Vershigora, Petr Petrovich

Born May 3 (16), 1905, in the village of Severinovka, Rybnitsy Raion, Moldavian SSR; died Mar. 27, 1963, in Moscow. Soviet Russian writer, major general, and Hero of the Soviet Union (Aug. 8, 1944). Member of the CPSU since 1943.

Vershigora was born into a teacher’s family. He was an actor and film director at the Kiev Film Studio. During the Great Patriotic War he was deputy commander for intelligence of the large partisan unit of S. A. Kovpak. From December 1943 he was commander of the 1st Ukrainian Partisan Division, which in 1944 carried out raids into Poland and to the Neman River. From 1947 to 1954 he taught at the Academy of the General Staff. He is the author of the book The Military Creativity of the Popular Masses (1961), which is about the history of the partisan movement, and coauthor of Partisan Raids (1962). Vershigora wrote the documentary fictionalized works People With a Clear Conscience (1946; State Prize of the USSR, 1947), The Carpathian Raid (1950), and Raid on the San and the Vistula (1959), which are about the exploits of Soviet partisans. In 1960 he published the collection of stories Ivan the Hero, and in 1962 the novel Home. Vershigora was awarded two Orders of Lenin and two other orders, as well as medals.