Vasily Chapaev: short biography and interesting facts. Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich: interesting dates and information

Vasily Chapaev was born on February 9, 1887 in a small village of Budaika, in the territory of the Kazan province. Today this place is part of Cheboksary, the capital of Chuvashia. By origin Chapayev was Russian - he was the sixth child in a large family peasant family. When Vasily came to study, his parents moved to Balakovo (the modern Saratov region, then - Samara province).

early years

The boy was sent to a school assigned to a church parish. My father wanted Vasili to become a priest. However, the subsequent life of his son had nothing to do with the church. In 1908 Vasily Chapayev was drafted into the army. He was sent to Ukraine, to Kiev. For some reason the soldier was returned to the reserve before the end of the service.

White spots of the biography of the famous revolutionary are connected with the banal lack of verified documents. In Soviet historiography, the official view was that Vasily Chapaev was actually expelled from the army because of his views. But there is still no documentary evidence of this theory.

World War I

In peacetime, Vasily Chapaev worked as a carpenter and lived with his family in the town of Melekesse. In 1914 the First World War began, and the reserve soldiers were again drafted into the tsarist army. Chapaev fell into the 82nd Infantry Division, which fought with the Austrians and Germans in Galicia and Volhynia. At the front, he received the St. George Cross, the wound and the rank of senior non-commissioned officer.

Because of the failure Chapaeva was sent to the rear hospital in Saratov. There, the non-commissioned officer met the February Revolution. Recovered, Vasily Ivanovich decided to join the Bolsheviks, which he did on September 28, 1917. His military talents and skills gave him the best recommendation in the conditions of the approaching Civil War.

In the Red Army

At the end of 1917 Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich was appointed commander of a reserve regiment, located in Nikolayevsk. Today this city is called Pugachev. At first, the former officer of the tsarist army organized the local Red Guards, which the Bolsheviks established after they were in power. At first, there were only 35 people in his detachment. The poor joined the Bolsheviks, the peasants-millers, etc. In January 1918 the Chapayevites fought with local kulaks who were unhappy with the October Revolution. Gradually, the detachment grew and grew thanks to effective agitation and combat victories.

This military formation very soon left its own barracks and went to fight with the whites. Here, in the lower reaches of the Volga, the offensive of General Kaledin's forces developed. Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich took part in the campaign against this leader of the white movement. The key battle began near the city of Tsaritsyn, where at that time there was also the party organizer Stalin.

The Pugachev Brigade

After the Kaledin offensive drowned, the biography of Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich was connected with the Eastern Front. By the spring of 1918, the Bolsheviks controlled only the European part of Russia (and even then not all). In the east, beginning from the left bank of the Volga, the power of the Whites remained.

Most of all, Chapayev fought against the Komuch People's Army and the Czechoslovak Corps. On May 25, he decided to rename his Red Guard detachments to the regiment named after Stepan Razin and the regiment named after Pugachev. The new names became references to the famous leaders of the popular uprisings in the Volga region in the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus, Chapaev eloquently stated that the supporters of the Bolsheviks were defending the rights of the lowest strata of the population of the belligerent country-the peasantry and the workers. On August 21, 1918, his army expelled the Czechoslovak Corps from Nikolaevsk. A little later (in November) the head of the Pugachev Brigade initiated the renaming of the city into Pugachev.

Fights with the Czechoslovak Corps

In the summer, the Chapaevs for the first time found themselves on the outskirts of Uralsk, occupied by the bears. Then the Red Guard had to retreat due to a lack of food and weapons. But after the success in Nikolaevsk, the division had ten captured machine guns and many other useful requisitioned property. With this good Chapaevs went to fight with the People's Army KOMCHU.

11 thousand armed supporters of the White movement broke through the Volga in order to unite with the army of Cossack Ataman Krasnov. Red was one and a half times less. Approximately the same were the proportions in the comparison of weapons. However, this lag did not prevent the Pugachev brigade from smashing and dispersing the enemy. During that risky operation, the biography of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev became known throughout the Volga region. And thanks to Soviet propaganda, his name was heard by a whole country. However, this happened after the death of the famous nachdiv.

In Moscow

In the fall of 1918 the Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army hosted the first listeners. Among them was Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. A brief biography of this man was full of all sorts of battles. He was responsible for many people subordinate to himself.

At the same time, he had no systematic education. Chapaev achieved his success in the Red Army because of his natural wit and charisma. But now it's time for him to finish the course at the Academy of the General Staff.

The image of Chapayev

In the educational institution, the initiate struck the people around him, on the one hand, with the quickness of his mind, and on the other, the ignorance of the simplest general educational facts. For example, there is a historical anecdote saying that Chapaev could not show on the map where London and the Seine River are located, since he simply had no idea about their existence. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, as in general everything connected with the myth of one of the most legendary characters of the Civil War, but it is difficult to deny that the head of the Pugachev division was a typical representative of the lower classes, which, incidentally, only benefited his image among his comrades-in-arms.

Of course, in the rear peace of Moscow there was such an energetic person who did not like to sit in place, like Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. A brief abolition of tactical illiteracy could not deprive him of the feeling that Nachdev was only at the front. Several times he wrote to the headquarters with requests to withdraw him into the thick of events. Meanwhile, in February 1919, on the Eastern Front, another aggravation occurred, connected with the counteroffensive of Kolchak. At the end of winter Chapayev finally went back to his native army.

Again at the front

The commander of the Fourth Army, Mikhail Frunze, appointed Chapayev chief of the 25th Division, to which he commanded until his death. For six months, this formation, consisting mainly of proletarian conscripts, carried out dozens of tactical operations against whites. It was here that Chapaev maximally revealed himself as a military leader. In the 25th Division he became famous throughout the country thanks to his fiery speeches before the soldiers. Nachshdiv generally was always uninterrupted from their subordinates. In this peculiarity, the romantic character of the Civil War manifested itself, which was then praised in Soviet literature.

Vasily Chapaev, whose biography spoke of him as a typical descendant of the masses, was remembered by his descendant for his indestructible connection with this same people in the person of ordinary Red Army men who fought in the Volga region and the Ural steppes.

Tactician

As a tactic Chapaev mastered several techniques, which he successfully applied during the march of the division to the east. A characteristic feature was that she acted in isolation from the allied parts. Chapaevtsy always stayed in the forefront. It was they who started the offensive, and often even independently killed off the enemy. About Vasily Chapaev it is known that he often resorted to maneuver tactics. His division was distinguished by its efficiency and mobility. White often could not keep up with her movements, even if they wanted to organize a counterattack.

Chapaev always kept a specially trained group on one of the flanks, which was to strike a decisive blow during the battle. With the help of such a maneuver, the Red Army men introduced chaos into the ranks of the enemy and surrounded their enemies. Since battles were fought mainly in the steppe zone, soldiers always had space for the most maneuvers. Sometimes they took a reckless character, but the Chapayevites were always lucky. In addition, their courage introduced opponents into a stupor.

Ufa operation

Chapaev never acted in a stereotyped way. At the height of the battle, he could give the most unexpected order, which turned the course of events upside down. For example, in May 1919, during the clashes near Bugulma, having started, he initiated the attack on a broad front, despite the riskiness of such a maneuver.

Vasily Chapaev was moving to the east without fatigue. A brief biography of this military leader also contains information about the successful Ufa operation, during which the future capital of Bashkiria was captured. On the night of June 8, 1919, the White River was forced. Now Ufa has become a springboard for the further advance of the Reds to the east.

Since the Chapayevites were at the forefront of the attack, they were the first to cross White, they were in fact surrounded. He himself was wounded in the head, but continued to command, being directly among his soldiers. Next to him was Mikhail Frunze. In a stubborn battle, the Red Army beat the street outside the street. It is believed that it was then that White decided to break the opponents of the so-called psychic attack. This episode formed the basis of one of the most famous scenes of the cult film "Chapayev".

Death

For the victory in Ufa Vasily Chapayev received the Order of the Red Banner. In the summer, he and his division defended the approaches to the Volga. Nachdiv became one of the first Bolsheviks to find themselves in Samara. With his direct participation, this strategically important city was finally taken and cleared of the bears.

By the beginning of the autumn Chapaev was on the banks of the Ural River. On September 5, while in Lbischensk together with his staff, he and his division underwent an unexpected attack by white Cossacks. It was a bold, deep raid by the enemy, organized by General Nikolai Borodin. The goal of the attack was in many ways Chapayev himself, who turned into a sensible headache for whites. In the ensuing battle, the starter was killed.

For Soviet culture and propaganda Chapaev became a unique character by popularity. A great contribution to the creation of this image was made by the film of the Vasilyev brothers, also loved by Stalin. In 1974, the house where Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born was turned into his museum. Numerous settlements are named after the nachdiv.