The battalion commander leads the attack. Alexey Eremenko - junior political instructor. Photo history. Further use of the image

Junior political instructor Alexei Eremenko is raising soldiers to attack. This is perhaps the most famous photo of the Great Patriotic War, along with which is perhaps the photograph of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag. A. Eremenko died a few seconds after the photo was taken.

The photograph was named "Kombat" (that is, "battalion commander") by the author of the photograph by mistake. Max Alpert managed to take a couple of pictures of the commander, who raised the soldiers to attack, and immediately a shell fragment broke the camera. The photographer decided that the footage was spoiled and did not write down the name of the person he photographed. Later, developing the film, he saw that the shot was excellent. M. Alpert recalled that he had heard in that battle that “Kombat was killed” had been passed through the ranks and decided that he had photographed the battalion commander. Only after the photo gained world fame under the name "Combat" was the identity of the hero in the picture established: Aleksey Gordeevich Eremenko, born in 1906.

The photo was taken on July 12 near the village of Horoshoe (now the village of Horosheye in the Slavyanoserbsky district of the Luhansk region) between the Lugan and Lozovaya rivers, in the area where the 220th rifle regiment of the 4th rifle division held its defenses, waging stubborn bloody defensive battles with superior enemy forces.

Who has not seen this photo! From the moment when Pravda published a photograph of a war correspondent Max Alpert, it was reprinted by dozens of publications in the USSR and hundreds around the world. So the nameless "Combat", raising the Red Army soldiers to the attack, became one of the symbols of the Great Victory. But the real name of the hero, junior political instructor Alexey Eremenko, became known only decades after the feat.

Attack ...

At one time I was lucky enough to talk with the Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Karpov... So, answering the question what was the most difficult thing in the war, Vladimir Vasilyevich admitted that the most difficult thing was to force himself to get off the ground in order to rise to the attack, when you know that the first bullet of the enemy can be yours. But this is exactly what happened to Alexei Eremenko, the junior political instructor of the 220th regiment of the 4th rifle division. In the summer of 1942, their company fought to death at the border near the village of Horosheye, Slavyanoserbsk district, Voroshilovgrad (now Luhansk) region.

Having repulsed thirteen (!) Attacks of the Nazis, the unit was already preparing for the worst. After all, a company commander, senior lieutenant Petrenko, severely wounded. And who will command the remaining fighters? And then Alexey Gordeevich took his place. Gathering the surviving Red Army men around him and waiting for the end of the next artillery preparation of the enemy, Eremenko got up from the trench and dragged his subordinates into a counterattack, commanding: “Forward! For the Motherland! "

It was this moment that was captured by the military journalist Max Alpert, who appeared at that time on the front line, filming for TASS. The company, or what was left of it, rushed at the enemy, engaging in a bayonet fight with him. But that was later. And just a moment after the photographer took the picture, a Nazi bullet overtook the junior political instructor. The camera itself was broken by a shrapnel. That is why Alpert did not write down the names of the hero. And while he was unsuccessfully trying to figure out whether it was possible to fix the camera, the trenches flashed: "The battalion commander was killed!" Okay, the journalist decided, if the film still hasn't been torn, the picture can be titled “Combat”.

Who are you, hero?

Years have passed. Eremenko's relatives knew only that on the eve of his death he had been taking part in the defense of Debaltseve for 8 months. And then we received the news that Aleksey Gordeevich was missing. But he was buried after the battle, even in a mass grave. However, not all fighters knew the young political leader by sight, who had just taken over to replace the commander. Yes, and the fighters remained alive - nothing at all. Therefore, Eremenko was never identified.

This was possible only 20 years after the Victory, when a memorable photo album was published in the Pravda publishing house, on the cover of which the photograph was placed. “When I saw the photo, I immediately realized that this was my father,” later recalled the hero's son, Ivan, himself a former military man, a retired colonel. - True, it was embarrassing that the "Combat" was signed below. Although the family knew for sure that he was a junior political instructor. Both my sister and the rest of our relatives - all recognized in the photo of our father. To make sure that I was not mistaken, I showed the photo album to my mother. She, as she saw the picture, burst into tears, lamenting: "This is my Alyosha!"

The family's repeated appeals to various authorities did not clarify the situation. Indeed, hundreds of letters came to the editorial office, each of which stated that it was their father, son, brother or uncle depicted in the picture. In the mid-2000s, for example, information even flashed on the Internet that 90-year-old front-line soldier Pavel Fedorovich Petrov is living out his life in Mariupol, who, in his own opinion, is the very "Combat". And Evdokia, Eremenko's widow, was helped by the fact that in 1974, together with a copy of the funeral, she put it in a letter and his pre-war photographs. The carried out examination established their identity with the "kombat" one. So the country learned the name of the hero.

Secretary General's promise

Say what you like, but in Soviet times there were many real party bosses. It was such people who rightly decided that a person who has become a symbol of Victory must be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. This is exactly what the first persons of the corresponding party regional committees of the Luhansk region (where Aleksey Gordeevich died) and Zaporozhye (where he was born in the village of Tersyanka) acted. By that time, a book about Eremenko had already been published. After waiting for the next anniversary of "dear Leonid Ilyich", the first secretaries, meeting with him in the Kremlin, presented a volume Brezhnev. And in words they said that we are talking about the very "Combat". And it would be nice for him to posthumously assign a Hero.

“It would be nice, it would be nice ... Especially since he is really a real hero,” the Secretary General allegedly replied. But the matter with the awarding did not get off the ground. But Leonid Ilyich during the war, with the rank of brigade commissar, led the political department of the same 18th army, which included, respectively, the 4th division and the 220th rifle regiment.

One can, of course, assume that it was not the Dnipropetrovsk party officials whom Brezhnev welcomed to put in the word for the hero. But Ilyich, sentimental in old age, treated his fellow soldiers favorably. Most likely, he simply forgot about this conversation.

The fight continues

And in our days, Alexei Gordeevich Eremenko does not manage to assign, albeit posthumously, the title of Hero. At one time, the Cossacks from public organizations"Slavic Guard" and the St. George Union of Youth, the then head of the regional administration Boris Petrov... But so far, initiators only receive replies, or their appeals remain unanswered at all. According to the still alive Ivana Eremenko sent a petition Viktor Yushchenko and under the governorship Evgeniya Chervonenko... It is better not to remember what that appeal could lead to. After all, even the name of the hero seemed to be specially distorted by writing in the document: "Aleksey Gordeevich Efremov." And could a person who awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine have signed this petition? Bandera?

In a word, so far nothing has been achieved with this noble deed. What can I say: they love today in Ukraine, and even in the Baltic States and Eastern Europe, to fight with veterans, with soldiers lying in mass graves, and with monuments erected in their honor. So is it really impossible to pay tribute to the legendary hero in our country, the symbol of whose Victory in the hardest struggle against fascism he became? This would be the highest justice. And it would sound proudly and beautifully: Hero of Russia Alexey Gordeevich Eremenko!

Bright memory

To those who do not exist!

To those who have not met

Peaceful dawn

Through the cannonade

Through hunger

Through fear

Proudly Victory

Carried on his shoulders.

This is one of the most famous photos Great Patriotic War.

The picture was taken 30 kilometers from Lugansk, where the blood of Soviet soldiers flowed like a river in fierce battles on Ukrainian soil.

This photo is called "Combat".

It is not staged and is not a still from a film.

Who is this person and how was his fate?

On July 12, 1942, near the village of Horoshoe, photographer Max Alpert managed to take a picture of a man who raised a company of soldiers to attack, and immediately a shell fragment broke the camera. The photographer decided that the footage was spoiled and did not write down the name of the person whom he photographed. Later, developing the film, he saw that the frame turned out to be excellent.

After a while, the identity of the person in the photo was identified - his name was Alexey Gordeevich Eremenko.

Here is what an eyewitness, Alexander Matveyevich Makarov, told about those events:

“The Nazis rushed to attack after attack. There were many killed and wounded. Our greatly thinned regiment fought off the tenth or eleventh attack already. The Nazis climbed right through to Voroshilovgrad (Lugansk), which was about thirty kilometers away. By the end of the day, the company commander was wounded. After a fierce bombing, with the support of tanks and artillery, the Nazis launched another attack. And then, standing up to his full height, with the words: “Follow me! For the Motherland! Forward! " The political instructor died, but the attack was repulsed. "

Despite the fact that Aleksey Eremenko had the position of junior political instructor, the world remembered him as an unnamed battalion commander.

The fact is that while fiddling with the broken apparatus in the trench, the photographer did not follow the situation for some time, but heard the chain transfer: "The battalion commander was killed."

On the eve of the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Great Victory, a monument was erected at the site of the feat of political instructor A. Eremenko, near the highway near the village of Horoshoe. The sculpture resembled an already well-known photograph.

On the granite pedestal were inscribed the words: "In honor of the heroic deed of the political workers of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The feat of A. G. Eremenko."

His son, Ivan Alekseevich Eremenko, took over the father's relay. He served for a long time as a political worker in the ranks of the Soviet army, is a retired colonel.

Grandson A.G. Eremenko, Andrei Ivanovich, also followed in the footsteps of his famous grandfather, served as an officer in the ranks of the Soviet army until the collapse of the USSR.

The youngest of the Eremenko dynasty is named in honor of the memory of his great-grandfather - Alexei ...