NOVIKOV Alexander Alexandrovich

Born in the village of Kryukovo, now Nerekhtsky District, Kostroma Region. In 1915 he graduated from the parish school in the village of Sedelnitsy (now the Komsomolsky District), and in 1918 from the Kineshemsko-Khrenovskaya Teachers' Seminary (now the Vichugsky District). He worked as a teacher at a school in the village of Peshevo, near his native village. In 1919 he entered the Ivanovo Polytechnic Institute, in the agronomy department, but was unable to study due to lack of funds. He joined the army in 1919. He fought on the fronts of the civil war, participated in the suppression of the counter-revolutionary uprising in Kronstadt, and fought in the Caucasus. In 1922 he graduated from the Vystrel command courses, and in 1930 from the M.V. Frunze Military Academy. In March 1933 he was transferred to the Air Force. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, he had risen from squadron commander to chief of staff of the Air Forces of a military district. During the Great Patriotic War, A.A. Novikov held the posts of Air Force Commander of the Northern and Leningrad Military Districts. He proved himself a thoughtful and proactive aviation commander. In the spring of 1942, he commanded the Red Army Air Forces and became Deputy People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR for aviation. He was the first to be awarded the rank of Chief Marshal of Aviation in February 1944. As a representative of the Supreme Command Headquarters, he coordinated the combat operations of several air armies in the Battle of Stalingrad and the Kuban Air Battle, the Kursk Bulge, the liberation of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic states, East Prussia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the assault on Berlin, and the defeat of the Kwantung Army in the Far East. After the war, in April 1946, he was arrested along with the USSR Minister of Aviation Industry A.I. Shakhurin and sentenced to imprisonment in May 1946. He was stripped of his Hero title and all state awards. After Stalin's death, in May 1953, he was amnestied and reinstated in the USSR Air Force. The Hero of the Soviet Union title and state awards were returned. From 1953 to 1955, he commanded Long-Range Aviation and simultaneously, from 1954 to 1955, he served as Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Air Force. From 1956, he was in the reserve. From the same year, he became the head of the Higher Aviation School of the Civil Fleet. He wrote the memoirs "In the Skies of Leningrad," as well as teaching aids and works on the history of Soviet aviation. He is buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy Cemetery.

19.11.1900 - 03.12.1976