Semyon Timoshenko

Semyon Timoshenko (1895-1970), Soviet military leader, born in Furmanka, Bessarabia (now in Ukraine). He was drafted in 1915 into the tsarist army. After the Russian Revolution, he fought with the Red Army cavalry in the civil war and attained the rank of division commander. In 1940 he was a commander in the Russo-Finnish War, and for his noteworthy services in the war he gained the rank of marshal and then was briefly commissar of defence of the Soviet Union. During the early part of World War II, he commanded the south-western front and later launched the first successful Soviet counterthrusts against Germany in Ukraine, advancing (1944-1945) as far as the Balkans, Austria, and Hungary. Although a popular military hero, he received a relatively minor post after the war, that of commander of the military district of the Belorussian SSR.