Imants Sudmalis (18 March 1916 OS,

Cēsis Cēsis (; (, , , ) is a town in Latvia located in the northern part of the Central Vidzeme Upland. Cēsis is on the Gauja River valley, and is built on a series of ridges above the river, overlooking the woods below. Cēsis was selected to b ...

Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a province (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, Baltic Governorate-General until 1876. Governorate of Livonia bordered Governorate of E ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

– 25 May 1944 NS,

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

) was a Latvian editor and Soviet

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

and partisan, the

Hero of the Soviet Union The title Hero of the Soviet Union () was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society. The title was awarded both ...

(awarded posthumously on October 23, 1957).

Life and career

Sudmalis was born in to the family of a teacher. A Communist sympathizer from a young age, Sudmalis became a member of the underground Communist Union of the Youth of Latvia from 1932, and head of the underground

Komsomol The All-Union Leninist Young Communist League, usually known as Komsomol, was a political youth organization in the Soviet Union. It is sometimes described as the youth division of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), although it w ...

organization in

Liepāja Liepāja () (formerly: Libau) is a Administrative divisions of Latvia, state city in western Latvia, located on the Baltic Sea. It is the largest city in the Courland region and the third-largest in the country after Riga and Daugavpils. It is an ...

during the dictatorship of

Kārlis Ulmanis Kārlis Augusts Vilhelms Ulmanis (; 4 September 1877 – 20 September 1942) was a Latvian politician and a dictator. He was one of the most prominent Latvian politicians of pre-World War II Latvia during the Interwar period of independence from N ...

. He was jailed for his pro-Soviet agitation but was released following the Soviet occupation in 1940. He became a member of the Latvian Lenin Communist Youth Central Committee and secretary for its Liepāja branch and was editor of Liepāja's party newspaper, ''Komunists'' ("''The Communist''").Latvijas PSR Mazā Enciklopēdija (The Latvian SSR Concise Encyclopedia). Riga: Zinate. 1970. During the Nazi occupation in World War II, Sudmalis was one of the organisers of the Soviet guerrilla resistance movement in the territory of Latvia. Soviet sources indicate he participated in the defense of Liepāja in June 1941, fighting with his

group against the German invasion forces, destroying a Nazi landing party near Rucava. Ultimately, the Soviets evacuated Liepāja two days before the Nazis entered the city. From 1943, Sudmalis was in charge of an underground Komsomol resistance cell in Riga. In February 1944, he was executed by the Germans. He was awarded with two

Orders of Lenin The Order of Lenin (, ) was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet ...

.Article on ''Sudmalis, Imant Yanovich''
in the

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

Soviet commemorations

On 23 November 1978 a monument dedicated to Sudmalis was erected in Liepāja on Komsomol Square (; present-day

Jānis Čakste Jānis Kristaps Čakste (; 14 September 1859 – 14 March 1927) was a Latvian politician and lawyer who served as the first head of an independent Latvian state as the Chairman of the Tautas Padome, People's Council (1918–1920), the Speaker o ...

Square). The sculptors of the monument were Vilnis Albergs and Gaida Grundberga; its architects were O. Ostenbergs and I. Strautmanis. Following the restoration of Latvia's independence, on 21 July 1995 the statue of Sudmalis was relocated to the park of the Liepāja Museum. One of the driving forces behind the move was local LNNK activist Voldemārs Prancāns, who disliked the fact that the monument had become a meeting place for the local Interfront and others who had opposed Latvia's renewed independence from the USSR. A bronze bust of Imants Sudmalis once stood in Riga near the Riga Castle, but was dismantled in the 1990s. There is also a memorial stone to Sudmalis (erected in 1962) at the ''Draudzības kurgāns'' ( Burial-mound of Friendship) near Zilupe on the Latvian–Russian–

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

ian border. Schools, Pioneer youth organizations, streets, kolhozes, and a vessel in the Soviet fishing fleet were named for Sudmalis. In 1968 an

oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk cargo, bulk transport of petroleum, oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quant ...

built in

Kerch Kerch, also known as Keriç or Kerich, is a city of regional significance on the Kerch Peninsula in the east of Crimea. It has a population of Founded 2,600 years ago as the Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies, ancient Greek colony Pantik ...

was named for him. As of 2006 this tanker sailed under the flag of

Belize Belize is a country on the north-eastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a maritime boundary with Honduras to the southeast. P ...

References

External links

Only the surrounding figures remain at Sudmalis' monument (1995)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sudmalis, Imants 1916 births 1944 deaths People from Cēsis People from Cēsis county Soviet Latvian partisans Soviet military personnel killed in World War II Resistance members killed by Nazi Germany Executed Soviet people from Latvia Latvian people executed by Nazi Germany Communists executed by Nazi Germany Heroes of the Soviet Union Recipients of the Order of Lenin