Leonid Govorov (22 February 1897-19 March 1955) was a Marshal of the Soviet Union who led the Leningrad Military District during World War II.
Biography[]
Leonid Govorov was born on 22 February 1897 in Butyrki, Vyatka Governorate, Russian Empire to a family of Russian peasants. Govorov served in World War I and then joined the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, deserting the Imperial Russian Army in 1919. In 1933 he graduated from the Frunze Military Academy, and Mikhail Kalinin saved him from the Great Purge. Govorov was an artillery commander before World War II and fought in the Winter War, and in 1941 he led the artillery of the Soviet Western Front and the Soviet 5th Army, and after Dmitry Lelyushenko's injury in October 1941 he took over the 5th Army. In 1942, he liberated Mozhaysk, so he was promoted to Lieutenant-General in the Red Army. He planned the breakout from the Siege of Leningrad in Operation Iskra in January 1943, and he was promoted to Colonel-General. From June 1942 to July 1945, he was in command of the Leningrad Front, and after the siege was lifted in 1944, the front fought against Finland in the Continuation War. In the mid-1944 Vyborg-Petrozavodsk Offensive, Govorov liberated Vyborg from Finland, and in the summer of 1944 his forces blocked Army Group North in the Courland Pocket. After the war, he led the Leningrad Military District, dying in 1955.