Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich
Chapaev V.I.
(1887-1919) - Carpenter by profession (from the city of Balakova), was drafted into the army during the World War. The October Revolution found him in the army, in the 138th reserve. regiment, and Ch. was chosen as regiment commander; Upon demobilization, he formed detachments of the Red Guard and with them suppressed the uprising in Balakovo and the village of Berezovo. In 1918, Ch., at the head of a detachment, set off to repel the Cossacks who had invaded Nikolaevsky (now Pugachevsky) district, successfully fulfilled the assignment and drove the Cossacks almost to Uralsk. The activities of the partisan detachment Ch. created his legendary fame. When the Czech-Slovaks attacked Samara and Pugachevsk, Ch. successfully fought against their detachments, after which he was appointed commander of the 22nd Nikolaev Division. From here he is transferred to the Ural front and wages an energetic fight against the Cossacks. After spending some time in Gen. Academy, Ch. again returned to Pugachevsk and took command of a special group, then transferred against Kolchak and took Ufa. In the spring of 1919, Ch. was sent again to the Ural front, liberated Uralsk and forced the Cossacks to retreat to Guryev in the mountains. Lbischensk Ch. was captured by surprise by a Cossack detachment and during the battle drowned in the Urals (see " Pam. boron"). The novel "Chapaev" was written about Ch. by D. Furmanov, who was at one time a political commissar in the Ch. detachment.
Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich
(Chepaev; 1887-1919) - communist, major organizer of the red units and hero of the civil war. Ch. was born in the city of Balakovo on the Volga in the family of a multi-family carpenter. As a carpenter, Chepaev worked in the cities and numerous villages of the steppe Trans-Volga region before being called up for military service (1909). In the war of 1914-18, Chechnya was awarded four crosses of St. George for military distinctions. After being wounded, Ch. ends up in the city of Nikolaevsk (now Pugachevsk), where the October Revolution found him.
Ch. joined the party in July 1917. In August Ch. was elected commander of the 138th reserve regiment. At the district congress of workers, peasants and soldiers' deputies, Ch. was on the presidium and spoke on behalf of the Bolshevik faction, being elected to the military commissariat. In Nikolaevsk, under the leadership of the party organization, Ch. is developing military work. From the soldiers who remained in the city after demobilization, workers of flour mills and the rural poor, Ch. formed the first Red Guard detachments. At the head of the first detachment, Ch. in January 1918 suppressed kulak uprisings in Balakovo, then in Berezovo and other villages. Returning to Nikolaevsk, Ch. participates in the work of the district council. In April 1918, the Ural White Cossacks attacked the councils of the Nikolaev district and Ch. and a detachment were sent to protect them. The poor of many Trans-Volga villages knew Ch. as a carpenter, and when he began to create the first partisan detachments, hundreds of volunteers from Semenovka, Klintsovka, Sulak and other steppe villages came to Ch. The White Cossacks were under pressure; at the beginning of June 1918, Ch. with detachments approached the city of Uralsk, but the impossibility of transporting food and artillery supplies due to the destruction of the Ryazan-Ural railway. D. delays his occupation. Meanwhile, capitalist mercenaries - Czech-Slovak legionnaires - captured Nikolaevsk on July 20, and Ch. and his troops remained in the pocket between the White Cossack and White Czech forces. At this time, Ch. makes his heroic raid, having passed over 70 km into the night, and Nikolaevsk is liberated. This blow broke the junction between the two counter-revolutionary forces, and Ch.’s detachments, joining the forces of the Red Army, turned into regiments, brigades and a division (later called the 25th). In the division, Ch. received command of a brigade, which consisted of detachments organized by him directly. In the second half of August 1918, the 25th Division set out to liberate the city of Samara, and Ch. was appointed commander of the 22nd Division, which he formed until November, while simultaneously pushing the White Cossacks towards Uralsk.
In November 1918, Ch. was sent to the Military Academy, where he worked only until January 1919. By order of the RVSR, Ch. was again transferred to the Ural Front. The commander of the 4th Army, M.V. Frunze, appointed Ch. as head of the special Alexander-Gai group and entrusted him with the most responsible section of the front - the right flank. At this time, Chepaev successfully carried out the exceptionally brave Slomikha battle, vividly described in D. Furmanov’s story “Chapaev”. With Kolchak’s attack on the Volga region, Ch. was transferred at the head of the 25th division to the Samara region. Successful battles at Buzuluk and Buguruslan give Ch. the opportunity to proceed to the pursuit of the enemy, which ended with the capture of Ufa on June 9. Having received a crushing blow, Kolchak retreats to Siberia, and Ch. is transferred again to Uralsk to liberate the 22nd Division besieged there. Having made the transition at a distance of over 200 km, The 25th Division under the command of Ch. fulfills this task and drives the White Cossacks further south to Guryev. Halfway from the final goal in the city of Lbischensk, Ch. with his headquarters on the night of September 5, 1919 was surrounded by White Cossacks and after a long battle, wounded, he threw himself into the Ural River, where he died along with other soldiers. - The 25th division, awarded the Orders of the Red Banner and Lenin, is named after Ch. The city of B. is named after him. Ivashchenkovo (Trotsk), factory, state farms, collective farms. From his associates, a society was created in the Middle Volga region, numbering up to 5 thousand members. - On the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution, a monument to Chepaev was unveiled in Samara.
Lit.: Furmanov D., Chapaev, vol. 1-2, M., 1925; Kutyakov I., With Chapaev in the Ural steppes, M.-L., 1928; Streltsov I., The Red Path of the 22nd Division (Memoirs of a Chapaevets), Samara, 1930; 10 rocks on varti [Journal of the Poltava Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and Politich. viddil of the 25th Chapaev... division, 1918-28], [Poltava], 1928.
H. Streltsov.
Large biographical encyclopedia. 2009 .
See what “Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich” is in other dictionaries:
Hero of the Civil War 1918‒20. Member of the CPSU since September 1917. Born into a poor peasant family... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
- (1887 1919) hero of the Civil War. From 1918 he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th Infantry Division, which played a significant role in the defeat of the troops of A.V. Kolchak in the summer of 1919. He died in battle. The image of Chapaev is captured in the story by D. A. Furmanov Chapaev and... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
The request "Vasily Chapaev" is redirected here; see also other meanings. This article should be Wikified. Please format it according to the rules for formatting articles... Wikipedia
- (1887 1919), participant in the Civil War. From 1918 he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th Infantry Division of the Red Army, which played a significant role in the defeat of the troops of A.V. Kolchak in the summer of 1919. He died in battle. The image of Chapaev is captured in the novel... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Chapaev, Vasily Ivanovich- (28.01 (09.02).1887, village of Budaiki (Cheboksary) 05.09.1919, approx. Lbischensk) prominent site. citizen war. From the cross. He served in a merchant's shop (1901), a carpenter's apprentice (1903), a carpenter. Drafted into the army (1908). Demobilized due to illness. Since 1910 carpenter in... ... Ural Historical Encyclopedia
Vasily Ivanovich: Vasily Ivanovich (1479 1533) Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III. Vasily Ivanovich Prince of Bryansk, son of Ivan Alexandrovich Smolensky. Vasily Ivanovich Shemyachich (d. 1529) Prince of Novgorod Seversky and ... ... Wikipedia
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev January 28 (February 9) 1887 (18870209) September 5, 1919 Place of birth ... Wikipedia
CHAPAEV Vasily Ivanovich- Vasily Ivanovich (18871919), participant of the Civil. war. From 1918 he commanded a detachment, a brigade and the 25th rifleman. division that played means. role in the defeat of A.V. Kolchak’s troops in the summer of 1919. Killed in battle. The image of Ch. is captured in the story by D.A. Furmanova... ... Biographical Dictionary
Books
- Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. Essay on life, revolutionary and military activity, A. V. Chapaev, K. V. Chapaeva, Ya. A. Volodikhin. The book, on a strictly documentary basis, shows in its entirety the labor, military and socio-political activities of the hero of the civil war, the famous division commander V.I. Chapaev. Book…
In the distant 19th century, in 1887, a boy was born in the Kazan province, who was named Vasily. He was born into a simple, large peasant family. Many children were born in the family, but only 4 children survived, including Vasily.
When Vasya grew up, he was assigned to study at a parochial school, where he studied successfully.
Vasily differed from his classmates in his excellent vocal abilities. Teachers believed that thanks to singing, Chapaev would become a singer in church.
It is worth noting that Vasily Ivanovich was distinguished by his violent temper from an early age. Because of this character trait, the boy did not continue his studies at the parish school.
The peculiarities of Vasily Ivanovich’s temperament allowed him to begin his military career simultaneously with the beginning of the First World War. He started out as an ordinary soldier and rose to an important military rank. For his military services, he became a full Knight of St. George.
The year 1917 comes. This is a period in the history of our country when the military tried to go over to the side of the Bolsheviks. Chapaev was no exception. Afterwards, he, as an experienced commander, is appointed to command a detachment of Red Guards.
It is important to remember that Vasily Ivanovich did not have military specialization. But thanks to his innate qualities, he became a good commander. The surname Chapaev brought panic and horror to the “white” army. If the enemy knew that the legendary commander would be in the attack, he hastily gathered additional forces.
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev is a man who could drive or ride on any vehicle with equal ease and simplicity. Why did he hardly walk? It's very simple: Chapaev was once seriously wounded and the consequences became such that he needed an additional means of transportation.
We remember that Vasily did not have a special military education. For this reason, the command sent Vasily to take courses at the Academy of the General Staff. He went to study, but every minute with every fiber of his soul he was eager to go to the front line...
After the training course, Chapaev was assigned to the Eastern Front. Frunze, one might say, was Chapaev’s patron. This fact played into Vasily’s hands and he was appointed division commander of the 25th division. It contained fighters with whom Vasily Ivanovich went through from the beginning of the Civil War.
If we talk about Vasily Ivanovich’s personal life, then it is worth noting the fact that he was fatally unlucky with women. His first wife left Vasily with 3 children and ran away with her lover. The second wife also did not stay long with Vasily.
The death of Vasily Chapaev occurred near the village of Lbischenskaya. The White Guards were unable to get the national hero alive. Vasily Ivanovich’s body was transported to the other bank of the Ural River. And his ashes were buried near the river in September 1919.
Interesting facts and dates from life
Vasily Chapaev was born on January 28 (February 9), 1887 in the village of Budaika, Cheboksary district, Kazan province, into a Russian peasant family. Vasily was the sixth child in the family of Ivan Stepanovich Chapaev (1854-1921).
Some time later, in search of a better life, the Chapaev family moved to the village of Balakovo, Nikolaev district, Samara province. Ivan Stepanovich enrolled his son in a local parish school, the patron of which was his wealthy cousin. There were already priests in the Chapaev family, and the parents wanted Vasily to become a clergyman, but life decreed otherwise.
In the fall of 1908, Vasily was drafted into the army and sent to Kyiv. But already in the spring of the following year, for unknown reasons, Chapaev was transferred from the army to the reserve and transferred to first-class militia warriors. According to the official version, due to illness. The version about his political unreliability, because of which he was transferred to the warriors, is not confirmed by anything. Before the World War, he did not serve in the regular army. He worked as a carpenter. From 1912 to 1914, Chapaev and his family lived in the city of Melekess (now Dimitrovgrad, Ulyanovsk region) on Chuvashskaya Street. Here his son Arkady was born. At the beginning of the war, on September 20, 1914, Chapaev was called up for military service and sent to the 159th reserve infantry regiment in the city of Atkarsk.
Chapaev went to the front in January 1915. He fought in the 326th Belgorai Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Infantry Division in the 9th Army of the Southwestern Front in Volyn and Galicia. Was injured. In July 1915 he graduated from the training team, received the rank of junior non-commissioned officer, and in October - senior officer. He finished the war with the rank of sergeant major. For his bravery, he was awarded the St. George Medal and soldiers' St. George Crosses of three degrees.
I met the February revolution in a hospital in Saratov; On September 28, 1917 he joined the RSDLP(b). He was elected commander of the 138th reserve infantry regiment stationed in Nikolaevsk. On December 18, the district congress of Soviets elected him military commissar of the Nikolaev district. In this position he led the dispersal of the Nikolaev district zemstvo. Organized the district Red Guard of 14 detachments. He took part in the campaign against General Kaledin (near Tsaritsyn), then (in the spring of 1918) in the campaign of the Special Army to Uralsk. On his initiative, on May 25, a decision was made to reorganize the Red Guard detachments into two Red Army regiments: them. Stepan Razin and them. Pugachev, united in the Pugachev brigade under the command of Chapaev. Later he took part in battles with the Czechoslovaks and the People's Army, from whom he recaptured Nikolaevsk, which was renamed Pugachev in honor of the brigade. On September 19, 1918, he was appointed commander of the 2nd Nikolaev Division. From November 1918 to February 1919 - at the Academy of the General Staff. Then - Commissioner of Internal Affairs of the Nikolaev district. From May 1919 - brigade commander of the Special Aleksandrovo-Gai Brigade, from June - head of the 25th Infantry Division, which participated in the Bugulminsky and Belebeyevsky operations against Kolchak’s army. Under the leadership of Chapaev, this division occupied Ufa on June 9, 1919, and Uralsk on July 11. During the capture of Ufa, Chapaev was wounded in the head by a burst from an aircraft machine gun.
Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev died on September 5, 1919 as a result of a deep raid by the Cossack detachment of Colonel N. N. Borodin (1192 soldiers with 9 machine guns and 2 guns), which culminated in an unexpected attack on the well-guarded (about 1000 bayonets) and located in the deep rear of the city of Lbischensk (now the village of Chapaev, West Kazakhstan region of Kazakhstan), where the headquarters of the 25th division was located.
In 1908, Chapaev met 16-year-old Pelageya Metlina, the daughter of a priest. On July 5, 1909, 22-year-old Vasily Ivanovich Chepaev married a 17-year-old peasant woman from the village of Balakova, Pelageya Nikanorovna Metlina (State Archive of the Saratov Region F.637. Op.7. D.69. L.380ob-309.). They lived together for 6 years and had three children. Then the First World War began, and Chapaev went to the front. Pelageya lived in his parents’ house, then went with the children to a neighbor’s conductor.
At the beginning of 1917, Chapaev went to his native place and intended to divorce Pelageya, but was satisfied with taking the children from her and returning them to their parents’ house. Soon after this, he became friends with Pelageya Kamishkertseva, the widow of Pyotr Kamishkertsev, a friend of Chapaev, who died of a wound during the fighting in the Carpathians (Chapaev and Kamishkertsev promised each other that if one of the two was killed, the survivor would take care of his friend’s family). In 1919, Chapaev settled Kamishkertseva with her children (Chapaev’s children and Kamishkertsev’s daughters Olympiada and Vera) in the village. Klintsovka at the division’s artillery depot, after which Kamishkertseva cheated on Chapaev with the head of the artillery depot, Georgy Zhivolozhinov. This circumstance was revealed shortly before Chapaev’s death and dealt him a strong moral blow. In the last year of his life, Chapaev also had affairs with a certain Tanka-Cossack woman (the daughter of a Cossack colonel, with whom he was forced to separate under moral pressure from the Red Army) and the wife of Commissar Furmanov, Anna Nikitichnaya Steshenko, which led to an acute conflict with Furmanov and was the reason for his recall Furmanov from the division shortly before the death of Chapaev
Chapaev, according to her, immediately went back to division headquarters. Soon after this, Pelageya decided to make peace with her common-law husband and headed to Lbischensk, taking little Arkady with her. However, she was not allowed to see Chapaev. On the way back, Pelageya stopped at the white headquarters and reported information about the small number of forces stationed in Lbischensk. According to K. Chapaeva, she heard Pelageya boasting about this already in the 1930s. However, it should be noted that since the population of Lbischensk and the surrounding area, consisting of Ural Cossacks, completely sympathized with the whites and maintained contact with them, the latter were intimately aware of the situation in the city. Therefore, even if the story of Pelageya Kamishkertseva’s betrayal is true, the information she provided was not of particular value. There is no mention of this report in the White Guard documents.
Chapaev's division, cut off from the rear and suffering heavy losses, in early September settled down to rest in the Lbischensk area, and in Lbischensk itself the division headquarters, supply department, tribunal, revolutionary committee and other divisional institutions with a total number of almost two thousand people were located. In addition, there were about two thousand mobilized peasant transport workers in the city who did not have any weapons. The city was guarded by a division school of 600 people - it was these 600 active bayonets that were Chapaev’s main force at the time of the attack. The main forces of the division were located at a distance of 40-70 km from the city.
The Lbishchensky raid by Colonel Borodin’s detachment began on the evening of August 31. On September 4, Borodin’s detachment secretly approached the city and hid in the reeds in the backwaters of the Urals. Air reconnaissance (4 airplanes) did not report this to Chapaev, apparently due to the fact that the pilots sympathized with the whites (after the death of Chapaev, they all flew over to the side of the whites). At dawn on September 5, the Cossacks attacked Lbischensk. Panic and chaos began, some of the Red Army soldiers crowded into Cathedral Square, were surrounded there and taken prisoner; others were captured or killed while clearing the city; only a small part managed to break through to the Ural River. All prisoners were executed - they were shot in batches of 100-200 people on the banks of the Urals. Among those captured after the battle and shot was divisional commissar P. S. Baturin, who tried to hide in the oven of one of the houses. The chief of staff of the Ural White Army, Colonel Motornov, describes the results of this operation as follows:
As documents testify, for the capture of Chapaev, Borodin assigned a special platoon under the command of the guard Belonozhkin, who, led by a captured Red Army soldier, attacked the house where Chapaev was quartered, but let him go: the Cossacks attacked the Red Army soldier who appeared from the house, mistaking him for Chapaev himself, in while Chapaev jumped out the window and managed to escape. While fleeing, he was wounded in the arm by Belonozhkin's shot. Having gathered and organized the Red Army soldiers who fled to the river in panic, Chapaev organized a detachment of about a hundred people with a machine gun and was able to throw back Belonozhkin, who did not have machine guns. However, in the process he was wounded in the stomach. According to the story of Chapaev's eldest son, Alexander, two Hungarian Red Army soldiers put the wounded Chapaev on a raft made from half a gate and transported him across the Urals. But on the other side it turned out that Chapaev died from loss of blood. The Hungarians buried his body with their hands in the coastal sand and covered it with reeds so that the Cossacks would not find the grave. This story was subsequently confirmed by one of the participants in the events, who in 1962 sent a letter from Hungary to Chapaev’s daughter with a detailed description of the death of the division commander. The investigation carried out by whites also confirms these data; from the words of captured Red Army soldiers, “Chapaev, leading a group of Red Army soldiers towards us, was wounded in the stomach. The wound turned out to be so severe that after that he could no longer lead the battle and was transported on planks across the Urals... he [Chapaev] was already on the Asian side of the river. Ural died from a wound in the stomach.” The place where Chapaev was supposedly buried is now flooded - the river bed has changed.
Memory:
The Chapaevka River and the city of Chapaevsk in the Samara region were named in his honor.
In 1974, the Chapaev Museum was opened in Cheboksary near his birthplace.
In the city of Pugachev, Saratov region, there is a house-museum where Vasily Ivanovich lived and worked in 1919. The Chapaevskaya 25th Infantry Division was formed in this city.
In the village of Krasny Yar, Ufa region of the Republic of Bashkortostan, there is a house-museum named after the 25th Infantry Division in the building in which the division headquarters and field hospital were located during the liberation of Ufa.
There is a museum of V.I. Chapaev located in the village of Lbischenskaya (now the village of Chapaev, West Kazakhstan region) on the site of the division commander’s last battle, it has existed since the 1920s. It is located in the house where the headquarters of the 25th Infantry Division was located.
There is a house-museum of V. I. Chapaev located in Uralsk (West Kazakhstan region)
There is also a house-museum of V. I. Chapaev in the city of Balakovo, Saratov region (Address of the directorate: 413865, Saratov region, Balakovo, Chapaev St., 110). Founded in 1948 as a branch of the Pugachev Memorial House-Museum of V. I. Chapaev. In 1986, it became a branch of the Saratov Regional Museum of Local History. The initiators of the creation of the museum in the Chapaevs’ parental home were the Chapaevites and the Red partisans of the city of Balakovo and the region. Since this city is the second homeland of the Red Army commander V.I. Chapaev, famous during the Civil War. It was in the Sirotskaya Sloboda (the former outskirts of the city of Balakovo), where the house-museum of V.I. Chapaev is now located, that his childhood and youth years passed, the formation of his personality. This memorial museum shows the peaceful period in the life of the famous division commander.
In St. Petersburg, in school No. 146 of the Kalininsky district, a museum named after V. I. Chapaev was created by teachers and students in the 1970s. Groups of students acted as tour guides. Meetings were held with veterans of the legendary 25th division. Performances were held in which school students also acted as actors.
A river cruise double-deck motor ship of Project 305 was named in honor of Vasily Ivanovich.
Project 1134A large anti-submarine ship (BOD) of the Kronstadt type
Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich a brief biography of a participant in the Civil and First World Wars, a division commander of the Red Army, is presented in this article.
Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich short biography
Chapaev Vasily Ivanovich was born on January 28, 1887 in the village of Budaika in a peasant family. He was the sixth child in the family. A large family moved to the village of Balakovo in search of a better life. His parents sent him to a church school, hoping that their son would become a priest. But he never became one. But he married Pelageya Metlina, the daughter of a local priest. When he was drafted into the army, he served there for a year, and the guy was discharged due to health reasons.
Returning home, Chapaev worked as a carpenter until 1914, trying to feed his wife and three children. In January 1914, he was sent to the front of the First World War, where he proved himself to be a brave and skillful warrior. For his courage and bravery he was awarded the St. George Medal and the Crosses of St. George. He received the title of Knight of St. George.
In 1917, with the Bolsheviks coming to power, he took their side and proved himself to be an excellent organizer. While in the Saratov province, Chapaev created 14 Red Guard detachments. They successfully fought with General Kaledin. A year later, in May, the Pugachev brigade was formed from 14 detachments. It was headed by Chapaev.
His fame and popularity grew before our eyes. In 1919, he was the commander of the 25th Infantry Division and conducted combat operations against Kolchak's White Guard army.
His early death prevented him from revealing the real talent of the commander. September 5, 1919. Vasily Ivanovich's division carried out an offensive operation and fell behind the main part of the forces. They were attacked by Borodin's White Guard army. Chapaev was wounded in the stomach and head, from which he died.
Each era gives birth to its heroes. The 20th century in the history of our country is a lot of social upheavals - several revolutions and wars. One of them was a civil war, in which different worldviews of different social strata collided. Among the heroes who defended the interests of the young Soviet Republic, there is a truly unique personality - Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev.
By today's standards, he was a young man, because at the time of his death he was only 32 years old. Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev was born on January 28, 1887 in the Chuvash village of Budaika, which was located in the Cheboksary district of the Kazan province. In the Russian family of peasant Ivan Chapaev, he was the sixth child. He was born prematurely and was very weak. Therefore, the parents could hardly imagine what a heroic fate awaited their tiny Vasenka.
The large family was very poor and, in search of a better life and earnings, moved to relatives in the Samara province and settled in the village of Balakovo. Here Vasily went to a parish school in the hope that he could become a priest. But this did not happen. But he married the priest’s young daughter, Pelageya Metlina. Soon he was drafted into the army. After serving for a year, Vasily Chapaev was discharged due to health reasons.
Returning to his family, he began working as a carpenter until the disaster struck in 1914. By this time, the family of Vasily and Pelageya already had three children. In January, Vasily Chapaev goes to the front and proves himself a skillful and brave warrior. For his bravery and courage he was awarded three St. George Crosses and the St. George Medal. Sergeant Major Vasily Chapaev graduated from the First World War as a full Knight of St. George.
In the fall of 1917, he chose the side of the Bolsheviks and proved to be an excellent organizer. In the Saratov province, he creates 14 Red Guard detachments, which participate in the battles against General Kaledin. In May 1918, the Pugachev brigade was formed from these detachments, and Chapaev was appointed to command it. This brigade, under the control of a self-taught commander, recaptures the city of Nikolaevsk from the Czechoslovaks.
The popularity and glory of the young red commander grew literally before our eyes, and at the same time Chapaev barely knew how to read and was completely unable, or did not want, to obey orders. The actions of the 2nd Nikolaev Division, led by Chapaev, instilled fear in the enemies, but often smacked of partisanship. Therefore, the command decided to send him to study at the newly opened Academy of the General Staff of the Red Army. But the young commander could not sit at the training table for long and returned to the front.
In the summer of 1919, under his command, the 25th Rifle Division carried out successful operations against Kolchak's White Guards. At the beginning of June, Chapaev's division liberated Ufa, and a month later the city of Uralsk. The professional military men who led the White Guard troops paid tribute to the leadership talents of the young Red Guard commander. Not only his comrades, but also his opponents saw him as a real military genius.
Chapaev was prevented from truly revealing the commander's talent by his early death, which was led to by a tragedy caused by a military mistake, the only one in the military career of Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. This happened on September 5, 1919. Chapaev's division advanced and broke away from the main forces. Having stopped for a night's rest, the division headquarters settled down separately from the division units. White Guards under the command of General Borodin, numbering up to 2,000 bayonets, attacked the headquarters of the Chapaevsky division.
Wounded in the head and stomach, the division commander was able to organize the Red Guards, who were retreating in disarray, for defense. But completely disproportionate forces forced us to retreat. The soldiers transported the wounded commander across the Ural River on a raft, but he died from his wounds. Chapaev was buried in the coastal sand so that his enemies would not violate his body. Subsequently, the burial place could not be found.
The Chapaev division continued to successfully crush enemies even after the death of its commander. For many it will be a discovery that the later famous Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek, the famous partisan commander Sidor Kovpak, Major General Ivan Panfilov, whose fighters glorified themselves in defense, fought in the ranks of the Chapaevsky division.