Konstantin Ivanovich Rakutin (May 21, 1902 – October 7, 1941) was a Soviet military commander, major general, and posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union. A native of Vachsky District in Nizhny Novgorod Region. He commanded the 24th Army of the Reserve Front during the Great Patriotic War; he led the 1941 Yelnya Offensive, which went down in history as the first major offensive operation of the Red Army in that war. He was killed while breaking out of encirclement in October 1941.[1]

Origins and Nizhny Novgorod Years

He was born in the village of Novinki in the former Yakovtsevskaya volost of Vladimir Governorate (now Vachsky District, Nizhny Novgorod Region). From the age of seven he grew up and attended school in Nizhny Novgorod.[2] In 1917 he graduated from the six-year secondary school (realschule) in Nizhny Novgorod and took a job as a bookkeeper at the Nizhny Novgorod Executive Committee.[1] In July 1919 he joined the Red Army as a volunteer and was sent to the Tambov Infantry Courses for Red Commanders, which he completed in December of that year.[3]

Civil War and Border Service

During the Civil War he served as assistant military commissar of the training school of the 9th Volga Regiment, then as a company commander in the 473rd Infantry Regiment of the 53rd Rifle Division on the Western Front. He took part in the Soviet-Polish War with the forces of the 15th and 4th Armies. In late August 1920, together with units of the retreating army, he crossed the Polish-Prussian border and was interned by the German authorities in East Prussia; in August 1921 he was returned to his homeland.[2]

In 1921–1922 he fought in the Far East with the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic. In February 1922 he distinguished himself in the storming of Volochayevka (the "Far Eastern Perekop"), was wounded, and suffered severe frostbite in both hands; the commander-in-chief of the People's Revolutionary Army of the Far Eastern Republic, V. K. Blyukher, awarded him a personalized weapon.[2]

From late 1922 he served in the OGPU–NKVD border troops. He successively held the posts of political instructor of the Amur cavalry squadron, commandant of a border sector of the Bikin detachment, head of the border commandant's office in Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, and head of the separate Okhotsk border commandant's office, while concurrently serving as deputy chairman of the Okhotsk District Executive Committee. In 1927 he led the suppression of the armed revolt of Vinokurov-Indigirsky in Yakutia: he organized self-defense detachments from local residents and sent an expeditionary detachment to Oymyakon.[2]

In 1931 he graduated from the OGPU Higher Border Guard School, and in 1936 from the evening department of the Frunze Military Academy of the Red Army. He held posts in training units: assistant head and then head of the training department of the border guard schools in Novy Petergof and Kharkiv.[3] From 1937 he was commander of the 13th Berezina Border Detachment in Belarus. From 1939 he was chief of staff of the Leningrad Border District; during the Soviet-Finnish War he served as assistant commander of the 15th Army for rear-area security. From 1940 he was commander of the Baltic Border District. On June 4, 1940, he was promoted to major general.[1]

The Great Patriotic War

When the war began in June 1941, he took part in the defense of Libau (now Liepāja) and in the defensive battles in the Baltic region. From June 30, 1941, he was commander of the 24th Army of the Reserve Front.[1]

During the Yelnya Offensive Operation (August 30 – September 8, 1941), the troops of the 24th Army under Rakutin's command broke through the enemy's defenses, destroyed a large grouping, and liberated the town of Yelnya. In early October 1941, German panzer groups encircled four Soviet armies with flanking strikes. The soldiers of the 24th Army broke out of the encirclement with heavy losses; the army was later reorganized as the 4th Guards Army.[1] General Rakutin was killed on October 7, 1941, in the fighting during the breakout from the encirclement near the village of Semlyovo in Smolensk Region. For a long time his fate and the place of his death remained unknown.[1]

Awards and memory

He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on May 5, 1990. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin (posthumously, 1990), the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Class (posthumously, 1965), and the Order of the Red Star (1941). He was granted the title of Honorary Worker of the VChK–OGPU.[2]

In 1996 Rakutin's remains were ceremonially reburied at the military memorial cemetery in the settlement of Snegiri, Istra District, Moscow Region.[1] A memorial plaque has been installed on building No. 37 on Bolshaya Pokrovskaya Street in Nizhny Novgorod (the building of the Institute of Philology and Journalism of Lobachevsky University).[1] On May 28, 2022, a bust-bas-relief of Rakutin was unveiled on the Alley of Glory of Nizhny Novgorod Border Guards in Victory Park in Nizhny Novgorod; the initiative for the commemoration came from the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Public Organization of Border Service Veterans "Nizhny Novgorod Border Guard," named after Army General V. A. Matrosov.[3]

Sources

  1. names52.ru — Rakutin Konstantin Ivanovich
  2. нижегородскийпограничник.рф — GENERAL K.I. RAKUTIN
  3. park-pobeda-nn.ru — Heroes — Border Guards of Nizhny Novgorod! — Victory Park, Nizhny Novgorod