Dovator Lev Mikhailovich. With a saber on a tank: the fearless cavalry of Lev Dovator Red Star article 1964 Dovator’s fighting friend
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The Cossacks called him their favorite general and wrote songs about the legendary corps commander. The Germans, in order to take revenge on this hated and elusive Russian, completely burned his native village. They even put a large reward on his head - 100 thousand Reichsmarks. 70 years ago, the brave commander of the cavalry corps Lev Dovator died.
Before his death, Dovator released his last war horse
This happened near the village of Palashkino, 12 kilometers from Ruza. The dovator personally examined the area with binoculars before the battle. The Cossacks were behind the commander - 700 meters away. The general released his horse and took off his cloak, which, against the backdrop of a snow-covered field and sparse trees, was a good target. And as soon as he stood up to his full height, he was literally hit by a machine-gun burst. Lev Dovator was only 38.
This happened on December 19, 1941, during the Battle of Moscow, when our troops had already moved from defensive battles to a counteroffensive. The day before his death, Dovator received an encrypted message from the commander of the Western Front, Zhukov.
“In this coded message, Zhukov reported that he was not happy with his father, because he believed that he was marking time,” says Lev Dovator’s daughter Rita Lvovna. “According to the recollections of eyewitnesses, this message greatly upset the father, he was in a depressed state. But it is also understandable The commander’s desire is to drive the Germans out of our villages as quickly as possible.”
Dovator was destined to fight the Germans for only five months. But even in this short period of time, he managed to inflict significant damage on the enemy.
To take revenge on Dovator, the Germans completely burned his home village
They terrified the Nazis by suddenly appearing in their rear. Dovator, who himself was a master of saber cutting and an excellent horseman, almost in full force led the cavalry group of the legendary Moscow circus artist Mikhail Tuganov to the front.
“The Tuganovites simply stunned the Germans - either they would emerge from under the belly of the horse, or they would stand on the horse at full height. The Germans were dumbfounded by such skill,” says Rita Lvovna.
The cavalry, which seemed like an atavism in the war of tanks and planes, was not lost in battle.
“The Dovator soldiers penetrated deep behind enemy lines, destroyed warehouses with ammunition and food supplies, brought out those who were surrounded, took the wounded out of the encirclement, and created partisan detachments,” says Vladimir Pinte, ataman of the village Cossack society of the Ruza region named after Hero of the Soviet Union Lev Dovator.
“But they also launched frontal attacks, this is also known and shown many times in the movies,” says Rita Dovator. “I know the cavalryman Ivankin, who on horseback rushed with a saber at a tank. Well, isn’t this a feat? He was awarded. But usually before the battle they dismounted, and then some with a rifle, some with a machine gun, smashed both the Germans and their equipment."
In leaflets posted in German-occupied villages near Moscow, a large reward was promised for Dovator's head - 100 thousand Reichsmarks.
To take revenge on the general, the Germans completely burned out his home village of Khotino in Belarus. Lev Mikhailovich's parents and sister had to go into the forest to join the partisans.
“Father and his horsemen, of course, fought in very difficult conditions. They walked through forests and swamps. When they were preparing for a campaign, then, of course, they took the minimum of everything - weapons, ammunition. A horse is not a camel, first of all they thought about fodder, then they took food for themselves. They often switched to pasture. Horsemen don’t like to talk about it, but they also ate mortally wounded horses,” says Rita Dovator.
When her father died, Rita Lvovna turned 11.
Dovator’s family received a telegram about the general’s death and a package from him on the same day
At this time, Rita, older brother Alexander, whom everyone in the family called Shura, and the general’s wife Elena Lavrentievna were evacuated.
“Mom, when she received a telegram informing us about the death of her father, did not tell us anything,” recalls Rita Lvovna. “We just realized from her behavior that something serious had happened. Then, of course, she showed us this telegram, but “I immediately began to say that this was a mistake, that we needed to get ready for Moscow.”
Elena Lavrentievna and her children lived in the small village of Varlakovo, near Chelyabinsk.
“We were quickly evacuated from Moscow. We then lived on Komsomolsky Prospekt. The capital’s commandant Artemyev arrived, we were loaded into trucks and quickly taken to the Kazansky station. We left with practically nothing in our clothes,” says Rita Dovator.
They arrived, and almost immediately a telegram arrived about the death of Lev Mikhailovich.
In it, the command of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps reported the death of Dovator and that all the personnel had sworn an oath to avenge their beloved commander.
On the same day, the family received a parcel that Dovator sent from Moscow. It contained crackers, sugar and warm clothes that he collected in an empty apartment on Komsomolsky Prospekt.
From a village where every train stopped for exactly a minute, Elena Lavrentyevna and her son and daughter traveled in a heated car to Moscow for three months.
“We arrived in Moscow on March 8, 1942, and we didn’t bring anything with us except lice. What is a cart? This is a carriage for transporting livestock. In the middle there is a potbelly stove, around it there are wooden benches, on them there are people who are leaning towards this stove. Your face and hands are warm, but your back is frosty,” says Rita Dovator.
Elena Lavrentievna believed in her husband’s death only when she was given a photograph taken a few minutes before the cremation of the general’s body began.
They got married soon after they met - in 1926, lived together for almost 16 years, and, except for Dovator, there was never another man in Elena Lavrentievna’s life.
After the death of Dovator, the Cossacks brought pots of pearl barley to his wife and children
While Dovator’s cavalry corps stood near Moscow, the Cossacks fed Lev Mikhailovich’s family as best they could. They brought pots of pearl barley porridge and crackers.
“These grown-up, stern men with weather-beaten faces, wearing hats and caps, came. They would hug me close, scratch my face with orders and medals and cry. These crying Cossacks remained in my memories for the rest of my life,” says Rita Dovator.
After the death of Lev Mikhailovich, the cavalry corps was commanded by no less famous military leaders Issa Pliev and Vladimir Kryukov.
But it was Dovator that the Cossacks, according to Rita Lvovna, considered their father-commander.
“Father never abandoned the wounded on the battlefield and under any circumstances, in the most difficult conditions, he took them with him. He never treated his soldiers as cannon fodder, and they knew it. It is no coincidence that during his lifetime they wrote about Dovator songs,” said the general’s daughter.
After Dovator’s death, the Cossacks brought his family a hat, a bekesha, which he was wearing at the time of his death, binoculars and a tablet. It contained a photograph of his daughter. Elena Lavrentievna donated all these things, except for the binoculars, to the Historical Museum of Moscow.
The family of Lev Dovator was never given the hero’s “Gold Star”
They would certainly have given the “Gold Star” medal to the museum - a sign of special distinction for the title “Hero of the Soviet Union” - belonging to Lev Dovator, but they themselves never held it in their hands.
But already on the second day after the death of the general, on December 21 in 1941, he was awarded this high title posthumously.
“I don’t know why, but my father’s “Gold Star” has still not been given to us. Neither my mother nor I have seen it. At first, my mother somehow and somewhere tried to find out why they decided to leave us without this medal, but then everything was forgotten. You know, both during the war and after, my mother increasingly solved everyday problems. We, of course, received benefits for my father, but we lived very hard, and household worries simply overwhelmed us," recalls Dovator’s daughter.
They lived in a room in one of the houses on Komsomolsky Prospekt and never speculated on the name of the hero Dovator. To get firewood, like all Muscovites at that time, they stood in line for a long time to receive an appointment with officials. Like everyone else, this wood was sawed and split. Together with other residents, they dug up the yard near the house and planted potatoes. They survived as best they could.
“I remember this room on Komsomolsky, the roof is leaking, it’s blowing from the cracks, the windows are almost all broken. And only in 1945, after Kosygin helped us, he was then People’s Commissar of Light Industry, our apartment was renovated. But before that Mom worked for a very long time,” says Rita Lvovna.
For almost 20 years the general's ashes were not buried
For almost 20 years, Elena Lavrentievna has been trying to ensure that her husband has an ordinary grave to which he can come and bow.
“My father was cremated on the territory of the Donskoye cemetery. The urn with his ashes stood in the crematorium itself. I remember well how my mother and I came there, they opened the door behind a black curtain with a key. On the table is this urn, next to it there were also urns with "the ashes of Ivan Panfilov and Viktor Talalikhin. Mom, Panfilov's wife - Maria Ivanovna and Victor's parents - Vasily Ivanovich and Vera Ivanovna Talalikhin went together to the authorities and simply knocked out a place in the cemetery," says Rita Dovator.
Dovator, Panfilov, and Talalikhin died in 1941, and in the same year they were all posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. And only in 1959 they were buried at the Novodevichy cemetery - they lie shoulder to shoulder.
Monument to the Dovator Heroes and Bronze Soldier
The decision of the Estonian Parliament to move the monument to the Soviet Soldier-Liberator from the center of Tallinn to the Military Cemetery in the spring of 2007 was accompanied by a political scandal and mass unrest.
At the same time, the authorities of the Stavropol region, as they say, quietly announced that the monument to the Soviet heroes was completely rotten and was about to collapse.
The 30-meter stele was installed in the city in 1975 at the intersection of Dovatorstsev and Shpakovskaya streets. It was from here that cavalrymen under the command of Dovator went to war in 1942.
“The stela was demolished for two months, it was not dismantled, but barbarically destroyed,” says Rita Dovator. “The monument was destroyed, a flowerbed was laid out in its place. And next to it, a shopping center was soon built with the name “Stela.” Front-line soldiers perceived this as a mockery of memory."
But the Oktyabrsky District Court of Stavropol stated that the decision to demolish the stele was correct. And he established that it was not included in the state list of historical and cultural monuments.
Restoration of the stele began after the Russian prosecutor’s office intervened in the case. She obliged the city authorities to restore the stele in the same size and in the same place.
The authorities promised that the monument would be restored by the end of 2011. True, it will not be installed in the same place, but in the area of the southern bus station of the city.
Born on February 20, 1903 in the village of Khotino, Vitebsk province (now Vitebsk region, Republic of Belarus) into a peasant family. Belarusian. In 1922, he was elected secretary of the Khotyn volost Komsomol committee. Member of the CPSU(b) since 1928.
He voluntarily joined the Red Army in 1924. In 1926 he graduated from the cavalry school and served in cavalry units as a platoon commander, political instructor and squadron commissar. After graduating from the Military Academy in 1939. M.V. Frunze L.M. Dovator - chief of staff of a cavalry regiment, cavalry brigade.
In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, Colonel Dovator L.M. was at the headquarters of the Western Front. In July 1941, for distinction in defensive battles at the Solovyov crossing of the Dnieper, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In August 1941, he was entrusted with leading a separate cavalry group, formed from several Cossack regiments. Under the command of L.M. Dovator, a large cavalry unit for the first time carried out a raid into the enemy rear, striking at communications, destroying headquarters, transport, warehouses and manpower of the Nazis.
With a sudden powerful throw, the Soviet cavalry broke through the defenses of the Nazi troops several kilometers along the front. The appearance of a cavalry unit of the Red Army, which went 100 km behind enemy lines, caused panic among the Nazis.
This extremely difficult raid through the roadless wooded and swampy areas of the Smolensk region lasted for two weeks. During this time, the Dovatorians destroyed over 2,500 enemy soldiers and officers, 9 tanks, more than 200 vehicles, and several military warehouses. Numerous trophies were captured and used by partisan detachments. Hitler's command placed a large monetary reward on Dovator's head and created special detachments to capture him. But Dovator’s cavalrymen were elusive.
In September - October 1941, after assignment to L.M. Dovator of the military rank of "Major General", his soldiers participated in heavy defensive battles on the distant approaches to Moscow - on the Mezha River, along the Lama River (from Yaropolets to the Moscow Sea), heroically repelling enemy attacks.
In November 1941, the corps of Major General Dovator, together with the 8th Guards named after Major General I.V. Panfilov division, 1st Guards Tank Brigade under General M.E. Katukov and other troops of the 16th Army fought stubborn defensive battles in the Volokolamsk direction in the Kryukov area.
Best of the day
General Dovator, without rest or rest, constantly visited the active units of the corps, maintaining the morale of the horsemen who fought courageously on the outskirts of Moscow.
On December 11, 1941, the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps of Major General L.M. Dovatora was transferred to the Kubinka area. He walked 150 km along the rear of the Nazi troops, pursuing their retreating units, and on December 19 he reached the Ruza River.
The advanced units of the corps were already in the area of the village of Palashkino (Ruzsky district of the Moscow region), where large Nazi forces were located. Opposite the village under the steep bank of the L.M. River. Dovator placed the corps' marching headquarters and, having decided to personally inspect the location of the enemy's defenses before the attack, went up to the opposite bank of the river. The Nazis, noticing a crowd of people, fired a machine gun. Major General Dovator was mortally wounded... The Cossacks, in a stubborn and fierce battle, surrounded the village of Palashkino and destroyed an important enemy defense center.
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 21, 1941, Guards Major General of the Cavalry Dovator Lev Mikhailovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders.
L.M. Dovator is buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. One of the streets of the capital is named after the legendary hero of the defense of Moscow. An obelisk was erected on the site where the general died.
Awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner and the Red Star.
Lev Mikhailovich Dovator was born on February 20, 1903 into a Belarusian peasant family living in the village of Khotino, Vitebsk province. He graduated from parochial school and then high school. I labored, worked for...
Lev Mikhailovich Dovator was born on February 20, 1903 into a Belarusian peasant family living in the village of Khotino, Vitebsk province. He graduated from parochial school and then high school. He worked as a laborer, worked in a factory... In 1924, he volunteered to join the Red Army. He first served in an economic position - as a warehouse manager in the 7th Cavalry Division of the Western Military District in Minsk. Then he studied at the Military Chemical Courses, after which he served as a chemical platoon commander in the same cavalry division.
In 1926, Lev Dovator graduated from the Leningrad Cavalry School of Red Army Command Staff. In the 1930s he served in various positions in cavalry units. In 1936, he was the commissar of a separate reconnaissance battalion, then Captain Dovator was the commander of a separate reconnaissance battalion of the 93rd Infantry Division. In 1939, Lev Mikhailovich graduated with honors from the Military Academy. M.V. Frunze and was appointed chief of staff of the Special Cavalry Brigade in Moscow. While studying at the Academy, he underwent an internship and fought in Spain.
In February 1941, Lev Mikhailovich was awarded the Order of the Red Star. A month later, Colonel Dovator was appointed chief of staff of the 36th Cavalry Division in the Belarusian Military District. Dovator L.M., relying on Spanish experience, proposed using cavalry for lightning raids behind enemy lines. He also made a proposal to create partisan bases and warehouses with weapons and ammunition in the event of the occupation of Soviet territory.
Dovator L.M., summer 1941
In July 1941, Dovator was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for defensive battles at the Solovyova and Ratchin crossings on the Dnieper. According to another version, the Order of the Red Banner was awarded for covering the Flerov battery, which was testing the M-13 Katyusha rocket launcher.
In August 1941, Lev Mikhailovich was appointed commander of the Separate Cavalry Group on the Western Front, which included several Cossack regiments. Under the command of Dovator, this cavalry unit boldly broke through to the rear of the Germans to a depth of 100 km and within two weeks destroyed enemy communications, headquarters, and destroyed the enemy’s warehouses and military convoys. During these battles, about 2.5 thousand fascist soldiers and officers were killed. The Germans offered a high reward for the capture of the legendary Soviet commander, posting leaflets with his photograph everywhere. They even created a special group to eliminate Dovator. For the raid behind enemy lines, the Soviet command awarded Lev Dovator the rank of major general and presented him with the Order of Lenin.
Cavalry of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps of the Red Army before the attack. Western Front, November-December 1941
In September - October 1941, Dovator's group took part in heavy defensive battles on the Mezhe and Lame rivers. In November 1941, on the basis of General Dovator’s group, the 3rd Cavalry Corps was formed as part of the 16th Army of Rokossovsky K.K., on November 27 it was renamed the 2nd Guards. The corps fought defensive battles on the Bely-Rzhev line, covering the approaches to Moscow from the Volokolamsk direction.
On December 11, General Dovator’s corps was transferred to the Kubinka area and, pursuing the retreating German units, reached the Ruza River. 5th Army Lieutenant General of Artillery L.A. Govorov During December 19 and 20, on its right flank and in the center, it waged fierce battles with enemy units that had retreated beyond the Ruza and Moscow rivers. With well-organized artillery, mortar and machine gun fire, the Germans put up stubborn resistance at this natural line and on the approaches to the city of Ruza.
Captured German soldiers near Moscow. Western Front, December 1941
This Russian fortress city, which since the 16th century had guarded the path to Moscow from the west, was turned by the enemy into a large stronghold that served as a “tete-de-pont” (bridgehead) across the Ruza River. All attempts by army units to break through its defenses and liberate the city ended in failure. Here, on the approaches to Ruza, near the village of Palashkino (12 kilometers northwest of the city of Ruza), on December 19, the commander of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, Major General Dovator L.M., was killed.
On December 19, at a time when the 3rd and 4th cavalry divisions were drawn into battle with enemy barriers on the banks of the Ruza River, the corps headquarters, moving at the head of the 20th Cavalry Division, which was in the second echelon, went along a forest path onto the Volokolamsk highway - Ruza, in the Zakhryapin area. Dovator together with the commander of the 20th Cavalry Division, Lieutenant Colonel M.P. Tavliev. drove to the edge of the forest and noticed the movement of enemy convoys and infantry in the Dyakov area.
“Mikhail Petrovich,” he turned to Tavliev, “quickly deploy the division and trot around.” Bring the artillery to direct fire to the village of Zakhryapino.
While the regiments were dispersed and deployed for battle, Dovator ordered the commandant's squadron to attack Zakhryapino. Enemy machine gunners put up fierce resistance. Leaving the commandant's squadron in place, Dovator led the 20th Cavalry Division to the village of Palashkino.
On the approach to this small village of just over a dozen households, the scouts reported to Dovator that its garrison had begun to retreat. At least an hour passed before the corps commander and the accompanying command officers of the 20th Cavalry Division reached the Ruza River. The dovator apparently decided that this time was enough for the German troops to withdraw from Palashkin. Without specifying the situation, Dovator headed along the sleigh path across the Ruza River.
He successfully overcame it and went deeper into the copse, beyond which Palashkino lay in an open snow-covered space. He was followed by division commander Tavliev and other commanders. Nothing betrayed the presence of German soldiers in this locality. But as soon as the group appeared from the copse, strong machine-gun fire came from the outermost houses. The dovator fell. His adjutant Teichmann rushed to him and did not reach him. The bullet also struck down senior political instructor Karasev, who rushed to the general. And not far ahead lay the murdered Lieutenant Colonel Tavliev. Many brave men who tried to carry out their commanders died.
When the former commander of the 3rd Guards Cavalry Division and deputy corps commander Pliev I.A. I drove up to the ill-fated Palashkino; it was already getting dark. But from the edge of the forest Pliev still saw the bodies of the dead. They lay very close. With the onset of darkness they were carried out of the battlefield. Major General I.A. Pliev took command of the corps on the same day.
Two days later, by personal order of Stalin I.V., by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated December 21, 1941, Guard Major General Lev Mikhailovich Dovator was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders .
Monument at the grave of the heroes of the defense of Moscow: L. Dovator, I. Panfilov, V. Talalikhin
The urn with the ashes of the hero was kept for many years on the territory of the Don Cemetery and only in 1959, together with the urns of other heroes of the Moscow Battle: General Panfilov I.V. and Lieutenant Talalikhin V.V. was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery in a common grave, on which a common monument was erected in 1966.
Streets in a number of cities are named after Lev Dovator: in Moscow, Vitebsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don and others. At the site of the death of Dovator L.M., near the village of Palashkino, Ruzsky district, Moscow region, a memorial obelisk was erected.
A day before Dovator’s death, the most famous Soviet tank ace, senior lieutenant D.F. Lavrinenko, died on the outskirts of Volokolamsk. The operational group of the 1st Guards Tank Brigade under his command broke into the Gryada-Chismena area and took the Germans by surprise. Without waiting for the main forces to approach, Lavrinenko decided to attack Pokrovskoye. But the German command, having pulled up 10 tanks onto the highway and concentrated them in the rear of our battle group, decided to cut it off from the main forces of the brigade. Then Lavrinenko deployed his tank company and led it to a breakthrough in the direction of the village of Goryuny.
At this time, the column of the main forces of the task force arrived. The Germans themselves found themselves caught in a pincer movement and retreated, but subjected Goryuny to powerful mortar fire. During this, tank sniper D.F. Lavrinenko was killed by a mine fragment. He took part in twenty-eight battles, his car was on fire three times, and near Goryuny he destroyed the enemy’s 52nd tank. Senior Lieutenant Lavrinenko D.F. was buried. was near the highway, near the village of Goryuny.
In 1938, on the set of the film "Alexander Nevsky", director Sergei Eisenstein had a hitch. He did not like the scene of the fight between Prince Alexander and the Master. And no matter how hard the wonderful actors Vladimir Ershov and Nikolai Cherkasov tried, the director was not happy. And then Eisenstein caught the eye of a smart cavalry officer, who was brought to the shooting by one of the director’s friends. The cavalryman quickly put on the princely armor and the scene began to play in a new way. Little did the cavalryman know that in just three years he would have to really cut down the Teutonic invaders. This was the future general and Hero of the Soviet Union - Lev Dovator.
“The horse carries you into the attack, There is no closer friend in battle.
He will save you from certain death - Be it rain, be it snow, be it a blizzard.
Fog, Fire, Hindu, Strategist, Mermaid, Wind, Gladiator -
Dovator liked to give such nicknames to horses."
Guard Senior Sergeant Ya. E. Entin
Dovator’s name first appeared in reports in July 1941, during the defensive battles for the Solovyov crossing of the Dnieper; for these battles he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
But Colonel Dovator truly became famous in August 1941. He then commanded a separate cavalry group formed from Cossacks. The number of the group was no more than 3,000 people, but it is not in vain that they say that fear has big eyes. The Cossacks cut down the fascists so famously that they reported to the OKW headquarters that there were more than 50 thousand Russian cavalrymen.
Under the command of Dovator, this cavalry formation broke through the defenses of the Nazi troops several kilometers along the front. The appearance of a cavalry unit of the Red Army, which went 100 km behind enemy lines, caused panic among the Nazis. Next, a deep raid was carried out on the German rear, the Cossacks swept through in a fiery whirlwind, striking at communications, destroying headquarters and blowing up warehouses. This raid across the lands of the Smolensk region lasted for two weeks. During this time, Dovator's cavalrymen destroyed over 3,000 enemy soldiers and officers, 9 tanks, more than 200 vehicles, and several military warehouses. Numerous trophies were captured, and partisan detachments began to appear along the raid route. The Wehrmacht command placed a reward of 50 thousand gold Reich marks on Dovator's head; the Germans planned a large-scale operation to destroy the cavalry group, but Dovator's cavalrymen were elusive and the punishers only got the stomp of horses.
As a result of the operation, Lev Mikhailovich Dovator was awarded the military rank of major general.
And then there was the Battle of Moscow. Since November 1941, General Dovator commanded the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps in the Volokolamsk direction. On December 11, 1941, Dovator’s cavalry corps was transferred to the Kubinka area. This time there was an order to pursue the retreating German units and not give them rest.
The corps passed almost 150 km along the rear of the retreating German units, and again the sentries shouted Achtung in panic! Kozaken!
On December 19, Dovator’s corps reached the Ruza River. General Dovator, as usual, decided to personally inspect the location of the enemy’s defenses before the attack; he climbed to the opposite bank of the river and came under enemy machine-gun fire. Major General Dovator was mortally wounded.
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 21, 1941, Guards Major General of the Cavalry Dovator Lev Mikhailovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders.
Short biography:
Lev Mikhailovich Dovator was born on February 20, 1903 in the village of Khotino, Vitebsk province (now Vitebsk region, Republic of Belarus) into a poor peasant family. In 1917 he went to Vitebsk and became a factory worker. After the October Revolution of 1917, Dovator carried out instructions from the Revolutionary Committee: he helped food detachments seize grain, became a Komsomol activist and in 1922 was sent to the provincial party school in Vitebsk, then became chairman of the Khotyn Committee of the Pod, and was involved in organizing the Partnership for Joint Cultivation of the Land.
In 1924, Dovator voluntarily joined the Red Army. In 1926 he graduated from the Military Cavalry School. Two years later he joined the party and served as political instructor of the squadron in Verkhneudinsk. In 1936-1939, Lev Mikhailovich Dovator studied at the Military Academy named after. M.V. Frunze, after which he served as chief of staff of the Special Cavalry Brigade in Moscow.
And then there was a war.
Lev Mikhailovich was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Major General Dovator was awarded the Orders of Lenin and the Red Star. The streets of many Soviet cities are named after Lev Dovator: in Moscow, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Kazan, Chelyabinsk, Rostov-on-Don, Vitebsk and others. An obelisk was erected at the site where the general died.
Biography
Lev Mikhailovich Dovator(February 20, 1903, the village of Khotino, Lepel district, Vitebsk province - December 19, 1941, near the village of Palashkino, Ruza district, Moscow region) - Soviet military leader, major general, Hero of the Soviet Union.
Known for successful operations to destroy German troops during the Great Patriotic War. Per head Dovatora the German command appointed a large reward, but the cavalrymen Dovatora were elusive.
Born on February 20, 1903 in the village of Khotino (Belarusian) Russian. Vitebsk province (now Beshenkovichi district of Vitebsk region). Belarusian.
In the Red Army since September 1924 (according to other sources - since 1923).
In 1925 he graduated from the Military Chemical Courses in Moscow.
In 1926 - Borisoglebsk-Leningrad Cavalry School of the Red Army command staff.
In 1939 - Military Academy of the Red Army named after. M. V. Frunze.
In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, with the rank of colonel, Dovator L.M. was at the headquarters of the Western Front.
In July 1941, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner for distinction in defensive battles at the Solovyova crossing across the Dnieper.
In August 1941, he led a separate cavalry group of the Western Front consisting of the 50th and 53rd cavalry divisions, staffed by Kuban, Terek and Don Cossacks.
Together with the 8th Guards Division named after Major General I.V. Panfilov, the 1st Guards Tank Brigade under General M.E. Katukov and other troops of the 16th Army, the corps defended the approaches to Moscow in the Volokolamsk direction.
On December 11, 1941, Dovator's 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps was transferred to the Kubinka area.
He walked 150 km along the rear of the Nazi troops, pursuing their retreating units, and on December 19 he reached the Ruza River.
On December 17, 1941, Dovator was relieved of his post as commander of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, which was taken over by Major General I. A. Pliev, who had previously commanded the 3rd Guards Cavalry Division.
On December 19, 1941, the advanced units of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps (22nd and 103rd regiments of the 20th Cavalry Division) were in the area of the village of Palashkino (Ruzsky district of the Moscow region), where large enemy forces were located - the 2nd battalion 472 1st Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment and 9th Battery, 252nd Artillery Regiment, 252nd Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht (Silesia, Oak Leaf emblem). While examining enemy positions with binoculars before the battle, Major General Dovator was mortally wounded by a machine gun burst. The cavalrymen surrounded the village of Palashkino and destroyed the enemy defense center.
He was cremated on the territory of the Donskoye Cemetery; until 1959, the urn with ashes stood in the crematorium itself. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of December 21, 1941, Guards Major General Dovator Lev Mikhailovich“for courage and heroism shown in battles with the Nazi invaders”, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.