Dovator, Lev

Born Feb. 7 (20), 1903, in the village of Khotino in what is now Vitebsk Oblast; died Dec. 19, 1941, near the village of Palashkino, Ruza Raion, Moscow Oblast. Hero of the Soviet Union (Dec. 21, 1941, posthumously); major general (September 1941). Member of the CPSU from 1928.

The son of a peasant, Dovator volunteered for the Red Army in 1924 and graduated from a cavalry college in 1926 and from the M. V. Frunze Military Academy in 1939. In the early part of the Great Patriotic War, Dovator commanded a cavalry group that made raids behind enemy lines in Smolensk Oblast in August and September 1941; he then actively participated in the defense of Moscow in the Volokolamsk direction of attack. Commander of the III (from November) and then of the II Guard Cavalry Corps, Dovator was killed in battle at the approaches to Ruza. Dovator was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner, and the Order of the Red Star and is buried in the Novodevich’e cemetery in Moscow.