page_title: Leonid Govorov
section_title: Interwar years
hierarchical_section_title: Leonid Govorov / Interwar years
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Говоров, Леонид Александрович с женой, 1923
context_page_description: Leonid Aleksandrovich Govorov was a Soviet military commander. Trained as an artillery officer, he joined the Red Army in 1920. He graduated from several Soviet military academies, including the Military Academy of Red Army General Staff. He participated in the Winter War of 1939–1940 against Finland as a senior artillery officer.
  In World War II, Govorov rose to command an army in November 1941 during the Battle of Moscow. He commanded the Leningrad Front from April 1942 to the end of the war. He reached the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union in 1944, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and many other awards.
context_section_description: Govorov obtained further military education, graduating from the Artillery course in 1926, the Higher Academy course in 1930, and the Frunze Military Academy in 1933. In 1936, Govorov was among the first officers who attended the newly founded Military Academy of Red Army General Staff, from which he graduated in 1938.
  From 1936, he was head of artillery in the Kiev Military District. In 1938 he was appointed as lecturer in tactics at the Dzerzhinsky Artillery Academy. In 1939, he finished his first research publication. This was the period of Joseph Stalin's Great Purge. Govorov was close to being arrested, but in the end survived thanks to the intervention of Mikhail Kalinin and continued to rise in rank.
caption: Govorov with his wife, 1923
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