Jānis Judiņš

Who was Jānis Judiņš?

Jānis Judiņš was a Red Latvian Riflemen commander, a Red hero of the Russian Civil War.

As a Latvian Rifleman Jānis Judiņš participated in the First World War and Russian Civil War. Since April 1918 he was a commander of the Third Latvian Rifle Brigade. In August 1918, Czech Legion and KomUch People's Army pressed the Red Army from Kazan. On 8 August 1918, Judeņš with his staff arrived at the Krasnaya Gorka railway station, a suburb of Kazan. There, the Left Bank Group of the 5th Army was subordinated him. On 12 August 1918, he was killed in action near the station by shell detonation.

On 14 August 1918, the Soviet of the People's Commissars under Vladimir Lenin decreed to rename Krasnaya Gorka to Yudino, after Jānis Judiņš. It was the first inhabited locality, renamed by Soviet power after the Civil War Red hero.