Historical Figures Codexery

Semyon Timoshenko

Soviet Marshal and key commander in the Second World War

Timoshenko fought against Polish, White, and Black Army forces during the Russian Civil War, and befriended Joseph Stalin at Tsaritsyn.[1] In 1920, he commanded the Sixth Division of the Red Cavalry during the Polish-Soviet War.[2] Timoshenko pushed for mechanization of the Red Army and reintroduced harsh discipline.[3] In June 1941, he and Zhukov unsuccessfully asked Stalin to put border troops on high alert before the German invasion.[4]

He commanded the Central Front during the retreat to Smolensk and later replaced Budyonny in Ukraine.[5][6] After the war, he visited a displaced persons camp for Auschwitz survivors in September 1945.[7] Timoshenko became the chairman of Stavka on 23 June 1941, but Stalin took over that position and also removed him as Defense Commissar in July of the same year.[8] From March 1943 onward, Timoshenko acted as a Stavka representative coordinating multiple fronts: from March to June 1943 he coordinated the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts; by December 1943 he had coordinated the North Caucasian Front and the Black Sea Fleet, overseeing the liberation of the North Caucasus and Novorossiysk and the Kerch Peninsula landing operation, which set the stage for Crimea's liberation.[9]

Quick Facts

Office
People's Commissar for Defense of the Soviet Union
Took office
7 May 1940
Left office
19 July 1941
Leader
Joseph Stalin
Predecessor
Kliment Voroshilov
Born
18 February 1895
Birthplace
Orman, Russian Empire
Died
31 March 1970

Facts from the source article.

What the cited sources add

A 2015 book by McSmith notes that writer Isaac Babel rode with Timoshenko's cavalry unit and featured him as a named character in two stories.[10][11] A 2003 book by Davies describes how Timoshenko's Sixth Division charged Polish trenches on 29 May 1920, taking heavy casualties for no gain.[12][13] A 2005 book by Pleshakov states that Timoshenko and Zhukov were worried by German border overflights in the weeks before the invasion.[4][14] Isaac Babel's story originally titled "Timoshenko and Melnikov" was first published in Odessa, but in later editions the character's name was changed to Savitsky after Budyonny condemned Babel's writing.[10][11]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Wojciech Roszkowski, Jan Kofman (2016). "Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century". p. 1030.; Glantz House 2009, p. 41 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Erickson 1999, p. 15 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Neidell, "Finland and France Join Hitler – WW2 – 094 – June 13 1941", YouTube, 13 June 2020 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Pleshakov, "Stalin's Folly, The Secret History of the German Invasion of Russia, June 1941", Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005, p. 1–2 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Glantz House 2009, p. 41 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Montefiore, "Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar", Phoenix, 2004, p. 388, 394–395 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Levi, Primo, If This Is a Man – The Truce (Abacus, 2013), p. 350. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  8. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Moscow to Stalingrad", Government Printing Office, 1987, p. 24 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  9. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Тимошенко насіння Костянтиновича біографія коротко. Семен Костянтинович Тимошенко: біографія Маршал Тимошенко у роки Великої Вітчизняної (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  10. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: McSmith, "Fear and the Muse Kept Watch, The Russian Masters – from Akhmatova and Pasternak to Shostakovich and Eisenstein – Under Stalin", The New Press, 2015, p. 122, 125 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  11. Open Library record, ISBN 9781595580566 ("Fear and the muse kept watch"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  12. Wikipedia, "Semyon Timoshenko" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Davies, "White Eagle Red Star, The Polish-Soviet war 1919–1920 and the 'Miracle on the Vistula'", Pimlico, 2003, p. 123 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  13. Open Library record, ISBN 9780712606943 ("White Eagle, Red Star"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org
  14. Open Library record, ISBN 9780297846260 ("Stalin's Folly"). CC0 (metadata); book content not read. openlibrary.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Semyon Timoshenko (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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