Post-Soviet Titles
The titles "Hero of the Soviet Union" and "Hero of Socialist Labor" were awarded until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which resulted in 15 independent republics. Each nation eventually began issuing their own titles, orders and decorations.
Some republics, like the Baltic republics of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, did not create hero titles. Others, such as Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, continue with their own successor hero titles. The award criteria for these titles were kept largely intact.
Ukraine is the only former Soviet republic to continue the two-hero award system: the "Order of the Gold Star" for heroism, and the "Order of the State" for labor. Georgia established the title "National Hero" and the decoration "Order of National Hero" in 2004. A breakaway region of Georgia, Abkhazia, has its own hero title, "Hero of Abkhazia".
Read more about this topic: Hero (title)
Famous quotes containing the word titles:
“We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)