 1942, that is, according to documents, he died at the very beginning of the year and under not completely clarified circumstances. However, it is argued that the widow after 32 years, that is, at about the same time as the above-mentioned search for "Komsomolskaya Pravda" was carried out, received a new notification with an amendment about the heroic death of her husband on July 12.

In May 1974, one of the offices received a letter from Zaporozhye from the chairman of the district executive committee Ivan Alekseevich Eremenko. He wrote: “On the anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, our entire family gathered at the table. It just so happened: on this day we will definitely gather to honor the memory of those who did not return from the war. Suddenly - a call. The postman brought mail and newspapers. My mother, out of habit, began to look through the sheaf of newspapers in search of letters. And suddenly he shouts: “Vanya! Father! Our father! " My heart skipped a beat, caught my breath. I look at the picture in the newspaper - and I can't believe my eyes: Dad, Dad was found! "

Later, Max Alpert told Ivan Eremenko that in the photograph he published, dozens of people "recognized", as it seemed to them, their relatives. He asked Ivan Alekseevich to bring to Moscow as many pictures of his father as possible so that experts could use them to establish his identity with the person depicted in the last moments of his life in the front-line photograph.

After a while, another letter came from the village of Terstianka, Volnyanskiy district, Zaporozhye region: “Excuse us, dear comrades, but we do not know how to find the front-line correspondent M. Alpert. The fact is that we recognized our father and husband A. G. Eremenko in his battalion commander. Help me please".

He had several pre-war photographs of Alexei Gordeevich Eremenko. And this letter was greeted with a great deal of skepticism, which was reinforced by the notification attached to it, received by the wife of Alexei Gordeevich Eremenko Evdokia in 1942: “We inform you that your husband, junior political instructor Alexei Gordeevich Eremenko, born in 1906, went missing on January 14, 1942 ".

And yet, for a thorough verification of this version, the great similarity of the facial features of A.G. Eremenko and the officer, shot in profile by Alpert, made them undertake. The examination confirmed the identity of the person's personality, recorded in all photographs.

From the memories of his son:

"- Who carried out the examination?

Very painstaking research was carried out by the Institute of Decryption of the KGB of the USSR, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Medical Examination of the Ministry of Justice of the USSR. The military writer Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov helped us a lot. The Defense Department was helping. They also carried out a forensic examination.

- What, it was so difficult to determine whether it was your father or not?

Imagine yes! There were so many applicants for kinship with the battalion commander that it was impossible to make a mistake. It took Moscow experts a long time to say with absolute certainty: yes, this is political instructor Eremenko, he fought as part of the 220th regiment of the 4th rifle division. "

The former secretary of the Volnyansk district committee of the Komsomol Konstantin Stepanovich Garmanin also sheds light on his fate: “I knew Alexei Gordeevich Eremenko well. He worked in our area as chairman of the Krasin collective farm. At the end of June, we were both sent to Zaporozhye, to the school of political personnel. Then the school was transferred to Pavlograd. There we were caught by the breakthrough of the fascists in the region of Dnepropetrovsk. The entire staff of the school fought off attacks. But the forces were too unequal. We were surrounded. I was the eldest in the group. I decided to break through. Eremenko supported me. The night was dark and it was raining. We walked in a deep forest. When later I checked the people, it turned out that there was no cadet Eremenko with us. When we left the encirclement, I issued a report on him as a missing person. The similarity of surnames and initials, apparently, misled the staff officers. This is how the error happened. Together with Alexey Eremenko, we served in February 1942. We were given the rank of junior political instructors and sent to the 285th division. On the morning of February 27, I was seriously wounded and sent to the hospital. Since then I haven’t met with Eremenko ”.

After that, it became clear that Aleksey Eremenko was not an army commander, but only a political instructor, and even then a junior.

Only 32 years later, the military commissar corrected his mistake by sending a new notice to Evdokia Eremenko: “We inform you with regret that your husband, junior political instructor Eremenko Aleksey Gordeevich, who was faithful to the military oath in the battle for our Soviet Motherland, showing heroism and courage, died at the front 12 July 1942 ".

Other versions related to the origin of the photograph and the face depicted on it

Mentioned, however, unproven, the version that the picture was taken at the exercises before the start of the war. The picture really gives some reason for such doubts, since the fighters on it are equipped in a marching manner, duffel bags and an overcoat in a roll-up, worn over their shoulders, are clearly visible. This does not fit with the stories of Alpert, Makarov and Berezubchak about the counterattack of the unit that took up the defenses under the fire of the Nazis after the air raid and shelling.

A military historian, Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Grigorievich Veremeyev, put forward a version that the photograph shows a junior lieutenant of the NKVD border troops or an NKVD rifle division (with some degree of probability a junior lieutenant of the infantry), but not a political instructor.

"We see one buttonhole, and in it in the middle there is one square ("cube" or "kubar", as they were usually called in everyday life) and above at the edge of the buttonhole there is an emblem in the form of two crossed rifles against the background of a target. It is impossible to confuse it with another. There were no emblems closely similar to her.

This emblem was worn only by servicemen of the border troops of the NKVD and rifle divisions of the NKVD (except for the military-political composition). In any case, neither in the order of the NKO of the USSR No. 33 of March 10, 1936, which introduced "lapel badges-emblems" (as they were then called), nor in the Charter of the Internal Service of the Red Army (UVS-37), introduced in 1937 I did not find this emblem in a year. And this order of the NKO was in effect until January 1943, when by order of the NCO of the USSR No. 25 of January 15, 1943. army emblems have been changed.

But this is not the point, but the fact that until January 1943 the order of wearing the emblems was somewhat different than the one to which we are accustomed. Only command personnel and Red Army men wore emblems for the combat arms. The commanding staff wore emblems according to the nature of their service, regardless of the type of troops in which they serve (military-technical - crossed hammer and key, military-economic and administrative staff - their characteristic emblem, military-medical and military-veterinary staff - a snake wrapped around a bowl , military-legal composition - a shield against the background of crossed swords).

There was no emblem for the military-political staff (commissars and political instructors)! And the political workers did not wear any emblems in their buttonholes and could not wear them. Not in any branch of the Red Army, in any part of the NKVD!

Consequently, the photograph depicts not a political instructor, but an officer of the border troops or an NKVD stealth division. I will make a reservation that according to some secondary sources it is indirectly clear that this emblem seemed to be appropriated to the infantry of the Red Army before the war, but I did not find any documentary evidence of this even in the archives. And the problem is not in the emblem itself, but in the fact that the political instructor could not have any emblem in his buttonhole! COULD NOT! And in the picture she is present.

Let's move on. As I said above, one cube is clearly visible in the buttonhole. Meanwhile, when in September 1935, by the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, personal ranks were introduced in the Red Army, the most junior rank of the military-political composition was the rank of "political instructor". By order of the NCO of the USSR No. 176 dated December 3, 1935. for this title, 3 (!) cubes were identified by insignia.

On August 20, 1937, by order of the NKO of the USSR No. 166, three new ranks were introduced - junior lieutenant, junior military technician and junior political instructor. "

The opinion that political workers should not have worn the emblems of the branch of service is untenable: "Command and political personnel wear the emblems of a kind of troops on their buttonholes." - from the order of the NCO No. 226 of July 26, 1940. In addition, it is enough to increase the contrast of the photo with good quality, so that the second “cube” becomes visible, which is in the shadow and because of this is invisible on lower quality copies of the photo. The emblem turns out to be crossed rifles on the target, that is, the emblem of the infantry, reintroduced on January 1, 1941, after its absence in the period 1935-1940.

According to another version of the Kombat's personality there is also a mention of Senior Lieutenant Pavel Fedorovich Petrov, a history teacher from the Kirov region. The photograph, which has become one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War, shows Senior Lieutenant Pavel Petrov, who lived in Slobodskoye for many years. The hero of the photograph would seem to have remained “in the shadows” if it were not for the letter that came recently from Ukraine to one of the suburban schools.

In the message, the war veteran from Mariupol, Alexander Ivanovich Kulchenko, asked if the residents of the Kirov region were aware that the person depicted in the legendary photograph of the war years was their fellow countryman. Didn't know anything about the hero and photojournalist Max Alpert, so he signed the photo with one word - "Combat". In the war and post-war years, it was believed that the political instructor who got into the frame was killed the very next moment. In the meantime, Viktor Yelkin, a teacher at the Secondary School No. 5 in Sloboda, is sure that our fellow countryman Pavel Petrov was the "Kombat". In the process of correspondence and exchange of documents, according to the researcher, this information was confirmed.

It turned out that a native of the village of Melet, Malmyzhsky district, Pavel Fedorovich graduated from a forestry technical school, then, after serving for three years, he studied at the historical and philological faculty of the Kirov Pedagogical Institute. Since there were not enough teachers, after the second year the young historian was sent to Slobodskoy, to school # 6. There he taught the history of the Russian state for two years. Until the war began ...

After training in special courses, Petrov, with the rank of senior lieutenant, ended up in Stalingrad. There were battles for the height 92-05, from which the whole city was viewed and shot through. The Nazis stopped all approaches to it with a flurry of fire, the slopes were strewn with the bodies of the dead Red Army soldiers. The front command set a combat mission - to capture an impregnable height. On October 26, 1942 [only the photo was published in July], along with the soldiers, Senior Lieutenant Pavel Petrov went to the assault.

“The situation was becoming critical,” Pavel Fedorovich recalled many years later at a meeting with journalists. - The surviving soldiers turned to me: “Comrade political instructor! If you go on the attack, we will follow you! " That's when I got up with a pistol in my hand and led the battalion behind me. I caught a glimpse of a running soldier with a camera, but then I thought it was our company photographer. When 70-100 meters were left to the enemy pillboxes, the attack failed again - the Germans began to fire with direct fire from anti-tank guns. Then I got up a second time, holding the pistol in my hand, and commanded: "Follow me!" Apparently, at this moment the correspondent of Alpet pressed the release button of the "Leica". We ran straight to the pillbox, and about 20-25 meters from the firing points of the Nazis I was wounded in the leg. I crawl and shout: "Surround the heights!" But the soldiers already without my command finally knocked the Germans out from the height of 92-05.

Then, beyond the Volga, a senior staff officer found the political instructor and said that the command of the 93rd brigade was presenting Senior Lieutenant Petrov to a high government award - the Order of the Red Banner of Battle. But the award list never went to Moscow. The immediate superior of Petrov - the head of the special department of the brigade - did not sign the petition: "I did not send him into battle."

After the hospital, Petrov was offered to stay to serve in the military units of the Sverdlovsk region, but he was eager to return to the front. As part of the 57th Army, he fought through Bessarabia, Romania and Hungary. In one of the clashes, Pavel Fedorovich was wounded from a machine gun in both legs. Further - a long treatment, recovery in the sanatorium of the city of Evpatoria. Here Senior Lieutenant Petrov met the nurse Vera Mikhailovna Goncharova, who became his companion for many years of marriage ...

After the war, our fellow countryman returned to Slobodskoy, continued his studies at the pedagogical institute, combining it with work at school, but front-line wounds made themselves felt ... First, he was treated in Kazan, then, on the advice of doctors, he changed the climate and in 1969 moved to Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Soon he moved the whole family here. On March 2, 2005, at the age of 92, the heart of the legendary warrior of the Battle of Stalingrad Pavel Fedorovich Petrov - "Combat" - stopped beating.

Further use of the image

Near the Lugansk-Artemovsk highway (the so-called Bakhmutskaya road or Bakhmutka), before the turn to Slavyanoserbsk, on the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Great Victory, a monument was erected to the battalion commander (political instructor), which repeats the plot depicted in the photograph. Although the battle itself took place to the south - in the lowland near the village of Horoshoe. On the granite pedestal were inscribed the words: "In honor of the heroic deed of the political workers of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The feat of A. G. Eremenko."

"- Of course, you also visited the place of death of your father?

- Many times. Much has been done there. On the eve of the 35th anniversary of the Great Victory, not far from Lugansk, near the village of Horoshee, a monument was erected - the father's full height, as in the photograph, with a pistol in his hand, raising the soldiers to attack.

- Well, there is not just a monument, but a huge bronze monument!

- This construction cost seven and a half million rubles. A special construction department of 400 people was created. The place was chosen successfully, on a hill, a 25-meter mound was poured. We installed one hundred 20-meter piles to hold the monolith.

- The sculptor of this monument is very talented ...

- Yes, it was a sculptor from Lugansk, Ivan Alekseevich Chumak, he sculpted a statue of the battalion commander. He told me that he went through a lot of approvals. Either in the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, they believed that because of the raised hand of the battalion commander, his face was not visible, then the tablet was not like that. The Central Committee of the CPSU also agreed. Then in Kiev, in a special workshop, a bronze figure weighing 17 tons was cast and delivered to Lugansk. When it was installed, I spent the day and night there. After the monument was installed, he took 10 liters of alcohol, snacks and gave it to the workers to remember their father and everyone who did not return from the war.

- You were at the opening of the monument?

- Certainly! There were a lot of people. The monument was opened by the chairman of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine Lyashko - he also fought in that sector of the front. Capsules with earth were brought from the hero cities of the Union. Everything was very solemn. "(From an interview with I. Eremenko)

Emblem of the Donetsk Higher Military-Political School of Engineering Troops and Signal Corps

Badges and medals of the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School (Military Institute) of the Combined Arms Academy of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, a branch of the Military Educational and Scientific Center of the Ground Forces.

Watch "Victory", released for the 40th anniversary of Victory, 1985.

In Chelyabinsk, the image was used to create a metal bas-relief in memory of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The bas-relief is located at the end of a nine-storey residential building at 48 Molodogvardeytsev Street; at the intersection of st. Molodogvardeytsev and Victory Avenue. During the construction of the annex to the building in the late 1990s, the bas-relief was dismantled and a new one was installed in its place, somewhat different in appearance from the original installed in the 1970s.

Jubilee coin of the Russian Federation. year 2000. 10 rubles. 55 years of the Great Victory

The image was used on a postage stamp of the Republic of Congo in 1985, dedicated to the 40th anniversary of Victory Day.

The photograph of the battalion commander became one of the symbols of the Second World War not only in the post-Soviet space: for example, the magazine “WWII History” in one of its issues in 2007 used a photograph to decorate the cover.

Monument "Kombat" on the Alley of Battle Glory. Zaporizhzhia. In the top photo is the son of the legendary "battalion commander" - ex-chairman of the Ordzhonikidze regional executive committee of Zaporozhye Ivan Eremenko.

Zaporizhzhya Cossacks and a number of patriotic organizations in February 2011 appealed to the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych with a request to confer the title "Hero of Ukraine" (posthumously) on junior political instructor Oleksiy Eremenko. The Cossacks ended their appeal with the following words: "... we express the hope that the next award decree will justify the expectations of the broad patriotic community, and of the whole of Ukraine as well."

On July 12, 2012, by decree of the President of Ukraine V. Yanukovych No. 450/12, the title “Hero of Ukraine” and the Order of the Golden Star were awarded to Oleksiy Gordeyevich Eremenko posthumously “for personal courage and heroism shown in battles against fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War of 1941 -1945 years ”(it is possible that this decision was influenced by a picket of representatives of a number of public organizations, scheduled for July 11 at the walls of the Presidential Administration of Ukraine, demanding to confer this title on Oleksiy Eremenko).

"- In Soviet times, did you also petition for the title of Hero to be awarded to the battalion commander?
- It was so. The first secretaries of the Lugansk and Zaporozhye regional committees of the Communist Party of Ukraine Goncharenko and Vsevolozhsky came out with such a petition to Brezhnev. And Brezhnev had a birthday. They decided to present him with a book about political instructor Eremenko, the history of the creation of the monument, which was built by the entire Union and at the same time decide on the issue of conferring the title of Hero to my father. Brezhnev saw the book, felt deeply, burst into tears: this is my army! These are my political instructors! Eremenko is a hero, but he has no reward. How so! And then Suslov rises: yes, the legendary battalion commander, even if he will be legendary, but Leonid Ilyich, who brought up such fighters, will soon have a birthday and the best gift for Leonid Ilyich is the assignment of the title of Hero to him. Everyone applauded. In general, it was not up to my father. Goncharenko told me this later."(From an interview with I. Eremenko)

And in independent Ukraine, this issue was also raised, - as Ivan Eremenko recalled, under Governor Yevgeny Chervonenko, they wrote a petition from the regional state administration to President Viktor Yushchenko. True, as Ivan Alekseevich complained, for some reason the surname of his father was distorted - instead of Eremenko, they wrote Efremov. The petition was unsuccessful ... And the mayor, Alexander Polyak, promised the hero's son that Yuzhnoukrainskaya street would be named after Oleksiy Eremenko. But he did not have time to fulfill his promise ...

Probably someone will argue that there were thousands of people like Eremenko during the war. But he should become the personification of those who raised a company or battalion instead of the killed commander, as Alexander Matrosov became a symbol of those who covered the enemy embrasure with his body, Nikolai Gastello - those who, sacrificing their lives, sent a burning plane to the accumulation of enemies.

Oleksiy Eremenko honestly worked in peacetime on the fertile Ukrainian land, and when a harsh wartime hard times came, he went to defend it from enemies and died. He did not have a single combat award and was not even awarded one for his last heroic battle. Therefore, when our statesmen during the celebrations name the heroes, let them remember the name of Alexei Eremenko. Let this be a posthumous award, albeit belated, to the former junior political instructor who has stepped into immortality.

We agree: thanks to the front-line photojournalist who captured the heroic moment, today we bow before the memory of a particular hero, and pay tribute to the greatness of the image of the commander of the Red Army that has developed in the people's memory, who continues the earthly, and I want to say, eternal life. After all, this is about such a universal Russian moment, the poet-front-line soldier Alexander Mezhirov wrote his great lines (despite the ideological component, in no way belittling the greatness of the sacrificial feat):

Burned bridges
On the roads from Brest to Moscow.
Soldiers were walking
Looking away from the refugees.
And on the towers
Buried in arable land KV
Heavy drops of rain were drying up.

And without a casing
From Stalingrad apartments
Beat "maxim",
And Rodimtsev felt the ice.
And then
barely audible
said
commander:
- Communists, forward! .. Communists, forward!

Whoever he was, this commander or political worker of the Red Army, who rose up under enemy fire and roused our soldiers with him, he was forever immortalized by his feat, became an image of courage and selflessness for many generations of Russian people.

There are no nameless heroes - there are heroes whose names have been forgotten by their descendants.

 

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