Tiulenev, Ivan

Born Jan. 16 (28), 1892, in the village of Shatrashany, in what is now Sura Raion, Ulianovsk Oblast; died Aug. 15, 1978, in Moscow. Soviet military figure. General of the army (1940). Hero of the Soviet Union from Feb. 21,1978. Member of the CPSU from 1918.

Tiulenev, the son of a peasant, served in World War I (1914–18), during which he became a noncommissioned officer and was decorated with four Crosses of St. George. After the February Revolution of 1917 he was elected a member of the squadron and regiment committees and of the Petrograd soviet. He joined the Red Guard in 1917 and the Red Army in February 1918. During the Civil War (1918–20), Tiulenev fought on the Eastern, Southern, and Western fronts. He helped suppress the Kronstadt Anti-Soviet Rebellion of 1921 and the Antonov Revolt, commanding a platoon, a squadron, a cavalry brigade of the 4th Cavalry Division, and the 15th Cavalry Division.

Tiulenev graduated from the Military Academy of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army in 1922 and completed senior officers’ courses in 1929. He commanded a cavalry division and was the director of a cavalry school. Beginning in 1931 he held command positions on the central staff, and he commanded forces in the Transcaucasian and Moscow military districts from 1938 to 1940. Tiulenev participated in the liberation of the Western Ukraine in 1939 as commander of forces of the Twelfth Army.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941–45), Tiulenev was army group commander on the Southern Front from June to August 1941, commander of the Reserve Army and Twenty-eighth Army from November 1941 to February 1942, commander-in-chief of the Transcaucasian Military District from March to May 1942, and army group commander on the Transcaucasian Front from May 1942 until the end of the war. After the war he commanded troops of the Kharkov Military District in 1945 and 1946 and served on the central staff of the Ministry of Defense. In May 1958 he became a military inspector and adviser to the group of Inspectors General of the Ministry of Defense.

Tiulenev was a candidate member of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) from 1941 to 1952 and a deputy to the second convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was awarded three orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, five orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Kutuzov First Class, and various medals. He was also awarded a pistol with a golden replica of the State Seal of the USSR, as well as several orders and medals from foreign countries.