Alexander (Shura) Pavlovich Chekalin (russian: Алекса́ндр Па́влович Чека́лин; 25 March 1925 – 6 November 1941) was a Russian teenager,

Soviet partisan Soviet partisans were members of resistance movements that fought a guerrilla war against Axis forces during World War II in the Soviet Union, the previously Soviet-occupied territories of interwar Poland in 1941–45 and eastern Finland. The ...

, and

Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union (russian: Герой Советского Союза, translit=Geroy Sovietskogo Soyuza) was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for ...

. Chekalin was captured, tortured, and hanged for partisan activities in

Tula Oblast Tula Oblast (russian: Ту́льская о́бласть, ''Tulskaya oblast'') is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (an Oblasts of Russia, oblast) of Russia. It is geographically in the European Russia region of the country and is p ...

near

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

during the German-Soviet War.

Biography

Sixteen-year-old Shura Chekalin engaged in underground resistance activities in the region of Tula near Moscow. In the first days of November 1941, he took part in an ambush of German vehicles, destroying one vehicle with a hand-grenade. After becoming ill, Chekalin was bedridden, and his location was betrayed to the Germans by an unknown informant. When Germans approached to arrest him, he threw a hand grenade at them, but it failed to explode. He was brutally tortured, and hanged on 6 November 1941. His body was left hanging for twenty days, taken down only after the area had been retaken by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

. He was posthumously made a

on 4 February 1942. The town of

Chekalin Chekalin (russian: Чека́лин), formerly known as Likhvin () until 1945, is a town in Suvorovsky District of Tula Oblast, Russia, located on the left bank of the Oka River. Population: In 2010 it was the least populous inhabited locality ...

was renamed for him in 1944.

References

External links

War Hero Alexander Chekalin
1925 births 1941 deaths Soviet military personnel killed in World War II Heroes of the Soviet Union Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Russian torture victims Soviet partisans Child soldiers in World War II Russian children Soviet children People executed by Nazi Germany by hanging Executed Soviet people from Russia {{hero-USSR-stub