The Minsk Higher Military-Political Combined Arms School (MVVPOU) () was a specialized military higher

educational institution An educational institution is a place where people of different ages gain an education, including preschools, childcare, primary-elementary schools, secondary-high schools, and universities. They provide a large variety of learning environments an ...

of the

Soviet Army uk, Радянська армія , image = File:Communist star with golden border and red rims.svg , alt = , caption = Emblem of the Soviet Army , start_date ...

based in the

Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор� ...

. Located on Kalinovsky Street in

Minsk Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the admi ...

, it served as part of the educational systems for both the

Soviet Ministry of Defense The Ministry of Defense (Minoboron; russian: Министерство обороны СССР) was a government ministry in the Soviet Union. The first Minister of Defense was Nikolai Bulganin, starting 1953. The Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star) was the ...

and briefly the Ministry of Defence of Belarus.

History

The Minsk Higher Military-Political Combined Arms School was founded on May 10, 1980. Its curriculum was based on the 11 Central Courses for the Improvement of Political Staff (CCPS). In July 1984, the school graduated its first class of political officers. In 1985, the school granted its first master's degrees in

pedagogical Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and Developmental psychology, psychological development of le ...

sciences to army officers from foreign countries. In late November 1986, CCPS training was given to the senior staff of all military-political schools, including the MVVPOU. On April 26, 1990, the first gathering of honored students of military-political schools took place at the Minsk Upper School of Higher Professional Education. After the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

and Belarusian independence, the MVVPOU was transformed into the Minsk Higher Military Command School in January of 1992, which became one of the foundations for the newly-created

Military Academy of Belarus Military Academy of the Republic of Belarus ( be, Ваенная акадэмія Рэспублікі Беларусь, ) is higher military educational institution in the national education system of the Republic of Belarus and the leading insti ...

in 1995. The school was integrated into the military academy as its combined-arms facility.

Personnel

During its existence, the Minsk Higher Military-Political Combined Arms School held 11 graduation ceremonies and trained more than 1,900 officers, 35 of whom were awarded gold medals. The school also had many international students, training 900 people from 21 foreign countries. More than 150 cadets served in the Soviet-Afghan War, while other graduates participated in the aftermath of the

Chernobyl disaster The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat in the north of the Ukrainian SSR in the Soviet Union. It is one of only two nuc ...

, and in armed conflicts in

former Soviet republics The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that wer ...

, including the

Insurgency in the North Caucasus The insurgency in the North Caucasus (russian: Борьба с терроризмом на Северном Кавказе) was a low-level armed conflict between Russia and militants associated with the Caucasus Emirate and, from June 2015, ...

Heads of the school

* Ivan Vasiliev (1980–1987) * Vladimir Bamburov (1987–1992) * Michael Shalev (1992–1994) * V.A. Davidulin (1994–1995)

References

{{coord missing, Belarus Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic Political-Military Educational Institutions 1980 establishments in Belarus Educational institutions established in 1980 Military academies of Belarus Military academies of the Soviet Union