1940 in the Soviet Union

← 1939 1938 1937 1940 in the Soviet Union → 1941 1942 1943
Decades:	1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s
See also:	History of the Soviet Union List of years in the Soviet Union

The following lists events that happened during 1940 in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.^[1]

Incumbents

• General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union – Joseph Stalin
• Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Kalinin
• Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union – Vyacheslav Molotov

Births

• January 17 – Mircea Snegur, 1st President of Moldova (d. 2023)
• January 27 – Petru Lucinschi, 2nd President of Moldova
• February 19 – Saparmurat Niyazov, 1st President of Turkmenistan (d. 2006)
• March 4 – Vladimir Morozov, sprint canoeist (d. 2023)
• March 7 – Viktor Savinykh, cosmonaut
• March 9 – Larisa Golubkina, actress
• May 24 – Joseph Brodsky, poet and essayist (d. 1996)
• June 28 – Alina Vedmid, politician and agronomist (d. 2008)^[2]
• June 29 – Vyacheslav Artyomov, composer
• July 6 – Nursultan Nazarbayev, 1st President of Kazakhstan
• July 19 – Anzor Kavazashvili, football goalkeeper
• August 20 – Musa Geshaev, Chechen poet (d. 2014)
• October 5
  • Rein Aun, Estonian decathlete and coach (d. 1995)
  • Viktor Pavlov, actor (d. 2006)
• October 9 – Valery Nosik, actor (d. 1995)
• October 20
  • Hasan Hasanov, 1st Prime Minister of Azerbaijan
  • Viktor Barannikov, Soviet and Russian Interior Minister (d. 1995)

Deaths

• January 27 – Isaac Babel, writer, journalist playwright and literary translator (b. 1894)
• February 2
  • Vsevolod Meyerhold, theatre director, actor and theatrical producer (b. 1874)
  • Robert Eikhe, politician (b. 1890)
  • Mikhail Koltsov, journalist, revolutionary and NKVD agent (b. 1898)
• February 4
  • Nikolai Yezhov, Head of NKVD (b. 1895)
  • Mikhail Frinovsky, secret police official (b. 1898)
• March 10 – Mikhail Bulgakov, writer, medical doctor and playwright (b. 1891)
• August 21 – Leon Trotsky, politician and political theorist (b. 1879)
• December 2 – Nikolai Koltsov, biologist (b. 1872)

See also

• 1940 in fine arts of the Soviet Union
• List of Soviet films of 1940

References

Further reading

• Bloch, Leon Bryce and Lamar Middleton, ed. The World Over in 1940 (1941) detailed coverage of world events online free; 914pp

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