Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (10 November 1919-23 December 2013) was a Lieutenant-General of the Soviet Army and a small arms designer who was the inventor of the AK-47, AK-74u, PK, and RPK. Kalashnikov's weapons rank among the most-used weapons in the world, especially among former allies of the Soviet Union and guerrillas.
Biography[]
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was born on 10 November 1919 in Kurya, Altai Krai, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union to an Orthodox Christian family of Russians. Despite being a sickly child, Kalashnikov took up an interest in hunting, and he served in World War II with the Red Army. Kalashnikov was wounded at the Battle of Bryansk, and he was hospitalized until 1942; he was dissatisfied with the poor state of the Red Army's weapons, and he began designing a machine gun after thinking of creating such a gun while he was in a hospital bed. In 1947, his AK-47 assault rifle was released, and in 1949 it became standard-issue for all Soviet troops. Even his opponents Vasily Degtyaryov and Georgy Shpagin were forced to realize his genius, and he became a member of sixteen academies. He developed the PK in 1961, the AKM in 1963, and the AK-74u in 1974. Kalashnikov was upset that half of the 10,000,000 AK-47s were counterfeit and that they were used in several wars, saying that they were meant to be weapons of defense, and he wrote a letter to Patriarch Kirill of Moscow that questioned his own faith due to his weapon taking the lives of many. Kirill responded by saying that he had defended the country and that he supported the Russian Army, and Kalashnikov died six months later on 23 December 2013.