Aleksa Dundić


Aleksa Dundić or Oleko Dundich was a prominent participant in Russia's October Revolution. A popular character in Russian literature, Dundić was honoured with the Order of the Red Banner.

Biography

Great Soviet Encyclopedia

According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, he was born into a peasant family, in Grabovac, Dalmatia on April 13, 1896. Dundić was of Croatian extraction. His given name was Toma. At the age of 12 he went to South America, where he worked for 4 years as a shepherd in Argentina and Brazil. In 1914 he was recruited as a private in the Austro-Hungarian Army. During the First World War of 1914-1918 in May, 1916 Dundić was taken prisoner by Russian troops near Lutsk. He volunteered to join the First Division of Serbian Volunteer Corps in Russia. From the middle of 1917, he was a member of the Red Guard. In March, 1918, he headed a guerrilla squad in the region of Bakhmut that later joined the Morozov-Donetsk division, which retreated together with the army of K.E. Voroshilov towards Tsaritsyn in June 1918. He participated in the defence of Tsaritsyn as a member of an international battalion, then with cavalry brigades of Kryuchkovsky and Bulatkin. From 1919, he served in the Special Don Caucasus Division of Semyon Budyonny. He was deputy regiment commander, special aide to Semyon Budyonny, commander of mounted division at the headquarters of the First Mounted Army. Dundić took part in numerous battles and he was wounded several times. The legendary courage of Dundić brought him ardent love and popularity among Budyonny's troops. From June 1919 he was the deputy commander of the 36th regiment of the 6th cavalry division. He was killed in battle near Rovno, Ukraine, and awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

Legacy

In 1958, a joint Yugoslav-Soviet film Aleksa Dundić was directed by Leonid Lukov.
A street in Lviv, Ukraine, was named after him: "Oleko Dundich Street". A street in Sankt Petersburg was named after him as well.

Annotations

His given name was Toma Dundić, according to Great Soviet Encyclopedia, Moscow, 1972.
"Aleksa" was his nickname, presumably derived from Spanish "Alejo", later in Russian as "Олеко", and later in Croatian and Serbian as "Aleksa".