Semyon Kozak


Semyon Antonovich Kozak was a Ukrainian Soviet Army lieutenant general who was twice awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his command of a division during World War II.

Early life, Russian Civil War, and interwar period

Kozak was born on in the village of Iskorost, Volhynian Governorate. During the Russian Civil War, from March 1921, he worked as a storekeeper on the Southwestern Railroad. Kozak fought as part of a separate company of the Forces of Special Purpose against the nationalist armed bands of Garas and Ditrovsky in Ovruch between May and August 1922. He began a year of studies at the provincial Soviet Party School at Zhitomir in October 1922 and at the end of this period was sent to Olevsk and Barash as a party worker. With a detachment of workers of the district executive committee and the district party committee, Kozak participated in the suppression of the band of Vasilenko near Barash in December 1923.
Drafted into the Red Army on 28 March 1924, Kozak was sent to the howitzer artillery battalion of the 23rd Rifle Division of the Ukrainian Military District in Chuguyev, where he served successively as a Krasnoarmeyets-politruk, head of the party organization, and assistant military commissar of the 3rd battery. After becoming temporary politruk of the battalion school, he passed the examination to complete a course at the Kiev Artillery School in 1928. From January 1929 Kozak served successively as commander of the 5th battery and then the training battery of the artillery regiment of the 51st Rifle Division, and as an instructor at the district commanders' courses at Nikolayev.

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