The oath of Ivan Turkenich on the grave of the Young Guards.
Let's start with Ivan Turkenich. Not only because he was the commander of the organization, but also due to the fact that he is the only survivor who already had the rank of officer at the time of joining the organization. It is logical to assume that after the liberation of Krasnodon, Turkenich will join the regular units of the Red Army and continue the war at the front.
Actually, that’s what happened. In Krasnodon, the former commander of the Young Guard, one of the few who, after the organization’s self-dissolution, managed to cross the front line and join his own, returned as the commander of the mortar battery of the 163rd Guards Rifle Regiment. But before going to fight further, Ivan Turkenich had to pay his debt to the memory of his fallen comrades. He took part in the reburial of the remains of the Young Guard. And his solemn words were heard over the grave (one feels that the young officer spoke through tears):"Farewell, friends! Farewell, beloved Kashuk! Goodbye, Lyuba! Dear Ulyasha, goodbye! Can you hear me, Sergei Tyulenin, and you, Vanya Zimnukhov? Can you hear me, my friends? You rested in eternal, uninterrupted sleep! We won't forget you. As long as my eyes see, while my heart beats in my chest, I swear to avenge you until my last breath, until the last drop of blood! Your names will be honored and forever remembered by our great country!”
Ivan Turkenich after the Young Guard
Ivan Turkenich fought all over Ukraine, and then Poland lay before him. It was on Polish soil that he was to perform his last feat and die, according to the behest of Polish patriots, “for our and your freedom.”
Turkenich did not like to talk much about himself. Before the publication of Fadeev’s novel, his fellow soldiers had no idea that their comrade was the commander of the Young Guard. But they remember that in his regiment he was a real leader of the youth. Modest and charming, knowledgeable about poetry, an interesting conversationalist, not at all hardened by the war, involuntarily attracted attention. However, he also conquered others with his constant courage. In the Radomyshl area, he had to single-handedly (the gun crew died) repel the advance of five German Tiger tanks, which were advancing on the Russian infantry, which was ordered to be covered by Turkenich’s artillerymen. Unable to withstand the well-aimed fire of the Soviet artilleryman, the German tanks turned back. Probably, the enemies never found out that one person repulsed their advance.
Or here’s another episode from his combat biography: “Once before the assault on an enemy stronghold, the division commander, Major General Saraev, set the scouts the task of capturing the “tongue” at all costs. Together with the scouts, Ivan Turkenich went to the enemy rear. When the group returned with the “tongue” to the front line, "It was discovered by an enemy patrol. In the firefight, the commander of the reconnaissance group was seriously wounded. Turkenich took command. He led the soldiers and the wounded commander to the division's front section. "Language" gave valuable testimony." This happened during the battles near Lvov.
Death overtook Turkenich in the position of assistant chief of the political department of the 99th Infantry Division. As colleagues recall, Ivan Vasilyevich (and at that time he could only be called that way) could not be found in the political department - he was always on the front line, next to the soldiers. In a battle near the Polish town of Glogow (now a city in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship), where fierce fighting broke out, Turkenich carried away a company of soldiers. War veteran M. Koltsin recalls: "On the path of the attackers, the Nazis created a powerful fire barrier. Artillery and mortars were constantly firing. I. Turkenich addressed the soldiers: “Comrades! We must escape from the shelling. Forward, friends, follow me!”
The voice of this man was well known to the soldiers, and his figure was very noticeable. Even though he’s only recently been in the division, we’ve already taken a closer look at him. More than once we saw him in the hottest cases and fell in love with the militant Komsomol leader for his courage, for his bravery.A chain rose, machine gunners and submachine gunners rushed uncontrollably after the senior lieutenant, overtaking each other"(end quote).The German infantry could not withstand the attack and retreated. But German mortars opened fire on the attackers again. The Red Army soldiers, carried away by the battle, did not even notice how Ivan Vasilyevich disappeared from their ranks. Heavily wounded, he was picked up after the battle and died the next day. It was August 13, 1944.
Residents of Glogow greeted the liberators with flowers. The whole city gathered for Turkenich's funeral. The old Poles cried when the Red Army soldiers with a ceremonial salute saw off the former underground member of the Young Guard, who was barely 24 years old, on his last journey. For his feat, Ivan Turkenich received the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. And in 1990, the commander of the Young Guard was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Another surviving member of the Young Guard headquarters, Vasily Levashov, also joined the army. In September 1943, he took the oath as an ordinary soldier, participated in the crossing of the Dnieper, and in the liberation of Kherson, Nikolaev, and Odessa. The command noted the brave soldier and in April 1944, Red Army soldier Vasily Levashov went to officer courses.
Vasily Levashov
Vasily Levashov had to participate in the decisive battles of 1945 - in the Vistula-Oder and Berlin operations, he was one of those who liberated Warsaw and stormed Berlin. At the end of the war, Vasily Levashov served in the Navy and taught at the Higher Naval School in Leningrad. He often came to Krasnodon, where he saw his comrades in the Young Guard. Former Young Guard member Vasily Levashov died in our 21st century - July 10, 2001. His last place of residence was Peterhof.
But Mikhail Shishchenko, a disabled person from the Winter War and the leader of a cell in the village of Krasnodon, did not have to fight for health reasons. When the arrests began, he hid in the garden for some time, then got out of the village, changing into a woman’s dress. The Germans were very actively looking for him, sending out photographs of him to all nearby villages, but Mikhail Tarasovich knew how to camouflage himself well. Probably, this man would have tried to create a new underground organization on the ruins of the old one - but the Red Army came, and the need for the underground disappeared.
Mikhail Shishchenko. Colorization neoakowiec
Since May 1943, Mikhail Shishchenko headed the Rovenkovsky district Komsomol committee, and in 1945 he joined the party. After the war, he met a lot with schoolchildren, gave public lectures to them about the activities of the Young Guard, understanding the importance of patriotic education and passing on traditions to new generations. Mikhail Shishchenko left memoirs about the Young Guard. This man died in 1979.
Sergei Tyulenin's lover Valeria Borts was hiding with relatives in Voroshilovgrad before the arrival of Soviet troops. After the liberation of Krasnodon, the girl continued her studies and received a specialty as a translator from English and Spanish. She worked in the bureau of foreign literature at the Military Technical Publishing House.
Valeria Borts after the Young Guard
As an editor of technical literature, Valeria Davydovna worked for some time in Cuba, then served in the ranks of the Soviet Army as part of a group stationed in Poland. She got married and was actively involved in motor sports.
Alas, in the history of the post-war study of the Young Guard, Valeria Borts played a negative role. Apparently, the tragic death of her lover, Sergei Tyulenin, broke the psyche of this then still fragile girl. Moreover, on the eve of Sergei’s arrest they had a strong quarrel. But they never managed to make peace. Valeria Borts' stories about her Young Guard past are confused, often one memory simply contradicts another (and Valeria Davydovna herself claimed that she said certain words for the reason that she was “ordered so”). However, there are still people who are trying to base their conspiracy “theories” on her stories. In particular, the long-debunked myth of Tretyakevich’s betrayal.
Valeria Borts died in 1996 in Moscow, having already played the role of a living legend. A photograph has been preserved in which Valeria Davydovna is captured next to Yuri Gagarin. Each of them probably considered it a great honor to have their photo taken with the other.
Meeting between Valeria Borts and Yuri Gagarin.
Radik Yurkin at the time of the liberation of Krasnodon he was 14. He met the Red Army in Voroshilovgrad, where, like Valeria Borts, he was hiding from the Gestapo. He might have wanted to immediately go to the front, but the command could not actually expose children to harm. As a result, a compromise was found: Radik Yurkin was enrolled in a flight school. The former Young Guard graduated in January 1945 and was sent to the naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet. There he took part in battles with the Japanese imperialists. “He loves to fly, he is proactive in the air,” his command certified, “In difficult conditions he makes competent decisions.”
Radiy Yurkin - naval aviation officer.
After the end of World War II, Radiy Yurkin continued his studies. In 1950, he graduated from the Yeisk Naval Aviation School, after which he served in the Baltic and Black Sea fleets. In 1957 he retired and settled in Krasnodon. Radiy Petrovich, like Mikhail Shishchenko, spoke a lot to schoolchildren and young people. Propaganda of the heroism of the Young Guard became an integral part of his life. In 1975, Radiy Petrovich Yurkin died. As they say - in the Krasnodon Museum, among the exhibits dedicated to his native “Young Guard”.
Armenian Zhora Harutyunyants after the failure of the Young Guard, he managed to escape to the city of Novocherkassk on the territory of the Russian Federation. His relatives lived there. With them he waited for the arrival of the Red Army and returned to Krasnodon on February 23, 1943. Harutyunyants took part in the extraction of the remains of the Young Guards from the pit of mine number 5 and in their reburial. In March 1943, he volunteered to join the Red Army, part of the 3rd Ukrainian Front. As part of this front, Georgy Harutyunyants took part in the liberation of the city of Zaporozhye, near which he was seriously wounded. Upon recovery, the command sent him to a military school - the Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery School.
Georgy Harutyunyants after the Young Guard
After graduating from college, Harutyunyants stayed to work there. Colleagues noted his “extraordinary talent as an organizer.” Therefore, in 1953 he was sent to the Military-Political Academy, from which he graduated in 1957. And then he serves as a political worker in the troops of the Moscow District.
Georgy Harutyunyants did not lose interest in his comrades in the underground and often came to Krasnodon. Met with young people. As usual, I took part in celebrations dedicated to the Young Guard. The desire to preserve historical memory among the people eventually prompted him to take up science: Georgy Harutyunyants defended his dissertation and became a candidate of historical sciences. Georgy Minaevich died in 1973.
Ivantsov sisters, Nina and Olya On January 17, 1943, we safely crossed the front line. In February 1943, together with the victorious troops of the Red Army, both girls returned to Krasnodon. Nina Ivantsova, shocked by the death of her comrades, went to the front as a volunteer, took part in the battles on the Mius Front, in the liberation of Crimea, and then in the Baltic states. She was demobilized in September 1945, after the end of World War II, with the rank of guard lieutenant. After the war she was at party work. Since 1964, Nina Ivantsova worked at the Voroshilovgrad Mechanical Engineering Institute. She died on New Year's Day 1982.
Nina Ivantsova
Olga Ivantsova
After the liberation of Krasnodon, Olga Ivantsova became a Komsomol worker. She took an active part in the creation of the Young Guard Museum. She was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Supreme Council of Ukraine. After 1954 she was at party work in Krivoy Rog. Olga Ivantsova died in July 2001.
Both sisters, both Olya and Nina, did a lot to restore the true picture of the exploits of the Young Guard, in particular, to restore the good name of Viktor Tretyakevich.
Anatoly Lopukhov crossed the front line near Aleksandrovka near Voroshilovgrad and joined the ranks of the Red Army. Together with Soviet troops, he returned to Krasnodon. And then he moved further west, liberating Ukraine from the invaders. On October 10, 1943, Anatoly Lopukhov was wounded in battle. After the hospital, he returned to his hometown, where for some time he helped Olga Ivantsova in creating the Young Guard Museum and even managed to be the director of this museum.
Anatoly Lopukhov. Colorization neoakowiec
In September 1944, Anatoly Lopukhov entered the Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery School. In 1955 he entered the Military-Political Academy, from which he graduated with honors. He was repeatedly elected as a deputy of city and regional councils. In the end, Colonel Lopukhov, who retired to the reserve, settled in Dnepropetrovsk, where he died in 1990.
The names of two Vasily Borisovs - Prokofievich and Methodievich - and Stepan Safonov stand apart. V.P. Borisov in January 1943 joined the advancing Red Army troops. On January 20, 1943, the former Young Guard member helped Soviet soldiers establish communications through the Northern Donets. The group that included Borisov was surrounded and captured. The Germans were in a hurry and on the same day they shot all the prisoners. Many of the arrested Young Guards were still alive at that time.
The fate of Stepan Safonov developed in a similar way. He managed to get into the Rostov region, where he crossed the front line, joining the Soviet troops. Young Guard member Styopa Safonov died in the battle for the city of Kamensk on January 20, 1943.
V.P. Borisov
Styopa Safonov
V.M. Borisov
But Vasily Methodievich Borisov went not to the east, but to the west - to the Zhitomir region, where his brother Ivan fought underground. Vasily joined the Novograd-Volyn underground, and through Lida Bobrova established contact with the partisans. Together with this brave girl, they carried leaflets and mines into the city. Borisov carried out sabotage on the railway, helped organize the escape of Soviet prisoners of war, whom he transported to the partisans. The brave Young Guard was executed on November 6, 1943.
In conclusion, let's say a few words about the most mysterious member of the Young Guard. About Anatoly Kovalev. There is not even a photograph left of this man. It is only known that he was supposed to be executed along with the Tyulenin-Sopova group. But along the way, this well-trained guy, an athlete, a fan of a healthy lifestyle, who even in prison did not give up gymnastics, managed to... escape! Further traces of him are lost. What happened to him subsequently - there are several versions. According to one of them, he managed to voluntarily join the ranks of the Red Army and continued to fight. And after the war, his experience as an underground worker seemed interesting to the newly established MGB - and Anatoly Kovalev became an illegal intelligence officer. According to another version, he perished in Stalin’s camps because he protested too energetically against Fadeev’s version. According to the third, Anatoly Kovalev died in the 1970s in one of the insane asylums. There actually lived a certain old man who called himself a member of the Young Guard, Anatoly Kovalev. But whether it was really Kovalev, or whether the old man suffered from a personality disorder, could not be established.
In the summer of 1943, after returning from a front-line trip, the writer Alexander Aleksandrovich Fadeev was invited to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. There he was introduced to people who had just returned from the Donetsk city of Krasnodon, where they were collecting information about the underground youth organization “Young Guard”.
The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942 and from the first days established a regime of brutal terror there - raids, executions, mobilization for work in Germany.
Several high school students and recent school graduates created a combat headquarters, united a fighting group of peers around it, and began their underground war against the Nazis.
The history of the “Young Guard” is briefly as follows. At the end of September 1942, after the Donbass was captured by the Germans, an underground organization spontaneously arose in the small mining town of Krasnodon (before the war, according to the census - 22 thousand inhabitants). Its core consisted of young people aged 14 to 25 years, the total number was up to 100 people. 16-17 year old boys and girls wrote and distributed leaflets among the population, attacked German vehicles, and destroyed food prepared by the Nazis for their troops. They managed to free a large group of prisoners of war and disrupt the mobilization of young people to work in Germany. They collected a lot of weapons in order to raise an armed uprising in the city by the time the Soviet troops approached.
Leaflets appeared on the walls of houses, on November 7 a red flag was raised, and anti-fascist agitation was carried out among the population.
By the end of December 1942, the Young Guard included about a hundred people, the organization's arsenal was 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 10 pistols, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges, 65 kilograms of explosives. The organization did not exist for long and in early January 1943, after an attack on a car with gifts for German officers, it was discovered.
On January 1, 1943, several members of the organization were taken into custody by the police due to stupidity. The betrayal that followed led to the fact that by January 10, 1943, almost the entire Young Guard was in prison. The Young Guards were brutally tortured.
A star was carved on the back of Uli Gromova, a beautiful slender girl. Tosya Eliseenko was placed on a hot stove. Tolya Popov's foot was cut off, and Volodya Osmukhin's hand was cut off. Vita Petrov's eyes were gouged out.
One of the jailers, the defector Lukyanov, who was later tried, said: “There was a continuous groan in the police, as during the entire interrogation the prisoners were beaten. They lost consciousness, but they were brought to their senses and beaten again. At times it was terrible for me to look at this torment.” .
They were tortured terribly - they were put on stoves, needles were driven under their nails, stars were cut out - and in the end they were all executed - they were thrown alive into shaft No. 5. They were thrown in separate parties, 15-20 people each. The bullets were not used, and dynamite, sleepers, and trolleys flew into the mine after those executed. The mine was mined and filled with water, so the grave was ready.
On February 14, 1943, Soviet troops entered the city. The parents came to the police building where the Young Guards spent their last days. In the cells they saw traces of blood on the floor, and on the walls there were inscriptions: “Death to the German occupiers,” a painted heart pierced by an arrow, and a number of names of the girls who were sitting there.
Pink streams flowed from the police yard - there was a thaw. With a shudder, people realized that it was blood and melted snow.
Then the parents went to the pit of mine No. 5. For several days they removed stones, piles of earth, rails, and trolleys from the mine, then parts of the bodies of Young Guards began to come across. Having thrown the children into the pit, the Nazis threw grenades into the mine to cover their tracks. There were no faces, and relatives recognized their children, sisters and brothers only by special signs, by clothing. It was all creepy - 14-16 year old boys and girls tortured to a terrible death. More than 30 bodies were recovered from the mine, but not all were identified. They tried to quickly put Vanya Zemnukhov’s head in a coffin and nail it so that the mother would not suffer. And for her this atrocity was a secret for a long time. The corpses that could not fit in the bathhouse were laid out on the street, in the snow, under the walls of the bathhouse. Painting. it was creepy. In the bathhouse and around the bathhouse there are corpses and corpses, seventy-one corpses.
Parents recognized their children, washed them, dressed them, and placed them in the coffins they brought.
By March 1, 1943, all extraction work was completed. A mass grave was prepared in the park named after Lenin Komsomol. Coffins containing the bodies of the dead were brought here. A lot of people gathered, a military unit. Funeral fireworks - and the Young Guards were buried in solemn sadness.
In the fall of 1943, the Young Guards were awarded. Five were awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union". The Young Guard Museum was created in Krasnodon.
In 1946, the children’s feat was highlighted by Alexander Fadeev in the novel “The Young Guard”.
2. 2 HEROES OF KRASNODON: MYTH OR REALITY?
Materials on the “Young Guard” are in various archives of Ukraine and Russia, some of them have been lost, the facts of its activities have been distorted more than once, but the main problem, from my point of view, was the problem of reticence, the desire to artificially make “heroes”, stone idols out of these children , zombified robots that have no internal contradictions or human feelings. And it is completely unclear why this had to be done? They were already heroes, and even greater than those that propaganda tried to create from them.
About how these children lived, what they read, what they wrote about in their diaries, how they treated each other, what questions tormented them, what they thought about themselves and their lives - Alexander Fadeev asked himself all these questions when he was working on the book. .
What kind of people were these? What force guided them through life? What did they dream of there, in the pit, when they groaned from their wounds, lying under the weight of the bodies of their comrades, under the weight of sleepers and trolleys dumped on them?
Did these children even exist? Is this not fiction? Isn't this the work of Soviet propaganda?
Yes, they were, they lived and suffered, they were tormented, but they died unbroken.
TWO COMMISSIONERS
2. 3VIKTOR TRETYAKEVICH
Meanwhile, the history of the Young Guard and the novel itself contain many mysteries and even secrets.
Soon after the book was published, Fadeev said in one of his letters: “The novel as a whole was received favorably, but there was an ominous silence from Krasnodon.” Until the end of his days, Alexander Alexandrovich never dared to visit the homeland of his heroes again. Moreover, in every possible way he avoided meeting with their parents, with the surviving Young Guards. And there were good reasons for that.
Take, for example, the story of Viktor Tretyakevich. He stood at the origins of the creation of the Young Guard and was its first commissioner. Fadeev could not help but know this. Of course, one can argue whether he brought out Tretyakevich in the image of Stakhovich or not. We have no direct evidence, and Fadeev himself has repeatedly emphasized that his novel is a work of art. Another thing is that in the martyrology published on the last page, Tretyakevich’s surname is missing. And this is already a fact:
Before the occupation of Krasnodon, Viktor Tretyakevich fought in a partisan detachment, and then he was sent to the city to organize the underground. Tretyakevich participated in many military operations of the Young Guard. Being among the first to be arrested, Victor held firm during interrogations. The father of the Young Guard Vasily Levashov was in the same cell with Tretyakevich and said that he recognized him only by his voice: he was so disfigured.
In order to persuade the arrested man to confess and take revenge on the commissar for his daring behavior, the fascists spread rumors about his betrayal through the cells. However, the real traitor was free, and Victor suffered martyrdom in a mine pit on January 15, 1943.
In the very first publications about the Young Guard, Viktor Tretyakevich is still mentioned. With the start of the work of the KGB commission headed by A.V. Toritsyn, Viktor was declared a traitor, and Oleg Koshevoy was declared a commissar.
Fadeev used the commission’s report. This is how the image of Stakhovich appears in the novel, but at the end of the book, Tretyakevich’s name is not among the listed names of the dead.
Victor's surviving comrades spared no effort to restore the commissar's honest name.
Only in 1959 did publications appear about his innocence, and he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War.
Then a sharp turn in the history of the Young Guard began again. To please unknown officials, the name of Viktor Tretyakevich, the commissar, was erased from the temporary Komsomol certificates issued by the headquarters.
Today, only a few people in our country remember the story of the Young Guards: Ukraine is already a different state, Fadeev’s novel has long been removed from school curricula. But historical truth must triumph, and the honorable name of Commissioner Victor
Tretyakevich must be restored.
2. 4 OLEG KOSHEVOY
For some, Oleg Koshevoy was a hero, for others - a victim, for others - an instrument for the ideological indoctrination of the youth of the Land of the Soviets. Who exactly was this guy?
Thanks to Alexander Fadeev, Oleg Koshevoy was raised to an unattainable height. Although his friends, members of the Young Guard, deserve no less kind words, as well as fame and honor.
Now it is difficult to say why so much attention was paid to the image of Koshevoy. But there is one unofficial version of this: the close relationship between Fadeev and Oleg Koshevoy’s mother.
For the most part, the parents of the Young Guard were poorly educated people, and Elena Nikolaevna stood out from them in her youth, intelligence, and extraordinary beauty. Maybe that’s why she kept herself somewhat aloof; almost none of her parents maintained contact with her. Nevertheless, it was she who was elected to the regional party committee, a delegate to various party and Komsomol congresses. It seems that popular rumor could not forgive her for the increased attention to herself. And rumors about a close relationship between Kosheva and Fadeev probably appeared due to ordinary jealousy.
Oleg’s father was scared that his son had no desire for any craft. The guy was only interested in books, music and dancing. Dramatic changes occurred with Oleg after the death of his stepfather. By that time, this was the first death of a loved one in my life. This had such an effect on him that he became more serious and more attentive to his family.
In Krasnodon, Oleg gained authority among his comrades in a short time. And this was not surprising. A strong, literate and intelligent guy beyond his years could not help but attract attention. Even in the first grade, he amazed teachers with his knowledge, composed poems, and drew. And he studied in the first grade for only three days, after which he was immediately transferred to the second.
The director of Krasnodon school No. 1 admired Oleg’s analytical mind, who could quote Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in entire chapters. But at the same time he continued to be the soul of any cheerful company. The girls were crazy about him.
After the defeat of the Young Guard and the arrests that began, Oleg tried to escape from Krasnodon along with some other members of the organization, but was captured following the denunciation of a traitor in Rovenki. “During interrogations with the chief of police, Oleg behaved courageously. In the cell, Oleg did not let his comrades lose heart, he said that he would never ask for mercy from the executioners
Oleg tried to escape. Someone handed him a nail file. During the night, with the help of his comrades, he sawed through the bars on the window and escaped, but could not get far - weakened, he was caught by the Gestapo and again subjected to severe torture. He taught the young people in his cell to sing songs, and he himself was the first to sing,” this is what his mother Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya writes about Oleg in “The Tale of a Son.” (3)
After the liberation of Rovenek, not finding her son among the dead Young Guards in Krasnodon, she went there, hoping to find her son alive. But this was not destined to happen.
“My son, who was not yet seventeen years old, lay gray-haired in front of me. The hair at the temples was white-white, as if sprinkled with chalk. The Germans gouged out Oleg’s left eye, smashed the back of his head with a bullet and burned his Komsomol card number on his chest with an iron.”
During interrogation in November 1947, gendarme Yakov Schultz said: “At the end of January 1943, I participated in the execution of members of the underground organization “Young Guard”, including the leader of the organization Koshevoy. This group was shot in the Rovenkovo forest. I remembered Koshevoy because he had to be shot twice.
After the first shot, all those arrested fell and lay motionless, only Koshevoy stood up and, turning around, looked intently in our direction. This greatly angered the commander of the gendarme platoon Frome, and he ordered the gendarme Derwitz to finish him off, which he did, shooting Koshevoy in the back of the head.”
To please some political figures, Oleg Kosheva and A. Fadeev, and Soviet propaganda, was declared a commissar of the Young Guard, although today it is known for certain that he was Viktor Tretyakevich. But this does not make his feat any less significant.
One thing is certain: if Oleg Koshevoy is brought down from the ideological heavens and the dust of propaganda is shaken off his personality, he is worthy of glory, eternal memory and fresh flowers on his grave.
2. 5IVAN TURKENICH
The situation with the commander of the Young Guard, Ivan Turkenich, remains a mystery. His subordinates are Heroes, and he “only” has the Order of the Red Banner.
In the novel about the commander, as if in passing. Same question: why?
Before his appearance in Krasnodon, Turkenich, being in the rank of senior lieutenant, fought, found himself surrounded, captured, but managed to escape. Unfortunately for him, like hundreds of thousands of other soldiers and commanders, in the summer of 1941 Stalin’s order No. 270 was issued, which stated that all military personnel remaining in enemy-occupied territory would be declared traitors. There were two options: either fight your way to your own people and then atone for the “temporary error” in battles with blood, or shoot yourself. Turkenich did neither one nor the other.
The authority of 22-year-old Turkenich among the underground was indisputable. He introduced military discipline into the organization, taught how to use weapons and camouflage. In accordance with all the rules of military affairs, he developed combat operations; he himself was a direct participant in many of them: the destruction of enemy vehicles, the liberation of prisoners of war from the Volchensky camp and Pervomaiskaya hospital, the execution of police officers.
Thanks to Fadeev’s light hand, he seemed to be out of work. The author mentions him only in passing. The writer’s logic is clear: someone who has been in German captivity cannot be a hero. Obvious absurdity: ordinary members of the Young Guard are Heroes, but the commander is not.
When the arrests of the Young Guard began, the commander managed to escape unnoticed and crossed the front line. Endless interrogations began at SMERSH, but then a decree of September 13 arrived. Turkenich is sent to the active army. He will never know that in the presentation of the military council of the Southwestern Front of the Young Guards to the highest ranks, he was listed as No. 1:
Turkenich fought bravely, and, as his comrades testified, he was not afraid of death. One of them, the director of a secondary school in the Zhitomir region, Alexander Leontyevich Rudnitsky, talked about the last days of the commander. In a fierce battle for the Polish city of Gongow, Turkenich died a hero's death.
The Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation contains a representation against Turkenich - for the battle near Gonguv. It is clear from it that commanders of all levels - from battalion commander to army commander - were in favor of awarding Captain Turkenich the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
At the last moment, again, someone’s evil will put an end to the fate of the brave officer. And only 46 years later was the truth able to triumph - the commander of the Young Guard was posthumously awarded this high rank.
2. 6 LYUBOV SHEVTSOVA
Lyubov Shevtsova appears in life completely different from A. Fadeev’s novel.
In the novel, she is a beautiful, cheerful, brave, charming girl with a laugh. “Sergei Tyulenin in a skirt,” Fadeev writes about her.
Only after the liberation of Krasnodon did some facts from the life of Lyubov Shevtsova become known. She was left in the city as a radio operator to communicate with the underground. Knowing well the future leaders of the Young Guard from school, Lyuba could not help but become one of its active members who participated in the most daring attacks of the Young Guard.
After the defeat of the organization, she was captured in Rovenki.
She did not give evidence and, as a radio operator, categorically refused to cooperate.
She was tortured in a way that makes the Inquisition pale. A friend managed to send padded trousers to Lyuba’s cell: the open wounds did not allow her to sit or lie down. As if as a mockery, on the eve of her execution she was offered to wash herself in the bathhouse. Shevtsova replied: “The earth will accept me even like that!” Lyubov Shevtsova was shot on February 9, 1943 in the Thunderous Forest. And soon units of the Red Army entered the city.
The legend says: just before her death, Lyubka sang “On the wide expanses of Moscow.”
All those shot were buried in the forest.
When the bodies were raised to the surface, a note of religious content, as archival evidence calls it, was found in Lyubin’s trouser pocket. Mom sent her daughter the Lord's Prayer. And in response I received a letter full of childhood melancholy and adult pain:
“Hello, Mommy and Mikhailovna! Mommy, I really regret now that I didn’t listen to you. I never thought that it would be so difficult for me. Mommy, I don’t know how to ask you to forgive me, but now it’s too late. Mommy "Don't be offended! Your daughter Lyubasha. I'll see my dad in the next world."
A pure, simple, cheerful, brave girl from the Izvarino mine. What permanents and silk stockings! Felt boots for the winter, canvas slippers for going out, the rest of the time - barefoot. She was not good at reading and writing. I didn't get along well with discipline. She graduated from the seven-year school as an “overage”, just before the war. I was eager to go to the front. The military registration and enlistment office refused, but was remembered as an active comrade, although not a Komsomol member. Only the best are hired there!
She was accepted into the Komsomol quickly: in February 1942, when the issue of enrollment in the NKVD school was finally resolved.
In Fadeev’s novel, as we see, a gloss has been put on many of the heroes. They have almost no flaws, because Soviet heroes cannot have flaws. Komsomol member Lyubov Shevtsova cannot believe in God, she cannot study diligently, etc.
Communist ideologists were in such a hurry to use the names of new heroes that they themselves got the names mixed up. For example, Vanya Zemnukhov was actually Zimnukhov. Sergei Tyulenin actually bore the surname Tyulenev. But when a decree was issued conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on him, it was too late. It is interesting that later even the parents had to change their surnames to incorrect, but already famous ones.
2. 7TRAITORS
The criminal case against 16 traitors, one way or another involved in the death of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" in occupied Krasnodon, was sent to the archives back in 1957.
In the famous novel by Alexander Fadeev there is not a word about these people - they were arrested after the book was published. And therefore their testimony remained “top secret”. Otherwise, History would have to be corrected. After all, Fadeev’s book does not answer the main question - who is to blame for the failure of the Young Guard. The author himself repeated more than once: “I was not writing the true history of the Young Guard, but a novel that not only allows, but even presupposes artistic fiction.”
What is the truth in this tragedy and what does History stubbornly keep silent about?
"Book" traitors
The novel was published in 1946. According to the surviving members of the underground, Fadeev very accurately conveyed the characters’ characters. However, the artistically remarkable book was not up to par in terms of maintaining historical truth. First of all, this concerned the personalities of the traitors who were responsible for the failure of the Young Guard. For Fadeev, they were the Young Guard member Stakhovich, who betrayed his comrades during torture, as well as two schoolgirl friends who collaborated with the police - Lyadskaya and Vyrikova.
Stakhovich is a fictitious surname. The prototype of this anti-hero was one of the organizers of the Young Guard, Viktor Tretyakevich. But it is not Fadeev’s fault that the name of this fighter was anathematized. The version about Tretyakevich’s cowardly behavior during interrogations was presented to the writer as an absolute truth (as is known, in 1960 Viktor Tretyakevich was completely rehabilitated and was even posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree).
Unlike the fictional Stakhovich, Zinaida Vyrikova and Olga Lyadskaya are real people, and therefore the novel “The Young Guard” played a tragic role in their lives. Both girls were convicted of treason and sent to camps for a long time. Moreover, suspicion fell on Lyadskaya, for example, only because she spent 9 days in police custody and returned home safe and sound. Olga Alexandrovna herself later said that the police simply abused her. And they were never even interrogated. And they let her out for a bottle of moonshine - her mother brought it.
The stigma of traitors from women was removed only in 1990 after their numerous complaints and strict checks by the prosecutor's office.
Here, for example, is the “certificate” Olga Aleksandrovna Lyadskaya received after 47 years of shame: “The criminal case on charges of O. A. Lyadskaya, born in 1926, was reviewed by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District on March 16, 1990. Resolution of the Special Meeting at "The USSR MGB dated October 29, 1949 against O. A. Lyadskaya was canceled and the criminal case was discontinued due to the lack of corpus delicti in her actions. Olga Aleksandrovna Lyadskaya was rehabilitated in this case."
Zinaida Vyrikova, who served in the camps for more than 10 years, received approximately the same document. By the way, these women were never friends, as described in the novel, and met for the first time only after rehabilitation. (6)
We see how Fadeev’s book crippled the fates of these two women. When talking about the feat of some people, we must not forget that other people lived and suffered next to these heroes. A writer, like no one else, must feel responsible for his words.
2. 8 WAS THERE A PARTY LEADERSHIP?
But the biggest mistake was the status of “party-Komsomol underground” imposed on the Young Guard in 1982.
The organizational formation of the Young Guard took place in August - October 1942 without party patronage. But, having read Fadeev’s novel, Stalin discovered that the author did not show the leading and guiding role of the party. The leader's position was voiced by the newspaper Pravda. It was picked up by other media, abruptly moving from praise to accusations that this, they say, was done by the writer almost intentionally. The Lugansk Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine also made claims against the author for the fact that the retreat and evacuation from Krasnodon in July 1942 was shown as a spontaneous, uncontrollable process. And Alexander Fadeev had to rewrite the novel, creating monumental images of communists - the leaders of the underground.
The Young Guards are simply children who loved their fatherland and were so well brought up that they were not afraid to stand up for it.
And the party leaders should have been proud that, without any prompting from above, these children already in the first days of the war understood what and how they needed to do.
We see how the party “leadership” of literature crippled the destinies of many people, how, for the sake of truth, events and people were portrayed not as they really were, but as the party leaders wanted them to be.
3. CONCLUSION
A. A. Fadeev, of course, conjectured a lot in his novel “The Young Guard,” but he wrote a work of art, literally in hot pursuit. He needed to embellish the events, otherwise his book would simply not be interesting to readers. And yet, there is probably more truth in the work than fiction. The author tried to bring his “Young Guard” as close as possible to the one that is turning 60 years old the other day!
In connection with the anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, conversations about the “Young Guard” are of keen interest to journalists and writers, and although it is said that the history of the “Young Guard” is still awaiting detailed study, some facts have become known for certain. But what’s paradoxical is that if you ask someone about Oleg Koshev, the answer will be associated with the Young Guard, and if you name the name of, say, Anna Sopova, you will only receive a surprised look in response. People do not forget those they are reminded of. But they are not the only ones who deserve respect and glory. After all, there were still dozens of Young Guards who were not awarded the title of Hero. But their feat was no less significant.
Of course, the Young Guards were and will remain heroes, only the older generation does not need to be reminded of their feat, and the current generation does not even know about the existence of A. A Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard”; they began to forget about it and removed it from the school curriculum. But this is our memory and we can’t live without it! Maybe we should think about this?
I arrived in Krasnodon on the morning of May 8 to meet several good people there and discuss humanitarian matters. But the realities of Novorossiya made their own adjustments, namely, there was a global drop in communications. Neither local nor Russian numbers were called from approximately five in the evening on May 7th until noon on the 8th. At least it was at 5 pm on the 7th that I started calling alonso_kexano , but couldn't get through.
On the 8th I met Vera, who was coming from Moscow, in Krasnodon odinokiy_orc , which carried banners for the May 9th parade in Stakhanov and vitamins for the grandfather-veteran. We didn’t have time to agree on the exact meeting place, so I spent some time running circles around Krasnodon, trying to find some way to get through. However, we successfully met at the bus station. To connect with e_m_rogov , with whom it was also planned to meet and devirtualize, there was no possibility. So we went to the Young Guard Museum, and then walked to Mine No. 5, the same one where the Young Guards were executed.
Krasnodon is the first large settlement after the border. Now he is relatively in the rear. But all the same, war is war, and the comparative prosperity of Krasnodon does not mean at all that people there are not afraid of war or do not experience problems due to the lack of salaries and pensions. The museum staff works enthusiastically without receiving a salary. Our guide mentioned that she was afraid of air bombing; according to her, it was much worse than even artillery.
The impressive Red Banner flies over the city's central square.
It is huge, and, judging by the clearly visible seams, I believe it is self-sewn. In general, in Novorossiya before May 9 there were a considerable number of red banners. Apparently, when it is not possible to raise the Victory Banner, they simply hang out a red banner. However, as my friend Roman from Stakhanov said, “we miss you here without the red banners.” They symbolize not only Victory, but are also associated with the good times of the USSR for Donbass, when the region prospered and was part of a single power with the RSFSR.
Museum and surroundings 
In front of the Young Guard Museum we came across the house of Oleg Koshevoy 
Memorial plaque 
Busts of the Young Guards 
We walked along the alley with monuments to them and Fadeev, who wrote the novel 
And we went to the museum itself 
There I photographed an exhibition of children's drawings for May 9th 
Here is a whole allegory of the history of the Second World War being reshaped in a living way. 
And here the child drew more from the stories of his brother or father than from his grandfather or great-grandfather. What can you do, they also had to fight, defending their native land 
The inscription is in Ukrainian, as the children of the Russian Krasnodon were taught in schools in Ukraine, and this did not stop the local authorities from sending the drawing to the exhibition 
The museum itself, despite the war, is open. Although the collections were packed in case of need to evacuate.
Parents of Young Guards 
I was especially interested in the portrait of the Knight of St. George - the father of Ulyana Gromova 
Prehistory. The lands of the modern LPR are the Cossack region, the territory of the Don Army 
The first mines in Krasnodon, their life and the revolution of 1917 
Life in a mining town in the 30s. Stakhanov movement 
Childhood 
Komsomol tickets? 
School years of the future Young Guard 
School essay 
War 
Especially for tarkhil
photographed medical instruments 
Field radio 
Workers of Krasnodon who tried to sabotage work for Germany, and were brutally executed for this by punitive forces (they were buried alive in the ground), which some future Young Guards witnessed 
Camps and work in Germany, where residents of Krasnodon were taken 
Life during the occupation 
Young guard 
Oath. According to the guide, the Krasnodon militia slightly altered the text to suit modern realities, and pronounced it as an oath. 
Arson by the Young Guard of the Labor Exchange building, which saved many people from being deported to Germany 
Banners raised in Krasnodon on the anniversary of the Great October Revolution 
An amateur club where the Young Guards held their meetings 
Preserved surroundings and costumes 
Dress by Lyubov Shevtsova 
Suicide letters 
Arrest 
On the left is a photograph of a prison (or rather, not even an adequate prison, but a bathhouse adapted for it, not really heated, and in January, when the Young Guards were arrested, extremely uncomfortable)
Camera 
Interrogation room, or rather torture room 
The noose is presented because one of the tortures was to simulate hanging. A man was hanged, he began to choke, he was taken down, brought to his senses, asked to confess, and the procedure was repeated as a result of his refusal.
Lyuba Shevtsova, one of the last Young Guards was shot. They wanted to execute her with a bullet in the back of the head, but she didn’t want to kneel, so they shot her in the face 
Mine No. 5 is the place of execution of the main group. Personal items by which relatives identified the dead children
"B E S S M E R T I E"Alexander Fadeev September 15, 1943
“I, joining the ranks of the Young Guard, in the face of my friends in arms, in the face of my native, long-suffering land, in the face of all the people, solemnly swear: to unquestioningly carry out any task given to me by my senior comrade; to keep everything that concerns my work in the Young Guard!
I swear to take revenge mercilessly for the burned, devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of thirty heroic miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation.
If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades.
This oath of allegiance to the Motherland and the fight until the last breath for its liberation from the Nazi invaders was given by members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region. They gave it in the fall of 1942, standing opposite each other in a small mountain, when the piercing autumn wind howled over the enslaved and devastated land of Donbass. The small town lay hidden in the darkness, there were fascists in the miners' houses, only corrupt policemen and back-packers from the Gestapo on that dark night ransacked the citizens' apartments and committed atrocities in their dungeons.
The eldest of those who took the oath was nineteen years old, and the main organizer and inspirer Oleg Koshevoy was sixteen.
The open Donetsk steppe is harsh and inhospitable, especially in late autumn or winter, under the freezing wind, when the black earth freezes into clods. But this is our dear Soviet land, inhabited by a powerful and glorious coal tribe, giving energy, light and warmth to our great Motherland. During the civil war, its best sons, led by Klim Voroshilov and Alexander Parkhomenko, fought for the freedom of this land. It gave birth to the wonderful Stakhanov movement. The Soviet man penetrated deeply into the depths of the Donetsk land, and powerful factories grew across its inhospitable face - the pride of our technical thought, socialist cities flooded with light, our schools, clubs, theaters, where the great Soviet man flourished and revealed himself in all his spiritual power. And this land was trampled by the enemy. He walked through it like a tornado, like a plague, plunging cities into darkness, turning schools, hospitals, clubs, nurseries into barracks for soldiers, into stables, into Gestapo dungeons.
Fire, rope, bullet and ax - these terrible instruments of death became constant companions in the lives of Soviet people. The Soviet people were doomed to suffer unthinkable from the point of view of human reason and conscience. Suffice it to say that in the city park of Krasnodon, the Nazis buried thirty miners alive in the ground for refusing to appear for registration at the “labor exchange”. When the city was liberated by the Red Army and began to tear away the dead, they stood in the ground: first their heads were exposed, then their shoulders, torsos, and arms.
Innocent people were forced to leave their homes and hide. Families were destroyed. “I said goodbye to dad, and tears flowed from my eyes in streams,” says Valya Borts, a member of the Young Guard organization. “Some unknown voice seemed to whisper: “This is the last time you’ll see him.” He left, and I stood until he disappeared from sight. Today this man still had a family, a corner, a shelter, children, and now he, like a stray dog, must wander. And how many were tortured, shot! "
Young people who evaded registration by any means were seized by force and taken to slave labor in Germany. Truly heartbreaking scenes could be seen these days on the streets of the town. The rude shouts and curses of the police merged with the sobs of fathers and mothers, from whom their daughters and sons were forcibly torn away.
And with the terrible poison of lies spread by vile fascist newspapers and leaflets about the fall of Moscow and Leningrad, about the death of the Soviet system, the enemy sought to corrupt the soul of the Soviet people.
These were our youth - the same ones who are growing up, brought up in Soviet schools, pioneer detachments, and Komsomol organizations. The enemy sought to destroy in her the spirit of freedom, the joy of creativity and work instilled by the Soviet system. And in response to this, the young Soviet man proudly raised his head.
Free Soviet song! She became close to Soviet youth, it always rings in their souls.
“One time Volodya and I were going to Sverdlovka to see our grandfather. It was very warm. Airplanes were flying overhead. We were walking through the steppe. There was no one around. We sang: “The dark mounds are sleeping... A young guy went out into the Donetsk steppe.” Then Volodya says:
I know where our troops are.
He started telling me the summary. I rushed to Volodya and started hugging him."
These simple lines of the memoirs of Volodya Osmukhin’s sister cannot be read without excitement. The immediate leaders of the “Young Guard” were Oleg Vasilyevich Koshevoy, born in 1926, member of the Komsomol since 1940, Zemnukhov Ivan Aleksandrovich, born in 1923, member of the Komsomol since 1941. Soon the patriots attracted new members of the organization into their ranks - Ivan Turkenich, Stepan Safonov, Lyuba Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova, Anatoly Popov, Nikolai Sumsky, Volodya Osmukhin, Valya Borts and others. Oleg Koshevoy was elected commissioner. The headquarters approved Ivan Vasilyevich Turkenich, a member of the Komsomol since 1940, as commander.
And these youth, who did not know the old system and, naturally, did not undergo underground experience, for several months disrupted all the activities of the fascist enslavers and inspired the population of the city of Krasnodon and the surrounding villages - Izvarin, Pervomaika, Semeykin, to resist the enemy, where branches of the organization were created. The organization grows to seventy people, then has over a hundred - children of miners, peasants and office workers.
The "Young Guard" distributes leaflets in hundreds and thousands - at bazaars, in cinemas, in clubs. Leaflets are found on the police building, even in the pockets of police officers. The Young Guard installs four radios and informs the population daily about the Information Bureau's reports.
In underground conditions, new members are accepted into the ranks of the Komsomol, temporary certificates are issued, and membership fees are accepted. As Soviet troops approach, an armed uprising is being prepared and weapons are being obtained in a variety of ways.
At the same time, strike groups carry out acts of sabotage and terrorism.
On the night of November 7–8, Ivan Turkenich’s group hanged two policemen. Placards were left on the chests of the hanged: “Such a fate awaits every corrupt dog.”
On November 9, Anatoly Popov’s group on the Gundorovka-Gerasimovka road destroys a passenger car with three senior Nazi officers.
On November 15, Viktor Petrov’s group liberates 75 Red Army soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp in the village of Volchansk.
In early December, Moshkov’s group burned three cars with gasoline on the Krasnodon-Sverdlovsk road.
A few days after this operation, Tyulenin’s group carried out an armed attack on the Krasnodon-Rovenki road against the guards, who were driving 500 heads of cattle taken from the residents. Destroys the guards, scatters the cattle across the steppe.
Members of the “Young Guard”, who, on instructions from the headquarters, settled in occupation institutions and enterprises, are slowing down their work with skillful maneuvers. Sergei Levashov, working as a driver in a garage, disables three cars one after another. Yuri Vitsenovsky causes several accidents at the mine.
On the night of December 5-6, a brave trio of Young Guards - Lyuba Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin and Viktor Lukyanchenko - carry out a brilliant operation to set fire to the labor exchange. By destroying the labor exchange with all documents, the Young Guards saved several thousand Soviet people from being deported to Nazi Germany.
On the night of November 6-7, members of the organization hang red flags on the buildings of the school, the former regional consumer union, the hospital and on the tallest tree in the city park. “When I saw the flag at the school,” says M. A. Litvinova, a resident of the city of Krasnodon, “involuntary joy and pride overwhelmed me. I woke up the children and quickly ran across the road to Mukhina. I found her standing in her underwear on the windowsill, tears flowing in streams on her thin cheeks. She said: “Marya Alekseevna, this was done for us, Soviet people. We are remembered, we are not forgotten."
The organization was discovered by the police because it attracted too wide a range of young people into its ranks, including less resilient people. But during the terrible torture to which brutal enemies subjected the members of the Young Guard, the moral image of the young patriots was revealed with unprecedented force, an image of such spiritual beauty that it will inspire many, many more generations.
Oleg Koshevoy. Despite his youth, he is an excellent organizer. Dreaminess was combined in him with exceptional practicality and efficiency. He was the inspirer and initiator of a number of heroic events. Tall, broad-shouldered, he exuded strength and health, and more than once he himself took part in bold forays against the enemy. Having been arrested, he infuriated the Gestapo with his unwavering contempt for them. They burned him with a hot iron, pierced his body with needles, but his stamina and will did not leave him. After each interrogation, gray strands appeared in his hair. He went to execution completely gray-haired.
Ivan Zemnukhov is one of the most educated, well-read members of the Young Guard, the author of a number of wonderful leaflets. Outwardly awkward, but strong in spirit, he enjoyed universal love and authority. He was famous as an orator, loved poetry and wrote them himself (as, incidentally, Oleg Koshevoy and many other members of the Young Guard wrote them). Ivan Zemnukhov was subjected to the most brutal tortures and tortures in the dungeons. He was suspended in a loop through a special block from the ceiling, doused with water when he lost consciousness, and suspended again. They beat me three times a day with electric wire whips. The police persistently sought testimony from him, but achieved nothing. On January 15, he, along with other comrades, was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
Sergei Tyulenin. He is a small, agile, impetuous teenage boy, hot-tempered, with a perky character, courageous to the point of despair. He participated in many of the most desperate enterprises and personally destroyed many enemies. “He was a man of action,” his surviving comrades characterize him. “He didn’t like braggarts, talkers and slackers. He said: “You better do it, and let people talk about your deeds.”
Sergei Tyulenin was not only subjected to cruel torture, but his old mother was tortured in his presence. But like his comrades, Sergei Tyulenin was persistent to the end.
This is how Maria Andreevna Borts, a teacher from Krasnodon, characterizes the fourth member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova: “She was a tall girl, a slender brunette with curly hair and beautiful features. Her black, piercing eyes amazed with their seriousness and intelligence... She was a serious, intelligent, intelligent and developed girl. She did not get excited like others and did not pour curses on the torturers... “They think of maintaining their power through terror,” she said. - Foolish people! Is it possible to turn the wheel of history back..."
The girls asked her to read "The Demon". She said: “With pleasure! I love The Demon. What a wonderful work it is! Just think, he rebelled against God himself!” The cell became completely dark. She began to read in a pleasant, melodious voice... Suddenly the silence of the evening twilight was pierced by a wild scream. Gromova stopped reading and said: “It’s starting!” The moans and screams became more and more intense. There was deathly silence in the cell. This went on for several minutes. Gromova, turning to us, read in a firm voice:
Sons of the snows, sons of the Slavs.
Why did you lose courage?
For what? Your tyrant will perish,
How all tyrants died.
Ulyana Gromova was subjected to inhuman torture. They hung her up by her hair, cut a five-pointed star on her back, burned her body with a hot iron, sprinkled salt on her wounds, and sat her on a hot stove. But even before her death, she did not lose heart and, using the Young Guard code, tapped out encouraging words to her friends through the walls: “Guys! Don’t lose heart! Ours are coming. Be strong. The hour of liberation is near. Ours are coming. Ours are coming...”
Her friend Lyubov Shevtsova worked as an intelligence officer on instructions from the headquarters. She established contact with the Voroshilovgrad underground and visited this city several times every month, showing exceptional resourcefulness and courage. Dressed in her best dress, portraying a “hater” of Soviet power, the daughter of a major industrialist, she penetrated among enemy officers and stole important documents. Shevtsova was tortured the longest. Having achieved nothing, the city police sent her to the district gendarmerie office of Rovenek. There, needles were driven under her nails and a star was cut out on her back. A person of exceptional cheerfulness and fortitude, she, returning to her cell after torture, sang songs to spite the executioners. Once, during torture, hearing the noise of a Soviet plane, she suddenly laughed and said: “Our voice is heard.”
So, having kept their oath to the end, most of the members of the Young Guard organization died, only a few people remained alive. They walked to their execution with Vladimir Ilyich’s favorite song, “Tortured by Heavy Captivity.”
The “Young Guard” is not an isolated, exceptional phenomenon in the territory captured by the fascist occupiers. Everywhere and everywhere a proud Soviet man is fighting. And although the members of the militant organization “Young Guard” died in the struggle, they are immortal, because their spiritual traits are the traits of the new Soviet man, the traits of the people of the country of socialism.
Eternal memory and glory to the young Young Guards - the heroic sons of the immortal Soviet people!
IMMORTAL FEAT OF UNDERGROUND Komsomol Members
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" from 24.IX. 1943
ON JULY 20, 1942, the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, was occupied by Nazi troops. From the very first day of the occupation, the Nazi scoundrels began to introduce their “new order” in the city. With cold German cruelty and frenzy, they killed and tortured innocent Soviet people, drove young people away to hard labor, and carried out wholesale robberies.
The orders of the German command, which covered all the fences and walls of buildings, threatened the death penalty for the slightest disobedience. For evading registration - execution, for failure to appear at the labor exchange, which was in charge of sending slaves to Germany - a noose, for appearing on the street in the evening - execution on the spot. Life became an unbearable torture, the city seemed to have died out, as if a terrible pestilence had burst into its wide streets, into its bright houses.
In early August, the Germans began to commit even more atrocities. One day they drove the population into a city park and staged a public execution of 30 miners who refused to appear for registration. The occupiers buried the miners alive in the ground and watched with pleasure the death throes of the innocent victims.
These days, under the difficult conditions of occupation, an underground Komsomol organization arose in Krasnodon. The sons and daughters of the famous Donetsk miners, raised by the great Motherland, raised by the Bolshevik Party, rose up to fight to the death against the fierce enemy. The organizers and leaders of the underground cell were Komsomol members Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyuleniy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyuba Shevtsova, Ivan Turkenich. The oldest of them was barely 19 years old.
Young patriots, fearless fighters with selflessness devote themselves to the sacred struggle against the Germans, attracting new members of the organization into their ranks: Stepan Safonov, Anatoly Popov, Nikolai Sumsky, Volodya Osmukhin, Valeria Borts and many other brave and selfless young men and women.
At the beginning of September, the first meeting of young underground workers took place at Oleg Koshevoy’s apartment. At the suggestion of Sergei Tyulenin, they decided to call the organization “Young Guard”. At the meeting, a headquarters was created consisting of Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ivan Turkenich and Sergei Tyulenin (later the headquarters also included Lyubov Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova), which was entrusted with all management of the combat and political activities of the underground. The meeting unanimously elected Oleg Koshevoy as secretary of the Komsomol organization. He also became a commissar of the Young Guard.
The young underground fighters of Krasnodon set their goals and objectives:
Strengthen the people's confidence in the inevitable defeat of the Nazi invaders;
To raise young people and the entire population of the Krasnodon region to actively fight the German occupiers;
Provide yourself with weapons and at a convenient moment move on to open armed struggle.
After the first meeting, the Young Guards began to act even more energetically, even more persistently. They create a simple printing house, install radios, establish connections with young people, rousing them to fight against the German occupiers. In September, the underground organization already numbered 30 people in its ranks. The headquarters decides to divide all members of the organization into fives. The bravest and most determined comrades were placed at the head of the fives. To communicate with headquarters, each five had a liaison officer.
A little time passed, and the Young Guard established close contact with the youth of the surrounding villages - Izvarino, Pervomaika, Semeykino. On behalf of the headquarters, members of the organization Anatoly Popov, Nikolai Sumskoy, Ulyana Gromova create separate underground groups here and establish contacts with the villages of Gundorovka, Gerasimovka, Talovoe. Thus, the Young Guard extended its influence to the entire Krasnodon region. Despite the cruel, bloody terror of the Germans, the leaders and activists of the Young Guard created an extensive network of combat groups and cells, uniting over 100 young Soviet patriots.
Each member of the Young Guard took an oath of allegiance to the Motherland.
The surviving member of the Young Guard, Radiy Yurkin, recalls this solemn moment:
“In the evening we gathered at Victor’s apartment. Apart from him, there was no one at home - father and mother went to the village to get bread.
Oleg Koshevoy lined up everyone gathered and addressed us with a short speech. He spoke about the military traditions of Donbass, about the heroic exploits of the Donbass regiments led by Kliment Voroshilov and Alexander Parkhomenko, about the duty and honor of a Komsomol member. His words sounded quietly, but firmly, and touched the heart so much that everyone was ready to go through fire and water.
With mother’s milk we absorbed the love of freedom, fortunately, and the Germans will never bring us to our knees,” said Koshevoy. “We will fight like our fathers and grandfathers fought, until the last drop of blood, until the last breath.” We will endure torment and death, but we will fulfill our duty to the Fatherland with honor.
Then he called out one by one to take the oath. When Oleg said my last name, I was even more excited. I took two steps forward, turned to face my comrades and froze at attention. Koshevoy began to read the text of the oath in a low voice, but very clearly. I repeated after him.
Oleg came up to me, congratulated me on behalf of the headquarters on taking the oath and said:
From now on, your life, Radium, belongs to the Young Guard, its cause.”
In the merciless struggle against the German occupiers, the ranks of the Young Guard grew and strengthened. Each Young Guard member considered it an honor to join the Komsomol and carry near his heart a small book, printed in an underground printing house and replacing a Komsomol card during the Patriotic War. In their applications, the boys and girls wrote: “I ask to be accepted as members of the Komsomol. I will honestly carry out any tasks of the organization, and if necessary, I will give my life for the cause of the people, for the cause of the great party of Lenin - Stalin.”
These stingy and simple words, like a drop of water, reflect all the noble qualities of our youth.
From the first day of its existence, the Young Guard has been carrying out enormous political work among young people and the entire population, exposing false German propaganda, instilling confidence in the people in the victory of the Red Army, rousing them to fight the Germans, to disrupt and sabotage the activities of the fascist authorities.
The Young Guards, having installed radios, day after day inform the population of the city and region about all events at the front, in the Soviet rear, and abroad.
With the beginning of the offensive of Soviet troops in the Stalingrad area, the propaganda work of the Young Guard intensified even more. Almost every day leaflets appear on fences, houses, and pillars telling about the advance of Soviet troops, calling on the population to actively help our advancing regiments.
Over the course of 6 months, the Young Guard issued more than 30 leaflet titles in just one city, with a circulation of over 5,000 copies.
All members of the underground organization took part in distributing leaflets. At the same time, the Young Guards showed a lot of initiative, cunning and dexterity.
Oleg Koshevoy put on a police uniform at night and distributed leaflets among the population. Vasya Pirozhok managed to stick small posters on the backs of policemen on market days with short inscriptions: “Down with the German occupiers!”, “Death to corrupt skins!” Semyon Ostapenko pasted leaflets on the director’s car, on the police, gendarmerie and city government buildings.
Sergei Tyulenin "patronized" the cinema. He invariably appeared in the hall just before the start of the session. At that moment, when the mechanic turned off the lights in the hall, Sergei was scattering leaflets among the audience.
Fiery Bolshevik proclamations passed from house to house, from hand to hand. They were read to the gills, their contents became the property of the entire city that same day. Many of the leaflets went beyond Krasnodon to the Sverdlovsk, Rovenkovsky, and Novosvetlovsky districts.
The 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution was approaching. The “Young Guard” decided to adequately celebrate the national Soviet holiday and began to actively prepare for it. Members of the organization collected money and gifts for the families of commanders and soldiers of the Red Army, and prepared packages of food to be given to communist prisoners. The headquarters made a decision: to hang red flags in the city on the day of the holiday.
On the night of November 6–7, the Young Guards hoisted red banners at the school named after. Voroshilov, at the 1-bis mine, on the building of the former regional consumer union, on the hospital and on the highest tree in the city park. Slogans were posted everywhere: “Congratulations on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, comrades!”, “Death to the German occupiers!”
On a gloomy November morning, city residents saw red banners that were dear to their hearts on the tallest buildings. It seemed as if the clear sun had risen in the middle of the night - this picture was so majestic and exciting. People couldn’t believe their eyes and peered again and again at the banners fluttering in the wind.
The news about the flags was passed from mouth to mouth, from village to village, from village to village, raising the spirit of the population, inciting hatred of the German invaders.
Policemen, gendarmes, Gestapo detectives rushed through the streets like mad, but it was already too late. The banners could be torn down and hidden, but no force could kill the joyful excitement and pride that so inevitably flared up in the hearts of the Soviet people.
Comrade Stalin's report on the 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution and his order of November 7, 1942 inspired young underground fighters to new exploits and to intensify the struggle against the Nazis. Each Young Guard member vowed to inflict even more significant blows on the enemy, to fully carry out the historical order of the leader. Underground combat groups destroy staff vehicles with German officers, kill soldiers, traitors to the Motherland, police officers, commit acts of sabotage at enterprises, and steal weapons.
By the beginning of December, the Young Guards had at their disposal 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, 15,000 rounds of ammunition, 10 pistols, 65 kg of explosives, and several hundred meters of fuse.
Members of the Young Guard in every possible way disrupted the events that the Germans tried to hold. When the Nazis began intensive preparations for the export of grain to Germany, the headquarters made a bold decision - not to give the Germans grain. The Young Guards burn huge stacks of grain, and the already threshed grain is infested with mites.
A few days after this operation, Tyulenin’s group carried out an armed attack on the Krasnodon-Rovenki road against German guards who were driving 500 head of cattle taken from the residents. In a short battle, the young patriots destroyed the guards and drove the cattle into the steppe.
Members of the “Young Guard”, who, on instructions from the headquarters, settled in German institutions and enterprises, use skillful maneuvers to thwart their plans in every possible way. Sergei Levashov, working as a driver in a garage, disables 3 cars one after another; Yuri Vitsenovsky causes several accidents at the mine.
The organization carried out truly heroic work to disrupt the mobilization of youth in Germany.
On the night of December 5-6, 1942, a brave trio of Young Guards - Lyuba Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin and Viktor Lukyanchenko - carried out a difficult operation to set fire to the German labor exchange. By destroying the exchange with all the documents, the underground fighters saved several thousand Soviet people from being deported to German penal servitude. At the same time, the Young Guards freed 75 soldiers and commanders from the Volchansky prisoner of war camp and organized the escape of 20 prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital.
The Red Army stubbornly advanced towards Donbass. The "Young Guard" prepared day and night to realize their cherished dream - a decisive armed attack on the Krasnodon German garrison.
The commander of the Young Guard, Turkenich, developed a detailed plan for the capture of the city, deployed forces, collected intelligence materials, but a vile betrayal interrupted the combat activities of the glorious underground fighters.
As soon as the arrests began, the headquarters gave the order to all members of the Young Guard to leave and make their way to the Red Army units. But it was already too late. Only 7 Komsomol members managed to escape and stay alive - Ivan Turkenich, Georgy Arutyunyants, Valeria Borts, Radiy Yurkin, Olya Ivantsova, Nina Ivantsova and Mikhail Shishchenko. The remaining members of the Young Guard were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned.
Young underground fighters were subjected to terrible torture, but none of them backed down from their oath. The German executioners went berserk, beating and torturing the Young Guards for several hours in a row, and they remained silent, proudly and courageously enduring the torture. The Germans were unable to break the spirit and iron will of the young Soviet people and never achieved recognition.
The Gestapo beat Sergei Tyulenin several times a day with whips made of electrical wires, broke his fingers, and drove a hot ramrod into the wound. When this did not help, the executioners brought the mother, a 58-year-old woman. In front of Sergei, they stripped her and began to torture her.
The executioners demanded that he tell about his connections in Kamensk and Izvarin. Sergei was silent. Then the Gestapo, in the presence of his mother, hung Sergei in a noose from the ceiling three times, and then gouged out his eye with a hot needle.
The Young Guards knew that the time for execution was coming. And even in the last hour they remained strong in spirit, they were full of faith in our victory. A member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova, transmitted in Morse code to all cells:
The last order from headquarters... The last order... we will be taken to execution. We will be led through the city streets. We will sing Ilyich’s favorite song.
Young fighters were taken out of prison exhausted and mutilated. Ulyana Gromova walked with a star carved on her back, Shura Bondareva - with her breasts cut off. Volodya Oemukhin's right hand was cut off.
The Young Guards walked on their last journey with their heads held high. Their song sang solemnly and sadly:
Tortured by heavy bondage,
You died a glorious death,
In the fight for the workers' cause
You put your head down honestly...
The executioners threw underground Komsomol members alive into the pit of the mine.
In February 1943, our troops entered Krasnodon. A red flag hoisted over the city. And, watching him rinse in the wind, the residents again remembered the Young Guards. Hundreds of people headed to the prison building. They saw bloody clothes in the cells, traces of unheard-of torture. The walls were covered with inscriptions. On one of the walls, not painted, but almost carved, is a heart pierced by an arrow. There are four surnames in the heart: “Shura Bondareva, Nina Minaeva, Ulya Gromova, Angela Samoshina.” And above all the inscriptions, all over the bloody wall, as a testament to his contemporaries, they cried out the words of revenge: “Death to the German occupiers!”
This is how the glorious students of the Komsomol lived and fought for their fatherland. And they died like true heroes. Their death is immortality.
Years will pass. Our great country will heal the severe wounds inflicted by the Nazi cannibals, new, bright cities and villages will grow from the ashes and ruins. A new generation of people will grow up, but the names of the young, fearless underground fighters from the Donetsk city of Krasnodon will never be forgotten. Their immortal deeds will forever burn as a bright ruby in the crown of our glory. Their life, struggle and death will serve as an example for our youth of selfless service to the Motherland, the great cause of the Lenin-Stalin party.
YOUNG GUARDS OF UKRAINE
V. KOSTENKO Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine "Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated 14.IX. 1943
FOR OVER two years, the Ukrainian people have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with their Russian brother, together with the sons of all the peoples of the Soviet country, against the mortal enemy of our Motherland - the German occupiers. Every day of the struggle brings new news about the unparalleled heroism, courage and self-sacrifice of Ukrainian patriots, who vowed not to lay down their arms until the last Nazi was expelled from Soviet soil.
In the forefront of the fighting people are their pride and hope - the glorious youth of Ukraine. The sons and daughters of the Ukrainian people, carefully raised by the Soviet government and the Lenin-Stalin party, show examples of courage and fearlessness in the struggle for their homeland, for its honor and independence.
The feat of a group of young men and women in the small Donetsk city of Krasnodon, which the whole country now knows about, clearly reflects the high patriotic feelings of our youth, their nobility, courage, bravery, fiery love for the Motherland and burning hatred of the enemy.
On July 20, 1942, the German occupiers broke into the quiet green mining town of Krasnodon. Wild reprisals began against peaceful, innocent people. For failure to appear for registration, the Germans buried thirty miners alive in the city garden. People's faces darkened, life became unbearable. The population of Krasnodon, like the residents of all cities and villages occupied by the Germans, was doomed to death from hunger, disease, torture and abuse. With terrible terror, provocations and intimidation, the Germans tried here too to morally disarm people, break their will to resist, bring them to their knees, turn them into obedient slaves...
But could young people who grew up in the Soviet country come to terms with the slave fate prepared for them by the Germans?
The son of a worker, Oleg Koshevoy, perfectly answered this question in the simple lines of a poem written in the first days of the occupation of the city:
It's hard for me... Everywhere you look,
Everywhere I see Hitler's rubbish.
Everywhere the hated form is before me,
SS badge with a death's head.
I decided that it was impossible to live like this,
Look at the torment and suffer yourself.
We must hurry, before it’s too late,
Behind enemy lines - destroy the enemy!
I decided so, and I will fulfill it, -
I will give my whole life for my Motherland,
For our people, for our dear,
The beautiful Soviet country.
That's what Oleg decided. The son of an old Kyiv worker, who moved in 1940 with his whole family to the city of Krasnodon, could not do otherwise. Image. the Kyiv arsenals, the immortal example of the Don miners, who more than once defended their native Donbass from the enemy with arms in their hands, lived in the minds of the young man and was a guiding star for him.
Like Oleg Koshevoy, hundreds and thousands of young men and women from the Donetsk basin, the oldest working center in Ukraine, decided to take the path of fighting the German enslavers. “Better death in battle than life in captivity,” became their motto.
An ardent patriot, seventeen-year-old Komsomol member Oleg Koshevoy quickly found comrades-in-arms and military friends. Together with Vanya Zemnukhov and Sergei Tyulenin, he creates an underground Komsomol organization. They called it “Young Guard”. The organization grew quickly, absorbing the best that was available among the young miners.
Here were Ivan Turkenich - a favorite of the youth and already a battle-hardened warrior, respected by the entire city for his valor in work and success in science, Komsomol member Lyuba Shevtsova, Anatoly Popov, Stepan Safonov, Nikolai Sumskoy, Vladimir Osmukhin, Viktor Lukyanchenko, Ulyana Gromova, Valya Borts and a lot others. In the fight against the enemy, yesterday's teenagers became stern and determined warriors and excellent organizers. They were not content with creating an organization in the city itself; they put together similar groups in workers' settlements. They intensively collected weapons, ammunition, explosives, and studied military affairs.
At underground meetings, Young Guards take the oath:
"..."I swear to take revenge mercilessly for the burned, devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of thirty heroic miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation.
If I break this sacred oath, either under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades.
Blood for blood! Death for death!"
In every word of this oath, in every military deed of the young Krasnodon patriots, the glorious, revolutionary traditions of the Donetsk miners, who never bowed their heads to the enemy, were reflected.
Group of Young Guards - Vladimir. Osmukhin, Anatoly Orlov, Georgy: Arutyunyants - created an underground printing house. Soon the city learns from numerous leaflets the truth about the situation at the fronts and reads fiery calls to fight. Mysterious postmen deliver leaflets to all houses, paste them on fences, on telegraph poles, in the most crowded places. The Young Guards warn Soviet citizens about the danger that threatens them - about the widespread deportation of our people to Hitler's penal servitude, and give advice on how to avoid this danger. And their voice reached the masses. In Krasnodon, the Germans failed to “recruit” a single person to work for Germany, and forced mobilizations also failed one after another.
Menacing slogans appeared on the walls of houses: “Death to the German occupiers!” In the church, people received notes: “As we lived, so we will live, as we were, so we will be, under the Stalinist banner.” On the backs of Nazi policemen walking around the bazaar, people happily read short - five or six words - leaflets pasted by the hand of a young patriot.
It is not difficult to understand and appreciate the significance of this underground work in conditions of ferocious terror, shameless lies and slander with which German propagandists tried to poison the consciousness of the Soviet people.
On the day of the great holiday, the 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution, red banners were hoisted on the highest buildings of the city by the hands of the Young Guard.
Worker M.A. Litvinova says:
When I saw the flag on the school, joy and pride overwhelmed me. I woke up the children and quickly ran across the road to Mukhina K.A., she was sitting on the windowsill. Tears flowed in streams down her sunken cheeks. “Maria Alekseevna,” said my neighbor, “after all, this was done for us, Soviet people. They remember us, we are not forgotten!”
“We are not forgotten, we are remembered, we will be rescued, we will be rescued from German captivity!” - these are the thoughts and feelings that the brave activity of the Young Guards generated in the hearts of suffering people. It was a ray of light that cut through the darkness of the fascist night, foreshadowing the onset of a bright day of liberation.
The Young Guards celebrated the great date of the 25th anniversary of October with touching concern for the Soviet people. Families of workers, especially those who suffered at the hands of the German occupiers, received gifts on this day. The orphan children had bread on this day. It is easy to imagine what a great holiday it was in the hard, joyless life of the townspeople. The matter, of course, is not only in these modest gifts, not in that piece of bread, which still could not satisfy the hunger of the exhausted children - it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the life-giving force that these gifts from the Young Guard breathed into the souls of people.
The vigorous fighting life of the “Young Guard” was felt every day in the city and inspired Soviet citizens. The youth underground organization became a threat to the invaders, sowing in their ranks an animal fear of imminent retribution.
The city did not submit to the invaders, did not obey their orders. The city openly rejoiced upon learning of the victories of our troops at Stalingrad; the city was preparing to welcome the Red Army with open arms. The murders and mass executions committed by the Nazis did not frighten people, but only incited their rage, hatred and contempt for the enemy. Almost every night the black heart of the enemy was struck by a well-aimed bullet from an invisible avenger, warehouses flew into the air.
The Germans hunted for the Young Guard for a long time. Finally, the Gestapo bloodhounds managed to grab the thread into their own hands. Arrests and torture began. The torture was indescribable in its cruelty and savagery, and, despite this, the executioners were unable to break the young patriots or wrest words of recognition and repentance from them.
17-year-old Lyuba Shevtsova, a fragile blond girl, in a cell where Soviet people doomed to death were sitting, said:
Lyubka is not afraid to die. Lyubka, she will be able to die honestly,
In her dying hours, Ulya Gromova inspiredly read Lermontov’s “Demon”,
What a wonderful work,” she said, “Just think, he rebelled against the strongest!”
Shura Dubrovina and Lyuba Shevtsova managed to pass encouraging notes to their friends.
When the Red Army cleared the city of Krasnodon from the Nazi scoundrels, the miners recovered the corpses of young men and women from the pit of the destroyed mine. Relatives and friends had difficulty recognizing their dear, dear sons and daughters, who were brutally tortured by German monsters.
The memory of young heroes will forever live in our hearts. She will live as an undying symbol of love and devotion of Ukrainian youth to their native land, the great party of Lenin-Stalin, as a symbol of the all-conquering Stalinist friendship of peoples who vowed not to spare either their strength or life itself for the liberation of all their brothers and sisters from fascist captivity.
Now, when the Red Army is waging successful offensive battles, liberating its native Ukrainian land from captivity, the memory of the young heroes from Krasnodon, like a calling bell, will call the Red warriors forward. The noble images of young fighters will inspire the sons and daughters of Ukraine to new feats in battle, in the partisan rear, in work and study. Their example will show the way to the fastest liberation for hundreds and thousands of our brothers and sisters who are still languishing under Hitler’s yoke.
Glory to the Krasnodon heroes of the Young Guard, who immortalized their names and wrote a new page in the history of the liberation war of the Soviet people!
WORD OF THE HERO'S MOTHER
Speech by Elena Nikolaevna Kosheva at a meeting of young Stakhanovites in the Oktyabrsky district of Moscow on September 14, 1943.
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated 15.IX 1943
I am the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, whom the Germans brutally tortured and executed. I want to tell you about how he lived, studied and fought, how passionately he hated the Germans.
My Oleg was born in 1926 in the city of Priluki, Chernigov region. He was a strong, very active boy. He, like all boys, loved all kinds of playful games, loved to sing, play, and listen to fairy tales. When Oleg got older and went to school, he became interested in sports. He was good at skating and good at skiing. Just like now, he stands before my eyes, rosy-cheeked from the frost, covered in snow, cheerful and content. When Oleg returned from the cinema - and he went to the cinema with his grandmother - he loved to shower her with snow. The grandmother did not remain in debt to her grandson. And this friendship of people of such different ages was truly touching. I was also surprised by how Oleg, despite his age, knew how to find limits to his pranks.
Oleg was a favorite in the family, perhaps because he was our only son. But we did not spoil him, although we denied him little. Everyone in the family tried to instill in Oleg a noble sense of love for the Motherland, for the Bolshevik Party, which provided him with both a happy childhood and a happy future.
Oleg studied well and always helped his comrades sincerely and with pleasure. Oleg was a social activist at school, a newspaper editor, and the teachers treated him with respect.
Oleg loved his comrades very much. Always, when we had a New Year's tree, he invited those friends whose parents could not host a Christmas tree. He told me: “Mom, those who have the opportunity to organize a holiday will not be offended by me, but I must invite my comrades who have difficult conditions at home.”
A sense of duty was one of the strong qualities of his character. When Oleg’s father died in 1940 and financial difficulties arose in the family, Oleg told me: “That’s it, mom, I’m not little anymore, I can work and study, and it will be easier for you.” I was touched by this concern, but I did not allow Oleg to work. Then he began to do everything he could at home to ease my situation.
Oleg's love for books was boundless. He read every single book in Valya Borts's library, and some of them several times. He really wanted to learn to play the piano and even during the days of occupation he haunted Valya Borts, demanding that she study with him.
This is how my Oleg grew up. He dreamed of becoming a design engineer. And it seemed that nothing could stop this. But something terrible happened: on July 20, 1942, the Germans entered our city. The very next day they began to establish the so-called “new order”. They started with robberies, arrests, violence against girls and women. The Germans executed communists, Komsomol members, and indeed all Soviet people who were innocent of anything. In August 1942, German cannibals buried 58 men, women and children in a hole in the Krasnodon city park. They were tied by the hands in groups of 5, placed side by side, and so, in a standing position, they were covered with earth alive.
The communist Valko, his wife and infant child, the engineer Udavinsky and many others were buried here. The Nazis forcibly deported young people to Germany. Moaning and crying were heard in almost every house.
One day Oleg came home very upset. I tried to get him to have a frank conversation. But he was silent for a long time. It was strange. Before this, Oleg always shared all his thoughts and experiences with me. I realized that something big was happening in the boy’s soul, that literally before our eyes he was becoming more and more mature with every minute. At night, when my grandmother was already asleep, Oleg, apparently, could not stand it and told me that during the day the Germans had led away a group of captured Red Army soldiers. He told how hard it was for him to look at our Russian people, whom the Nazis mocked.
Do you see, mom, what the Germans are doing to our people? Can we endure it any longer? If we all sit like this with our hands folded, we will all be shackled in chains. We must fight, fight and fight!
He spoke warmly, passionately, as if he was speaking at some kind of rally, and I felt that some kind of big decision was born in Oleg’s mind.
From that time on, Oleg began to come home late, became thoughtful and less talkative. I watched my son very carefully, and, as a mother, I, of course, really wanted to know his thoughts, his thoughts. One day Oleg told me that he decided to fight the Germans, to fight with all his might and means. I was proud of my son, but it was very important for me to convince him that the path he was taking was a dangerous one, that the consequences could be the most unexpected and severe, and that whoever decided to fight must be ready for anything - accept death, if necessary, and accept it courageously, as befits a fighter. And then Oleg told me:
Mommy! If I have to die, I can die the death of a warrior. Whoever does not want to betray the Motherland must take revenge on the enemy, at any moment go to mortal combat and in the struggle win the right to a happy life.
It became clear to me that Oleg was ready to fight, that, despite his 16 years, he was mature enough to understand the complexity and responsibility of the task he had taken on. No matter how painful it was for me to realize that from now on my son’s life was in danger, I decided with all my might, by all means, to help him and, so to speak, to inspire him.
I soon learned that an underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” had been created in the city of Krasnodon. The organizers of this underground group were: Oleg, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Zemnukhov, Lyuba Shevtsova. Then they were joined by Valya Borts, Vanya Turkenich, Volodya Osmukhin and others. Oleg was elected secretary of the Komsomol committee and commissar of the Young Guard detachment. Vanya Turkenich became commander. Later I learned that Tolya Popov and Volodya Osmukhin managed to organize an underground printing house in which temporary Komsomol tickets and leaflets were printed. The Young Guard grew quickly. Soon there were already 100 people in the organization. Mostly these were very young guys and girls - students in grades 8-9-10. Each person joining the organization took a solemn oath of allegiance to serving their homeland.
And then in Krasnodon, events that were completely incomprehensible to the Germans began to happen: suddenly Sovinformburo reports appeared on the walls of houses, then leaflets, then various kinds of threats addressed to German commandants, the police, etc. Or suddenly at the market in the baskets of traders, on stalls and Even on the backs of the police, leaflets appeared, signed with three letters “Sh. M. G.”, which meant the headquarters of the “Young Guard”.
Oleg took out a radio somewhere. At great risk, this receiver was delivered to our home and installed in the kitchen under the floor. Now the Young Guards gathered in small groups to listen to Moscow, and the next day the whole city learned the truth about the Soviet Union, the truth about the situation at the front. Hundreds of leaflets issued by the Young Guards, like a life-giving ray of Stalinist truth, illuminated in the darkness of fascist oppression the path that Stalinist rule should follow. the youth. Young underground fighters exposed Hitler’s lies that the Red Army supposedly no longer existed, that the Germans had taken Stalingrad and Leningrad, that Moscow was already encircled and was about to fall one of these days.
The Young Guards grew in number and quality. Even recent schoolchildren today were already real underground fighters who had their own tactics, their own specific combat mission. Gradually, Oleg and his comrades transformed their organization from a purely propaganda organization into an organization of armed resistance to the Germans. Rifles and grenades obtained from the Germans began to arrive at the Young Guard's warehouse. From then on, the roads became unsafe for Hitler’s cars.
The German commandants became worried. They increased the police force. The Young Guards pursued the Germans day and night. It was they, the Young Guards, who spoiled telephone and telegraph communications. It was they who, when the Germans tried to take bread out of Krasnodon, burned 6 stacks of bread and 4 stacks of hay. It was the Young Guards who recaptured 500 head of cattle, which the Germans had prepared for shipment to Germany, and also killed the Romanian soldiers accompanying the cattle.
One day, the headquarters of the Young Guard learned that the Nazis were going to send several thousand young residents from Krasnodon to Germany. Based on inquiries, the Young Guards learned that a special case had been prepared for each candidate to be sent to the labor exchange. The headquarters developed a precise plan for setting the exchange on fire. One fine evening Krasnodon was illuminated by the glow of a fire. It was the labor exchange, which we called the nest of slavery, that was burning.
On November 7, flags suddenly began to glow over Krasnodon, on which was written: “Death to the German occupiers!” It was the work of the Young Guards.
It is very difficult to list all the deeds of the Young Guard. They did a lot, they would have done even more if not for the hand of a traitor.
On January 1, 1943, mass arrests of Young Guards began. It was very difficult to hide. Oleg left and did not come home for 11 days. I knew what awaited my son. The Germans gave the order that if Oleg Koshevoy or any other of the Young Guards were found with anyone, he would be executed along with them. On the eleventh night Oleg returned. We spoke very seriously and for a long time with Oleg, I will never forget his words:
Mom, even if they manage to catch me, they still won’t torture me for long. I will not say a word, I will accept all the torments, but I will not kneel before the executioners.
Oleg disappeared again.
The traitor betrayed Oleg. He was executed.
No, I cannot describe in words all the torture suffered by Oleg and his comrades. The executioners burned Komsomol ticket numbers on their bodies, drove needles under their nails, burned their heels with a hot iron, gouged out their eyes, hung them from the ceiling by their feet and held them until blood began to flow from their mouths. The Germans broke the Young Guard's arms and legs, broke their chests with the butts of machine guns, beat them with two whips, and dealt them a hundred blows at once. The walls of the prison were stained with the blood of the Young Guards; the executioners forced the young patriots to lick this blood with their tongues, and then threw them half-dead into the shaft of shaft No. 5.
But even with the most sophisticated torture, the Nazis were unable to find out anything. The Komsomol members stood bravely and steadfastly. Seryozha Tyulenin was pierced with a bayonet, and then a hot ramrod was shoved into the fresh wounds. Seryozha died without saying a word to the executioners.
Lyuba Shevtsova! Comrades, I cannot calmly pronounce the name of this brave Komsomol member. She endured all the torture, but did not mention a single name of her fellow fighters. She told the executioners:
No matter how much you torture me, you will not be able to learn anything from me.
With the pride of my mother, I pronounce the names of Vanya Zemnukhov, Zhenya Moshkov, Uli Gromova, Shura Dubrovina, Anatoly Popov, Zhenya Shepelev and many, many others: they died heroes. No amount of torture forced them to hand over their comrades. Tolya Popov, when asked by the police chief: “What did you do?”, answered:
I won’t say what we did, but it’s a pity that we didn’t do enough!
The chief of police asked my Oleg a question:
What made you join the partisans?
Love for the Motherland and hatred for enemies. You won't force us to live on our knees. We'd rather die standing. There are more of us and we will win!
Oleg behaved courageously and fearlessly in prison. The letters I received from him were cheerful, and, as always, he tried to convince me that nothing would happen to him. He calmed me down and even joked. He told the guys:
Don’t show that it’s hard for us to part with life. After all, these barbarians will not have mercy, but we are dying for a great cause - for the Motherland, and the Motherland will take revenge for us. Let's sing, guys!
Exhausted from torture, tormented, they sang, sang in spite of their tormentors, executioners.
Oleg was sent from the police to the gendarmerie. And there he did not lose courage. He loved life. He wanted to live. Together with two comrades, he prepared an escape. They broke the grate and fled, but were unsuccessful. The police caught them, and the heroes were executed in the basement of the hospital.
When I found the corpse of my dear son, he was mutilated beyond recognition.
Oleg was not even 17 years old at that time, but his hair turned gray from everything he experienced in the Gestapo. The executioners gouged out his eye, cut his cheek with a bayonet, and knocked out the entire back of his head with the butt of a machine gun.
My dear friends! My heart stops when I remember what the executioners did to my son and to dozens of similar young Krasnodon residents. May the Germans be damned! Let the specter of terrible executions hover over them. May they all suffer a terrible inevitable death!
Dear comrades! I, the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, make an appeal - do not spare your strength, help the front with honest and selfless work. Defend the freedom of your native country from the German barbarians, do not spare your strength and life in this struggle, just as my son Oleg and his comrades did not spare it. My son, just like you, loved life, loved, like you, to laugh and sing, but in difficult times, in difficult hours of testing, his heart did not tremble. He fearlessly rebelled against his enslavers and dedicated his young life to the great cause of liberating his native land.
Oleg told me many times that the brave die once, but cowards die many times.
I am speaking to you on behalf of all parents of members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard". I urge you: help the Red Army soldiers mercilessly destroy the Germans, destroy them like the very last reptiles. With the voice of a mother, I call on you to take merciless revenge on the Germans.
MY COMRADES
VALERIYA BORTS, member of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard".
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated 16.IX-1943
I would like to talk about my friends and comrades, members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard", with whom I worked during the days of the German occupation of the city of Krasnodon. Many, many years will pass, but with deep emotion I will remember the names of those who did not submit to the Germans, who went underground during the dark days of the occupation, who burned warehouses, blew up bridges, and did not give the Germans an hour of rest on our land. I am proud that my comrades - the leaders and organizers of the Young Guard - received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The government highly appreciated their services to the Motherland.
I would like to briefly talk about the comrades who died for the happiness of the people.
On the black day of July 20, 1942, the Germans entered Krasnodon. Residents of the city learned what the German “new order” was. In the first days, the occupiers buried fifty-eight people alive in the city park. All the pits of the quarries around our rock were filled with the corpses of innocent people. How could Soviet youth respond to these atrocities? We saw blood and the faces of people brutally executed by the Germans, distorted in death horror. We saw children, women; old people mutilated by the bayonets of German soldiers. Only those who saw this with their own eyes can understand how great our hatred of the Germans was. Hatred knows no words. We gritted our teeth, we went underground, organized our own detachment - a detachment of people's avengers and called it "Young Guard".
We decided from the very first days to act boldly and persistently. It couldn't be any other way. The leaders and organizers of the Young Guard were brave, strong-willed Komsomol members, stubbornly pursuing their goal.
One day, a group of prisoners of war were being led along the street - ragged, hungry. Residents brought them bread, but the guards threw the bread into the mud. One Romanian hit a prisoner in the face because he wanted to pick up potatoes. We were nearby at the time. Leonid Dadyshev grabbed a stone and threw it at the Romanian. The soldier ran after him. At this time, Sergei Tyulenin, Oleg Koshevoy and I took away three prisoners.
I remember my fallen comrades and their courageous, strong images rise before me. Here is Ulyana Gromova - a slender, beautiful girl. She completed her tenth year and studied well. The German came and everything went to pieces. Let alone study, it is impossible to live under the Germans. Ulyana often said: “It’s better to die than to be a slave. If I get caught by the Germans, I won’t say a word to them.” And she died like a heroine, torture did not break her, she did not betray her comrades who were still free then with a single word. It used to be that in difficult moments Ulyana would smile warmly and joyfully, and all the hard things would go far away, and strength and energy would appear again. We loved her, took care of her, and each of us always found sympathy with her. Even in prison she did not change, she was just as cheerful, cheerful and thus supported everyone who was sitting in the cell with her.
Lyuba Shevtsova. A cheerful girl with blue eyes, lively, perky, tireless. If she received a task from headquarters, she took it on with ardor. She infected us all with her courage and audacity.
In prison, after torture that only the Germans are capable of, Lyuba told her comrades: “I don’t care about dying, and I want to die honestly and nobly.” Lyuba died a hero... Just the thought that Lyuba is no more makes you feel like an orphan.
Sergei Tyulenin, a 17-year-old boy with an open face and stubborn features, was known in the organization as a glorious and fighting comrade. He was a very persistent man; he always got what he wanted. A strong character cannot be bent. And they didn’t bend him. The executioners used hot irons to break his hands and gouge out his eye, but Sergei Tyulenin did not say a word.
Combat Chief of Staff! How good and warm it was with him, how he rejoiced at his luck, how he straightened up when danger approached! Brave and adventurous, he was our favorite. His martyrdom in the hearts of the surviving Young Guards will always be a call for revenge.
I knew Oleg Koshevoy even before the war. He was very inquisitive, interested in everything and loved music. True, our lessons were progressing poorly, but this, perhaps, rather depended on the teacher. I had a large library at home. Oleg, as we jokingly said, swallowed it whole. He took several books at once, and returned them three or four days later.
Oleg looked about 20 years old; he looked physically strong and healthy. In fact, he was not even 17 years old. His most characteristic features were determination, enterprise, and perseverance. We already knew: Oleg said it means it will be done. He was a wonderful comrade - sensitive, reliable. Oleg wrote poetry, had a kind, good heart; but when it came to the Germans, he was angry and merciless. Before his death, Oleg said: “We did not live on our knees, and we will die standing.” I will never forget these words from him. Oleg was our conscience.
Vanya Zemnukhov enjoyed great love in our organization. So it seems that a slightly stooped young man with bright and intelligent eyes will now enter the room and start speaking, and he will speak well and intelligently. And every time we looked at him, we felt like teenagers; I wanted to work hard to earn the right to be friends with him. We were amazed at Vanya Zemnukhov’s calmness in moments of danger, as if it didn’t concern him, as if he had nothing to do with it. But this was not simple carelessness or apathy. No, in this calmness we saw strength, the ability to courageously face difficulty, meet it halfway and win. This is how we knew him in the days of our struggle, and this is how he remained until the last second of his life.
I remember Alexandra Bondareva well, a girl of average height, with dark eyes, lively and regular facial features. Sasha sang and danced very well. At first glance it seemed that she was just a cheerful girl, but it only seemed so. She never refused dangerous assignments and knew how to go on risky business with a joke. She openly and proudly accepted death at the hands of the executioner.
In the name of the freedom of the Motherland, my friends fought, sparing neither strength nor life. In the name of liberating the Motherland, the surviving Young Guards continue to fight in the ranks of the Red Army.
I appeal to the officers and soldiers of the Red Army as a member of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard": take revenge, comrades, for the death of those who died but remained faithful to their Motherland. The blood of my tortured comrades calls for revenge. Take revenge! This is me saying, a simple Soviet girl who saw with her own eyes what the “new order” of the Germans was.
* * *
Organizers of the Krasnodon Komsomol underground
Victor Tretyakevich
Oleg Koshevoy
Ivan Zemnukhov
Ulyana Gromova
Sergey Tyulenin
Lyubov Shevtsova
Ivan Turkenich
Vasily Levashov
Members of the Young Guard
Lidia Androsova
Georgy Harutyunyants
Vasily Bondarev
Alexandra Bondareva
Vasily Prokofievich Borisov
Vasily Mefodievich Borisov
Valeria Borts
Yuri Vitsenovsky
Nina Gerasimova
Boris Glavan
Mikhail Grigoriev
Vasily Gukov
Leonid Dadyshev
Alexandra Dubrovina
Antonina Dyachenko
Antonina Eliseenko
Vladimir Zhdanov
Nikolay Zhukov
Vladimir Zagoruiko
Antonina Ivanikhina
Liliya Ivanikhina
Nina Ivantsova
Olga Ivantsova
Nina Kezikova
Evgenia Kiikova
Anatoly Kovalev
Klavdiya Kovaleva
Vladimir Kulikov
Sergey Levashov
Anatoly Lopukhov
Gennady Lukashov
Vladimir Lukyanchenko
Antonina Mashchenko
Nina Minaeva
Nikolay Mironov
Evgeniy Moshkov
Anatoly Nikolaev
Dmitry Ogurtsov
Anatoly Orlov
Semyon Ostapenko
Vladimir Osmukhin
Pavel Palaguta
Maya Peglivanova
Nadezhda Petlya
Nadezhda Petrachkova
Victor Petrov
Vasily Pirozhok
Yuri Polyansky
Anatoly Popov
Vladimir Rogozin
Ilya Savenkov
Angelina Samoshina
Stepan Safonov
Anna Sopova
Nina Startseva
Victor Subbotin
Nikolay Sumskoy
Vasily Tkachev
Demyan Fomin
Evgeny Shepelev
Alexander Shishchenko
Mikhail Shishchenko
Georgy Shcherbakov
Nadezhda Shcherbakova
Radiy Yurkin
Adult underground fighters of Krasnodon
Philip Petrovich Lyutikov
Nikolai Petrovich Barakov
Andrey Andreevich Valko
Gerasim Tikhonovich Vinokurov
Daniil Sergeevich Vystavkin
Maria Georgievna Dymchenko
Nikolai Nikolaevich Rumyantsev
Nikolay Grigorievich Taluev
Tikhon Nikolaevich Sarancha
Nalina Georgievna Sokolova
Georgy Matveevich Solovyov
Stepan Grigorievich Yakovlev
* * *
DECREE
ON THE AWARD OF THE TITLE OF HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION TO THE ORGANIZERS AND LEADERS OF THE UNDERGROUND KOMSOMOL ORGANIZATION "YOUNG GUARDS"
For outstanding services in the organization and leadership of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" and for the manifestation of personal courage and heroism in the fight against the German invaders, be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal:
Gromova Ulyana Matveevna.
Zemnukhov Ivan Alexandrovich.
Koshevoy Oleg Vasilievich.
Tyulenin Sergei Gavriilovich.
Shevtsova Lyubov Grigorievna.
Chairman of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. KALININ.
Secretary of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. GORKIN.
Moscow, Kremlin. September 13, 1943
UKA3
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
ON AWARDING ORDERS OF MEMBERS OF THE UNDERGROUND KOMSOMOL ORGANIZATION "YOUNG GUARDS"
For valor and courage shown in the fight against German invaders behind enemy lines, award:
ORDER OF THE RED BANNER
1. Popov Anatoly Vladimirovich.
2. Sumsky Nikolai Stepanovich.
3. Turkenich Ivan Vasilievich.
ORDER OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR, FIRST DEGREE
1. Androsova Lydia Makarovna.
2. Bondarev Vasily Ivanovich.
3. Bondareva Alexandra Ivanovna.
4. Nina Nikolaevna Gerasimova.
5. Glovan Boris Grigorievich.
6. Dadyshev Leonid Alekseevich.
7. Dubrovina Alexandra Emelyanovna.
8. Eliseenko Antonina Zakharovna.
9. Zhdanov Vladimir Alexandrovich.
10. Ivanikhin Antonina Aleksandrovna.
11. Ivanikhin Liliya Alexandrovna.
12. Kiykova Evgenia Ivanovna.
13. Kulikov Vladimir Tikhonovich.
14. Levashov Sergei Mikhailovich.
16. Lukashev Gennady Alexandrovich.
16. Lukyanchenko Viktor Dmitrievich.
17. Mashchenko Antonina Mikhailovna.
18. Minaeva Nina Petrovna.
19. Moshkova Evgeniy Yakovlevich.
20. Nikolaev Anatoly Georgievich.
21. Orlov Anatoly Alexandrovich.
22. Ostapenko Semyon Markovich.
23. Osmukhin Vladimir Andreevich.
24. Peglivanova Maya Konstantinovna.
25. Loop Nadezhda Stepanovna.
26. Petrov Viktor Vladimirovich.
27. Pie by Vasily Markovich.
28. Rogozin Vladimir Pavlovich.
29. Samoshina Angelina Tikhonovna.
30. Safonov Stepan Stepanovich.
31. Sopova Anna Dmitrievna.
32. Startseva Nina Illarionovna.
33. Fomina Demyan Yakovlevich.
34. Shishchenko Alexander Tarasovich.
35. Shcherbakov Georgy Kuzmich.
ORDER OF THE RED STAR
1. Arutyunyants Georgy Minaevich.
2. Wrestler Valeria Davydovna.
3. Ivantsova Nina Mikhailovna.
4. Ivantsova Olga Ivanovna.
5. Mikhail Tarasovich Shishchenko.
6. Yurkina Radiy Petrovich.
Chairman of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. KALININ
Secretary of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. GORKIN
DECREE
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
ABOUT THE AWARDING OF ELENA NIKOLAEVNA KOSHEVA WITH THE ORDER OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR, SECOND DEGREE
For active assistance provided to the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" in the fight against the German invaders, award Elena Nikolaevna Kosheva with the Order of the Patriotic War, second degree.
Chairman of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. KALININ.
Secretary of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. GORKIN.
Moscow Kremlin. September 13, 1943
It’s not customary to talk about the Young Guard these days. And even more so trying to understand the events that happened in Krasnodon. Nowadays we often hear the following exclamations: “The Young Guard didn’t do anything, just think they burned down the labor exchange, so what? The guys died in vain, and Soviet propaganda made a hero out of it.” At this point the topic is closed as unworthy of any attention. But it’s still worth thinking about. For example, why in Krasnodon did the adult underground, seemingly more experienced, fail almost immediately, while the Young Guard operated successfully? Why out of 6,000 young people in Krasnodon only 93 people joined the organization? Why did Seryozhka Tyulenin, at such an early age, already understand things that many people are beyond their stature even in old age?
Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.
On January 31, 1943, after severe torture, Anya was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.
Nowadays “Young Guard” is on TVC. I remember how we loved this picture as children! 
dreamed of being like the brave Krasnodon residents... vowed to avenge their death.
What can I say, the tragic and beautiful story of the Young Guards shocked the whole world, and not just the fragile minds of children.
The film became the box office leader in 1948, and the leading actors, unknown VGIK students, immediately received the title of Stalin Prize Laureate - an exceptional case. “Woke up famous” is about them.
Ivanov, Mordyukova, Makarova, Gurzo, Shagalova - letters from all over the world came to them in bags.
Gerasimov, of course, felt sorry for the audience. Fadeev - readers.
Neither paper nor film could convey what really happened that winter in Krasnodon.
There is an amazing website where caring people collected miraculously preserved unique photographs and documents.
Come in and take a look. Read it.
“Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, a five-pointed star is carved on her back, her right arm is broken, her ribs are broken” (KGB Archives of the USSR Council of Ministers).
“Lida Androsova, 18 years old, was taken out without an eye, ear, hand, with a rope around her neck, which was strongly cut into her body. Baked blood is visible on her neck” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 16).
Anya Sopova, 18 years old
“They beat her, hung her by her braids... They lifted Anya out of the pit with one braid - the other broke off.”
“Shura Bondareva, 20 years old, was taken out without her head and right breast, her whole body was beaten, bruised, and black in color.”
Lyuba Shevtsova, 18 years old (pictured first on the left in the second row)
On February 9, 1943, after a month of torture, she was shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city along with Oleg Koshev, S. Ostapenko, D. Ogurtsov and V. Subbotin.
Angelina Samoshina, 18 years old.
“Traces of torture were found on Angelina’s body: her arms were twisted, her ears were cut off, a star was carved on her cheek” (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331)
Shura Dubrovina, 23 years old
“Two images appear before my eyes: the cheerful young Komsomol member Shura Dubrovina and the mutilated body raised from the mine. I saw her corpse only with the lower jaw. Her friend Maya Peglivanova was lying in a coffin without eyes, without lips, with her arms twisted... "
Maya Peglivanova, 17 years old
"Maya's corpse was disfigured: her breasts were cut off, her legs were broken. All outer clothing was removed." (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331) She was lying in the coffin without lips, with her arms twisted.”
“Tonya Ivanikhina, 19 years old, was taken out without eyes, her head was bandaged with a scarf and wire, her breasts were cut out.”
Seryozha Tyulenin, 17 years old (in the photo - in a hat)
“On January 27, 1943, Sergei was arrested. Soon his father and mother were taken away, all his belongings were confiscated. The police severely tortured Sergei in the presence of his mother, they confronted him with a member of the Young Guard, Viktor Lukyancheiko, but they did not recognize each other.
On January 31, Sergei was tortured for the last time, and then, half-dead, he and other comrades were taken to the pit of mine No. 5..."
Funeral of Sergei Tyulenin
Nina Minaeva, 18 years old
“...My sister was recognized by her woolen gaiters - the only clothes that remained on her. Nina’s arms were broken, one eye was knocked out, there were shapeless wounds on her chest, her whole body was covered in black stripes...”
Tosya Eliseenko, 22 years old
“Tosia’s corpse was disfigured, tortured, and she was put on a hot stove.”
Victor Tretyaknvich, 18 years old
"...Among the last, they raised Viktor Tretyakevich. His father, Joseph Kuzmich, in a thin patched coat, stood day after day, clutching a pole, not taking his eyes off the pit. And when they recognized his son, he was faceless, with a black face. blue back, with shattered arms - he fell to the ground, as if knocked down. No traces of bullets were found on Victor's body - which means they threw him out alive..."
Oleg Koshevoy, 16 years old
When arrests began in January 1943, he attempted to cross the front line. However, he is forced to return to the city. Near the railway Kortushino station was captured by the Nazis and sent first to the police and then to the district Gestapo office in Rovenki. After terrible torture, together with L.G. Shevtsova, S.M. Ostapenko, D.U. Ogurtsov and V.F. Subbotin, on February 9, 1943, he was shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city.
Oleg Koshevoy
Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya, Oleg’s mother
Boris Glavan, 22 years old
“He was pulled out of the pit, tied up with Evgeniy Shepelev with barbed wire face to face, his hands were cut off. His face was mutilated, his stomach was ripped open.”
Evgeny Shepelev, 19 years old
"...Evgeniy's hands were cut off, his stomach was torn out, his head was broken...." (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331)
“Volodya Zhdanov, 17 years old, was taken out with a laceration in the left temporal region, his fingers were broken and twisted, there were bruises under his nails, two strips three centimeters wide, twenty-five centimeters long were cut out on his back, his eyes were gouged out and his ears were cut off” (Young Guard Museum) , f. 1, d. 36)
“Klava Kovaleva, 17 years old, was taken out swollen, her right breast was cut off, her feet were burned, her left hand was cut off, her head was tied with a scarf, traces of beatings were visible on her body. Found ten meters from the trunk, between trolleys, she was probably thrown alive” (Museum "Young Guard", f. 1, d. 10)
Evgeniy Moshkov, 22 years old (pictured left)
"... Young Guard communist Yevgeny Moshkov, choosing the right moment during interrogation, hit the policeman. Then the fascist animals hung Moshkov by his legs and kept him in that position until blood gushed from his nose and throat. They took him down and "They began to interrogate again. But Moshkov only spat in the executioner's face. The enraged investigator who was torturing Moshkov hit him with a backhand blow. Exhausted by the torture, the communist hero fell, hitting the back of his head on the door frame and died."
Volodya Osmukhin, 18 years old
“When I saw Vovochka, mutilated, almost headless, without his left arm up to the elbow, I thought I was going crazy. I didn’t believe it was him. He was wearing only one sock, and the other leg was completely bare. Instead of a belt, he was wearing a scarf warm. There is no outer clothing. Hungry animals took them off. The head is broken. The back of the head has completely fallen out, only the face remains, on which only Volodin’s teeth remain. Everything else is disfigured. The lips are distorted, the nose is almost completely gone. My grandmother and I washed Vovochka, dressed her, decorated her with flowers "A wreath was nailed to the coffin. Let the road lie peacefully."
Parents of Ulyana Gromova
Uli's last letter
Funeral of the Young Guards, 1943