Hero of the Soviet Union Teshabaev Mamasaly
Mamasaly Teshabaev was born in 1923 in the village of Toguz-Bulak, Kurshab district, Osh region of the Kyrgyz SSR, in a peasant family. He was Kyrgyz. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
Before the Great Patriotic War, after finishing primary school, he worked in the collective farm "Kyzyl Oktyabr" in the Osh region. He was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1942. Private. Gunner.
He participated in battles on the Voronezh, 1st Ukrainian, and Belarusian fronts.
On June 3, 1944, for the courage and heroism displayed by the brave artilleryman in battles during the crossing of the Dnieper and the holding of a bridgehead on its right bank, Mamasaly Teshabaev was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
He later participated in the battles for the liberation of Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Homel.
He was demobilized from the Soviet Army in 1947.
Until recently, he lived and worked in the state farm "Otuz-Adyr" in the Osh region of the Kyrgyz SSR.
PEASANT'S SON
The earth breathes with heat, the sky is colorless, like diluted milk, the air is suffocating. So it was in this intermountain valley of Tien Shan ten years ago, and thirty years ago. It was the same in that year, which has now gone down in history, 1942, when the nineteen-year-old peasant boy from Toguz-Bulak, Mamasaly Teshabaev, was sent off to the front.
The farewell was sad and brief. The village, whose name translates to "nine springs" in Russian, had already received the first mournful news of those killed in battle with the treacherous enemy and those missing in action, and Mamasaly's younger brother Mamazakir timidly babbled: "Will you come back soon? You will return right after you win, won't you?"
What could Mamasaly answer him? His hand stroked the brother's rough, rebellious curls, while his misty gaze stubbornly searched for someone in the crowd. And it flew away to the hills, where the haymaking was in full swing and where the cheerful voices of playful girls rang out.
The distant horizon shimmered in the heat. The water in the irrigation ditch murmured softly and melodiously. Everything beckoned Mamasaly somewhere, whispering anxiously and insistently about something.
Having lost his parents at an early age, Mamasaly had to exchange his school pen for a heavy ketmen. Then tractors appeared in the collective farm, and he, still too young to become a mechanic, was appointed as a water carrier. The scorching sun, which mercilessly burned his bare torso, was joined by the heat from the boiling tractor radiators, but Mamasaly bravely threw himself into this heat, pouring and pouring life-saving coolness into the insatiable machines...
Gray-bearded aksakals delivered brief blessings, while women cried, not hiding their tears.
Mamasaly cast a sad glance at his brothers, removed an old, greasy cap with glasses on the stiff visor—a gift from a tractor driver from Emtee:
— Wear it... Take turns.
The teacher from the "Kyzyl Oktyabr" collective farm, Mamazakir Teshabaev, became stern and taciturn:
— That cap is gone, I somehow didn't save it... And those glasses have long been gone...
The pointed poplars rustled evenly and thickly, a half-century-old uryuchina dropped ripe fruits onto the parched and cracked earth, birds chirped, and the restless stream murmured gently. But the sun was merciless, the southern sun was relentless. In March, awakening all thirsty for life, in May-June, it was already ready to dry and destroy.
— He was the son of a poor peasant, and like any farmer, he dreamed of high yields of vegetables, fruits, and cotton,— the old woman, incredibly darkened by her immeasurable and long-standing grief, which had carved deep wrinkles of sorrow on her face, wipes a tear away furtively. — I can't listen to the radio, I turn off the TV when they talk about the war. And I have two sons in the army. Abdurazat, an engineer, serves in Transcarpathia, and we recently sent off Abdyrahsit. In a year, it will be the turn of the youngest. Oh, children, children! — Sazhida Aitkulovna sighs, bending even lower over the photograph of her husband...
She waited a long time for her happiness. When Mamasaly went to the front, she was still just a girl. And there was nothing between them, no explanations, no oaths. Only a hot glance thrown at her by the boy and his momentarily heavy step made her anxious heart clench. And she waited for him, something told her that she needed to wait, that this was her only happiness.
And she waited for a long time, not one year or two, not daring to tell anyone about her cherished expectation.
After completing accelerated basic training, Mamasaly became a gunner. He participated in battles on the Voronezh, 1st Ukrainian, and Belarusian fronts. For successfully completing a mission, he was awarded the Order of Glory III class.
And the young soldier, of course, did not know that he was destined to perform an immortal feat in the name of the Motherland.
It all began on September 24, 1943, near the village of Pekari in the Kanevsky district. As part of a small unit, after thorough preparation, their gun was transported to the right bank of the Dnieper under the hurricane fire of the enemy and was the only one to survive from all the guns assigned to the breakthrough battalion.
A sharp, bone-chilling wind blew. Wet, miraculously surviving in that boiling water from the shells, which continued behind them, they immediately entered into battle, allowing the infantry to secure the occupied positions.
But securing was not enough. The commander of the 667th Rifle Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Andreev, demanded immediate advancement of the success. Such stern and completely understandable orders were also coming from the commander of the 218th Romadan Division, Colonel Sklyarenko. After all, the success of the breakthrough group depended on the entire operation to cross the water barrier of the entire army.
The enemy's defense turned out to be strong, and by night they had advanced only slightly. Suffering significant losses, the battalion dug in and prepared for defense.
All night, the artillerymen did not close their eyes.
Taking turns going down to the river, they awaited a raft or boat with shells, but all their expectations turned out to be in vain.
The next two days, September 25 and 26, were even more difficult. Trying to destroy the landing, the fascists cut it off from the shore, depriving it of the meager communication with the regiment and division that appeared at night, but the gun continued to fire. And it fired, albeit selectively, at the largest concentration of the enemy and his equipment, shooting accurately.
Each of its shots was something special for the entrenched soldiers of the battalion, an unquenchable hope that the enemy would not approach and that help would come.
Risking lives, Lieutenant Colonel Andreev attempted three times on September 26 to send shells to the right bank, and none of those rafts reached their destination. It was only at dusk that this was accomplished.
— Shells! Mamasaly, the shells have arrived! — were passed from mouth to mouth along the trench. — Give them hell, gunner!
Successfully repelling six enemy counterattacks, destroying a vehicle with ammunition and many fascists, Mamasaly and the loader were not destined to rest even that second night. The boat landed significantly lower down the river than desired, and its precious cargo had to be carried to the firing position in the dark.
They managed only by morning and immediately at dawn opened fire on the attackers.
Our forces on the Dnieper bank were increasing. How and from where a large group of enemy soldiers broke through to the gun, no one noticed. Mamasaly only heard a warning: "Fascists!"
He sensed the first of them more than he saw. His throw was swift, his strike precise. The fascist's body went limp and fell.
He had never faced an enemy soldier like this before. He had seen them, mutilated by the shells of his gun, seen the wounded, groaning from ordinary human pain, seen those who obediently raised their hands and trudged into captivity under their cheerful: "Come on, come on, Hans! This isn't 'Russ kaput' to shout! You're already kaput, Hitler's offspring!" And the prisoners nodded eagerly: "Kaput, Hitler kaput!" But here at his feet lay an enemy who had just pressed the trigger of a still-hot machine gun and was sending death to him and his friends.
And it was not from the gun that he laid him down, nor from the rifle, but with the thrust of a bayonet.
He knocked down the second fascist with the butt of his rifle, the third, who jumped onto the parapet,— with an accurate bullet.
Never before had Mamasaly experienced such all-consuming hatred and anger towards the enemy. Not hearing the explosions around him, nor the bursts of gunfire, intoxicated by the terrible duel, he searched for a new target, but an incredible silence had settled around.
And it seemed that the familiar pointed poplars rustled right above his head, and the sweet-sounding irrigation ditch, having gained incredible power, foamed from the excess of fast water, and a barefoot dark-eyed girl ran towards him across the hills, so similar to those reddish hills and slopes of the Dnieper.
The September day was cool. Clouds lazily crawled across the sky, ready to pour down a thunderstorm at any moment, and Mamasaly felt hot. Just as it had been hot next to a boiling tractor radiator. Thirst overwhelmed him. An incredible leaden weight pressed on his shoulders, on his chest.
And somewhere in the distance, behind him, a mighty and longed-for "Ura-a-a!" was swelling.
— Ura-a-a! — echoed the distant cry beside him...
Many years would pass, and also in September, but already in 1981, a letter would come from the city of Borjomi to Mamasaly Teshabaev in the distant village of Otuz-Adyr from Mikhail Iosifovich Kakashvili.
"I read your story about the long-ago events on the Dnieper in the newspaper,"— the former front-line soldier would report,— "and my heart involuntarily stopped. It turns out that I was also in that support group that came to help you.
Perhaps my 'ura' during the attack on the enemy was heard by you, and I was also firing from my machine gun, blocking the path of the fascists to your heroic gun, and the bullet that may have been aimed at your chest met mine on its way..."
By the end of that Dnieper battle, only he, Mamasaly Teshabaev, a boy from Kyrgyzstan, remained alive from the entire crew.
And for a long time, still at the limit of his strength, trying to ease the unstoppable advance of his regiment, he continued to fire destructively at the fascists.
Soon Colonel Sklyarenko, in agreement with the commander of the 47th Army, Lieutenant General Polenov, introduced the 372nd and 658th regiments into battle, and the planned operation entered its final stage.
The lines of the award sheet, signed by the commander of the 667th Rifle Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Andreev, the commander of the 218th Romadan Rifle Division, Colonel Sklyarenko, the commander of the 21st Rifle Corps, Major General Abramov, and the commander of the 47th Army, Lieutenant General Polenov, are terse and seemingly impassive. There are no emotions, no artistic embellishments, just as there is no stirring passion of the feat itself. But there is something more that no sophisticated literary language can convey. It is some remarkably magnetic and attractive force of immense respect for the feat of the soldier from Kyrgyzstan, so highly valued by the Motherland with the "Golden Star" of the Hero.
The combat path of the boy from Toguz-Bulak did not end there. Mamasaly Teshabaev participated in the liberation of Kyiv, Zhytomyr, and Homel, selflessly, as befits a Hero of the Soviet Union, fought on the Sandomierz bridgehead. After the war, he graduated from a military-technical school and served for some time as the commander of an anti-aircraft machine-gun platoon in the Lviv military district, but he remained a peasant's son, longing for his native stony land, for the southern nature so dear to his heart.
After being demobilized in 1947, Mamasaly Teshabaev participated in the organization of the new virgin state farm "Otuz-Adyr" in the Kara-Suu district, which translates to "30 hills" in Russian, served as the deputy director of the cotton-growing economy, and managed the branch, starting all over again on this land, which knew not the plow. And when his war-torn health deteriorated, when the village had enough specialists with higher education, he returned to the ancient profession of a mirab.
He is no longer alive, but there are children and grandchildren who confidently and honorably continue his farming work. The thirty hills still surround the virgin field, nourished by the hardworking hands of the Hero-aksakal. These hills have transformed, blossomed with gardens and vineyards, yield abundant harvests of grass and grain, and every summer burst forth with a sea of white boxes. On this peaceful land, for the well-being of which the old soldier shed his blood, walk five of his sons. Here, too, his daughter, a birdkeeper, found her happiness.
In his native village, a museum has been opened, and the old teacher Mamazakir Teshabaev often invites his numerous nephews and nieces to it.
— Remember! Remember your grandfather, children,— he says with a strengthening voice, and the undying memory carries him back to the distant past of their childhood. — Remember what he went through and what he endured to defend this present world.
Always be worthy of his bright memory and always be ready, if it comes to defending our sacred borders again, to follow his heroic example.
— His father's hand was heavy, but always just,— says in thought the eldest son of Mamasaly-ake, the head of the design bureau of one of the factories in the city of Frunze, Abdyrahman Teshabaev,— he himself did not love a life of idleness and did not allow us to be idle. And there were never any such people in our large family...
Just like forty and a thousand years ago, the silver pyramidal poplars rustle over the ancient land. And the sky above the thirty hills remains pale and faded, almost lifeless, the air thick and suffocating from the heat, the sun scorching and relentless. And for life to continue, the land needs new mirabs and agrochemists, tractor drivers-plowmen, and combine operators. This ancient land needs people of the noblest and most selfless labor, like the peasant son and Hero of the Motherland, Mamasaly Teshabaev. The only thing this land has never felt a pressing need for and did not want to experience is the necessity of having a soldier.
And such a necessity will someday cease to exist. It will surely cease. For this is what our fathers and grandfathers died for on the battlefields for the freedom and happiness of people.
Let us believe in this, bowing to our most cherished shrine—the ashes of those who perished and died from soldier's wounds.
A. SOROKIN