Military Honorary Designations

names conferred by orders of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic (until 1934), the supreme commander in chief, the People’s Commissariat of Defense, the People’s Commissariat of the Navy, and the minister of defense of the USSR and by decrees of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on military units, ships, and institutions that have especially distinguished themselves in battles against the enemies of the Soviet motherland during the Civil War and Great Patriotic War or that have rendered great services to the state. Military honorary designations include the name “guards”; names marking revolutionary and other historic events; names in honor of state and public organizations, defenders of the motherland, and prominent state, public, and political figures; names derived from names of cities, large settlements, rivers, mountain ranges, and oblasts (provinces) connected with specific battles and engagements in which various units have distinguished themselves; and names derived from the place where the particular unit was formed or deployed.

The first military honorary designations confirmed were those of Turkestan (to units of division size and larger of the Turkestan Army) in April 1919 and Kuban’ in December 1919; and Chongarskii, Moscow, Severnyi Donets, Rostov, Crimea, and others in 1921. During the Great Patriotic War the first military honorary designations confirmed were those of Don, Zimovniki, Kantemirovka, Kotel’nikovo, Stalingrad, and Tatsinskaia, which were conferred on units that especially distinguished themselves in January 1943 in battles with the fascist German invaders during the Battle of Stalin-grad. The first order of the supreme commander in chief conferring military honorary designations to be accompanied by the firing of an artillery salute was the order conferring the honorary military designations of Orel and Belgorod to large units that had distinguished themselves in the capture of Orel and Belgorod on Aug. 5, 1943.