Smagliy, Alexey Vasilievich

A Ukrainian, born in the village of Dudnitskoye, Cherkasy district, Kiev region ^[2] . Then the family moved to with. Mosny and the mountains. Cherkasy. At the age of 6, he lost his father. Mother, Fyodor Tikhonovna, raised her son alone.

In 1935, Alexey graduated from 8 classes of a secondary school in the city of Cherkasy. In 1937 he graduated from the 4th year of the labor school at the Pedagogical Institute of the city of Cherkasy ^[2] and on July 16, 1937 he entered the Black Sea Higher Naval School ^[3] . He entered the service in the Red Army on August 16, 1937. He took the oath of office on February 23, 1939. June 24, 1941 he graduated from ChVVMU. In the Red Army and Navy since 1941. Having received the rank of lieutenant with a group of fellow graduates, he was sent to Leningrad , to the VOSO VSKKS courses. He was enrolled as a student of the VOSO VSKKS naval department on May 27, 1941, whence he was soon appointed commander of the gun No. 5 of the separate Aurora artillery battery of the double-battery battalion division of the Special Operations Aviation Command of the MOLiOR headquarters ^[2] . A.V. Smagliy did not serve on the Aurora cruiser, but died heroically, commanding her gun and going to free another. The gun, commanded by A.V. Smagliy, stood on Mount Kirchhoff in the Leningrad Region.

The guns of battery “A” were removed from the cruiser “Aurora” and delivered to Pulkovo Heights , where, having formed the Separate Artillery Battery “A” for special purposes (“A” - “Aurora”), they took up defense on the section between Voronny Gora (Duderhof), along the foot of Mount Kirchhoff to the Kiev highway. Over the highway, the positions of guns 8 and 9 were located.

A month before the onset of the deadly battle, A. V. Smagliy was married to A. Pavlushkina, military doctor of the battery “A”, a field wedding was held in the village of Pelgola, located not far from the 5th separate firing point of the battery “A” ^{[4] [5 ] ] [6]} .

On the morning of September 6, 1941, for four days, the battery reflected the attacks of fascist tanks advancing along the Gatchina Highway . On September 8, the Germans broke through to Krasnoye Selo and captured it, and on the night of September 10–11 they wedged into the defenses between the Voronya and Kirchhoff mountains and surrounded Duderhof . By order of the battery commander “A”, senior lieutenant D.N. Ivanov, seriously wounded by then, lieutenant A.V. Smagliy led the soldiers to help his comrades. All night in the area of ​​the 1st firing point there was a fierce battle, which ceased by dawn. According to eyewitnesses, the Nazis seized the surviving seriously wounded Red Navy and their commander, Lieutenant A. V. Smagli, tied with barbed wire to the gun, doused with gasoline and set it on fire ^{[7] [8]} . According to other sources, based on a preliminary, subjective assessment of many photographs of the position ^[9] , including medical examiners, and eyewitness accounts ^[10] , death could have occurred without binding, presumably by burning a badly wounded soldier with a flamethrower. Nevertheless - the barbed wire twisted into coils was present at the position, which is visible in some pictures. According to comrade A.F. Medvedeva, published in 1965 in the first story about Battery A of Aurora’s Cannon in the newspaper Smena by K.K. Grishchinsky, the burned sailors who sang the Internationale died ^[11] . In an article by K. K. Grishchinsky in the journal “Marine Collection” No. 1 for the 1970s, the author cites a letter from A. F. Medvedeva in a different wording, which states that she heard Alexander’s singing of the “International” while not in the Duderhof Church, but in neighboring Mount Kirchhoff, where other guns stood, and not the first. ^[12] By the end of the eighth day of fighting, out of 165 personnel, the “A” batteries reached their 90 sailors ^[13] .

The burial place of Alexei Vasilyevich Smaglii is not known exactly ^[14] . It was alleged that he was buried with his fellow comrades in the silo pit of the collective farm by local residents, on the evening of September 11, 1941 ^[10] . Currently, the name of A.V. Smagliy is embossed on the plates of the mass grave in the Upper Park of the city of Krasnoye Selo and it is considered the site of his grave. In the lists of the buried he is listed under the number 1779 ^[15] .

The archive of the regional museum of local history "Duderhof" Central Library of Krasnoselsky district, the successor of the funds of the former Museum of Battle Glory of the 289th school in the village. Mozhaisky (Duderhof) from 1970, kept the letters of Serafima Nikolaevna Petrova, a doctor of female volunteers who dug trenches at the turn of the Aurora battery. S. N. Petrova wrote in her letters that on September 11 she did not have time to evacuate, and saw a battle on the 1st gun of the “A” battery and the capture of several sailors, including A. V. Smagliy. She outlined her version in articles by L. Lukina in the newspaper “Evening Leningrad” in 1989 on May 8 and November 24, but the journalist did not write about the commander’s capture ^[10] . In his report on September 12, 1941, the commander of the battery division of the OSNAZ M. A. Mikhailov wrote that the fate of Lieutenant A. V. Smagliy was not known ^[13] .

According to the lists of irreparable losses of the KBF, published on the website of the OBD "Pamyat Naroda", A. V. Smagli is listed as dead in September 1941 (without indicating the date) in the village. Duderhof ^[16] and this also confirms the notification of his death issued to his widow A. G. Pavlushkina in 1942 ^[6] . Requests to the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Archive of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen did not confirm the fact of captivity or reprisals against A. V. Smagliy after the war.

• In 1964, the students of the village of Mozhaysky made a canvas-tarpaulin obelisk at the site of the alleged death of the reconnaissance group, which was led by A.V. Smagliy on September 11, 1941. The name of the hero and a brief description of the feat were written on the obelisk. Over the years, Alexey’s name was lost on the obelisk, which became metal and became part of the Sailors-Aurora’s memorial - he is not on the photographs in the albums of the Duderhof Museum. Currently, the name of A.V. Smagliy is not listed on the obelisk in the list of deceased commanders of battery "A".

• The name of A.V. Smagliy is engraved on the plates of the mass grave in the Upper Park of the city of Krasnoye Selo.
• Streets are named after Alexey Smagliy:
  • Lieutenant Smaglia Street in Krasnoye Selo ( St. Petersburg ) ^[17]
  • in Cherkasy.
• A bust of A. V. Smaglia was installed on the territory of school No. 26 in the city of Cherkasy (Ukraine) ^[18] .
• In 1984, at the place where the Aurora’s gun stood and where the artillery crew was killed under the command of Lieutenant Smaglia, a monument was erected to the Aurora Marines - Artillery Sailors ^[19] , which is part of the Green Belt of Glory ^{[20] [21]} .
• The initiator of the creation of memorial complexes on the battery was the elderly widow of the hero, with great difficulty. The students of the 289th Mozhaisk school, her second husband, WWII veteran Turkin V.P., and local residents helped her in this. The author of the memorials was the Leningrad architect A. D. Levenkov ^[5]

• Novikov V., Sergeev A. Goddess of the Russian Navy. Aurora, Diana, Pallas. - M .: Collection; Yauza; EKSMO, 2009 .-- 128 p. - ISBN 978-5-699-33382-0 .
• Chernov, Yu. M., chapter “Oranienbaum - Crow Mountain” // Fate High “Aurora” - 2nd ed., Ext. - M .: Politizdat, 1983 .-- 336 p. - 200,000 copies.

• ChVVMU on the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, 1941-1945 (unspecified) . Union of officers of ChVVMU im. P.S. Nakhimova. Date of treatment January 4, 2014.