Soviet Hierarchy of Soviet Awards?

[Mondvor]

To RedThreat. You posted several links to Russian web site. I can read Russian because this is my native language. But not all forum members can do the same. So you should provide complete English translation of the articles. Otherwise this is not fair concerning forum members who do not speak Russian. Do you agree with me?

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Mondvor (or Andrew),

no problem, I just reproduced the interesting points of the Baklanov-link in my reply to "Red Threat".

I myself can't speak russian at all. But I know the letters, the important words and sentences for collecting awards. So it's rather easy to find some "message" in a citation or document.

I think, it doesn't make much sense to collect Soviet awards, if you can't even read what is written on the order or what is written in the order's booklet .

So I expect, that most of our members in this section of GMIC can extract the information out of a link in russian language.

Best regards

Christian

Edited September 30, 2006 by Christian Zulus

[Ed_Haynes]

I shall henceforth ignore this thread.

[Christian Zulus]

I shall henceforth ignore this thread.

Dear Ed,

that's not the style of a true British Gentleman .

Maybe you could give as a hint, what the reasons might be for your sudden decline in interest to our discussions in this thread?

Best regards

Christian

[Ed_Haynes]

I decline to engage in ad hominem[ attacks, preferring "research at twenty paces at dawn".

An interesting topic has run its course, as far as I am concerned.

And I am not now, nor have I ever been, British. My ancestors were Scots, having been thrown out a mere twenty years later they could have been Australians.

Edited September 30, 2006 by Ed_Haynes

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Ed,

sorry for the "British", but I regarded you for years - style of writing, language, interests and your familiy name - as a member of the British Empire. But Scots are inhabitants of the - so called - British Islands.

At least the GMIC IS a British platform - co.uk - and named "Gentleman's Military Interest Club" .

I assume, that you have to live in Northern America?

Sorry again ...

Best regards

Christian

[Guest Rick Research]

Overaged children may consider this the ONE admonition to behave, period. END, period, N-O-W. The Loco Parentis

An interesting thread. To me, the really meaningful "hierarchy" were the awards (a system which every nation should have and no other does) that provided material perks: reduced rent, increased living space, extra health care, free travel were at the top of the list. A Victoria Cross or Medal of Honor doesn't get so much as a free bus ticket, alas.

As far as links to Russian websites go:

My computer cannot handle non-Western alphabets. I can copy and paste Cyrillic letters from our pinned alphabet thread HERE, but I and I am sure many others in the West like myself who can read the language with our EYES but not our COMPUTERS cannot view Russian language websites.

So if there is ever anything relevant, please credit the website but "print screen" the information and repost it directly here just like any other illustration. THEN it CAN be read and translated.

[Mondvor]

I guess that any good discussion could be productive. Christian and RedThreat are familiar with the history of Great Patriotic War and this is just excellent. More knowledgeable people we have on the forum, more interesting this forum would be. Of course, this all true only in a case of polite behaviour and gentlemen manners

As about Nevsky and "stupid behavior of Army commander", well, I think you understand that it was ironic statement. But I truly believe that under normal conditions no Army or Corps commander would recommend commander of the division to Nevsky. RedThreat found one case out of app. 41.000 Nevsky's given to individuals. And still this case is not absolutely clear to me. Information from the article he pointed to is based on five different sources of literature. And they, in turn, based on memoirs of their authors. Memoirs, sometimes, can be incorrect. The only argument in a scientific discussion is a document, for example citation or award card. It is just my opinion, maybe I'm wrong.

And again about this Nevsky to Afanasiev. We should not exclude another possibility. RedThreat, I see that you are familiar with history of GRW. Do you remember what happened to Shtemenko and why he got Suvorov 2nd class instead of 1st class?

With respect to everyone,

Andrew.

[Riley1965]

Christian Zulu,

This will be my last post because I agree with Ed..It has run it's course. If my post offended you, I apologise. My nickname Doc was earned as Combat Medic. The servicemen and women i served with and treated bestowed the Honorable nickname upon me only after I had gained their trust and respect. It is a U.S. Military tradition.

All the best,

Doc

Edited October 1, 2006 by Riley1965

[Guest RedThreat]

Dear Forum Members,

My name is Simon (Semyon, if you can pronounce it ) and I have never hid it. Some of my previous posts are signed.

I have never claimed that Major Generals were the ones who got most Nevskies. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if very few Nevskies went to Generals. When I made this suggestion, several forum members ridiculed me. Officers of seven ranks below Major General were qualified to get the order. Statistically, we are to expect that generals got 1/8 of all Nevsky. Since there are fewer Major Generals than officers of any lower rank, the ratio of generals to non-generals who were decorated by Nevsky further decreases. Andrey, I agree with you that Nevsky would not be the first choice of a Corps Commander for his Division Comm. However, is it a choice which is completely out of the question? I respectfully disagree with you that Div Comm could only get Nevsky on paper. A commander didn't always award his subordinate with the highest order allowed by statutes. We have seen examples of colonels and majors with Nevskys. These officers qualified for more prestigious Polkovodets orders. My sources aren't the most authoritative. It is hard to find data on all Nevsky recipients but even with the limited database of HSU I found some info worth considering. Until we have evidence that none of 41000 of Nevsky awardees was a general, we can't assume it.

I don't know what happened to Shtemenko but let me guess. Was he deprived of third Suvorov 1 because Zhukov only had two? Please, let us know what happened to the general.

Simon

P.S. Rick, are you using Internet Explorer? If you are, try View -> Encoding -> Cyrillic(Windows) on your menu in order to read Russian.

Edited October 1, 2006 by RedThreat

[Mondvor]

To switch the discussion to peaceful rails I just added one group to the "Research" section of the forum. There is a Nevsky in this group that was given not to Division Commander, but to Assistant Division Commander

[Mondvor]

Simon, in case of Shtemenko's Suvorov Stalin personally downgraded the citation from 1st to 2nd class. This episode described in details in Shtemenko's memoir book "General Staff in the years of war".

When Shtemenko was sent to Krimea peninsula to coordinate landing operation of the troops of Primorsk Army he found himself in the middle of debates between General Petrov (commander of Primorsk Army) and Admiral Vladimirsky (Commander of Black Sea Fleet). The debates were about the issue of who would provide the main supply transportation for Primorsk Army - Fleet or Ground Troops. At the end they created some sort of agreement and developed a protocol. Protocol was signed by ten people (including Petrov, Vladimirsky, Shtemenko and Voroshilov) and sent to Moscow. When Stalin received this document he went nuts. By his early order all military papers delivered to him should be signed by two people - Commander of operation and Chief of Staff. In most important cases he allows to use three signatures (two described above plus Member of Military Council). In this case he found 10 signatures. He said to General Antonov - "It looks like a collective-farm document. Are they established a voting process on this meeting?"...

Later he remembered this episode and said that he will forgive Voroshilov because of his luck of staff work experience. But for Shtemenko he downgraded his Suvorov...

Edited October 1, 2006 by Mondvor

[Wild Card]

I decline to engage in ad hominem[ attacks, preferring "research at twenty paces at dawn".

An interesting topic has run its course, as far as I am concerned.

To further quote Sam Goldwyn - "Include me out"

Thank you all for the tremendous amont of positive maaterial that you posted in this thread.

Doc, it's good to see that you are back, I trust that all is well.

Wild Card

[JimZ]

In the early days of this thread, a couple of us backed out when things were still civil...just!! . Its a pity really, because inspite of my being very seriously aggravated by the tone that was being adopted as the thread developed, I was still interested in sitting quietly on the fence (where others sat initially before stepping into the forum) and following what this thread would churn out!! Let those of us who have lessons to learn form this, learn them before meeting in the next heated thread.

Jim

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Doc Riley,

sorry, for my reply to your "killer-phrase" against my postings . Due to the fact, that I am also acquainted with the history of the Vietnam-Wars, I knew exactly that your "Doc" is a meritorious award for combat medics . Sorry again, if I offended you and I want to apologize. Please come back into the discussions.

My last name ist not "Zulu" - I am not from South Africa -, but "Zulus", due to the fact, that the origins of my family are in the western Ukraine, Bukovina. We moved to Austria in the 18th century (Bukovina was part of the Austrian Empire till 1918) and due to the fact, that we are native Hutsuls the people in Austria called us "Huzulus". During the times we lost the "Hu-" and our name is now "Zulus" or "Tsulus" (transcribed in the english way). That's the Wikipedia-link to our people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutsuls . As the people in Texas, we have a lot to do with horses .

This thread shouldn't be a thread of "Proud to be American" vs. "Rest of the World". We want to dedect certain strange things in the pratice of confering awards during the GPW, which show to be a contradiction to the official hierarchy of Soviet orders and medals. Maybe we can make out some general laws or rules about the subject. I am for a sober and civilized discussion. The war is over and the Soviet Union is history for a long time. Our orders and medals in our collections are part of that history.

Maybe our (native) US-members might find their way back into the scientific and phaleristic discussion of this thread .

I recongized, that there are no remarks about my posting concerning the "Glory-case". It would be great to read your opinions to my theory.

Best regards from Vienna, Austria

Christian Zulus

Christian Zulu,

This will be my last post because I agree with Ed..It has run it's course. If my post offended you, I apologise. My nickname Doc was earned as Combat Medic. The servicemen and women i served with and treated bestowed the Honorable nickname upon me only after I had gained their trust and respect. It is a U.S. Military tradition.

All the best,

Doc

[Guest RedThreat]

Andrey,

Thank you for sharing Shtemenko's story. It was quite interesting. Stalin created kolhoz but didn't like decisions to be made by one.

Simon

[Christian Zulus]

Multiple dimensions in the hierarchy of Soviet Awards?

Gentlemen,

Simon posted some interesting remarks concerning hierarchy of orders in another thread: http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?s=&showtop...st&p=117914

Maybe the effective hierarchy of Soviet orders & medals could be seen not only 2-dimensional, but mulit-dimensional for the same time and the same period.

Best regards

Christian Zulus

[Guest RedThreat]

Gen. Boichuk was colonel and division commander when he earned his Nevsky.

Cheers,

Simon

[Ed_Haynes]

And a nice early Nevsky, nice photo, thanks!

[Guest RedThreat]

And a nice early Nevsky, nice photo, thanks!

You are welcome, Ed

Re:

Everyone?Whoa, please!

I, a neophyte collector who admittedly does not know everything (who in fact, is still at the low end of an endless learning curve) about Soviet awards is the only member who has expressed any interest, or surprise with Nevsky awards to General Officers.

All I know is that although, as I was aware, General Officers were eligible for this award, I had never seen such a case, until Mondvor graciously shared his pictures as shown above.

Still learning,

Wild Card

Horun, Iosif Ivanovich, Major General (1940) was awarded Nevsky s/n 16661. Sources:

http://www.oval.ru/enc/80135.html

http://www.mirnagrad.ru/cgi-bin/exinform.c...un_code=onevsky

http://www.hronos.km.ru/biograf/bio_h/horun.html

[Christian Zulus]

Dear Simon,

many thanks for your research .

So it seems, that the Nevsky had been actually awarded up to the top rank - division commander - listed in the order's regulation. Might had been rare, but it happend.

Best regards

Christian

[Mondvor]

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the picture of general Bojchuk. Do you have any papers (like citation or award card) with the numbers of his awards and dates of issues?

[Guest RedThreat]

Dear Simon,

many thanks for your research .

So it seems, that the Nevsky had been actually awarded up to the top rank - division commander - listed in the order's regulation. Might had been rare, but it happend.

Best regards

Christian

Hi Simon,

Thanks for the picture of general Bojchuk. Do you have any papers (like citation or award card) with the numbers of his awards and dates of issues?

Andrey,

The only information I have about Boychuk is on websites listed below. He was the commander of 7 Anti-Aircraft Artillery Division, 42nd Army. Is it possible to do research based on his unit information?

http://www.soldat.ru/spravka/freedom/1-ssr-5.html

http://nevskye.narod.ru This site has been updated and contains a wealth of info on Nevsky recipients. To find Boychuk, look in the photo gallery section. Also, on this site there is a section on Gen. Vladimirov who earned Nevsky while commanding a division. To find Vladimirov, select "For Germany" -> "Infantry". You can see there the date of decree, a quote from citation, his Nevsky's s/n 2095.

Cheers,

Simon

[Mondvor]

Simon, thanks for the links to information about Bojchuk. The only question is when he was awarded with his Nevsky? From the article it is clear that he was a division commander on January 1944. But it could be possible that he earned his Nevsky prior to this date when he was holding different position.

By the way, 7th AA artillery division later was transferred from 42nd Army and at the end of November it was in 8th Army.

About Vladimirov it is 100% correct. He was both General and Division commander at the time of Ukaz. It was one of the first awards of Nevsky (the very first took place few months earlier - in November 1942). So maybe the system of hierarchy was still "under construction". The first Suvorov award took place at the end of December 1942, just two months before Vladimirov got his Nevsky. I mean that all those "polkovodets" awards were pretty new for everyone at the beginning of 1943.

Web site dedicated to Nevsky recipients is a really good one. I personally know his owner - Alexander Luchkin and have provided him with all information about two of my Nevsky groups. Also I have sent him all pictures of Nevsky recipients that I had in my collection.

If anyone wants to place his researched Nevsky cavalier to this web site just let me know. If you have only English translation of cavalier's papers it is OK, I can translate them back to Russian and send to Alexander. If you have Russian citations, award cards, etc - you can just directly send it to him. He would really appreciate international cooperation on his project

[Christian Zulus]

Bojchuk's Nevsky

Dear Simon,

dear Andrei,

many thanks for the photograph & additional informations .

Comrade Bojchuk wears a Nevsky T 1.

Comrade Bojchuk promoted to Division Commander on January 1944.

Conclusion: Comrade Bojchuk received his Nevsky T 1 long time before he got Division Commander.

Best regards

Christian

Simon, thanks for the links to information about Bojchuk. The only question is when he was awarded with his Nevsky? From the article it is clear that he was a division commander on January 1944. But it could be possible that he earned his Nevsky prior to this date when he was holding different position.