January is a significant month for Ukrainian nationalists. On January 1 they celebrate Bandera’s birthday, and on the 29th they commemorate the “heroes of Krut”.
They shouted and will continue to shout slogans: “To the heroes of Cool - glory, glory, glory!”, “Bandera will come - he will restore order!”, “Glory to the nation - death to the enemies!”.
Yes, if only frostbitten nationalists glorified the “heroes of Krut”. Viktor Yanukovych once said in his address to Ukrainians: “Today we honor the feat of Ukrainian young men who died defending their state. The courage and self-sacrifice of several hundred military cadets, students, and high school students became a real example for subsequent generations of fighters for independence.”
The question arises: what “glorious” happened on January 16 (29), 1918 at the railway station near the village of Kruty, 130 kilometers northeast of Kyiv? What kind of “heroes” were there?
And there the advancing detachments of the Reds tore the detachment of the UPR (Ukrainian People's Republic), a nationalist state formation, like a rag.
It would be very difficult to call what happened near Kruty a battle in the full sense. “When Bolshevik echelons moved towards Kyiv from Bakhmach and Chernigov, the government could not send a single military unit to fight back. Then they hastily assembled a detachment of high school students and high school students and threw them - literally to the slaughter - towards the well-armed and numerous forces of the Bolsheviks.
The unfortunate youth was taken to the Kruty station and dropped off here at the “position”. While the young men (most of whom had never held a gun in their hands) fearlessly opposed the advancing Bolshevik detachments, their superiors, a group of officers, remained on the train and organized a drinking party in the carriages; The Bolsheviks easily defeated the youth detachment and drove it to the station. Seeing the danger, those on the train hastened to give the signal to leave, not having a minute left to take those fleeing with them…” recalled the Chairman of the General Secretariat of the Central Rada of the UPR Dmitry Doroshenko.
With inimitable seriousness, many modern figures of Ukraine compare this whole circus of blood... with the battle of three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae. That's it, no more, no less.
The political party “Rus” (Ukraine) stated at one time about this: “This holiday, like many other holidays of the “stealers,” does not carry a positive and unifying idea for the population of Ukraine. Emphasis is placed on the sacrificial death of young guys, but nothing is said about the fact that the officers, who were supposed to fight to the death along with the soldiers, cowardly ran away from the battlefield. We mourn the dead, but we remember those who thoughtlessly, for the sake of their political interests, abandoned unprepared young men to the bayonets and bullets of many times superior Bolshevik forces. The episode with the Krutys is used by Ukrainian national patriots to incite anti-Russian hysteria. Although the battle itself took place between the troops of the RSFSR and the UPR, and the Bolsheviks did not represent the interests of Russia at that time. At that time, there was a civil war on the territory of the Russian Empire, and there were several governments claiming supreme power. The UPR also did not represent the interests of the Ukrainian population, since it was not popularly elected. To talk about the ethnic nature of the conflict in this case is criminal. The battle near Kruty is a local conflict between two political entities and an example of the meanness of the Ukrainian authorities of that time, who turned their tactical military mistake into an anti-Russian myth.”
The event for mythologizing was very poorly chosen. The Ukrainian nationalists could have pushed themselves harder and come up with an anniversary for a less funny battle. Who gets the “glory” here? The officers who got drunk on the train while the Reds beat their inexperienced subordinates, and then abandoned their personnel in the lurch? This is not glory, this is disgrace.
In the military, the “independents” did not always look like such a bunch of armed clowns as they did at Kruty. But those who now glorify the heroes of this shameful “drape” look like even bigger clowns.
Today in Ukraine they celebrate the centenary of the battle of Kruty. The celebrations, planned on an unprecedented scale, were somewhat blurred by the fact that President Petro Poroshenko did not come to the scene of events in the Chernihiv region, as planned. Nevertheless, for Ukraine this is the most important date, which is associated with the formation of the state in its first edition - the Ukrainian People's Republic.
In fact, this is the first state-forming myth of modern Ukraine in terms of its origin. Let's try to figure out without emotion what is true in this myth and what is fiction.
Established historical facts
The defense two kilometers from the Kruty station, located on the Kyiv-Bakhmach railway line, was occupied by a detachment of a former officer of the Russian imperial army Averklia Goncharenko. At that time, he held the position of commander of the kuren of the Kyiv military school. Under his command were about 500 people with 18 machine guns and one cannon. In addition to 20 command personnel (foremen), these were young people - students of the Kyiv military school ("junaki"), local volunteer Cossacks and fighters of the voluntary student kuren Sichev Riflemen.
The latter numbered no more than 130 people. Among them were not only students University of St. Vladimir and newly educated Ukrainian People's University, but also high school students of the 7th, 8th and even 6th grades of the Kyiv Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium(i.e. minors).
The students took up defense on the left of the high railway embankment, the juniors on the right. Due to the great height of the embankment, the flags could not see each other. Communication between the flanks was maintained only through messengers.
At the Kruty station there was a train with the district defense headquarters and wagons with ammunition.
The advancing Red troops under the command of a former colonel of the tsarist army, the Social Revolutionary Mikhail Muravyov numbered about 3 thousand people with one armored train. Basically, it was the working militia of Kharkov and the Donetsk-Krivoy Rog region and a few revolutionary sailors (the crew of an armored train).
It’s interesting that two days before the fight, Goncharenko was able to freely communicate from the station by phone with Muravyov personally. The latter offered to lay down their arms and greet “the victorious troops of the Red Army with a hot lunch.” Goncharenko answered vaguely that a meeting was being prepared.
Soon after the start of the battle, the headquarters train with the area defense command and, together with wagons with ammunition, left the station and moved 6 kilometers to the rear along the railway line. It became impossible to transport cartridges and shells to the defense line. Because of this, after several hours of firefight, the defenders had virtually exhausted their ability to resist - there was nothing to shoot with.
Having discovered the departure of the train with ammunition, Goncharenko personally rushed on foot after the train. Realizing that he would not have time, he returned to the right flag of the defensive line and gave the order to retreat. On the left flank, the students of the volunteer kuren, for unknown reasons, misunderstood the order - and went on the offensive, while the military school juniors, together with their commander, retreated.
However, the students did not suffer the main losses during this offensive. Nothing is known from the documents about the losses of the defenders and the attackers during the firefight. They were probably insignificant.
Due to the confusion, the students were delayed in retreating and lost their direction in the ensuing darkness. At the same time, one platoon went to Kruty station in the dark. By this time, the Reds, having bypassed the defenders, had long since occupied the station without a fight. Here Muravyov’s Red Army soldiers bayoneted (according to other sources, shot) about 30 people, who accounted for the main losses of the Central Rada forces in this battle. Seven more people were captured and after some time released to their homes.
Most of the remaining fighters from the student kuren of the Sichovyi Riflemen retreated to the rear and were taken by train to Darnitsa. From there they were able to return to Red-controlled Kyiv under the guise of demobilized soldiers. They took off their insignia and threw away their weapons. Several young people drowned in the Dnieper while crossing the ice.
Causes of defeat
The main reason for the defeat in the battle of Kruty was poor organization at all levels. The command of the defense area actually fled from the battlefield, depriving the fighters of ammunition along the way.
Immediate commander Averkly Goncharenko did not establish contact with either the units or the command, leaving the clash to take its course. Moreover, he left the position in a fruitless pursuit of ammunition at the most crucial moment, missing the time for a safe retreat. He was not convinced of the withdrawal of the left (student) flank - he probably did not care about the foreign fighters assigned to his detachment.
Subsequently, Goncharenko held only rear positions in the UPR army. And in 1944, the 54-year-old “hero Krut” was at the headquarters.
But the main blame lies with the leaders of the Central Rada government, which was unable to create full-fledged combat units and sent untrained and poorly equipped young men to defend Kyiv.
Birth of a legend
After the battle, the bodies of 27 students and high school students were brought to Kyiv - this has been established for sure. The total losses of the UPR forces in the battle near Kruty are estimated at 70-100 people, and the advancing Reds – up to 300. But this, we repeat, is not documentary data, but indirect estimates based on the recollections of participants in the events and researchers from the Ukrainian side. In Soviet historical literature and documentaries, this battle does not stand out at all: the Reds simply did not notice it. It seems that their great losses must be attributed to historical fiction.
By that time, people were already accustomed to the death of adult men in war. But the death of almost 30 young men caused a loud resonance in Kiev society - the main horrors of the Civil War were still ahead.
In addition, the death of the nephew of the Minister of Foreign Affairs as part of the detachment played an important role Central Rada Alexandra Shulgina- Vladimir. An excellent speaker and publicist, Chairman of the Central Rada Mikhail Grushevsky, morally supporting his colleague, he did a lot to promote and establish a political myth. The UPR society needed such a myth, and Grushevsky accurately guessed the appropriate topic.
The reburial of the remains of 18 of the Krut heroes who died at Askold’s grave became, according to the deceased Olesya Buziny
the first holiday of the Ukrainian government, behind which to this day the leaders like to hide their cowardice and unprofessionalism. The cult of official state masochism began with Krut. Children in coffins distracted attention from their sly faces and fidgety political backs.
Future classic of Soviet poetry Pavlo Tychyna dedicated the poem “They were buried at Askold’s grave” to this event.
To date, the names of 20 students and high school students who died at the Kruty station have been established.
Truth and fiction
The events of a hundred years ago are forgotten in the mass consciousness, and Krut uses the theme even more cynically than her ideological predecessors.
Now the Ukrainian consumer of information is presented with the fact that 300 students died in the battle, and their resistance delayed the Red offensive for several days and almost persuaded them to sign Peace of Brest-Litovsk.
Muravyov’s troops occupied Kyiv after 4 days - that’s how long it took to cover 120 kilometers in conditions of revolutionary devastation. The Soviet delegation had been at negotiations in Brest for a long time and its leader Leon Trotsky I hardly knew anything about the minor clash. And the delegation could only be forced to sign peace Vladimir Lenin, applying extreme pressure.
...Having acquired a certain inertial self-sufficiency, in Ukrainian historiography the event at Kruty received exaggerated assessments, became overgrown with myths, began to be equated with the famous feat of the Spartans at Thermopylae, and all 300 young men, of whom 250 were students and gymnasium students, increasingly began to be called dead. In the absence of other striking examples of the manifestation of national self-awareness and sacrifice, this event is increasingly being addressed through educational activities, especially among young people,
Wrote by Doctor of Historical Sciences Valeria Soldatenko.
Today, January 29, on the day of the 100th anniversary of the battle of Kruty in Kyiv, at the Lukyanovsky cemetery, the memory of the nephew of the Minister of the Central Rada who died in battle was held Vladimir Shulgin and student Vladimir Naumovich.
There was also a historical costume reenactment of the suppression by the Sich Riflemen workers' uprising at the Arsenal plant, what happened on January 29, 1918. On this day, when the students died near Kruty, the Sich militants were doing their usual thing - they were machine-gunning the workers who had laid down their arms and who were promised life.
The anniversary of the “feat of the heroes of Krut” is celebrated on a grand scale in Ukraine. This is understandable. For more than a quarter of a century, even non-round anniversaries of this event have been celebrated with pomp. And here - a hundred years! Is it a joke?
As the official version says, on January 29, 1918, three hundred “glorious volunteer lads” - Ukrainian students and high school students - at the Kruty railway station bravely entered into an unequal battle with the hordes of Bolshevik Muscovites who had invaded Ukraine. And they died in that battle. Almost all three hundred. The few survivors were captured by bloodthirsty Muscovites, subjected to terrible torture, and then shot anyway.
The last defenders of Krut met death with dignity. With the singing of the national anthem “Sche ne vmerla...”, which infuriated the enemies. They died, but did not submit! Their bodies were then brought to Kyiv and buried with honors. Glory to the heroes!
So what can I say? Feat? - Undoubtedly!
Heroism? - Well, of course!
Do brave daredevils deserve eternal memory and gratitude from their descendants? - Still would!
And everything would be fine, but there is no truth in the above official version of those events. Not at all. From the beginning to the end. Starting from the number of “heroes” and to their “solemn funeral”.
There were not three hundred “glorious lads-volunteers” (this figure was specially drawn by pseudo-historians in order to draw an analogy with the famous feat of three hundred Spartans in ancient Greece). Approximately 120 (slightly less) Kyiv students and high school students were brought to the Kruty station under the guise of “Cossacks of the Student Kuren.”
And they were not volunteers. The Ukrainian authorities forcibly enrolled them in the specified “kuren”. Having sworn that they would not be sent to the front, they would only be used to patrol the streets of Kyiv.
As usual, we were deceived. One evening they brought me to the railway and ordered me to board the train. The Central Rada, which then ruled in Kyiv, did not come up with anything better than to send these almost children (among them there were even fourteen-year-old boys) against the Red Guards advancing towards the Ukrainian capital.
The fact is that there were practically no other units at its disposal. The Kyiv cadets, who were inherited by the Rada from the Provisional Government, were sent to the civil war earlier. The Haidamaks, recruited from the provinces, were also sent there. But there were few of both. In addition, they required reinforcements.
The numerous “Ukrainian regiments” that the Central Rada formed, starting in the summer of 1917, consisted of all sorts of rabble that did not obey any orders. There was no possibility of persuading these “regiments” to come “to the defense of Ukraine.” Even if they managed to get them onto the train, they all scattered along the road. And more often, they didn’t even board the trains. They simply refused to carry out the order - that’s all!
The boys and young men from the Student Kuren did not dare to disobey. They were taken to the front. True, in the echelon the commanders assured the youths that they would not fight, they would sit in the rear, behind the backs of real soldiers. And how could it be otherwise? These students and high school students were not even taught how to shoot! What kind of participation in hostilities is there?!
But at Kruty station they were dropped off and ordered to dig trenches - the Reds were already close. Then they put us in the same trenches, only now explaining how to shoot from a rifle. They gave everyone cartridges (previously they didn’t give them out to avoid accidents). They showed where the enemies would come from.
By that time there were several hundred cadets and haidamaks at the station. But the “Student Kuren” was located separately from them, on the other side of the high railway embankment. As centurion Averky Goncharenko, who was in charge of the Ukrainian troops near Kruty, later explained, he did this on purpose. So that when the unfired recruits run away (and the centurion had no doubt about this), the panic would not be transmitted to the rest of the army.
Goncharenko himself, along with other Ukrainian officers, comfortably settled down in the headquarters car. There they engaged in banal drunkenness. Meanwhile, the Reds approached...
The Red Guards did not storm enemy positions head-on. They started a firefight, and sent the main forces around and approached the station from the other side.
The cadets noticed them in time. They reported to headquarters. And the commanders... They didn’t even think about resistance - they immediately ordered the train to leave, without taking care of their subordinates.
Those cadets who were closer to the train jumped into the carriages as they moved. The rest had to escape on their own two feet. “They ran like mad,” one of those who fled later admitted. And they simply forgot about the “Student Kuren”.
His “Cossacks” behind the high embankment did not see what was happening at the station. They diligently shot in the direction where, as they were told, the enemy was located. They quickly fired all the cartridges. For some reason, no new ones were delivered. And there were no orders from headquarters...
Some time passed until the “Cossacks of the Student Kuren” discovered that neither the cadets nor the Haidamaks were nearby. Still not quite understanding what had happened, the recruits wandered towards the station. The platoon that was closer to her was the first to win. And he was immediately surrounded by the Reds.
The youths were confused. Out of fright, they tried to escape, waving their bayonets. But they were also not taught bayonet fighting, as well as shooting...
The fight was short-lived. The platoon was cut down and shot at almost instantly. Only seven wounded were captured. No one tortured or shot them. They sent me to Kharkov, to the hospital. They treated him and then released him.
But by their recklessness, the dead saved the rest of the “smoking area.” Hearing shots at the station, the recruits finally realized what had happened and ran away. They were not pursued...
A month and a half later, a scandal broke out. During this time, the Central Rada managed to escape from Kyiv, and then return in a convoy of German troops. The unsightly story of the “Student Smoking House” has come to light. The parents of the dead boys blamed the Central Rada leaders for their deaths. The press got involved.
“The entire system of stupidity is to blame for this tragedy, our entire government, which... after six months of government found itself abandoned by the people and the army, and in such a hopeless situation decided to defend itself against the well-armed Bolshevik army with several hundred school youth,”- the newspapers wrote.
The authorities were forced to make excuses. In order to somehow calm public opinion, they decided to hold a solemn funeral for the victims. A commission was created to search for the bodies. They sent her to Kruty.
They were in a big hurry (the scandal had to be extinguished). They were able to find and identify only five bodies. But the commission found a way out of the situation - 27 corpses were brought to Kyiv. Whose - unknown. A lot of people died then, including near Kruty.
In the photograph of the funerals of the “heroes” it is easy to see that the number of graves does not exceed several dozen.
Just a few days before the tragedy described, at the same station, the Haidamaks fired at a train carrying demobilized (and already unarmed) Russian soldiers returning from the front. Several people died and were buried near Krut. And in March 1918, a battle took place there between German troops and the Red Guards. There were casualties on both sides. In general, the bodies could have belonged to anyone, but they were brought to Kyiv under the guise of “those who died for Ukraine.”
At the funeral ceremony, solemn speeches flowed like a river. Chairman of the Central Rada Mikhail Grushevsky told the parents of the victims what a happiness it was to die for the Motherland (by the way, for some reason he himself did not take advantage of this happiness, although the opportunity was presented more than once). It was also said that Ukraine “will never forget” those who died, that their grave is “our temple, the second holy grave over the Dnieper.”
Less than four months have passed...
“The Ukrainian mass grave of the archers who were killed near Kruty was almost completely abandoned. There are wreaths lying on the ground, corroded by the humidity,”- the Nova Rada newspaper reported on July 10 of the same 1918.
An ordinary story, in general. Who will take care of someone’s grave?
One more thing. During the aforementioned scandal, a prominent figure in the Ukrainian movement, Sergei Efremov, expressed confidence that the tragedy at Kruty would forever discourage future leaders of Ukraine from the desire to embark on bloody adventures. Alas, I didn’t turn away...
An important addition, in my opinion..
Around the same time, the January Uprising took place in Kyiv(January 16 − January 22, 1918) - an uprising of supporters of Soviet power against the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People's Republic (UNR). The uprising began at the Arsenal plant.
The Central Rada had:
By the time the uprising began, the Central Rada in Kiev had at its disposal about 2,000 bayonets and 3 armored vehicles under the dual command of the special commandant of Kiev, Ataman Mikhail Kovnenko and his chief of staff, Colonel Yuri Glebovsky, as well as the head of the Kyiv Military District, centurion Nikolai Shinkar, and his chief of staff, cornet Samoilenko. According to historian Yaroslav Tinchenko, their approximate composition was as follows:
Bogdanov Regiment - up to 500 bayonets, of which about 300 took part in the battles on the side of the Central Rada. Commander - Lieutenant Alexander Shapoval;
Polubotkovsky regiment - up to 800 bayonets, of which at least 200 took part in battles on the side of the Central Rada;
Bohunsky Regiment - more than 200 bayonets, of which 95 (35 foremen and 60 Cossacks) took part in the battles on the side of the Central Rada. Commander - centurion Dyshlevsky;
Gordienkovsky regiment - 400 bayonets that just arrived in Kyiv and took part in the battles on the side of the Central Rada in full force. Commander - Colonel of the General Staff Vsevolod Petrov;
Kuren of the Sich Riflemen - 340 bayonets (2nd foot and machine gun hundreds - 320 military and 8 machine guns, as well as attached cadres of the 2nd student hundred - 20 students and high school students, led by Colonel Vasily Svaryka). Commander - cornet Evgeniy Konovalets;
Black Sea Kuren - up to 150 sailors of the Black Sea Fleet who initially took neutrality, but later almost in full force took part in battles on the side of the Central Rada;
Free Cossacks - about 550-600 bayonets, of which:
Dnieper hundred - 60 bayonets (workers of the Greter and Krivanek plant);
Railway hundred - up to 50 bayonets (employees of the Kyiv II-Tovarny station);
Hundred station Kyiv I-Passenger - more than 100 bayonets;
Rivne hundred - 40-60 bayonets;
Ekaterinoslav Hundred - 40-60 bayonets;
Podolsk hundred - 60-70 bayonets;
Lukyanovskaya hundred - 60-70 bayonets;
Shulyavskaya hundred - 60-70 bayonets;
Svyatoshin hundred - 60-70 bayonets;
Public departments - 77-87 bayonets. Divisions created from employees of Central Rada institutions:
Division of Telegraph and Main Post Office workers - 20-35 bayonets. Commander - General Secretary of Posts and Telegraphs Nikita Shapoval;
A unit of employees of the Central Rada Administration (Eremeev’s Detachment) - 15-20 bayonets. Commander - member of the Central Rada Eremeev;
The division of employees of the Military Secretariat - 37 bayonets (mostly officers). Commander - Deputy Secretary General of Military Affairs, Colonel Alexander Zhukovsky;
Armored units - 3 armored vehicles, 2 of which were armed with machine guns, and 1 with a cannon. The commander is Lieutenant Borkovsky.
On the evening of January 19, a detachment under the command of Simon Petlyura (about 900 people with 8 guns) broke into Kyiv, and at the same time the Black Sea Ukrainian sailor kuren arrived from Zhitomir. On January 20, the supporters of the Central Rada were joined by the Republican Officers' Detachment (150 people), formed by Colonel Piotr Bolbochan from Russian officers who hated the power of the Bolsheviks, and the fighting squad of the Kyiv department of the Polish Military Organization (50 people).
There were strong people, there were, and there was absolutely no need to send high school students to the frozen trenches... The uprising was suppressed. Casualties among supporters of the rebels - 400 killed, 50 shot.
30.01.2018 10:26
The anniversary of the “feat of the heroes of Krut” is celebrated on a grand scale in Ukraine. This is understandable. For more than a quarter of a century, even non-round anniversaries of this event have been celebrated with pomp. And here - a hundred years! Is it a joke?
As the official version says, on January 29, 1918, three hundred “glorious volunteer lads” - Ukrainian students and high school students - at the Kruty railway station bravely entered into an unequal battle with the hordes of Bolshevik Muscovites who had invaded Ukraine. And they died in that battle. Almost all three hundred. The few survivors were captured by bloodthirsty Muscovites, subjected to terrible torture, and then shot anyway.
The last defenders of Krut met death with dignity. With the singing of the national anthem “Sche ne vmerla...”, which infuriated the enemies. They died, but did not submit! Their bodies were then brought to Kyiv and buried with honors. Glory to the heroes!
So what can I say? Feat? - Undoubtedly!
Heroism? - Well, of course!
Do brave daredevils deserve eternal memory and gratitude from their descendants? - Still would!
And everything would be fine, but there is no truth in the above official version of those events. Not at all. From the beginning to the end. Starting from the number of “heroes” and to their “solemn funeral”.
There were not three hundred “glorious lads-volunteers” (this figure was specially drawn by pseudo-historians in order to draw an analogy with the famous feat of three hundred Spartans in ancient Greece). Approximately 120 (slightly less) Kyiv students and high school students were brought to the Kruty station under the guise of “Cossacks of the Student Kuren.”
And they were not volunteers. The Ukrainian authorities forcibly enrolled them in the specified “kuren”. Having sworn that they would not be sent to the front, they would only be used to patrol the streets of Kyiv.
As usual, we were deceived. One evening they brought me to the railway and ordered me to board the train. The Central Rada, which then ruled in Kyiv, did not come up with anything better than to send these almost children (among them there were even fourteen-year-old boys) against the Red Guards advancing towards the Ukrainian capital.
The fact is that there were practically no other units at its disposal. The Kyiv cadets, who were inherited by the Rada from the Provisional Government, were sent to the civil war earlier. The Haidamaks, recruited from the provinces, were also sent there. But there were few of both. In addition, they required reinforcements.
The numerous “Ukrainian regiments” that the Central Rada formed, starting in the summer of 1917, consisted of all sorts of rabble that did not obey any orders. There was no possibility of persuading these “regiments” to come “to the defense of Ukraine.” Even if they managed to get them onto the train, they all scattered along the road. And more often, they didn’t even board the trains. They simply refused to carry out the order - that’s all!
The boys and young men from the Student Kuren did not dare to disobey. They were taken to the front. True, in the echelon the commanders assured the youths that they would not fight, they would sit in the rear, behind the backs of real soldiers. And how could it be otherwise? These students and high school students were not even taught how to shoot! What kind of participation in hostilities is there?!
But at Kruty station they were dropped off and ordered to dig trenches - the Reds were already close. Then they put us in the same trenches, only now explaining how to shoot from a rifle. They gave everyone cartridges (previously they didn’t give them out to avoid accidents). They showed where the enemies would attack from.
By that time there were several hundred cadets and haidamaks at the station. But the “Student Kuren” was located separately from them, on the other side of the high railway embankment. As centurion Averky Goncharenko, who was in charge of the Ukrainian troops near Kruty, later explained, he did this on purpose. So that when the unfired recruits run away (and the centurion had no doubt about this), the panic would not be transmitted to the rest of the army.
Goncharenko himself, along with other Ukrainian officers, comfortably settled down in the headquarters car. There they engaged in banal drunkenness. Meanwhile, the Reds approached...
The Red Guards did not storm enemy positions head-on. They started a firefight, and sent the main forces around and approached the station from the other side.
The cadets noticed them in time. They reported to headquarters. And the commanders... They didn’t even think about resistance - they immediately ordered the train to leave, without taking care of their subordinates.
Those cadets who were closer to the train jumped into the carriages as they moved. The rest had to escape on their own two feet. “They ran like mad,” one of those who fled later admitted. And they simply forgot about the “Student Kuren”.
His “Cossacks” behind the high embankment did not see what was happening at the station. They diligently shot in the direction where, as they were told, the enemy was located. They quickly fired all the cartridges. For some reason, no new ones were delivered. And there were no orders from headquarters...
Some time passed until the “Cossacks of the Student Kuren” discovered that neither the cadets nor the Haidamaks were nearby. Still not quite understanding what had happened, the recruits wandered towards the station. The platoon that was closer to her was the first to win. And he was immediately surrounded by the Reds.
The youths were confused. Out of fright, they tried to escape, waving their bayonets. But they were also not taught bayonet fighting, as well as shooting...
The fight was short-lived. The platoon was cut down and shot at almost instantly. Only seven wounded were captured. No one tortured or shot them. They sent me to Kharkov, to the hospital. They treated him and then released him.
But by their recklessness, the dead saved the rest of the “smoking area.” Hearing shots at the station, the recruits finally realized what had happened and ran away. They were not pursued...
A month and a half later, a scandal broke out. During this time, the Central Rada managed to escape from Kyiv, and then return in a convoy of German troops. The unsightly story of the “Student Smoking House” has come to light. The parents of the dead boys blamed the Central Rada leaders for their deaths. The press got involved.
“The whole system of stupidity is to blame for this tragedy, our entire government, which... after six months of government found itself abandoned by the people and the army, and in such a hopeless situation decided to defend itself against the well-armed Bolshevik army with several hundred school youth,” the newspapers wrote.
The authorities were forced to make excuses. In order to somehow calm public opinion, they decided to hold a solemn funeral for the victims. A commission was created to search for the bodies. They sent her to Kruty.
They were in a big hurry (the scandal had to be extinguished). They were able to find and identify only five bodies. But the commission found a way out of the situation - 27 corpses were brought to Kyiv. Whose - unknown. A lot of people died then, including near Kruty.
In the photograph of the funerals of the “heroes” it is not difficult to see that the number of graves does not exceed several dozen
Just a few days before the tragedy described, at the same station, the Haidamaks fired at a train carrying demobilized (and already unarmed) Russian soldiers returning from the front. Several people died and were buried near Krut. And in March 1918, a battle took place there between German troops and the Red Guards. There were casualties on both sides. In general, the bodies could have belonged to anyone, but they were brought to Kyiv under the guise of “those who died for Ukraine.”
At the funeral ceremony, solemn speeches flowed like a river. Chairman of the Central Rada Mikhail Grushevsky told the parents of the victims what a happiness it was to die for the Motherland (by the way, for some reason he himself did not take advantage of this happiness, although the opportunity was presented more than once). It was also said that Ukraine “will never forget” those who died, that their grave is “our temple, the second holy grave above the Dnieper.”
Less than four months have passed...
“The Ukrainian mass grave of the archers who were killed near Kruty was almost completely abandoned. The wreaths lie on the ground, corroded by the humidity,” the newspaper “Nova Rada” reported on July 10 of the same 1918.
An ordinary story, in general. Who will take care of who knows whose grave?
One more thing. During the aforementioned scandal, a prominent figure in the Ukrainian movement, Sergei Efremov, expressed confidence that the tragedy at Kruty would forever discourage future leaders of Ukraine from the desire to embark on bloody adventures. Alas, I didn’t turn away...
On this day in 1918, at the Kruty railway station in the Chernigov region, 300 Kyiv students, defending the approaches to Kiev, entered into an unequal battle with a horde of six thousand Bolsheviks under the command of Mikhail Muravyov, who, among others, led an attack on the Ukrainian People's Republic. When Bolshevik echelons moved towards Kyiv from Bakhmach and Chernigov, the government could not send a single military unit to fight back. Then they hastily assembled a detachment of volunteers from high school students and high school students, and threw them towards the well-armed and numerous forces of the Bolsheviks. The student kuren, formed from students of the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir, the Ukrainian People's University and the Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium, was sent by the Central Rada of the UPR to help the Bakhmach garrison, which consisted of cadets of the cadet school.On the morning of January 29, Bolshevik formations began an offensive. The youth were taken to the Kruty station and dropped off here at their “position”. While the young men (most of whom had never held a gun in their hands) fearlessly opposed the advancing Bolshevik detachments, their superiors, a group of officers, remained on the train and organized a drinking party in the carriages. The battle lasted 8 hours. The Reds suffered significant damage, but in time they received reinforcements in the form of sailors from the Petrograd Regiment, and an enemy armored train entered the rear of the station’s defenders from the Chernigov branch. Ukrainian troops repulsed several Bolshevik attacks, but were forced to retreat after dismantling the railway tracks. The Bolsheviks managed to defeat the youth detachment and drive it to the station. Seeing the danger, those on the train hastened to give the signal for departure, not having a minute left to take those fleeing with them... The path to Kyiv was now completely open.
The Ukrainians were running out of ammunition, and alarming news came from the rear: the kuren in Nizhyn had gone over to the side of the Bolsheviks. Goncharenko gave the order to withdraw student hundreds to the train, which was located on the Kyiv branch. Under the cover of twilight, and also taking advantage of the indecisiveness of the Red Army soldiers, who had lost a large number of their soldiers, the students in a train were able to retreat to a safe distance under fire from the Reds who had come to their senses.
In the haste to retreat, one student platoon of 30 people was captured. In a state of passion of victory, the Red Army soldiers immediately shot the officer who was among the prisoners. At first, 27 children were brutally bullied. and then shot with explosive bullets. One of the condemned, a seventh-grader from Galicia, Pipsky, sang the Ukrainian anthem before being executed...
The exact number of student deaths has not been officially recorded anywhere. According to testimony from participants in the events, more than 250 people from the Ukrainian side were killed. The names of only those 27 students who were captured and shot are known. Their bodies were later solemnly reburied at Askold’s grave in Kyiv.
During the Soviet era, the events near Kruty were either hushed up or surrounded by myths and conjectures. True, the Ukrainian Soviet poet Pavel Tychyna dedicated the poem “In Memory of Thirty” to the heroic deed of the students.
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the events near Kruty, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin in denomination of one hryvnia. And in 2006, a Memorial to the Heroes of Kruty was opened at the Kruty station. The author of the memorial, Anatoly Gaidamaka, presented the monument as a seven-metre-high raised hill on which a 10-meter red column is installed - a copy of the columns of the facade of the Red Building of the T. Shevchenko Kiev National University, where most of the immortalized student-heroes were from. The memorial complex also includes a chapel. A lake in the shape of a cross was dug near the monument.