Minay Shmyryov
Encyclopedia
Minay Filippovich Shmyryov , also transliterated
as Minay Shmyrev and Minai Shmyrev, was one of the leaders of the Belarusian partisan
resistance against the German occupation
during World War II
.
Shmyryov was decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union
for his wartime role in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1944.
family form Punishche, a Belarus
ian village near Vitebsk
(then part of the of the Russian Empire
's Vitebsk Governorate), Shmyryov was born on 23 December 1891, and began working at age eight in order to help support his elementary education, which he completed in 1902.
Drafted into the Imperial Russian Army
in 1913, a year before the outbreak of World War I
, Shmyryov saw action as an artilleryman, receiving the Cross of St. George
, the Empire’s award for heroism, a total of three times. Sent home from the front when his unit was disbanded in response to growing revolutionary sentiment among its soldiers, Shmyryov made his way back during the Russian revolutionary period in 1917. Sympathetic to the Bolsheviks' October Revolution
, Shmyryov participated the struggle for the establishment of Bolshevik power in his native province, whose peasants soon elected him to a position on a land distribution executive committee.
At first a quartermaster
for the Red Army
in battles against the White Guard
during the Russian Civil War
, Shmyryov became a member of the Bolshevik Party in 1920, but returned home the same year after falling ill during the wartime epidemic of typhus
, and was appointed to head a local unit tasked with the struggle against "lawlessness" from 1920 to 1923. His brother and father were both killed during the local period of local White Terror
. His service earned him the Order of the Red Banner
in 1923.
Shmyryov started his own family and took part in various endeavors after the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. Following the implementation of the Soviet collectivization campaign, Shmyryov was elected a kolkhoz
chairman in 1933. By the outbreak of war between the Germans and the Soviet Union, Shmyryov had been made director of a cardboard factory.
by Nazi Germany
began on 22 June 1941. On July 5, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
's regional committee appointed Shmyryov to begin forming a partisan
group to operate in the region between eastern Belarus and the adjacent Bryansk Oblast
in western Russia
. On July 11, Vitebsk fell. Having found its first twenty-five members within a week, Shmyryov's group disappeared into the local forests on July 12.
On July 25, Shmyryov's partisan group set an ambush against mounted Wehrmacht
soldiers. By September 1941, the size of the group had increased to a total of seventy-five partisans. From July 1941 until October, the group had blown up 30 bridges and killed 250 soldiers and officers while seizing more supplies and weapons for continued operations from the forests.
Despite Shmyryov’s attempt to evacuate his children at the beginning of the war, they were turned back was overrun by the advancing Blitzkrieg
. Having unsuccessfully attempted to obtain helpful intelligence regarding the location of Shmyryov's partisans from the local villagers, the Nazis responded by seizing them as hostages at Surazh
in the autumn of 1941. After four months of continued resistance by Shmyryov, his children were executed on 14 February 1942.
's offensive near Smolensk
in the winter of 1942, a 40-kilometer-wide breachthe "Vitsyebsk gate
"was opened between the German lines, enabling direct contact between the partisans, the Communist Party, and the Soviet Army. Seeking to establish coordination between the partisans and the army, on 4 April 1942, Shmyryov's staff was visited by representatives of the 4th Shock Army and the Communist Party of Byelorussia's Central Committee
. Independent local groups of partisans were united as the 300-member 1st Byelorussian Partisan Brigade under Shmyryov as commanding officer. By September the brigade had grown to number about 2000 partisans.
With the development of centrally-directed partisan operations, Shmyryov was ordered to Moscow
to become a member of the Partisans' Central Staff in November 1942. He was awarded the honorary title
of Hero of the Soviet Union
on 15 August 1944, during the last days of Operation Bagration, whose conclusion signalled the complete liberation of the last of the remaining German-held Belarusian territory.
Again active in public life after returning home following the Soviet successes at the close of the war, Shmyryov was elected to the Supreme Soviet
of the Byelorussian SSR. He died on September 3, 1964 and was survived by his last wife (died 1998) and the children from their post-war marriage.
in 1967.
Shmyryov's portrait was featured on a postage stamp
in the 1967 series of stamps honoring the greatest heroes of the partisan resistance movement.
A monument to the memory of Shmyryov's four children was set up in the town of Surazh
in 1985.
Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another...
as Minay Shmyrev and Minai Shmyrev, was one of the leaders of the Belarusian partisan
Belarusian partisans
Belarusian partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Belarusian resistance movement, including against Nazi Germany and collaborationism during World War II.- World War II :...
resistance against the German occupation
Occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany
The occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany occurred as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and ended in August 1944 with the Soviet Operation Bagration.- Background :...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
Shmyryov was decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union
Hero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...
for his wartime role in the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1944.
Life pre–World War II
The son of a peasantPeasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
family form Punishche, a Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
ian village near Vitebsk
Vitebsk
Vitebsk, also known as Viciebsk or Vitsyebsk , is a city in Belarus, near the border with Russia. The capital of the Vitebsk Oblast, in 2004 it had 342,381 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth largest city...
(then part of the of the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
's Vitebsk Governorate), Shmyryov was born on 23 December 1891, and began working at age eight in order to help support his elementary education, which he completed in 1902.
Drafted into the Imperial Russian Army
Imperial Russian Army
The Imperial Russian Army was the land armed force of the Russian Empire, active from around 1721 to the Russian Revolution of 1917. In the early 1850s, the Russian army consisted of around 938,731 regular soldiers and 245,850 irregulars . Until the time of military reform of Dmitry Milyutin in...
in 1913, a year before the outbreak of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Shmyryov saw action as an artilleryman, receiving the Cross of St. George
Cross of St. George
thumb|Original Cross of St. George.Ist and 2nd class were in gold.The Cross of St. George ', or simply the George's Cross, was, until 1913, officially known as the Sign of Distinction of the Military Order of St. George....
, the Empire’s award for heroism, a total of three times. Sent home from the front when his unit was disbanded in response to growing revolutionary sentiment among its soldiers, Shmyryov made his way back during the Russian revolutionary period in 1917. Sympathetic to the Bolsheviks' October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
, Shmyryov participated the struggle for the establishment of Bolshevik power in his native province, whose peasants soon elected him to a position on a land distribution executive committee.
At first a quartermaster
Quartermaster
Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations depending on if the assigned unit is land based or naval.In land armies, especially US units, it is a term referring to either an individual soldier or a unit who specializes in distributing supplies and provisions to troops. The senior...
for the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
in battles against the White Guard
White Guard
The term White Guard may refer to:* White Guard , part of the White Army of the 1918 Finnish Civil War* White Guard , part of the Axis colaborators in Slovenia during the Second World War* Military arm of the Russian White movement...
during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, Shmyryov became a member of the Bolshevik Party in 1920, but returned home the same year after falling ill during the wartime epidemic of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
, and was appointed to head a local unit tasked with the struggle against "lawlessness" from 1920 to 1923. His brother and father were both killed during the local period of local White Terror
White Terror
White Terror is the violence carried out by reactionary groups as part of a counter-revolution. In particular, during the 20th century, in several countries the term White Terror was applied to acts of violence against real or suspected socialists and communists.-Historical origin: the French...
. His service earned him the Order of the Red Banner
Order of the Red Banner
The Soviet government of Russia established the Order of the Red Banner , a military decoration, on September 16, 1918 during the Russian Civil War...
in 1923.
Shmyryov started his own family and took part in various endeavors after the Bolshevik victory in the Civil War. Following the implementation of the Soviet collectivization campaign, Shmyryov was elected a kolkhoz
Kolkhoz
A kolkhoz , plural kolkhozy, was a form of collective farming in the Soviet Union that existed along with state farms . The word is a contraction of коллекти́вное хозя́йство, or "collective farm", while sovkhoz is a contraction of советское хозяйство...
chairman in 1933. By the outbreak of war between the Germans and the Soviet Union, Shmyryov had been made director of a cardboard factory.
Partisan leader
The invasion of the Soviet UnionOperation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
began on 22 June 1941. On July 5, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
's regional committee appointed Shmyryov to begin forming a partisan
Soviet partisans
The Soviet partisans were members of a resistance movement which fought a guerrilla war against the Axis occupation of the Soviet Union during World War II....
group to operate in the region between eastern Belarus and the adjacent Bryansk Oblast
Bryansk Oblast
Bryansk Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is the city of Bryansk. Population: 1,278,087 .-History:...
in western Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. On July 11, Vitebsk fell. Having found its first twenty-five members within a week, Shmyryov's group disappeared into the local forests on July 12.
On July 25, Shmyryov's partisan group set an ambush against mounted Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
soldiers. By September 1941, the size of the group had increased to a total of seventy-five partisans. From July 1941 until October, the group had blown up 30 bridges and killed 250 soldiers and officers while seizing more supplies and weapons for continued operations from the forests.
Despite Shmyryov’s attempt to evacuate his children at the beginning of the war, they were turned back was overrun by the advancing Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg
For other uses of the word, see: Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is an anglicized word describing all-motorised force concentration of tanks, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and air power, concentrating overwhelming force at high speed to break through enemy lines, and, once the lines are broken,...
. Having unsuccessfully attempted to obtain helpful intelligence regarding the location of Shmyryov's partisans from the local villagers, the Nazis responded by seizing them as hostages at Surazh
Surazh
Surazh is a town and the administrative center of Surazhsky District, Bryansk Oblast, Russia, located on the Iput River southwest of Bryansk. Population: 1,599 ....
in the autumn of 1941. After four months of continued resistance by Shmyryov, his children were executed on 14 February 1942.
1st Byelorussian Partisan Brigade
With the successes of the Soviet ArmySoviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
's offensive near Smolensk
Smolensk
Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River. Situated west-southwest of Moscow, this walled city was destroyed several times throughout its long history since it was on the invasion routes of both Napoleon and Hitler. Today, Smolensk...
in the winter of 1942, a 40-kilometer-wide breachthe "Vitsyebsk gate
Vitsyebsk gate
"Vitsyebsk gate" or "Surazh gate" was the conventional name in the Soviet, later also in Belarusian, historiography, given to the corridor connecting the Soviet and German-occupied territories, which was a 40 km breach in the place of contact of the German army groups "North" and "Center"...
"was opened between the German lines, enabling direct contact between the partisans, the Communist Party, and the Soviet Army. Seeking to establish coordination between the partisans and the army, on 4 April 1942, Shmyryov's staff was visited by representatives of the 4th Shock Army and the Communist Party of Byelorussia's Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
. Independent local groups of partisans were united as the 300-member 1st Byelorussian Partisan Brigade under Shmyryov as commanding officer. By September the brigade had grown to number about 2000 partisans.
With the development of centrally-directed partisan operations, Shmyryov was ordered to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
to become a member of the Partisans' Central Staff in November 1942. He was awarded the honorary title
Title of honor
An honorary title or title of honor is a title bestowed upon individuals or organizations as an award in recognition of their merits.Sometimes the title bears the same or nearly the same name as a title of authority, but the person bestowed does not have to carry any duties, possibly except for...
of Hero of the Soviet Union
Hero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...
on 15 August 1944, during the last days of Operation Bagration, whose conclusion signalled the complete liberation of the last of the remaining German-held Belarusian territory.
Post-war
Already a local legend during his lifetime, Shmyryov became the first Honored Citizen of Vitebsk after World War II and was paid homage in various books and partisan recollections of the wartime years. His own memoirs appeared in 1961.Again active in public life after returning home following the Soviet successes at the close of the war, Shmyryov was elected to the Supreme Soviet
Supreme Soviet
The Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union was the Supreme Soviet in the Soviet Union and the only one with the power to pass constitutional amendments...
of the Byelorussian SSR. He died on September 3, 1964 and was survived by his last wife (died 1998) and the children from their post-war marriage.
Memory
Various schools and streets in the Vitebsk area were given Shmyryov’s name, as was a newly-developed variety of blackcurrantBlackcurrant
Blackcurrant, Ribes nigrum, is a species of Ribes berry native to central and northern Europe and northern Asia, and is a perennial....
in 1967.
Shmyryov's portrait was featured on a postage stamp
Postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...
in the 1967 series of stamps honoring the greatest heroes of the partisan resistance movement.
A monument to the memory of Shmyryov's four children was set up in the town of Surazh
Surazh
Surazh is a town and the administrative center of Surazhsky District, Bryansk Oblast, Russia, located on the Iput River southwest of Bryansk. Population: 1,599 ....
in 1985.