THE ORDER OF VICTORY
In May we are celebrating the 60th anniversary of our common victory over
Nazi Germany. The Second World War snuffed out the lives of countless
millions of people across the world, but the Soviet Union bore the brunt
of those  terrible
losses. We have already told you about many of the greatest heroes of that
war, the outstanding Russian military leaders who contributed so immensely
into the ultimate routing of our common enemy. All of them were awarded
this country’s top military distinction, the Order of Victory. Now we will
take a closer look at this award and its holders.
The Order of Victory, awarded to the members of the armed forces high command
for major victories, was one of the many distinctions instituted by the
Soviet government during the war. The decision to establish an order for
members of the high military command came at the very height of the war
when part of this country’s territory was still occupied by the Nazi invaders.
On November 8 of 1943 there came out a government decree establishing the
Order of Victory, the highest Soviet military decoration and a unique one
too. It was awarded to generals and marshals for successfully conducting
combat operations involving one or more army groups and resulting in a
radical change of the situation in favor of the Soviet Armed Forces.
The Order of Victory has only been awarded 20 times to 17 outstanding military
leaders. The names of the first three holders were announced on April 10
of 1944. These were marshals Georgy Zhukov, Alexander Vasilevsky and the
Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces Josef Stalin. They
were all awarded for the liberation of Ukraine.
The Order of Victory is the biggest and most beautiful Soviet order.
It is a 72 mm ruby star made of platinum and studded with 170 diamonds
with a total weight of 16 carats. In the center of the star is a medallion
of blue enamel featuring the Kremlin wall and the Spasskaya Tower in gold
surrounded by diamond-studded gold branches of laurel and oak. In another
first, the Order of Victory was carried on the left side under all other
distinctions while the highest military awards are normally worn above
the rest.
Most of Orders were handed out in 1945. On March 30 Marshals Konstantin
Rokossovsky and Ivan Konev were awarded the much touted distinction respectively
for the liberation of Poland and the crossing of the Oder River. On April
26 Marshals Rodion Malinovsky and Fyodor Tolbukhin also received their
Orders of Victory for the liberation of Hungary and Austria. On May 31
Marshal Leonid Govorov was added to the list in recognition of his role
in the liberation of Estonia. Also on May 31 Marshals Zhukov and Vasilevsky
received their second Victory Orders, one for taking Berlin and the other
for crushing the German resistance in Koenigsberg, now Kaliningrad. On
June 4 a Victory Order was handed to Marshal Semyon Timoshenko Stalin’s
pre-war Defense Minister, and to the chief of Soviet Army’s military staff,
General of the Army Alexei Antonov, the only holder of the Victory Order
who didn’t happen to be a Marshal of the Soviet Union. On June 26 of 1945
Josef Stalin received his second Victory Order and Marshal Kirill Meterskov
was awarded for the Soviet routing of Japan’s Kwantung army in the
far East.
The Victory Order was awarded also to international leaders of the anti-Hitler
coalition, among them the Commander in Chief of the Yugoslav People’s Liberation
Army, General Josip Broz Tito, Marshal of Poland Michal Rolja-Zymersky,
British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, US General of the Army Dwight
Eisenhower and King Mihai I of Romania. 30 years later the Soviet
leader Leonid Brezhnev was became the 17th recipient of the Victory Order
even though his military achievements were “inconsistent with the status
of the Order”.
The Order of Victory is one of the world’s rarest military distinctions.
Its holders are all dead now and you can only see it in the Diamond Fund
in the Moscow Kremlin. Unlike all other Soviet orders, the Victory Order
had no serial number which was only mentioned in the award certificate.
After a holder of the Victory Order died, the award, unlike any other Soviet
decoration, was to be given back to the state.
05/11/2005
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