Medvedev, Dmitrii

Born Aug. 10 (22), 1898, in Bezhitsa, now within the city limits of Briansk; died Dec. 14, 1954, in Moscow. A leader of the partisan movement in the Great Patriotic War (1941-45); Soviet Russian writer; colonel; Hero of the Soviet Union (Nov. 5, 1944). Member of the CPSU from 1920. Son of a worker.

Medvedev was a participant in the Civil War of 1918-20. He worked in agencies of the Cheka, Unified State Political Administration, and the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the Ukraine from 1920 to 1935. From August 1941 to January 1942, Medvedev commanded a partisan detachment that operated in Smolensk, Orel, and Mogilev oblasts; from June 1942 to March 1944 he commanded the large Pobediteli Partisan Detachment, which operated in Rovno and L’vov oblasts in the Ukrainian SSR. Drawing on the events of these years, Medvedev wrote the well-known books That Was at Rovno (1948; revised and expanded edition under the title The Strong in Spirit, 1951; play under the same title jointly with A. Grebnev, 1949) and The Detachment Goes West (1948). The central character of these works is a historic person, Hero of the Soviet Union N. I. Kuznetsov. The novella On the Shores of the luzhnyi Bug (1957) describes the heroic deeds of the Vinnitsa underground during the war. Medvedev’s entertaining books are widely popular in the Soviet Union and have also been translated into many foreign languages. Medvedev was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, and various medals.

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