23 Facts About Ivan Konev

Ivan Konev was the first Allied commander to enter Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, after the Prague uprising.

Ivan Konev replaced Zhukov as commander of Soviet ground forces in 1946.

Ivan Konev remained a popular military figure in the Soviet Union until his death in 1973.

Ivan Konev was born 28 December 1897 in the village of Lodeyno in the Nikolsky Uyezd of Vologda Governorate to a peasant family of Russian ethnicity.

Ivan Konev graduated from a parish school in the village of Yakovlevskaya Gora in 1906, and later the Nikolo-Pushemsky Zemstvo School in the neighboring village of Schetkino in 1912.

Ivan Konev was sent to the 2nd Heavy Artillery Brigade at Moscow and then graduated from artillery training courses.

In 1926 Ivan Konev completed advanced officer training courses at the Frunze Military Academy, and between then and 1941 he held a series of progressively more senior commands, becoming head first of the Transbaikal then of the North Caucasus Military Districts in 1940 and 1941, respectively.

When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Ivan Konev was assigned command of the 19th Army in the Vitebsk region, and waged a series of defensive battles during the Red Army's retreat, first to Smolensk and then to the approaches to Moscow.

Ivan Konev held "Front" commands for the rest of the war.

Ivan Konev participated in the Battle of Kursk, commanding the southern part of the Soviet counter-offensive, the Steppe Front, where he actively and energetically promoted maskirovka.

In David Glantz's view, Ivan Konev's forces "generated a major portion of the element of surprise".

Ivan Konev was one of Stalin's favorite generals and one of the few senior commanders whom even Stalin admired for his ruthlessness.

Soviet historians, and generally Russian sources, claimed that Ivan Konev preserved Krakow from Nazi-planned destruction by ordering a lightning attack on the city.

Ivan Konev's forces entered the city first, but Stalin gave Zhukov the honor of capturing Berlin and hoisting the Soviet flag over the Reichstag.

Ivan Konev was ordered to the south-west, where his forces linked up with elements of the United States Army at Torgau and retook Prague shortly after the official surrender of the German forces.

Ivan Konev held these posts until 1950, when he was appointed commander of the Carpathian Military District.

Ivan Konev held this post until 1960, when he retired from active service.

Ivan Konev was then appointed to the largely ceremonial post of Inspector-General of the Defense Ministry.

Ivan Konev became a key ally of the new party leader Nikita Khrushchev, being entrusted with the trial of the Stalinist police chief Lavrenty Beria in 1953.

Ivan Konev was again appointed First Deputy Minister of Defense and commander of Soviet ground forces, posts he held until 1956, when he was named Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Warsaw Pact.

Ivan Konev remained one of the Soviet Union's most admired military figures until his death in 1973.

Ivan Konev married twice, and his daughter Nataliya is Dean of the Department of Linguistics and Literature at the Military University of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The Ivan Konev monument erected by the communist government of Czechoslovakia in Prague 6 in 1980 became a subject of controversy that escalated in 2018, after which the city administration added explanatory text to the monument, noting the participation of its subject in the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring.