Yakov Slashchov

Within the White Movement of the Russian Civil War of 1917-1923, Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchov (Russian: Яков Александрович Слащёв; 10 January 1886 – 11 January 1929) was a leading commander of Baron Wrangel's Crimean army who eventually reconciled with the Soviets and returned from Constantinople to Moscow in 1921. In 1929 he was killed in his Moscow apartment by a Jew named Lazar Kalenberg, apparently in revenge for the execution of Kalenberg's brother.

Yakov Aleksandrovich Slashchov
Born(1886-01-10)10 January 1886
St. Petersburg, Russian Empire
Died11 January 1929(1929-01-11) (aged 43)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Allegiance Russian Empire
Russia White Movement
 Russian SFSR
Service/branch Imperial Russian Army
Russia Volunteer Army
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic Red Army
Years of service1905–1920
1921–1929
RankLieutenant General
Battles/wars

Slashchov, known among his subordinates as "General Yasha",[1] joined the Volunteer Army in December 1917 and was appointed Andrei Shkuro's chief of staff in May 1918. He was promoted to the rank of Major General in May 1919, and to that of Lieutenant General in May 1920, and was put in charge of the Crimean-Azov Corps of the Volunteer Army in December 1919. He succeeded in defending the Perekop Isthmus from the Red Army in late December 1919 and prevented the Bolsheviks from penetrating into the Crimean peninsula (January to March 1920).

Slashchov and his aide Sharov became notorious for their cruelty against the Jews and for looting the population (often against Wrangel's orders).[2] Slashchov's sometimes bitter criticism of Wrangel's decisions led to his being convicted of insubordination and stripped of his rank. He retired to Constantinople, where he earned his living by gardening before returning to Soviet-ruled Crimea.

Slashov's example proved instrumental in bringing many other retired White Army officers back to Soviet Russia. He published a memoir entitled The Crimea in 1920 (1924) and delivered lectures at the Vystrel Higher Officers' Courses before he was killed by a man avenging a relative's death. The circumstances leading to his death are disputed. The central character of Mikhail Bulgakov's play Flight is allegedly based on Slashchov.[3]

References
  1. Самарин, А. (2004). "Kto Vy, general Slaschyov-Krymskiy?" Кто Вы, генерал Слащев-Крымский? (in Russian). Russkiy obshche-voinskiy soyuz. Retrieved 25 June 2023. У себя, в белом стане, а тем более, в красном, он удостоился сразу несколько разных званий: «Слащёв-Крымский», «Слащёв-вешатель», позже, в эмиграции «Генерал-предатель крымский». Но солдаты Белой Гвардии, любя его, звали просто, даже фамильярно: «Генерал-Яша». Званием этим Слащев гордился. [Amongst his own, in the White camp, and even more in the Red camp, he earned himself several different names at once: "Crimean Slashchyov", "Slashchyov the hangman", and later, amongst émigrés, "the Crimean General-Traitor". But the soldiers of the White Guard, who adored him, called him simply - even familiarly - "General Yasha". Slashchyov took pride in this name.]
  2. Mikhail Agursky. The Third Rome: National Bolshevism in the USSR. Westview Press, 1987. Page 198.
  3. Anthony Colin Wright. Mikhail Bulgakov: Life and Interpretations. University of Toronto Press, 1978. Page 125.
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