Fediuninskii, Ivan

Born July 17 (30), 1900, in the village of Gilevo, in what is now Tugulym Raion, Sverdlovsk Oblast; died Oct. 17, 1977, in Moscow. Soviet military leader. General of the army (1955). Hero of the Soviet Union (Aug. 29, 1939). Member of the CPSU since 1930.

The son of a worker, Fediuninskii joined the Red Army in 1919 and fought as a private on the Western Front in 1920. He graduated from an infantry school in 1924, Vystrel Courses in 1931, and the Advanced Academic Courses at the Military Academy of the General Staff in 1948. As a company commander, he took part in the fighting on the Chinese Ch’angch’un Railway in 1929; in 1939 he commanded a rifle regiment in action at Khalkhin-Gol. In 1940 and 1941 he commanded a rifle division and corps.

During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Fediuninskii commanded a rifle corps, the Thirty-second Army (August-September 1941), the Forty-second Army (September–October 1941), the Fifty-fourth Army (October 1941-April 1942), and the Fifth Army (April–October 1942). He also served as commander of the Leningrad Front (October 1941), deputy commander of the Volkhov Front (October 1942–May 1943) and the Briansk Front (May–July 1943), and commander of the Eleventh Army (July–December 1943) and the Second Shock Army (from December 1943). He took part in the battles of Leningrad and Kursk, the liberation of Byelorussia and the Baltic region, and the East Prussian and Berlin operations.

After the war, Fediuninskii served as deputy commander in chief of the Soviet Group of Forces in Germany (1951–54) and commander of the troops of the Transcaucasian Military District (1954–57) and of the Turkestan Military District (1957–65). In 1965 he became a military inspector of and adviser to the Group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense. He was a deputy to the fifth and sixth convocations of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Fediuninskii was awarded four Orders of Lenin, five Orders of the Red Banner, two Orders of Suvorov First Class, two orders of Kutuzov First Class, the Order of the Red Star, and the Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class, as well as various medals and foreign orders and medals.