Alexander Matrosov
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Alexander Matveyevich Matrosov (Александр Матвеевич Матросов) (1924-1943) was a famous Soviet infantry soldier during the Great Patriotic War.
On 23 February 1943, in the battle for the village of Chernushki near Pskov, Matrosov threw himself onto a German pill-box, blocking the machine-gun with his own body, to allow his unit to advance. For his self-sacrifice in battle, Matrosov was posthumously awarded the distinction Hero of the Soviet Union.
Although the deed of Alexander Matrosov quickly became legendary in the Soviet Union, the boy's actual background remains disputed. Officially he was born in Dnepropetrovsk. Having spent his early youth in orphanages and correctional camps, he was drafted in September 1942 and started training in a military academy near Orenburg. In January 1943 he was sent to the front as a private with the 91st Pacific Naval Volunteers Brigade, where he accomplished his heroic deed. According to another version, Matrosov's real name was Shakir'yan Yunusovich Mukhamed'yanov, and he russified his Bashkir name to avoid ethnic discrimination in the orphanage. Sometimes Matrosov's deed itself is contested, as well as the deeds of the 300 other Soviet soldiers who are said to have thrown themselves on German machine-guns during the War. Yet whatever Soviet propaganda contributed to the myth-building, in the countries of the former Soviet Union the deed of Alexander Matrosov continues to be a well-known and powerful symbol of self-sacrifice and despair that characterised the Great Patriotic War.