Viktor Kirillovich Baranov

Viktor Kirillovich Baranov was born on 11 June 1901 in the village of Sheremetyevka, now Svirino, into a peasant family. The source gives the village's present-day location in two different ways — Syzran district of Samara region in one place, Novospasskoye district of Ulyanovsk region in another; the discrepancy is reproduced as it stands. After three years of school he worked at a cotton-ginning plant in Uzbekistan. In March 1918, at sixteen, he was called into the Red Army. As a soldier of the Zhlobin Regiment and then a platoon commander of the 1st Orenburg Composite Regiment he fought in the southern Urals against the forces of General Alexander Dutov, and afterwards in Central Asia. He was concussed in 1918. From December 1920 he commanded a post of the 31st frontier squadron of the Cheka. Twenty years of cavalry service in Central Asia followed. The Turkestan Front riding school in 1921, the Lenin 4th Joint Cavalry School in Tashkent from 1924, then assistant platoon commander in the 7th Cavalry Regiment and political instructor of the supply detachment of the 81st Cavalry Regiment. In those years he fought against the detachments of Junaid Khan, Ulan Bek, Ibrahim Bek and others, and in 1929 received the Order of the Red Banner. After the Novocherkassk cavalry course in 1930 he returned to the 81st Regiment as a squadron commander and political instructor, and from June 1932 served in the Tajik Cavalry Regiment as head of the regimental school and then chief of staff. He studied at the Frunze academy from 1934 to 1937, then headed the first section of the staff of the 18th Turkmen Mountain Cavalry Division, commanded its 27th Turkmen Mountain Cavalry Regiment from March 1938, became assistant commander of the 3rd Cavalry Division in October 1938, and from March 1941 commanded the 5th Cavalry Division in the Kyiv Military District. He held that command on 22 June 1941. The division fought defensive actions on the Southern and South-Western Fronts, was moved to the Western Front in October 1941 and took part in the defence of Moscow, including meeting the thrust of Guderian's 2nd Panzer Army towards Kashira. On 26 November 1941, for the courage of its men, the division was reformed as the 1st Guards Cavalry Division; from January to June 1942 it operated behind enemy lines. From 10 July 1942 until the end of the war Baranov commanded the 1st Guards Cavalry Corps. The corps fought in the Voroshilovgrad, Kharkov defensive, Donbass, Kyiv defensive, Zhitomir-Berdichev, Rovno-Lutsk, Proskurov-Chernovtsy, Lvov-Sandomierz, East Carpathian, Vistula-Oder, Lower Silesian, Upper Silesian, Berlin and Prague operations, and in the liberation of Kyiv, Korostyshiv, Lutsk, Chervonoarmeysk, Zhovkva and Przemysl. He was promoted lieutenant general on 15 September 1943. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of 29 May 1945, Lieutenant General Viktor Kirillovich Baranov was made a Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and Gold Star no. 7910, for the successful execution of operational tasks, the fighting quality of his corps and the courage shown. The decree names no single episode: the basis is his command of the corps in the operations listed above. He remained in that command after the war, took over the 14th Guards Rifle Corps in September 1946, studied on the higher academic course at the Voroshilov academy in 1951-52 and returned to the same corps. He went into the reserve in April 1953. He died on 26 July 1970 in Dnipropetrovsk and is buried in the Zaporizhzhia cemetery on the avenue of heroes. Streets in Kashira, Zhytomyr, Dnipro and Novospasskoye carry his name, and a memorial plaque marks the house in Dnipropetrovsk where he lived.