Imants Sudmalis (18 March 1916 OS,

Cēsis Cēsis (), (german: Wenden, liv, Venden, et, Võnnu, pl, Kieś) is a town in Latvia located in the northern part of the Central Vidzeme Upland. Cēsis is on the Gauja River valley, and is built on a series of ridges above the river over ...

Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a Baltic governorate of the Russian Empire, now divided between Latvia and Estonia. Geography The shape of the province is a fairly rectangular in shape, with a maximum ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

– 25 May 1944 NS, Riga, Latvia) was a Latvian editor and Soviet communist and partisan, the

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 ...

(awarded posthumously on October 23, 1957).

Life and career

Sudmalis was born in to the family of a teacher. A sympathizer of Communism from a young age, Sudmalis became a memmber of the underground Communist Union of the Youth of Latvia from 1932, and head of the underground Komsomol organization in

Liepāja Liepāja (; liv, Līepõ; see other names) is a state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest-city in the Kurzeme Region and the third-largest city in the country after Riga and Daugavpils. It is an important ice-f ...

during the dictatorship of

Kārlis Ulmanis Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis (; 4 September 1877 – 20 September 1942) was a Latvian politician. He was one of the most prominent Latvian politicians of pre-World War II Latvia during the Interwar period of independence from November 1918 to ...

. He was jailed for his pro-Soviet agitation but released following the

Soviet occupation During World War II, the Soviet Union occupied and annexed several countries effectively handed over by Nazi Germany in the secret Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. These included the eastern regions of Poland (incorporated into two different ...

in 1940. He became a member of the Latvian Lenin Communist Youth Central Committee and secretary for its Liepāja branch and was editor of Liepāja's party newspaper, ''Komunists'' ("''The Communist''").Latvijas PSR Mazā Enciklopēdija (The Latvian SSR Concise Encyclopedia). Riga: Zinate. 1970. During the Nazi occupation in World War II, Sudmalis was one of the organisers of the Soviet guerrilla resistance movement on the territory of Latvia. Soviet sources indicate he participated in the defense of Liepāja in June 1941, fighting with his Komsomol group against the German invasion forces, destroying a Nazi landing party near

Rucava Rucava ( lt, Rukiava, german: Rutzau) is a village in South Kurzeme Municipality, Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas R ...

. Ultimately, the Soviets evacuated Liepāja two days before the Nazis entered the city. From 1943, Sudmalis was in charge of an underground Komsomol resistance cell in Riga. In February 1944, he was executed by the Germans. He was awarded with two

Orders of Lenin The Order of Lenin (russian: Орден Ленина, Orden Lenina, ), named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6, 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration b ...

.Article on ''Sudmalis, Imant Yanovich''
in the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; ) is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Bolshaya rossiyskaya e ...

Soviet commemorations

On 23 November 1978 a monument dedicated to Sudmalis was erected in Liepāja on Komsomol Square ( lv, Komjaunatnes laukums; present-day

Jānis Čakste Jānis Kristaps Čakste (14 September 1859 – 14 March 1927) was a Latvian politician and lawyer who served as the first head of an independent Latvian state as the Chairman of the People's Council (1918–1920), the Speaker of the Constitutio ...

Square). The sculptors of the monument were Vilnis Albergs and Gaida Grundberga; its architects were O. Ostenbergs and I. Strautmanis. Following the restoration of Latvia's independence, on 21 July 1995 the statue of Sudmalis was relocated to the park of Liepāja Museum. One of the driving forces behind the move was local

LNNK LNNK is the acronym used to refer to the following organisations: *Latvian National Independence Movement (''Latvijas Nacionālās Neatkarības Kustība'') *For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK ( lv, Tēvzemei un Brīv ...

activist Voldemārs Prancāns, who disliked the fact that the monument had become a meeting place for the local Interfront and others who had opposed Latvia's renewed independence from the USSR. A bronze

bust Bust commonly refers to: * A woman's breasts * Bust (sculpture), of head and shoulders * An arrest Bust may also refer to: Places * Bust, Bas-Rhin, a city in France *Lashkargah, Afghanistan, known as Bust historically Media * ''Bust'' (magazin ...

of Imants Sudmalis once stood in Riga near the

Riga Castle Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Bal ...

, but was dismantled in 1990s. There is also a memorial stone to Sudmalis (erected 1962) at the ''Draudzības kurgāns'' ( Burial-mound of Friendship) near

Zilupe Zilupe ( Latgalian: ''Sīnuoja'', from ''sīna'' – 'border'; German: ''Rosenau'', russian: Розеново) is a town in Latvia, by the Zilupe River, on the border with Russia. The population in 2020 was 1,343. Zilupe's railway station is the ...

on the Latvian–Russian–

Belarus Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...

ian border. Schools, Pioneer youth organizations, streets, kolhozes, and a vessel in the Soviet fishing fleet were named for Sudmalis. In 1968 an

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined cru ...

built in

Kerch Kerch ( uk, Керч; russian: Керчь, ; Old East Slavic: Кърчевъ; Ancient Greek: , ''Pantikápaion''; Medieval Greek: ''Bosporos''; crh, , ; tr, Kerç) is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of t ...

was named for him. As of 2006 this tanker sailed under the flag of

Belize Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...

References

External links

Only the surrounding figures remain at Sudmalis' monument (1995)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sudmalis, Imants 1916 births 1944 deaths People from Cēsis People from the Governorate of Livonia Heroes of the Soviet Union 20th-century Latvian people Soviet Latvian partisans Soviet military personnel killed in World War II Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Executed Soviet people from Latvia Latvian people executed by Nazi Germany Latvian people of World War II Recipients of the Order of Lenin Executed communists