Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"

The Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" was awarded for wartime labour of one year or six months in the case of disabled veterans, to: • workers, technical personnel and employees of industry and transport; • farmers and agricultural specialists; • workers in science, technology, the arts and literature; • employees of the Soviet, party, trade union and other civic organizations. Each medal came with an attestation of award, this attestation came in the form of a small 8 cm by 11 cm cardboard booklet bearing the award's name, the recipient's particulars and an official stamp and signature on the inside. ==Medal description==

The Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" was a 32mm in diameter circular copper medal with a raised rim on both sides. On the obverse, the left profile bust of Joseph Stalin wearing the uniform of a Marshal of the Soviet Union, along the upper circumference of the medal, the relief inscription "OUR CAUSE IS JUST" (), along the lower circumference of the medal, the relief inscription "WE HAVE WON" (). On the reverse along the upper circumference of the medal, the relief inscription "FOR VALIANT LABOUR" (), in the center, under a relief hammer and sickle, the inscription on four lines "THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR 1941–1945" (), at the bottom, a small relief five pointed star. The Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945" was secured by a ring through the medal suspension loop to a standard Soviet pentagonal mount covered by a 24mm wide red silk moiré ribbon with 2mm wide yellow edge stripes and a 7mm wide green central stripe. ==Recipients (partial list)==

The individuals below were recipients of the Medal "For Valiant Labour in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945". • Fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko • Cellist and conductor Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich • Physicist Alexander Mikhaylovich Prokhorov • Wartime factory worker, later cosmonaut Pavel Ivanovich Belyayev • Composer Aram Ilyich Khachaturian • Theoretical physicist, astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner Vitaly Lazarevich Ginzburg • Composer, pianist and leader of the Union of Soviet Composers Tikhon Nikolayevich Khrennikov • Rocket engineer Valentin Petrovich Glushko • Poet and wartime Leningrad radio broadcaster Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz • President of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Bohomolets • People's Artist of the USSR Nikolay Aleksandrovich Annenkov • Founder of Russian neurosurgery Nikolay Nilovich Burdenko • People's Artist of the USSR Oleg Aleksandrovich Strizhenov • Film director, editor, and screenwriter Georgi Nikolaevich Vasilyev • Major General Alexander Nikolaevich Poskrebyshev • Writer Alexander Serafimovich Popov • Crystallographer, geochemist, academician and Hero of Socialist Labour Nikolay Vasilyevich Belov • Wartime artillery factory engineer Sergey Aleksandrovich Afanasyev • Moscow Russian Army Theatre member for 60 years, actor Vladimir Mikhailovich Zeldin • Azerbaijani ophthalmologist Sona Akhundova-Bagirbekova • Geologist Valentina Galaktionovna Morozova • Military Surgeon Galina Shatalova • Geologist Yekaterina Alexandrovna Ankinovich • Philologist Lydia Petrovna Vasikova • Playwright Kasymaly Jantöshev • Surgeon Peter Herzen ==See also==