Entrance80 years of battle under the Kruts. The truth and myths of heroes are cool (photo)
In mid-January 1918, in the building of the Pedagogical Museum, where the Central Rada met and the newly created Ukrainian People's University began to work, a meeting of students was held, “at which the question of the present situation in Ukraine was discussed. The assembled students, numbering over 2000 souls, admitted that "The offensive of the Bolsheviks put the Ukrainian People's Republic in a difficult situation. In view of this, the students recognized it as necessary that all students of the Ukrainian People's University, without exception, volunteer to join the Sichev Riflemen kuren within the next three days," wrote the newspaper "Kievlyanin" on January 19, 1918.
However, students were in no hurry to join the “student kuren”. In the few days following the meeting, only about a hundred people were included in the lists. Mostly front-line trench soldiers who entered universities without passing exams by special decree of the head of the CR, Mikhail Grushevsky. Their average age was about 20 years.
The “student hundred” created on their basis can hardly be called cannon fodder. Quite a combat-ready military unit. The youngest were the gymnasium students of the 2nd Ukrainian Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium. These are really 16-year-old boys whom Goncharenko tried to place in the safest part of the battle. However, this did not save them from a tragic fate.
2. Why were the Kruty chosen as the location for the battle?
From hopelessness. First, Averky Goncharenko's units arrived in Bakhmach, a major railway junction, 220 kilometers northeast of Kyiv. They were received with open hostility.
A month ago, in December 1917, the first armed conflict between the Bolsheviks and the UPR troops took place here. Then the units controlled by Kiev did not allow several regiments of Berzin and Vatsetis to pass, moving south with a plan to hit the White Cossacks of the Don in the rear. The first shots were fired and the first blood was shed.
The residents of Bakhmach did not want history to repeat itself. In addition, railway workers played a decisive role in the city, among whom the ideas of Bolshevism were very popular.
Goncharenko decided to return. It was decided to deploy positions in the Nezhin area, 150 kilometers from Kyiv. But even here they were disappointed.
The Ukrainianized regiment of Taras Shevchenko was based in Nizhyn. They also chose whether to support the Central Rada or go over to the side of the Reds (which they eventually did). Goncharenko’s support was harshly refused, and he again had to change his place; he turned to the village of Kruty, already 130 kilometers from the capital (18 km east of Nizhyn).
As a result, the chosen positions turned out to be far from ideal for defense. The flat field and steppe provided the enemy with ideal opportunities for maneuver, which Muravyov would eventually take advantage of.
3. What was decided strategically on the battlefield?
The Central Rada showed that it also has combat-ready units. Strategically, the battle near Kruty did not solve anything, and could not solve anything. Kyiv was already surrounded.
“The Bolsheviks are in the hands of all the railway lines leading to Kyiv from the east, north and west. This situation has been achieved by them since the capture of the stations Pyatikhatka, Verkhovtsevo, Koristovka, Gomel, Kalinkovichi and Luninets. this moment The Bolsheviks are seeking to take possession of the Sarny, Korosten, Bakhmach and Znamenka stations, after which Ukraine will be completely cut off from the rest of the state,” the Kievlyanin newspaper wrote on January 22, 1918.
It is believed that the “krutyans” stopped the advance of Muravyov’s troops for four days, and thereby contributed to the safe evacuation of the state structures of the Central Rada from Kyiv to Zhitomir (from where, by the way, they were “asked” to leave by the local city council, then there were Sarny and Korosten).
I think this is an exaggeration. Indeed, the very next day after the battle near Kruty, the Bolsheviks, not daring to launch a direct attack, began to shell Kyiv with artillery from Darnitsa. It was senseless and merciless, as much was done in those years. That is, even if Goncharenko’s warriors had been able to stop the Ants, it would have been just an illogical episode of that war.
4. How many students actually participated in the battle?
300 students killed on the battlefield is a myth. In total, the day before, 119 fighters of the student kuren of the Sichev Riflemen landed, consisting of front-line students enrolled in universities without exams on the personal instructions of Mikhail Grushevsky, and students of two senior classes of the 2nd Ukrainian Gymnasium named after. Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood.
The unit was commanded by centurion Alexander Omelchenko, a student at the Ukrainian People's University. At one time, in 1913, he founded the Ukrainian student community, volunteered for the front and rose to the rank of staff captain. Omelchenko was wounded at the very beginning of the battle and died while being transported to Kyiv.
Besides him, in the hundred there was also a deputy of the Central Rada, 24-year-old Vladimir Shulgin (the younger brother of the first Minister of Foreign Affairs of the UPR, Alexander Shulgin). It was he who at that time headed the Ukrainian student community of Kyiv.
Among the three recognizable faces of the kuren there was one more person - the younger brother of defense commander Averky Goncharenko, a third-year medical student.
All three died. And this was the flower of the students of that time, perhaps that is also why such close attention was focused on the battle of Kruty.
5. Why is there such a difference in the number of victims?
Exaggerating the number of deaths in the battle near Kruty, oddly enough, was beneficial to everyone. Bolshevik Muravyov because he lost about 300 soldiers killed. Stupidity in general.
The Reds, having landed at the station, lined up in columns in the usual field order, not even in a chain, and moved towards the Ukrainian troops. The meeting with machine gun fire was unexpected for them. This has never happened before. How to explain such losses to Peter?
According to Muravyov’s report, it turned out that he won the real battle, defeating the advanced units of the CR led by Petlyura himself (who was not even close here).
Averky Goncharenko’s report also contained inflated data; he reported 280 dead cadets and students (half of his detachment!). It is possible that Goncharenko did this on purpose - dismissing his subordinates and ordering them to return to Kyiv on their own. It was unsafe to return as an organized detachment; you could meet a larger unit sympathizing with the Bolsheviks.
In fact, 11 people died in the battle, 33 people were captured, six wounded were sent to Kharkov and subsequently released, the Bolsheviks shot 27 people - the guys who took the first battle of the Ukrainian People's Republic.
By the way
Two captains
The opposing sides were commanded by two captains of the Russian imperial army- Averky Goncharenko (“UNR”) and Mikhail Muravyov (“Red Guard”) are both officers of the Russian Imperial Army (Muravyov was promoted to lieutenant colonel already under the Provisional Government). The first is more of a prudent tactician, the second is a cruel adventurer.
Goncharenko in the future will become one of the commanders of the SS division "Galicia" and will live to a ripe old age, dying in 1980 in the USA.
After the battle near Krutami, Muravyov will burst into Kyiv, shoot there several thousand officers, generals, and simply “bourgeois” who came to hand, and within six months he will die himself. This will happen in Simbirsk, during an attempt to arrest him by a special detachment of the Cheka.
However, according to one version, no one was going to detain him. Latvian riflemen were sent specifically to kill the obstinate and unpredictable commander. The words of Felix Dzerzhinsky after Muravyov’s campaign in Ukraine sounded like a sentence: “The worst enemy could not have brought us as much harm as he (Muravyov) brought with his nightmarish reprisals, executions, and giving soldiers the right to plunder cities and villages.” It seems that the senseless massacre near Kruty was also meant.
This skirmish is described here quite impartially http://fraza.kiev.ua/zametki/21.12.06/32124.html 78.85.213.202 22:10, February 3, 2009 (UTC) bear
Added short description canonical Ukrainian version. To some, terms like “Muscovite-Bolshevik hordes” may seem non-neutral, but modern Ukrainian history operates with precisely such terms. This version may be senile (like the entire 140,000-year-old Ukrainian “history”), but the reader has the right to know it too. For balance, I added criticism of this version.
By the way, “3 Modern Assessment” and “4 Contemporary Assessments” are essentially correct, but both of these sections look strange side by side :) Can you rephrase this? --78.85.128.167 13:40, February 6, 2009 (UTC)bear
You meant the canonical-diaspora version - yes there. Since 2005, the Institute of National Memory has been working on the topic “forming a fair, centuries-old history for the united Ukrainian nation” - and this is not quite history - this is “ideology” --Jo0doe 15:14, February 6, 2009 (UTC) A political scientist is not a historian, journalists are not AI either , you need to find something AI on this issue or delete Jo0doe 15:17, February 6, 2009 (UTC) Vajra is quite well versed in history, he has a lot of articles on the history of Ukraine. The official version is compiled both according to articles and links from the Ukrainian version of the article. Here, for example, is the “Handbook of the History of Ukraine” http://history.franko.lviv.ua/IIk_6.htm Almost a complete set of insanity. There are bayonet attacks, “singing of the anthem”, and German “liberators”. To be honest, I don’t understand what AI can be from the insanity that is now being passed off as history in Ukraine. Every time faced with modern Ukrainian history, you are faced with deliberate falsification. Here is another link from the Ukrainian version of the article www.kruty.org.ua/2008-10-05-22-43-33/145-2008-11-01-22-31-38.html In general, there is no history in Ukraine now - only ideology. 78.85.128.167 16:17, February 6, 2009 (UTC)bear This is not " official version" - this is the version of franko.lviv.ua - who else would not sing the anthem if not a Galician - in Ukrainian there is no concept of “of-history” - so you need to correct the type to version popular in publications of the North American Ukrainian diaspora(links to Subtelny, Magochi, “their” “History of Ukraine”) since 2005 has become widespread in official .... Jo0doe 16:46, February 6, 2009 (UTC) Edit. “The version of the diaspora, after the Orange Revolution, received the status of official history.” Something like this. 78.85.128.167 16:52, February 6, 2009 (UTC) bear why on earth is the authority of an AI determined by the country of publication? Why are periodicals cited as AI in the description of the course of events? Give at least a few versions, and not great-power chauvinistic propaganda. and these people also criticize their opponents for their non-subjective views. what did it say about the log and the straw? 89.209.10.50 09:38, March 13, 2010 (UTC)
A number of proposals [edit code]
And I have a number of proposals - 1) rename the Skirmish near Kruty (based on the size of the event) 2) give a broader description 3) And when this “army” of Muravyov was “Bolshevik” - it seems he himself was not one Jo0doe 19:56 , February 5, 2009 (UTC)
It’s probably worth going to the library to get a newspaper from that time - where the history will be more interesting - where there was no battle - and the students ended up with anarchist sailors in a snowstorm, that the heroic Petliura, along with an equally heroic detachment of Sichov archers, escaped somewhere as far away as Zhmerinka. And how they then watered the kerovniks - how to divide the money - there is a lot of it - and how to fight - so the students Jo0doe 20:08, February 5, 2009 (UTC)
- Interesting quote
January 5, 1918, that is, the day of the surrender of Poltava, at a meeting of junior students Kyiv University St. Vladimir and the newly created Ukrainian People's University, convened by initiative of Galician students, It was decided to start creating a student kuren of the Sichovyi Streltsy. “Under the threat of boycott and exclusion from the Ukrainian student family, all Ukrainian students must begin to form.” In addition to students, the kuren included students from two senior classes of the 2nd Ukrainian named after. Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood Gymnasium. In total, about 200 people signed up (the second hundred later took part in the battles in Kyiv, that is, they did not leave the city). The military authorities appointed foreman (centurion) Omelchenko, who by that time was enrolled as a student at the Ukrainian People's University, as commander.
Due to the lack of information about the battle, its events became overgrown with myths, exaggerated assessments and distortions of facts in the interpretation of various political forces and ideologists.
Does anyone have any objections to some inaccuracies?--Diogen15 10:13, January 30, 2014 (UTC)
- I see no reason for change. Specifically, I am perplexed by the attempts to remove the definition of “Soviet troops.” What caused this desire? HOBOPOCC 10:51, January 30, 2014 (UTC)
- Well, personally, I looked at the preamble again and see only one flaw - the last and penultimate sentences are not very nicely coordinated. I see no reason to change anything in the wording, and Diogen15 did not outline these reasons. Can we rephrase it like this:
With the exception of replacing the term "battle" with "battle" it is almost the same as what I initially proposed. Why in paragraphs and so on? I explained. Initially, there was such a formulation: “although the battle had no impact... the events were overgrown with myths,” there is no direct connection between these statements, a general battle can also become myths. + attributing special significance to an event in Ukraine, according to the old definition, seems to directly follow from mythologization and exaggeration, which again has no direct connection: myths due to the lack of accurate information, the significance of the feat due to national solidarity. Thank you for your mediation. --Diogen15 19:31, January 31, 2014 (UTC)
- What is this “Due to a lack of information...”? I'm against. And I don’t see any point in “dividing into paragraphs.” The introduction is not so cumbersome that the unfortunate three sentences that make it up should be divided into paragraphs. I'm against. HOBOPOCC 19:44, January 31, 2014 (UTC)
- Dear intermediary, I ask you to evaluate the personal attacks and other violations of VP:EP (). During those times, you personally created for me for something like this forever the “image of a chronic offender”) HOBOPOCC 10:40, February 1, 2014 (UTC)
- It’s clear that this is at least a day’s rest. And your image is not forever, but for a long time. But then you yourself were to blame... The communist NOVOROSSS was funny, no less than the anti-Ukrainian element Spectrum and the fighter for Orthodox values Helsing. --wanderer 10:56, February 1, 2014 (UTC)
controversial inappropriate statement in the preamble[edit code]
- Statement in the preamble " this battle did not affect the subsequent military campaign", as follows from AI (" One of the current successors who will transfer the meaning of the battle near Kruty to the military ... plan, ...") and the text of the article is debatable.
- Statement " events have become overgrown with myths, exaggerated assessments and distortions of facts" is insignificant for the preamble and inappropriate in it.
Since a statement of the form “Although (controversial statement 1), then (inappropriate statement 2)” is both controversial and inappropriate, I propose to move it from the preamble to the section “Assessments of events at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries”, and reformulate it there in accordance with AI .
- Yuriy Dzyadyk (o c) 06:33, 17 August 2016 (UTC).
- No. Read what the introduction to the article is, please. HOBOPOCC (obs) 07:11, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
- Do you mean these essays? In this case, the rules apply, primarily VP: AI and VP: NPC. - Yuriy Dzyadyk (o c) 10:55, August 17, 2016 (UTC).
- Why do you call certain statements in the article “both controversial and inappropriate”? Is your opinion (of the anonymous Wikipedia editor) shared by any of the recognized experts in the GVR? Give quotes and links to such AIs, please. HOBOPOCC (obs) 11:15, 17 August 2016 (UTC)
- I will repeat Wulfson’s answer (to your question): it’s not interesting, such questions will remain unanswered in the future. A quote from AI is given in the request. In modern historical science the battle of Kruty belongs to the history of Ukraine, and not to the GVR in Russia. There have been hundreds of more significant battles in the history of Russia, but this one is completely inconspicuous compared to others. - Yuriy Dzyadyk (o c) 21:32, 17 August 2016 (UTC).
On January 29 of each year in “unlocked” Ukraine, nationalists celebrate the day of remembrance of the “Heroes of Krut”.
A lot of different events are held on this day. Starting with official ones - at the highest state level, and ending with school ones.
And from the screens of the ukrozombians and from the pages of the corrupt ukroSMI, choking with delight, they tell us about this “heroic battle.”
If we summarize all the nationalist tales, then in a brief summary we get the following “Svidomo” story:
“300 Ukrainian youths held the 400,000-strong Moscow-Bolshevik army in bloody battles for more than two days, defending the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UNR) and the Central Rada. All of them died in battles or were shot by the brutal enemies of the “free Ukraine”.
This myth about “300 Ukrainian Spartans” who supposedly “gave their young lives for the establishment of Ukrainian independence” has been circulating since March 1918.
And he went for a walk with the light hand of the great myth-maker Mikhail Grushevsky.
This myth goes as follows.
They say that for two days 300 Kyiv students and schoolchildren, with only three clips of cartridges each, fought with Muravyov’s army of six thousand. At the same time, a quarter of his army was destroyed and everyone died as one.
They say that with their sacrifice they delayed the Bolshevik army.
And this gave the leadership of the Central Rada the opportunity to evacuate.
And they gave the UPR the opportunity to sign a separate peace with the German army in Brest-Litovsk. The peace with which Germany granted Ukraine independence from Soviet Russia...
It is in this light that the local battle near the Kruty station in January 1918 is presented in modern Ukrainian history textbooks.
Modern Ukrainian nationalists excessively glorify this small skirmish. They give it a significant scale.
In principle, I understand them perfectly.
What can they do if there is no way to be proud of their victories? But these victories do not exist due to their complete absence.
So they are trying to elevate defeats to the number of feats.
They try to find (in the absence of real ones) at least some heroes in their story. And if this fails, then you can... invent them.
Is not it?
What really happened near Kruty?
Who at that time came up with the idea of sending young people untrained in military affairs to meet Muravyov’s troops?
What was his task?
Who led this detachment?
And most importantly, who then bore responsibility for these innocent victims?
On this day - January 16 (29), 1918 - a small battle took place near the Kruty station (Chernigov region). The battle between units of 2 Ukrainian People's Republics. The capital of one of these powers was in Kyiv, the other in Kharkov.
And he, that is, this battle near Kruty, in fact, was just a small, insignificant episode of the confrontation between Soviet Ukraine and Nationalist Ukraine.
Confrontations:
- Soviet government of Ukraine in Kharkov.
By the way, it consisted of ethnic Ukrainians, and
- Kyiv Central Rada.
Among her supporters there was a significant percentage of Galicians - subjects of Austria-Hungary.
This episode Civil War in Ukraine, which happened 98 years ago, has become overgrown with all sorts of conjectures, conjectures and legends during this time.
Moreover, the more time passes after this event, the thicker the web of lies woven by Ukrainian pseudo-patriots becomes...
Let us first look at the background of this event.
First, I would like to say that at the beginning of 1918, a real vacuum arose around the Ukrainian Central Rada.
And she was losing the support of the masses at a catastrophic speed.
Well, the demoralized Ukrainian military units quickly fled when the Red Guard detachments approached.
And they handed over the cities to them. Usually even before direct clashes with Soviet troops.
Or they went over to the side of the Bolsheviks.
What caused this?
Let us turn to the memoirs of the Ukrainian historian Dmitry Doroshenko (“War and Revolution in Ukraine”):
“As soon as the Central Rada made a break with the Bolsheviks, its fate was sealed. Passionate about success national movement, intoxicated by easy victories over the powerless provisional government, Ukrainian socialist democracy did not want to allow those whom it called “lords” and “Muscovites” to participate in the work of state and socio-economic construction, because it did not want to share power and leadership positions with them; Of course, it did not want to share with the contenders for leading the revolution - the Bolsheviks... having lured the peasantry with its promises, inciting class hatred, arousing the worst instincts and appetites, the Central Rada stopped and began to lag behind what the Bolsheviks had already accomplished in their country - and its influence disappeared instantly. At the decisive moment, when the Bolsheviks pressed from the outside and from the inside, it turned out that no one was really standing behind the Central Rada..."
And here’s what high school student Igor Losky (participant in the battle of Kruty, published his memoirs in Lvov in 1929) recalled:
“The current Ukrainian army hopelessly missed the moment of national uprising, which would have accumulated the masses of the Ukrainian war, if it was possible to create an effective Ukrainian army... True, there were a lot of regiments with more or less vocal by name. But by that time they had lost more than a few elders. Those that were no longer in stock were already in great abundance. And only at the last moment, when the catastrophe was imminent, some of the powerful Ukrainian men became embarrassed and began to hastily create new parts, but it was already too late.”
So it turned out that in conditions of general confusion, developing into complete panic, perhaps only Kyiv students and high school students were capable of selfless actions. Those young men and teenagers who have been brainwashed with nationalist propaganda.
Here another question arises:
Why did it happen that it was students and high school students who defended the Central Rada?
Yes, because education was expensive back then. And students and high school students, as a rule, came from wealthy, wealthy families.
So it turns out that the rich people of that time defended their class (in other words, “selfish”) interests.
One more question:
Why did most of the 150 thousand soldiers who were under the formal control of the Central Rada refuse to defend it?
The answer here is obvious - because it did not express the interests of the people.
It was under these conditions, on January 5 (18), 1918, that a meeting (veche) of junior students of the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir and the newly created Ukrainian People's University was held.
This was done on the initiative of Galician students.
Those students who considered themselves Ukrainians gathered at the meeting.
At the meeting, it was decided to begin creating a student Kuren of the Sich Riflemen.
It was emphasized that all Ukrainian students should join the ranks of the formation “under the threat of boycott and exclusion from the Ukrainian student family.”
As we can see, enrollment into the kuren was voluntarily and compulsorily. Because there were very few people who were eager to join it. They were essentially given a choice. Either sign up as a “volunteer” or be expelled from the student fraternity.
In addition to students, the kuren included students from two senior classes of the 2nd Ukrainian named after. Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood Gymnasium. The director of the gymnasium agreed to announce an official break from studying for them - “for an hour of re-studying with the military.”
In total, about 200 people signed up for the kuren. The 2nd hundred later took part in the battles in Kyiv; they did not leave the city.
The military authorities appointed student Omelchenko (from the front-line soldiers) as a centurion. By that time he was enrolled as a student at the Ukrainian People's University.
Oles Buzina wrote:
“Although the Kyiv warehouses were bursting with equipment and uniforms left over from the tsarist army, the Ukrainian government dressed the students like homeless people. Apparently, Grushevsky and Vinnichenko foresaw their imminent death. Kuren received torn overcoats, soldier’s trousers and... prisoner’s caps instead of a headdress!”
From the memoirs of Igor Losky:
“You can realize how grotesque the hundred looked. The cross-cut look was like this: light wool boots, soldier's trousers, knitted in the valley with a motuzka (there were no oblasts), a gymnasium or student jacket or a civilian camisole and a flared overcoat, in which one was the least rejected ї poly. ...the old rusty towels... And that’s all in that hour, as a month after that, the Bolsheviks, having buried the interruption of school, found there new warehouses of new clothes, clothes, not even talking about ammunition and armor.”
The basis of the student kuren of the Sich Riflemen, as well as the overwhelming majority of all these warriors, were Galicians. Those Galicians who arrived in Kyiv in 1917 from behind the front line, after its collapse.
It is noteworthy that internationalist Hungarians also fought on the side of the Reds.
It turned out that the subjects of Austria-Hungary were shooting at each other on the territory of another state.
The UPR leadership was well aware of the students’ impulse. And she didn’t just know. And even ideologically supported and stimulated him.
Thus, on January 11, 1918, the newspaper of Ukrainian socialist-federalists “Novaya Rada” published an appeal “To the Ukrainian students”:
"It's arrived terrible time for our Motherland. Like a black crow, the Russian-“Bolshevik”… predatory horde settled in our Ukraine, making new seizures of us almost every day, and Ukraine may finally find itself in a very difficult situation...
We encourage all Ukrainian students higher schools immediately come to the aid of your land and people, unanimously standing under the flag of fighters for the will of Ukraine against enemies who want to strangle everything that we have gained through long, hard heroic labor. We must stop at all costs the campaign that could lead Ukraine to terrible ruin and lasting decline.
Let every Ukrainian student remember that nowadays it is criminal to be indifferent. Feel free, dear comrades, let’s dig into our rock and go to render, perhaps, our last service to that great construction project that we ourselves built – the Ukrainian state!”
In the same issue of the newspaper there was a call to all those who signed up for the kuren to immediately report to the barracks. Address: Pechersk, Moskovskaya street, Konstantinovskaya military school.
Similar materials were published by other newspapers.
Consequently, we can reasonably speak about the direct involvement of the highest government leadership in the student youth movement.
Moreover, both in ideological and organizational and technical terms.
Throughout January 8-13 (21-26), young soldiers tried to obtain ammunition, weapons and master basic skills in handling them.
In the barracks of the Konstantinovsky School, it was, understandably, impossible to achieve high-quality military training in an extremely short period of time.
On the morning of January 13 (26) educational institution Some of the cadets returned - about 300 people. These cadets said that they, under the command of centurion A. Goncharenko, in small numbers (about 600 people), poorly armed, remained alone on the entire Left Bank Front near Bakhmach and Kruty. And that they need immediate support.
An order was received “from the command staff of the 1st Military School” to go to the front line.
Military training ended there.
The young men, of course, failed to thoroughly master military affairs in such a short period of time.
Firstly, due to the fact that military training there was very little time.
Secondly, all their military exercises were limited to ceremonial marching and mastering left-right turns.
The fighters of the Student Kuren were given rifles. For high school students - captured Austrian ones, for which there was very little ammunition. They gave out three clips each. As well as boots and soldiers' overcoats.
The train arrived at the railway station.
Some of their relatives and acquaintances came to see the young men off to their military mission.
The station bell rang.
And the train rolled to the Kruty station...
Then the nationalists brainwashed several hundred students and high school students with their nationalist propaganda and sent them to Kruty for slaughter. They were sent so that they would give their young lives for the guys from the Central Rada.
Well, about the fight itself...
Let's start with the date.
The canonical date is January 16 (29), 1918.
- But there is another opinion. That the fight took place on January 14 (27).
For example, Averky Goncharenko wrote in his memoirs that the battle took place on January 27, and not on the 29th, as we are assured today.
- And some even write that the battle lasted for three days - from January 27 to 29.
Strengths of the parties.
* Military units that took part in the battle near Kruty on the side of the Central Rada:
Kuren of the 1st Youth Military School named after B. Khmelnitsky under the command of centurion A. Goncharenko.
This is at least 300 trained officers and cadets. According to other sources, 250 cadets.
It consisted of young Galicians. Among them, former soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian Army who were captured by Russians predominated.
By the way. This centurion Goncharenko, by the way, is a former career officer of the Russian army - captain. And the future Hauptsturmführer (captain) of the Waffen SS division “Galicia”. There must be some kind of nefarious pattern in this.
1st hundred of the Student Kuren of centurion Omelchenko.
This is about 125 students and gymnasium students (according to other sources, 118 students). Some of them knew about the war only from history books. After all, the eldest of them was 22 years old, the youngest was 15 years old.
Among the students, the majority of students enrolled in universities on the personal instructions of Mikhail Grushevsky were soldiers from Galicia who had fled from the front.
Plus about 40 deserters from among the “Free Cossacks”.
Artillery battery of centurion Loschenko (2 cannons and about 30 artillerymen).
Kuren "Free Cossacks".
I don't know the commander's name.
This is at least 70 experienced soldiers.
According to other sources, 60 officers and volunteers from the local Free Cossacks.
Commandant of the Kruty railway station with a security unit (about 40 people)
According to various estimates, the fighters defending the position ranged from 500 to 900 people (data differ).
They had 18 machine guns and a homemade armored train with a gun.
According to A. Goncharenko himself, the defense of Krut, in total, consisted of 18 machine guns, “500 young warriors and 20 elders. Some warriors were tortured by month-long battles, while others were innocent.”
The general leadership of the troops concentrated at the station was carried out by the head of the 1st military school, centurion F. Timchenko.
His district defense headquarters was located in a train stationed at the station itself. And a separate wagon with ammunition was attached to it.
Ahead of this echelon, a homemade platform with one gun was cruising between the flanks of the Ukrainian position. An officer of the Bogdanov regiment, centurion Semyon Loschenko, drove her on his own initiative.
Goncharenko advanced his forces 2 kilometers ahead of the station.
The detachment stretched along the front for 3 kilometers.
Moreover, it was divided by an embankment.
The “juniors” were positioned to the right of the railway embankment.
On the left are students. The commander of the cadets, centurion Averky Goncharenko, divided the students into four chotas (platoons) of 28–30 people each and assigned them the safer left flank. The youngest and those who did not know how to shoot were left in reserve.
Due to the fact that the embankment was high, neither the right flank nor the left flank could see each other.
Orders were transmitted orally along the chain. And all because of the poor communication organization of the Ukrainian troops. Because none of the commanders thought to grab field telephones. And they would ensure instant transmission of orders.
The positions, located a few hundred meters from the station itself, were well prepared for battle.
On the right flank they had an artificial obstacle - a railway embankment.
On the left, a hundred students, as part of a detachment already existing there, began digging trenches and erecting earthen fortifications.
As you can see, the units’ strongholds in harsh winter conditions were moved 1.5-2 kilometers away from the station. And the train with ammunition was located at the station itself. This, of course, was a tactically incorrect, absurd decision...
* The Yellow-Blakits were opposed by Muravyov’s Bolshevik “army” of just over 6 thousand people.
This was the so-called Poltava column of the 1st “army” of P. Egorov.
It numbered 1300 bayonets.
2nd “army” of R. Berzin.
This is more than 3500 bayonets.
Units of the 3rd "army" of Kudinsky.
This is almost 800 bayonets.
Directly during the battle, the 1st Petrograd consolidated detachment arrived from Aleksandrovsk to help these troops.
The number of the “Muscovite horde of the Red Army,” which was opposed by Goncharenko’s “three hundred Spartans,” varies in various nationalist sources from 20 thousand to 2 million!
It is clear that all this is a banal lie, designed for gullible zombies.
Firstly.
Ukrainian nationalists speak of Muravyov’s troops as Red Army soldiers.
But! The Red Army could not participate in the battle of Kruty: after all, February 23, 1918 is considered the day of the creation of the Red Army.
That is, only almost a month after the events near Kruty, the Red Army officially appeared!
Secondly.
Muravyov's detachments were sent to Kyiv not from Moscow, but from Kharkov.
These troops consisted primarily of Ukrainian volunteers.
Among them we see:
- Red Guards of Kharkov and Donetsk (Donetsk workers were commanded by the Ukrainian D. Zhloba).
- Chervony Cossacks of the Ukrainian (native of the Chernigov region) Vitaly Primakov.
- Ekaterinoslav workers.
- Yes, plus the remnants of the royal army. Yes, plus a detachment of sailors. But they, too, for the most part came from Ukraine.
Third.
There were no “hordes” of Muravyov either.
With him, only about 6 thousand soldiers advanced on Kyiv.
Moreover, a detachment of 3,600 people was involved in the battle near Krutami.
A. Goncharenko recalled that on the eve of the battle Muravyov himself contacted the station:
“Get ready to meet the victorious Red Army, prepare lunch. I forgive the mistakes of the cadets, but I will still shoot the officers.”
Goncharenko replied that everything was ready for the meeting.
During the period of defensive work near the Kruty station, at the suggestion of the centurion Loschenko, after lunch on January 28, a military raid was carried out behind enemy lines by rail.
At his suggestion, a cannon and a machine gun were loaded onto an open platform, surrounded by sandbags. The improvised “armored train” set out towards the Pliski station, where the enemy troops were located.
Accurate artillery and machine gun fire from Loschenko’s small detachment inflicted losses on the enemy and delayed the time of his advance.
And at this time, Minister of War Petlyura with significant troops was hiding behind the backs of the cadets defending Bakhmach. He was located at Bobrik station, northeast of Kyiv.
To this day, there is a noticeable discrepancy in determining both the scale of the battle near Kruty, its duration, the degree of cruelty, and, most importantly, the number of victims.
Based on various sources, let's try to describe the battle itself.
On the left flank (against the students) Baltic sailors and Siberians from R. Berzin’s “army” were advancing.
The right flank, where the young men were, was attacked by Red Guards from P. Egorov’s detachments.
Ahead walked a dense row of red Baltic sailors. Obviously, Remnev’s detachment of sailors did not expect any serious resistance. They walked without hiding, at full height. They walked like they were on parade...
A. Goncharenko recalled:
“It looked like they were going to a parade, using the most primitive security measures. The leading parts of the Reds, walking in closed columns, were obviously confident of our escape, and no one from the station service responded to their calls. As soon as the Reds approached within shooting distance, we greeted them with strong fire from 4 hundred and 16 machine guns.”
The cadets' machine guns fired very accurately.
The cannon on the railway platform of the centurion S. Loschenko hit the rear of the enemy position.
This is what Lev Lukasevich, a sixth-grader at the Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium, recalls:
“Kozhen of us, who took part in the battle near Krutami, melodiously and fondly remembers the sergeant-major of the Bogdanovsky regiment in a blue-yellow casket, who, with one warrior on our armored belt, under heavy shelling of the beggars’ gate, shotgun shot down the Bolsheviks zip up the link between the two branches of our line, both on a high salivary mound.”
The sailors' attack failed with heavy losses.
And the Reds were forced to retreat to their original lines.
It should be noted that at the very beginning of the battle, the leaders of the yellow-blakit detachment (Timchenko, Bogaevsky), along with their cartridges, shamefully fled in the direction of Kyiv on the headquarters train. So, the headquarters of centurion Timchenko immediately gave in.
“The headquarters, as soon as they began to burst into war, shrapnel, in a commotion, moved the office from the station to the carriage and with a full train of versts to 6 versts of Krut, which forced the battle of officer Goncharenko, who had been standing at the front for the whole hour, singly, with absolutely no knowledge , why should I work... Tickingly, the headquarters buried wagons with cartridges and droves to the garmat, which finished off our right near Krutami. The positions were told over and over again to ask for ammo, but then they looked around - there were no cars with ammo. That same officer Goncharenko left the battle and ran with his bare hands for ammunition at the headquarters. Run two miles, go far, and return back. The Cossacks came from the right wing, having noticed the lack of cartridges, and also those who had gone in train to get to another station, began to retreat. Vlasne, the commander and commander ordered to retreat, but this order was due to the transmission to the Sich fighters and the stench fought until the hour when the station was occupied by the Bolsheviks from the right wing... The battle was lost.”
Dmitry Doroshenko (Grushevsky’s deputy in the CR, later Hetman Skoropadsky’s Minister of Foreign Affairs) recalled:
“When Bolshevik echelons moved towards Kyiv from Bakhmach and Chernigov, the government could not send a single military unit to fight back. Then they hastily assembled a detachment of high school students and high school students and threw them - literally to the slaughter - towards the well-armed and numerous forces of the Bolsheviks. The unfortunate youth were taken to the Kruty station and dropped off here at their “position”. While the young men (most of whom had never held a gun in their hands) fearlessly opposed the advancing Bolshevik detachments, their superiors, a group of officers, remained on the train and organized a drinking party in the carriages. The Bolsheviks easily defeated the youth detachment and drove it to the station. Seeing the danger, those remaining on the train hastened to give the signal for departure, not having a minute left to take those fleeing with them... The path to Kyiv was now completely open.”
Oles Buzina writes:
“So, according to the recollections of the participants in the battle near Kruty, their command got drunk even before the battle and pulled out of the station by train at the very first shots, leaving the fighters without ammunition. The train with the commanders had to catch up in the loose snow. You can imagine what speed the Ukrainian cadets developed if they finally caught up with this staff “pull”! And with machine guns, which they heroically carried!”
After the first unsuccessful offensive, the battle was conducted according to the rules. The Red Command included former officers. And they quickly expanded the front and carried out flank coverage.
There were 3 more attacks.
Meanwhile, according to eyewitnesses, the students' and cadets' supplies of ammunition had run out. And the shells for the cannon ran out.
The owners of Austrian rifles had not fired for a long time. Because they used their three clips even when repelling the first attack. They took the three-line rifles of their dead comrades and continued to shoot.
Gradually, one after another, the machine guns fell silent due to the lack of cartridges and their illiterate use, when they fired in half-belt bursts. After all, this led to overheating of the barrels due to boiling water in the barrel casing. And the machine gun no longer shoots, but spits bullets.
Levko Lukasevich recalled that the machine guns “didn’t work because of defective ammunition.”
That is, the very ammunition that the escaped headquarters took away.
The Reds launched their 5th attack.
Losing killed and wounded, they stubbornly moved forward. Their cannon battery, which had not fired successfully until now, concentrated fire on the Ukrainian positions.
For some time, Goncharenko’s detachment held out. In this he was helped by the armored train of the centurion Loschenko with one harmata.
But this improvised armored train, which was a railway platform lined with sandbags, could not compete with the approaching armored train of the legendary Polupanov and retreated. And the red armored train began firing at the defenders from the rear.
The advancing Red detachments began to bypass the defensive positions from the left flank. The danger of encirclement loomed.
And the cadets and students began to retreat in the direction of Kyiv.
Goncharenkovites were kicked out of the station. And they retreated to the train, which was taken to the rear 1.5 - 2 kilometers from the station.
Several kilometers of retreat seemed like an “eternity” to Lukasiewicz:
“Here, on the fifth day of the evening, the purchase of the wounded who arrived and buried, now under the orders of the elders, was strong enough to pull... The backs of our kuren no longer showed the same strength from the army’s look.”
And here is another memory of a participant in that battle.
It was published in 1918 in the Kiev Military Scientific Bulletin.
The machine gunner of the Student Hundred, shyly hiding under the abbreviation B. S-ko, colorfully described the brilliant leadership of the battle on the part of the drunken Ukrainian command:
“The day has come, which is worth much to the riches of life, and Wednesday has come. The supra-dzvichaina warta was removed from the battle line, having lost 30 people on the skin flank. They protected their strength. There were about 250 of us with the cadets. There were 100 strong Cossacks and 60 people in the cavalry. The whole force of the force “operating in Sloboda Ukraine,” as the newspapers loudly wrote. The cavalry was sent from the morning for reconnaissance, about 50 men, and they themselves calmly walked around the station, along the platform.
The reconnaissance did not return for a long time, after about 2 days the man of the 2nd returned, where did it go - it is unknown and they said that the Bolsheviks were advancing. As soon as I felt this, a thought flashed through my head: “I’m offended!” Also with meat.” Once again the sarwarka became worn out, once again there was no head, once again all the boys, more than half, went to the line, looming along the 1st ring of the pumps. No one had any respect for those who pulled the staff rod from the station and started smoking!!! From the headquarters, two artillery officers and our centurion were lost, a squad of cadets rode at the headquarters, rushed to the headquarters in the middle of the battle for instructions, and then forgave...
Our machine gun chief, P. Goroshko, ran from one machine gun to another, marveling at how everyone was in place... Black dots appeared from the forest. Closer and closer. Finally, I could not bear it and pressed the trigger. Ta-ta-ta-ta!!! The machine gun clicked. Having fired a bunch of cartridges. Bachu "not enough." I take the shots 200 lower and shoot again. It's obvious that I'm getting there. Black dots appeared here. Apparently it’s good that they lay down. Having stopped shooting, they began to run again. Having fired a machine-gun line of 200 rounds of cartridges. Yep!!! I think it's bad!!! Having hung the ribbon on the Bolsheviks; let's step up! The Bolsheviks, apparently, did not like us to take a machine gun with us, because the stench began to clatter loudly from the rifles. I ran about 200-150 miles with my assistant, they began again, they released another tape. The gate lay down, hovering in front of the sack, we, having blown the tape, ran away, straight to the cars, pulling behind us the machine gun, which danced along the sleepers, shaking our hands terribly painfully. People keep running, as if they are not self-sufficient. I shout: help me pull the machine gun! Go there! Nobody smells anything. So we got to the carriages... They arrived, collected all the people who had emerged from the fierce battle anyway alive, and we began to advance, shooting with rifles (since they weren’t needed, the cartridges had already been found).”
The cadets retreated under the cover of the embankment.
And the students’ positions were in an open area under fire. The commander of the student hundred, centurion Omelchenko, decided to first repel the enemy with a bayonet attack, and only then retreat. The attack was unsuccessful, because the young men were opposed by more experienced opponents. Hundred suffered losses, and Omelchenko himself was mortally wounded. The students were forced to retreat all the way to the station and beyond.
Having reached the train, they boarded there along with their wounded commander.
At about 5 p.m. the train departed for Kyiv...
As a result of a chaotic retreat in the dark, one student platoon (about 30 people) got lost. And out of fear, he ran to the Kruty station. And it was already occupied by Muravyov’s red troops.
One of the Bolshevik commanders, Yegor Popov, angry at the losses - up to 300 people - walked along the line of prisoners. And he threw arrogantly over his shoulder:
- Let them go to waste.
The Red Army soldiers mocked the prisoners for a long time, stabbed them with bayonets, and then shot them near the station water pump.
The villagers said that one - believed to be a 7th grade student at the gymnasium, Grigory Pipsky - sang “Ukraine is not yet dead” before the execution. The others took up the song. Loud shots drowned out the singing...
Local residents later buried everyone in the same grave.
According to recent research, approximately 70 people died on the yellow-blakit side: 40 students, 15 cadets and 15 Cossacks.
Soviet troops lost about 300 people killed and wounded.
Interesting point. The 1st armored vehicle division of Lieutenant Colonel Cherny, consisting of 4 armored vehicles, was sent from Kyiv to the Ukrainian cadets and students near Kruty.
So here it is. He simply refused to unload from the train, citing the fact that the terrain was not suitable for an attack.
According to Lieutenant Colonel of the UPR Army Stepan Samoilenko, “all the service personnel of the armored vehicles (I stood on the platform of the heavy automobile armored vehicle “Khortytsia”) were silent witnesses of the battle near Kruty.”
After the trade, when the train arrived in Darnitsa, the commanders gave the order to the students to go home in small groups.
The bridge over the Dnieper was controlled by units that sympathized with the Reds.
Here is what Lukasiewicz writes about this:
“All of us who were still in Darnitsa were ordered to cross in small groups across the Dnieper, which in 1918 was slightly frozen... Even here, an unlucky fate took us from many of our comrades, who tragically perished under the still ice of the Dnieper ipra… Demiivka bula buried by Bolshevik henchmen - robot workers from local factories. We have found our military documents and all our foreign signs, thrown away our armor and personal skins, having washed ourselves first, so that we will remove the demobilized soldiers of the Russian army...”
As we can see, there was essentially no grand battle.
Having suddenly fired at the Red Guards walking with songs, the “heroes of Krut” quickly retreated, unable to withstand the organized attack.
In reports to their superiors, those who led the battle overestimated the number of deaths in order to somehow justify their shameful flight.
Like, it was a stubborn battle, and we fought to the last.
But all this is not true!
Most of the fighters defending the position retreated.
Some of them fled.
The winners sent some of them captured to the hospital. There, after receiving medical assistance, they were released on parole.
Miroslava Berdnik writes:
“...I was lucky enough to talk with the son of one of the high school students who fought near Kruty. He told a remarkable tidbit.
In battle, as you know, you cannot see who is shooting at you from an enemy trench. Everyone is an enemy. After the battle, this high school student found himself in a group captured by the Bolsheviks. They fed them and asked the question: “Did you ask your parents when you came here?” “No,” they answered. “Well then go and ask. And don’t fall into such traps again.”
Well, the student leaders immediately fled on the train, hastily taking the ammunition with them.
So it was a shameful defeat.
From a military point of view, this is a rout.
Morally, it’s a shame. Shame on those who sent young warriors “to slaughter”, who abandoned them in battle.
There are no victories in the history of Ukrainian nationalists.
So they have to get out by creating myths about non-existent exploits.
In addition, the participants in the battle themselves considered it an example of the inability of the leadership of nationalist Ukraine to organize its forces.
In the battle near Kruty, several dozen guys deceived by the nationalists died. Which, as can be seen from Doroshenko’s memoirs, were basely abandoned by their superiors to their fate. And they themselves gave up after the first shots.
Of course this is a tragedy!
Nobody argues.
But just why inflate the death toll?!
As for the number of deaths, in addition to the mythical “three hundred Spartans” of Grushevsky, different figures were given.
Thus, Dmitry Doroshenko lists only 11 names of dead students.
Although he writes that on the first day (that is, January 16), part of the smoking area was destroyed. And in the second, 27 prisoners were shot and wildly mocked. They were part of a reconnaissance company that went to Kruty at the moment when the Reds had already taken possession of the station.
8 wounded were sent to Kharkov, where no one was interested in them, and they disappeared from the hospitals where they were taken for treatment.
It was as if “several dozen mutilated corpses” were brought to Kyiv for reburial.
In 1958, the results of S. Zbarazhsky’s 40-year documentary research “Cool. The 40th anniversary of the great rank was born on 29 September 1918. – September 29, 1956.”
The book opens with the following martyrology:
“Died under Krutami:
Sotnik Omelchenko is the commander of the Student Kuren, a student at the Ukrainian People's University in Kiev.
Volodymyr Yakovlevich Shulgin, Luka Grigorovich Dmitrenko, Mykola Lizogub, Oleksandr Popovich, Andriev, Bozhko-Bozhinsky - students of the University of St. Volodymyr in Kiev.
Izidor Kurik, Oleksandr Sherstyuk, Golovoshchuk, Chizhiv, Kirik - students of the Ukrainian People's University in Kiev.
Andriy Sokolovsky is a student of the 6th class of the 2nd Ukrainian Kiev Gymnasium.
Mykola Korpan from Tyapcha, near Bolekhov, Zahidna Ukraine. M. Gankevich, Evgen Tarnavsky, Gnatkevich, Pipsky - a student of the 7th class, originally from Western Ukraine, who was shot with the 35th at the Kruti station, before the shooting, he first started singing “Ukraine is not yet dead”, all of them We were sleeping."
So, 18 names are called.
These are the kuren commander who died from wounds and the scouts who died in captivity.
Since that time, no one has been able to make any changes to the above list...
The bodies of the dead comrades were carried from the battlefield by their comrades and buried upon arrival in Kyiv. Their names are not on this list, but their graves are in Kyiv.
Modern Ukrainian historians V. I. Semenenko and L. A. Radchenko write:
“In the battle, 20 students and high school students were killed, 27 were captured and shot, and 6, by order of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, were sent to the Kharkov hospital.”
Several dozen young men, deceived and betrayed by the “Svidomo patriots,” died for no apparent reason.
They fell in the fight against their own people.
And with the help of Grushevsky they turned into 300 courageous warriors who fought the invaders.
How this could have happened, probably even the most perverted “nationally Svidomo” mind cannot answer.
But the lie that 300 students defending the Central Rada were killed at the Kruty station continues to flow from Ukrainian television screens to this day, misleading millions of people...
I would like to draw attention to the fact that in the confusion of the events of January 1918, neither the battle itself near Kruty nor its participants attracted much public attention.
After all, in addition to Krut, in January 1918 the UPR army fought many other battles.
And she suffered all the defeats she could.
At the same time, I lost a lot of people.
And not so much killed as fled. Fleeing from animal horror in front of the “Muscovite barbarians” with red ribbons on their caps.
There were then January battles for Chuguev, Ekaterinoslav, Odessa, Romodan, Grebenka.
There was a desperately heroic attempt by Lieutenant Bondarevsky to organize resistance to the Reds in Sumy and was shot by the Bolsheviks.
The 3-day battle for Bakhmach cost more than 50 killed and 120 wounded.
There, the Ukrainian units were led by the commander of the Doroshenko regiment, cornet Khmelevsky (died a year later).
But for some reason only one shootout went down in history - Kruty.
Why then did such an insignificant battle receive such a wide response?
It should be noted that loud publicity this event acquired only after the entry of troops of the Kaiser’s Germany into Ukraine, the retreat of the Reds and the return of the Central Rada to Kyiv at German bayonets.
That is, already in March 1918.
It was then, when the situation had stabilized a little, that close relatives and friends of the young men who died near Kruty raised the question of reburying their remains. And also about the responsibility of those responsible for their deaths.
On March 5, 1918, the UPR War Ministry formed a commission to clarify the circumstances of the battle near Kruty.
It included a member of the Central Rada, Alexander Shulgin, who lost his brother, Vladimir Shulgin, in the battle near Kruty.
“The group of relatives is growing to include all the fathers and relatives of students, middle schoolers and others who entered the warehouse of the sich smokehouse and died in battle and were shot after the battle of Krut on the 16th of today. R. And he proposes to present a secret story about digging up graves in order to identify and transport their bodies from Krut, as well as seize them from Kiev.”
The story took on a resonant flavor of scandal.
And on March 16, an article “Tragedy on Kruty” appeared in the “New Rada” signed “S. Sh." Researchers believe that it was Sergei Shemet, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Party of Democratic Farmers, which then increasingly criticized the leadership of the Central Rada.
The publication said:
“We want to strengthen the respect of the kingdom and the Ukrainian government in response to the terrible tragedy that occurred in Art. Turn around when the Bolsheviks are approaching Kiev. In Kruty, the flower of Ukrainian school youth has perished. A few hundred of the brightest intelligentsia - young people - enthusiasts of the Ukrainian national idea perished. Such an expenditure would be important for a cultural nation; for our people it is endless. The fault in this tragedy is the entire system of stupidity, our entire system, which, after the lackluster social legislation, after the perpetual administration, found itself abandoned by the people and the army, and in such a hopeless situation they decided to die. There will be hundreds of school-age youth left behind by the well-established Bolshevik army. Having hastily disposed of these victims of ordinary frivolity, without any military preparation, they were sent to Kruti...”
The author demanded that the government draw appropriate conclusions and punish, or at least remove from leadership, the culprits.
Although the article does not name specific names, everyone understood well that we were talking, first of all, about the highest political and military leadership of the UPR. That is, about Mikhail Grushevsky and, in particular, about Simon Petlyura, who again became Minister of War.
The then head of the UPR, M. Grushevsky, was no worse an intriguer than a myth-maker. And he got his bearings with lightning speed.
This is where M. Grushevsky’s deep professorial knowledge and political intuition came in very handy.
The outstanding Ukrainian historian, the undisputed national leader of that time, more than once drew attention to certain psychological characteristics of the Ukrainian nation, which he was even inclined to attribute to its mental traits. Among them, surprisingly, is the ability to arrange a funeral.
The Chairman of the Central Rada noted:
“The great masters are in this and put their whole soul into the funeral ceremony. But to support life, in the struggle that is being waged until the greatest energy is given to the interests of people, it is none of their business, the stinks are extinguished: “my house is on the edge,” take neutrality and fight who you can overcome: St. Whether it's someone else's or your own It’s better to celebrate your funeral and record it before the national saints...”
Although M. Grushevsky speaks about such national customs with an obvious negative connotation, it was the “traditional” option that he himself resorted to when he had to answer the excited questions of the indignant public.
Trying to find a way out of a difficult situation, at a meeting of the Malaya Rada he proposed to agree with the demands of the relatives of the “Sich” to honor the memory of those killed at Kruty and transfer their bodies to Kyiv to Askold’s grave. And also to bury the “young Spartans” at the expense of the state.
The meeting honored the memory of the heroes by standing up and decided to “have a funeral at the cost of the state.”
Oles Buzina writes:
“The Kruty became the reason for the creation of a political myth, because among those killed there was the nephew of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Central Rada, Alexander Shulgin, Vladimir. The members of the Central Rada, who returned to Kyiv at the tail of the Germans, were ashamed of their colleague. They were all alive and well. Everyone, led by Grushevsky and Vinnichenko, fled safely under the protection of German weapons. And only in one of the families, elevated to the then Ukrainian “elite” by the will of revolutionary events, did tragedy happen. How could he not do something “pleasant” for his brother-minister?
But there were other reasons. Together with Vladimir Shulgin, almost three dozen more very young boys - students and high school students - died. A society accustomed to cruelty during the World War was difficult to amaze with anything. The fact that adults die at the front not even in thousands, but in millions, has already become commonplace. Newspapers for the years 1914-1917 were full of countless photographs of dead officers. But these faces of men in uniform, marked with funeral crosses, were, excuse me, no longer touched. The public's nerves became rough. Society needed something especially sentimental. It's clear. For the most part, people are selfish. Only by playing on the most vulnerable points of their psyche can one evoke sympathy. And what is more amenable to manipulation by political strategists than parental instinct?
...Old, cunning, passionately loving his only daughter Katya, who did not need to be sent to the army, Chairman of the Central Rada and a great specialist in composing various “stories” Mikhail Grushevsky unerringly chose the topic for the next folk “fairy tale”. The reburial of the “krutyans” became, excuse the frankness, the first “holiday” of the Ukrainian authorities, behind which to this day the “tops” like to hide their cowardice and unprofessionalism. The cult of official state masochism began with Krut. “Children” in coffins distracted attention from their sly faces and fidgety political asses”...
On March 19, 1918, a carriage with coffins arrived at the shabby Kiev station.
They contained the remains of the victims who had been shot by the Red Guards of Colonel Mikhail Muravyov a month and a half earlier. They were shot at railway station Steep, between Nizhyn and Bakhmach in the Chernihiv region.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, the relatives of the dead, students, high school students, soldiers, clergy, a choir under the direction of A. Koshits, and many Kiev residents gathered at the station.
Bishop Nikodim officiated at the funeral service.
After the funeral service, a funeral procession set off from the station.
Ahead are carts with blue-gray coffins - two on each.
On the way we made a stop at the house of the Central Rada. It is on Vladimirskaya, 57 (now the Teacher's House).
During the transportation of the bodies near the building of the Central Rada, Russian symbols were removed from this building.
One of the Kyiv newspapers wrote:
“In this wave, when their coffins are carried in front of the Central Rada, where Ukrainian statehood was forged over the course of a year, a Russian eagle is torn from the pediment of her house, a shameful sign of Russian power over Ukraine, a symbol of the captivity in which she lived for over 260 years. Apparently, the opportunity to rip it off was not given in vain, apparently, it could not pass without victims, it had to be bought with blood. And blood was shed by these young heroes whom we are now seeing off!”
Near the building of the Central Rada, Professor Mikhail Grushevsky addressed the funeral procession with plaintive and solemn words:
“From this tree, when their houses are transported before the Central Rada, the Ukrainian sovereignty was forged through fate, from the pediment of this house there is a Russian eagle, a bad sign of Russian power over Ukraine, a symbol of the captivity in which she lived for a long time.” sixty years ago. Apparently, the power of his soul was not given for free, apparently, it could not pass without sacrifices, and it was necessary to buy blood. And blood was shed by these young heroes, whom we respect.”
The ceremonial reburial of the students’ kuren fighters who died near Kruty, who were found on the battlefield and identified, was actively covered by the Kyiv press.
According to the press of that time, 17 coffins were lowered into the mass grave at the Askoldov cemetery.
This figure differs only by one from the named list of victims by S. Zbarazhsky.
Among those buried was not the body of centurion A. Omelchenko, who was mortally wounded during the battle on January 16, and those whose bodies were taken with them after the battle. The centurion died on the way to Kyiv. His body and the bodies of his dead comrades were buried in Kyiv after the battle.
So, having returned on the convoy of German troops, the leaders of the Central Rada arranged for the unfortunate young men a “luxurious” reburial with “fiery” speeches over their coffins.
In other words, they organized, as they would say now, a PR campaign.
They did this in order to divert people's attention from their vile act. Let us remember how the top of the Central Rada shamefully fled from Kyiv...
The press in those days was full of reports about the reburial of “fighters for the will of Ukraine” and sharp criticism of the authorities.
The then press widely covered the reburial of the heroes:
- “Funeral of the victims of the struggle for the will of Ukraine” - “Narodna Volya”,
- “Bury Two” - “Fighting”,
- “Pro patria mori” - “Kiev Thought”.
There were also statements that were offensive to the authorities.
For example, in the article by doctor S. Kolomiytsev “On the monument to the victims in Kruty.”
In particular, there are the following lines:
“The flower of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, children who did not know how to shoot, were sent by the disorganized Ukrainian authorities to meet the Russian Bolsheviks armed to the teeth... Honor and glory to the young heroes, and eternal shame to those who had to save not themselves, but them, but not did this."
A warm response and recollection from Sergei Efremov, a member of the UPSF Central Committee, about Vladimir Shulgin, whom the erudite scientist had known since childhood and appreciated the high talents of the young patriot, was also printed there.
Party and statesman I also could not resist expressing an angry condemnation of the authorities, who called upon young romantics and idealists to defend themselves:
“And this is where the terrible tragedy of souls like Shulginov begins. When called, the stinks called, they went and laid down everything they had... But I can see for myself what they had to experience there, under the Kruty, abandoned, armorless and dry, in front of the unsweetened wild enemy, and, perhaps, with murderous knowledge, so clean Their victim did not give up at all, because in these circumstances of terrible disorganization it turned out to be unnecessary and unnecessary, and did not sacrifice anyone or anything. The will, like destiny, “asks for redemptive sacrifices” - this is what we need to make peace with. “It’s impossible to put up with this, if these sacrifices are wasted so lavishly, as was the case with the holy sacrifice of the Ukrainian youth, which they laid on their heads near Krutami.”
Nevertheless, M. Grushevsky’s proposal turned out to be very timely.
And it helped the authorities turn the public mood in their favor.
The magnificent ceremony of reburial of the bodies of the “Sich”, the generous gesture of the state, which allocated significant funds for this purpose, played their role.
They talked a little more about the tragedy near Krutami, but not so aggressively.
After all, after the victims of political irresponsibility and cynicism of the Ukrainian authorities were quickly turned into a symbol of national feat, it was somehow inconvenient to expose and demand that the perpetrators be brought to justice.
By the way, in Pavel Tychina’s poem “In Memory of Thirty” there are the following lines:
“Who dare you date?
Zradnik's hand?
The clear sun, the wind and the Dnieper River play..."
I wonder who the poet calls “zradnik”?
After all, Muravyov is not an open enemy.
Well, then other topical topics began to come to the fore.
The official authorities preferred not to mention the events near Kruty once again.
So, a lot of documentary evidence ended up being lost.
Gradually tragic fate“Sich” was surrounded by all sorts of myths.
And, in the end, it turned into a kind of “legend about the great feat of youth in the name of the freedom of the Fatherland.”
There was, of course, no room to highlight the unsavory role of the authorities.
And all 300 young men who took part in the battle began to be counted among the dead...
“All three hundred, as one, died heroically,” sounds, after all, more sublime than simply “about forty died.”
Although in reality this is exactly what happened.
And when today’s national patriots, for the umpteenth time, tell us the myth about the defense of Krut, the question involuntarily arises:
“Why was there virtually no one to defend the capital city of Kyiv except a few hundred young men?”
As is known, at the time of the declaration of independence of the UPR, about 10 thousand soldiers were located in Kyiv, members of several army regiments, units of the Free Cossacks of Skoropadsky.
In addition, there were about 20 thousand former soldiers and officers of the Russian army who had returned from the front in the city.
As well as military formations of the Central Rada.
Including the most combat-ready:
- Gaidamak Kosh (Ataman Simon Petlyura) and
- a kuren of the Sich Riflemen formed from Galicians (commander - Evgen Konovalets).
That is, there was someone to organize the defense.
In addition, a large amount of ammunition and weapons, including heavy ones, were stored in the Kyiv arsenals.
But! After a message arrived in Kyiv about the advance of echelons with Muravyov’s detachments from Kharkov, not a single regular formation subordinate to the CR came to the defense of Kyiv.
The front-line townspeople preferred to stay home.
The Ukrainianized units located in Kyiv declared “neutrality.”
Both the Haidamaks and the Sich Riflemen retreated!
Moreover, in Kyiv on January 16 (29), 1918, an uprising began against the Central Rada.
And why?
Yes, because the “Ukrainian idea” inspired mainly only the self-proclaimed local “elite”, who hoped to occupy the best places in the newly created “power”!
And no one wanted to protect this “elite”, which consisted of local luminaries and the careerists and adventurers of lower rank who joined them!
Because by the beginning of 1918, the Ukrainians were completely disillusioned with the leadership of the UPR, which was pursuing an absolutely incompetent and, at the same time, aggressive policy of tearing the country away from the centuries-old alliance with Russia and inculcating the Galician “consciousness.”
Since in true history the defense of Kyiv from the Bolsheviks was nothing but disgrace, for the independentists there was nothing, then the myth of the “Battle of Kruty” came in very handy!
What else would you like to pay attention to?
At the same time when the tragedy near Kruty occurred, the nationalists shot about 400 workers of the Arsenal plant in Kyiv!
Moreover, by their death, the students gave the nationalists the opportunity to kill Kyiv workers!
But, in addition to the Arsenal men, there were also brave young cadets (yesterday’s high school students and students) who died in the village of Borshchagovka at the hands of the Petliurites.
Konstantin Paustovsky wrote about this in his book “The Beginning of an Unknown Century” and Mikhail Bulgakov in his book “The White Guard”.
It was about them, who died a martyr’s death, that Vertinsky sang:
I don't know,
why and who needs it?
Who sent them to their deaths
with an unshaking hand?
And no one just thought of it
kneel down
And tell these boys
that in a mediocre country
Even bright feats -
these are just steps...
Why don't they remember these people?
Or is their life “cheaper” than the lives of students?
Or maybe because most of those who defended Kruty were Galicians?
It was in Galicia, even before the Second World War, that a tradition developed to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of Kruty.
Then, in the 1990s, this tradition was transferred by nationalists throughout Ukraine.
Let me remind you once again that there were no “hordes” of Muravyov.
Vladimir Vinnychenko in his work “Rebirth of the Nation” recalled:
“...The majority of the Bolshevik army was made up of our own warriors...”
Therefore, the battle near Kruty is a clash of Ukrainians with Ukrainians. Only those who fought under different banners. Some are under yellow-blakit, others are under red...
At that time, the ancestors of the majority of Ukrainians in the east and south of our country were not with the Galicians, but on the other side of the barricades.
They fought against foreign invaders standing behind the Central Rada. That Rada, which, in fact, killed the unfortunate young men at the Kruty station. At that time, the “Ochilniks” of the Central Russia themselves were packing their junk in order to scurry off to the West...
And now, as Miroslava Berdnik believes (and I completely agree with her):
“The fact of the criminal sending of children to slaughter and leaving them in the field by the cowardly escaped leaders of the Central Rada is presented to the younger generation in a perverse way to incite nationalism and hatred of Russia and Russians.”
The battle near Kruty took place on January 29, 1918. This is a memorable, but tragic event for Ukraine - a 5-hour battle between a four-thousand-strong unit of the Russian Red Guard under the leadership of the Socialist-Revolutionary Mikhail Muravyov and a detachment of Kiev cadets and Cossacks of the Free Cossacks, which in total numbered from 400 to 800 soldiers.
At Askold's grave
They praised them -
Thirty tormented Ukrainians.
Nice, young...
These are words from Pavel Tychina's poem "In Memory of Thirty". They are dedicated to the young Ukrainians who died in the battle near Kruty on January 29, 1918. A fight that has become legendary. And, despite the defeat, he became a prototype of courage and bravery for the Ukrainian people.
Background
December 1917. The Council of People's Commissariats of Russia issues an ultimatum to the Ukrainian authorities - to legalize Bolshevik military units in Ukraine and stop their disarmament. Refusal will be considered a declaration of war. The Ukrainian Central Rada did not respond to these demands in any way, but proclaimed the IV Universal, which proclaimed the independence of the Ukrainian People's Republic from Russia. On January 22, 1918, the country found itself in a virtual state of war with Bolshevik Russia.
At that time, from Kharkov, a twenty-thousand-strong Bolshevik detachment under the command of Antonov-Ovseenko set off to seize lands in eastern Ukraine. Mikhail Muravyov’s detachment was advancing from Russia - about 6 thousand people, mainly Moscow and Petrograd Red Guards and sailors. It is with them that the Ukrainian troops will have to fight in battle near Kruty.
After the Bolsheviks captured the Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav and Poltava provinces, they had to go to Kyiv. And they left. By rail.
Progress of the battle
On January 26, a message came from the commander of this detachment, Averky Goncharenko, from near Bakhmach, that help was immediately needed against the Bolshevik detachments that were attacking. And already on January 27, reinforcements arrived: the first hundred of the new Student Kuren.
In general, the Student Kuren consisted of junior students from the Kyiv University of St. Vladimir and the Ukrainian People's University, which were joined by senior students of the Ukrainian gymnasium named after the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood of Kyiv. In this way, it was possible to form two hundred (but only the first hundred took part in the battle). They were headed by a student of the Ukrainian People's University - foreman (centurion) Andrey Omelchenko.
In general, there were 600 students near Kruty alone (4 hundred at a rate of 150 people per hundred). In addition to them, the artillery battery of centurion Loschenko and a group of officers from the previously formed headquarters of the Free Cossacks took part in the battle - according to the most conservative estimates, there were at least 800 participants in the battle on the Ukrainian side. The students, according to the testimony of the battle commander Averky Goncharenko, were sent as an auxiliary unit.
Battle of Kruty – drawing by Yuri Zhuravl
Not daring to meet enemies in Bakhmach, Ukrainian troops decided to stop the Bolsheviks near the Kruty railway station. The positions, located a few hundred meters from the station itself, were well prepared for battle. On the right flank they had an artificial obstacle - an embankment of a railway track, on the left - a hundred student units as part of the detachment already there began to dig trenches and build earthen fortifications.
The next morning, January 29, at about 9 am, the Bolshevik offensive began. Losing killed and wounded, the Bolsheviks stubbornly moved forward. Their cannon battery, which had not fired successfully until now, concentrated fire on the Ukrainian positions. The battle lasted more than 5 hours, the Ukrainians repelled several attacks, during which they also suffered losses.
The course of the battle could have turned out in favor of the Ukrainians if at that time a larger detachment under the command of Symon Petlyura, who was near the Bobryk station, had come to the rescue. However, they had to go to Kyiv and suppress the armed uprising at the Arsenal plant. Petliura made this decision because, in his opinion, that was where the greatest danger lay (to a certain extent, this decision justified itself).
Meanwhile, the students and cadets were running out of ammunition, as well as shells for the cannon. Bolshevik detachments began to bypass the positions of the defenders from the left flank - there was a danger of encirclement and the cadets and students began to retreat in the direction of Kyiv. Most managed to escape on the train that was waiting for them.
Map of the battle near Kruty
27 students and high school students who guarded the station were captured. Retreating at dusk, the students lost their bearings and went straight to the Kruty station, already occupied by the Red Guards. A little later, two more Ukrainian warrant officers fell into Soviet hands, covering the withdrawal of their units.
Red commander Yegor Popov, enraged by significant losses from the side Soviet troops(about 300 people), ordered the liquidation of prisoners. According to eyewitnesses, 27 students were first bullied and then shot. Therefore, these 29 heroes were shot or tortured. After the execution, local residents were for some time prohibited from burying the bodies of the dead. They were subsequently buried at Askold's grave in Kyiv.
In addition to those who were captured by the Bolsheviks, another 10-12 young men died on the battlefield, whose bodies were taken to Kyiv. In particular, the 1st hundred of the auxiliary student kuren of the Sich Riflemen, which at the beginning of the battle included 116 volunteers, returned to Kyiv with about 80 people. Almost half a hundred were gymnasium students of the 2nd Ukrainian Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium. Only eight of them died near Kruty. The rest subsequently took part in battles with the Bolsheviks on the streets of Kyiv, and then in the retreat of Ukrainian troops to Polesie.
The exact number of deaths is still unknown - Goncharenko in his memoirs talks about 250 fighters, modern estimates are 70-100 people. At least 300 Bolsheviks were killed.
Most of the young men who returned to Kyiv from Krut remained in their homeland and subsequently settled in Bolshevik Kyiv. Only a few of them decided not to put up with the “red” domination and shared the fate of the UPR Army.
The fate of the young men (junkers) of the 1st Ukrainian Military School named after Bogdan Khmelnitsky was quite interesting. Almost all of them remained in service in the Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. Only the senior year of the school was promoted to the rank of cornet in the spring of 1918, and the younger students were forced to wait until 1921. All of them, of course, were formally already foremen of the Ukrainian troops, but did not have actual confirmation of their official position.
Consequences of the battle
Despite the defeat in the battles near Kruty, the fighters completed the task assigned to them - they delayed the advance of Muravyov’s troops towards Kyiv. The retreat of the Krutyans was not simply abandonment of the battlefield: while retreating, the Krutyans destroyed, or at least seriously damaged, part of the railway track, thereby delaying the Bolshevik offensive. The Bolsheviks were forced to spend time repairing the track, which, thanks to the efforts of the Student Kuren, became temporarily unusable. So, the Bolshevik armored trains, which at that time were their main weapon when it came to control over railway communications, turned into a burden.
With their sabotage on the railway track, the Krutyans delayed the Bolshevik troops for several days - the Bolsheviks were able to take Kyiv only on February 5, 1918. During this time, central authorities, documents, and valuables were evacuated from Kyiv, an organized retreat of troops took place - that is, everything possible was done to quickly regain lost positions. The retreat itself was not too deep - the headquarters of the UPR troops was located in the village. Gnatovka near Kyiv. The most important thing is that this delay made it possible to complete negotiations with the Kaiser’s Germany on the signing of a peace treaty, which meant international recognition of the Ukrainian state and made the Bolsheviks occupiers of the territory of a sovereign state.
Honoring memory
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!" (It is sweet and good to die for the Motherland). It was with this statement in Latin that Mikhail Grushevsky began his speech at the funeral of the participants in the battle of Kruty in Kyiv at Askold’s grave on March 19, 1918. Then 18 fighters of the Student Kuren who died near Kruty were brought to Kyiv, whom they managed to find on the battlefield and identify. Their bodies were met at the station by a procession and escorted to the ceremonial burial site.
During the transport of the bodies, the Russian symbols from this house were removed from the Central Rada. Grushevsky stated this, turning the event into a kind of ritual.
It's hard to give birth to a myth from scratch
On January 29 of each year, in “free” Ukraine, nationalists celebrate the day of remembrance of the “Heroes of Krut,” one of the thousands of battles of the Civil War, during which the forces of the Svidomo suffered another defeat. This clash is presented as a large-scale battle of the “Russian-Ukrainian war”; the UPR detachments are compared to nothing less than the 300 Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae.
What happened in reality?
In reality, the UPR troops were a pitiful sight, and there were almost zero people willing to defend the independence of Ukraine from the “Asians”:
Of the 300 thousand troops of the UPR Armed Forces, formed from demobilized units of the Russian army, which the Rada counted on in the summer of 1917, by February 1918 only 15 thousand remained.
Prime Minister of the UPR Vladimir Vinnichenko described the balance of power in Ukraine this way:
“... It was a war of ideas, influence... Our influence was less. It was so small that with great difficulty we could form some small, more or less disciplined units and send them against the Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks, however, also did not have large, disciplined units, but their advantage was that all of our broad masses of soldiers did not put up any resistance to them or even went over to their side, almost all the workers of each city stood behind them; in the villages the rural poor were clearly Bolshevik; in a word, the vast majority of the Ukrainian population itself was against us.”
In fact, except for a small detachment of independents, which included a little more than a hundred Galician students, there was no one to defend independence from the “Horde-Bolshevik yoke.”
Minister of Foreign Affairs under Hetman Skoropadsky Dmitry Doroshenko, who was in Kyiv during the events, conveyed the essence of the “Battle of Kruty”:
“When Bolshevik echelons moved towards Kyiv from Bakhmach and Chernigov, the government could not send a single military unit to fight back. Then they hastily assembled a detachment of high school students and high school students and threw them - literally to the slaughter - towards the well-armed and numerous forces of the Bolsheviks. The unfortunate youth was taken to the Kruty station and dropped off here at the “position”. While the young men (most of whom had never held a gun in their hands) fearlessly opposed the advancing Bolshevik detachments, their superiors, a group of officers, remained on the train and organized a drinking party in the carriages; The Bolsheviks easily defeated the youth detachment and drove it to the station. Seeing the danger, those on the train hastened to give the signal for departure, not having a minute left to take those fleeing with them... The path to Kyiv was now completely open.”
***
These events were described in detail Oles Buzina in the article “Cool without frills” from 2011, which I suggest you read.
... History must be told as it happened. Regardless of political sympathies and personal preferences. This also applies to the battle near Kruty. If only because many of its participants survived and left memories of this event...
I already wrote once that Kruty became the reason for the creation of a political myth, because among those killed there was the nephew of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Central Rada Alexandra Shulgina- Vladimir. The members of the Central Rada, who returned to Kyiv along with the Germans after the lost January battles for the city, were ashamed of their colleague. They were all alive and well. Everyone, led by Grushevsky and Vinnichenko, fled safely under the protection of German weapons. And only in one of the families, elevated to the then Ukrainian “elite” by the will of revolutionary events, did tragedy happen. Well, how could you not do something “pleasant” for your brother-minister?
But there were other reasons. Together with Vladimir Shulgin, almost three dozen more very young boys—students and high school students—perished. A society accustomed to cruelty during the World War was difficult to amaze with anything. The fact that adults die at the front not even in thousands, but in millions, has already become commonplace. Anyone who leafs through newspapers from 1914 to 1917 will remember many photographs of fallen officers. But, sorry, the faces of adult mustachioed men in uniform, marked with funeral crosses, were no longer touched. The public's nerves became rough. Society needed something especially sentimental. And this is understandable. People for the most part are selfish and cruel. Only by playing on the most vulnerable points of their psyche can you arouse interest. And what could be more vulnerable than parental instinct?
That is why the song of a Kiev resident became a symbol of the era Alexander Vertinsky“I don’t know why and who needs this...” - about the cadets who died in November 1917 in the Moscow battles with the Red Guard, and the poem by the future Soviet classic Pavel Tychyna “They were buried at Askold’s grave” - about thirty “torments” ", who laid down their heads under Kruty.
Old, cunning, passionately loving his only daughter Katya, who did not need to be sent to the army, Chairman of the Central Rada and a great specialist in composing various “stories” Mikhail Grushevsky unmistakably chose the theme for the next folk “fairy tale”. The reburial of the “krutyans” became, excuse the frankness, the first “holiday” of the Ukrainian authorities, behind which to this day the “tops” like to hide their cowardice and unprofessionalism. The cult of official state masochism began with Krut. The “children” in the coffins distracted attention from their sly faces and fidgety political backs. Although the battle near Kruty was by no means a child’s affair, and a few “children” got there on their own initiative, none of the adults in the Central Rada even tried to detain them.
Gymnasium student Losky: “Soldier’s pants, knitted in the valley of Motuzkom, and the burning of an overcoat, in which the poly was rejected”
STUDENT IMPROVISATION.
Participant in the battle of Kruty Igor Loskiy- in 1918, a student of the Kyiv Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium - recalled: “The current Ukrainian order hopelessly missed the moment of national uprising, which had buried the masses of the Ukrainian war, if it was possible to create an active Ukrainian army... True, there were a lot of regiments with more or less loud names, but at that time they lost more than a few senior officers. Those of them who were lost in large numbers were already greatly increased. And only at the last moment, when the catastrophe was imminent, some of the powerful Ukrainian men with rude and started hastily create new parts, otherwise it would be too late.”
So, among other improvised units, literally three weeks before the battle near Kruty, the Student Kurten of the Sich Riflemen arose.
The division was considered voluntary. But in fact, they enrolled in it voluntarily and forcibly. According to Loskiy, the decision to form a kuren was made by the student council of the University of St. Vladimir and the newly formed Ukrainian People's University. It brought together those students who considered themselves Ukrainians. But since there were very few people willing to join the kuren, the “veche” decided that “deserters” would be subject to a boycott and expelled from the “Ukrainian student family.”Nevertheless, the cunning Ukrainian student did not go well into the kuren. On January 3, 1918, the Nova Rada newspaper, edited by Grushevsky’s deputy Sergei Efremov, published a heartbreaking decree of Galician students: “ All comrades who adhere to discipline and do not engage in smoking are subject to a commercial boycott". In the same issue the following announcement was also published: " Smoked geese. Sold 100 krb. st. Khreshchatyk, 27 UKRINNBANK, commodity branch".
As we can see, Nova Rada successfully combined Ukrainian patriotism with commerce. This combination of incompatibles may have been one of the reasons why only a little more than a hundred people signed up for the student kuren. And even then, only because the Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium helped. Its director agreed to announce an official break in studies for two senior classes - 7th and 8th - "for the hour of re-study at school." According to Losky, the director only asked “not to bother the students of the younger classes before they started smoking. However, this did not help much, since a number of 6th grade students still started.”
The kuren was placed in an empty Konstantinovsky Infantry School- his cadets, supporters of the Provisional Government, after the Kyiv battles with the Bolsheviks in the fall of 1917, left almost in full force for the Don. This building in Pechersk has survived to this day. Today this is the Military Institute of Communications.
TORN OVERCOATS, RUSTY GUNS.
Although the Kyiv warehouses were bursting with equipment and uniforms, the government dressed the students, apparently anticipating their imminent death, as homeless people. Kuren received torn overcoats, soldier's trousers and prisoner's caps instead of a headdress. " You can recognize yourself, writes Loskiy, How the hundred looked grotesquely. The cross-cut look was like this: light wool boots, soldier's trousers, knitted in the valley with a motuzka (there were no wraps), a gymnasium or student jacket or a civilian camisole and a flared overcoat, in which one was the least rejected and poly." This warlike look was complemented by "old rusty towels ... And that’s all in that hour, when a month after that the Bolsheviks, having buried themselves in the middle of school, found there new warehouses of new clothes, clothes, not even talking about ammunition and armor".
(You can imagine how grotesque the hundred looked. The ordinary look was like this: their own boots, soldier’s trousers tied in the valley with a rope (there were no wraps), a gymnasium or student jacket or a civilian camisole and on top of an overcoat, which was least of all missing one coat.” This warlike appearance was complemented by “old rusty guns... And all this while a month after that the Bolsheviks, having captured the school premises, found there full warehouses of brand new boots, clothes, not to mention ammunition and weapons)
Officially, after the departure of the Konstantinov cadets to the Don, the school building belonged to the I Ukrainian Military School. Bohdan Khmelnitsky, organized by the Central Rada. For more than a month, its students (in Ukrainian terminology, “junaki”) were at the front near Bakhmach, trying to stop the Bolsheviks. There were about 200 of them, and they sent to Kyiv for help. To rest, the envoys went to their barracks at the Konstantinovsky School and
We found a Student's smoking area there. This was the only “reserve” that the Ukrainian government had. The “Yunaki” encouraged the students to go to Kruty. They happily agreed and hit the road.WITHOUT COMMUNICATIONS AND AMMO.
Kruty station is located 120 km from Kyiv in the direction of Bakhmach. Its defense was led by a former career officer of the Russian army Averkly Goncharenko, at the time of the famous battle - commander of the 1st military school kuren. He moved his forces two kilometers ahead of the station. The "juniors" were positioned to the right of the railway embankment, the students to the left. The embankment was high. Therefore, the right and left flanks did not see each other. Orders were transmitted verbally along the chain.
The station itself also housed the district defense headquarters along with a train of ammunition. And in front of the echelon, between the flanks of the Ukrainian position, a home-made platform with one gun was cruising, which, on its own initiative, was driven by an officer of the Bogdanovsky regiment, a centurion Semyon Loschenko. Almost all participants in the battle remembered his smart blue and yellow cap. Apparently, this detail was especially striking to students wearing prison caps.
An excerpt from the memoirs of a sixth-grader at the Cyril and Methodius Gymnasium Levka Lukasiewicz: "Kozhen of us, participants in the battle near Kruty, melodiously, well remembers the sergeant-major of the Bogdanovsky regiment in a blue-yellow casket, who, with one more warrior on our armor belt, under heavy shelling of the beggars’ gate, shotgun shot the Bolsheviks from ipsuvat ligament between two specimens of our line, both of them with a high glacial mound"But in order to shoot, artilleryman Loschenko had to take one of the students to help him - so that he would have someone to give the shells to.
In total, according to Averkliy Goncharenko, the defense of Krut consisted of 18 machine guns" 500 young warriors and 20 elders. Some warriors were tortured by month-long battles, others were uninjured by the military". As part of these forces, the Student Kuren numbered, as the same Goncharenko writes, 115-130 people.
They were opposed by a Red armored train and several detachments of Red Guards and sailors of 3,000 people, led by a former colonel of the tsarist army Muravyov. As Goncharenko recalls: " In the evening from 26 to 27 September I moved to Rozmov along a direct route from Muravyov. This order from the form sounded like this: “Prepare to meet the victorious Red Army, prepare dinner. I forgive the errors of the cadets, but I will still shoot the officers.” I hope everything is ready for the time being". In his memoirs, Goncharenko describes his skillful leadership of the battle - how wonderfully the machine guns he placed mowed down the Reds.
Battle participant Ivan Shary: "Headquarters with a full train of 100 versts on the 6th side of Krut"
But the author of the first memoirs about the Kruts, published back in 1918, was a student at the University of St. Vladimir Ivan Shary— painted a completely different picture. In the article “Sichoviki under Krutami” he wrote:
"The headquarters, as soon as they began to burst into war, shrapnel, in a commotion, moved the office from the station to the car and with a full train of versts to 6 km of Krut, which left officer Goncharenko in a battle, who had been standing at the station for the entire hour, singing but, completely unaware of the Perelyaku, Why should I work... Tidyingly, the headquarters buried wagons with cartridges and droves to harmata, which finished off our right near Kruty. The positions were told over and over again to give them ammunition, and then they looked around - there were no cars with cartridges. That same officer Goncharenko left the battle and ran with his bare hands for ammunition at the headquarters. Run two miles, walk a long way, and come back. The Cossacks came from the right wing, having noticed the lack of cartridges, and also those who had gone in train to get to another station, began to retreat. Vlasna, the commander and the commander stepped forward, and this order was immediately handed over to the Sich fighters (that is, the Student Kurken of the Sich Riflemen, which lay to the left of the railway embankment. - Author) and the stinks fought until the hour when the station was occupied by the Bolsheviks from the right wing ... The battle was lost".
(The headquarters, as soon as enemy shrapnel began to explode, became alarmed, moved the office from the station to the carriage and with the entire train ran away about 6 miles from Krut, leaving officer Goncharenko to lead the battle, who stood in the rear all the time and, probably, out of fright, did not know at all , what should he do... While escaping, he captured the headquarters and wagons with cartridges and cartridges for cannons, which finished off our case near Kruty. From the position they repeatedly told us to give them ammo, but here they looked around - there were no wagons with ammunition. Then officer Goncharenko threw the battle and ran with his bare hands to fetch cartridges at the headquarters. He ran two miles, saw it was far away, and returned back. Finally, the Cossacks from the right wing, noticing the lack of cartridges, as well as the fact that the echelons had left for the second station, began to retreat. Actually , the commander ordered to retreat, but this order was late transmitted to the Sich (that is, the Student Kurene of the Sich Riflemen, which lay to the left of the railway embankment. - Author) and they fought until the time when the station was occupied by the Bolsheviks from the right wing.. The battle was lost)
If we put aside the pathos, then the main reason for the lost battle was the banal flight of the headquarters train along with the cartridges. Goncharenko also hints at this:
“Here the headquarters of the centurion Timchenko would have given in too much, so that Mav now has active fighters”... Alas, he didn’t “give in” - he gave in. The rest was completed by the poor communications organization of the Ukrainian troops, which did not even allow them to exit the battle normally. Career officer Goncharenko could talk on the station telephone with his opponent Muravyov on another front line. But no one in the Ukrainian detachment, stretched along the front for 3 km and divided by an embankment that did not allow the left flank to see the right, thought to grab field telephones that would ensure instant transmission of orders.
A. Goncharenko, 1912. Another second lieutenant of the Russian Imperial Army
For example, according to Goncharenko, three students were appointed to communicate with the student hundred. As a result, the order to withdraw, transmitted orally, was mixed up. The left flank, where the students were, instead of retreating, went on the attack. During it, the commander of the student hundred, Omelchenko, died. This, according to battle participant Igor Losky, only “made the mess even worse.”
Meanwhile, Goncharenko could take care of the phones. Even according to the 1910 staff, each Russian regiment was assigned a communications team, which included 21 telephone operators. Goncharenko served as an officer since 1912, spent the first two years of the World War at the front, and rose to the rank of battalion commander. But he preferred to send orders, as in the times of Napoleon, with the help of ordinary orderlies. And his older comrades, who escaped on the train, alas, were no more prudent than he.
As a result of a disorderly retreat, one student platoon ran out of fear into the Kruty station, already occupied by the Bolsheviks, and was bayoneted. It was in this platoon that the nephew of Foreign Minister Shulgin served. Levko Lukasevich recalled that the machine guns “didn’t work at all due to defective ammunition.” “Amunition,” according to Ukrainian military terminology, is the same ammunition that the escaped headquarters took away. A few kilometers of retreat seemed like an “eternity” to Lukasiewicz: “Here, on the fifth day of the evening, a collection of wounded people who had come up and were buried, now with the order of the elders, was strong enough to pull... The tails of our kuren no longer showed the same strength from the military look.”
DROWNED AND FORGOTTEN.
When the train arrived in Darnitsa, the commanders ordered the students to go home in small groups. The bridge over the Dnieper was controlled by units that sympathized with the Reds. As Lukasiewicz writes: " All of us who were still in Darnitsa were ordered to cross in small groups across the Dnieper, which in 1918 was slightly frozen... Even here, an unfortunate fate took us from many of our comrades, who tragically perished under the still ice of the Dnieper ipra... Demiivka was buried supporters of the Bolsheviks - robot workers in local factories. We found our military documents and all our foreign signs, threw away our armor and personal skins, and washed ourselves first, so that we would remove the demobilized soldiers of the Russian army."…
(All of us who were still in Darnitsa received orders to cross in small groups across the Dnieper, which in 1918 was rather weakly frozen... Even here, an inexorable fate took several comrades from among us, who tragically died under the shifting ice of the Dnieper... Demeevka was captured by supporters of the Bolsheviks - workers of local factories. We destroyed our military documents and all external distinctions, threw away our weapons and each moved on separately, having previously agreed that we would pretend to be demobilized soldiers of the Russian army)
Battle plan. Compiled by centurion Goncharenko, who commanded the Ukrainians
Averkly Goncharenko after that Krut also did not want to fight. In the UPR army in the same 1918, he got a cushy job as treasurer of the Main School Administration under the War Ministry. Then he served as Letichevsky district commandant and staff officer for assignments under the Minister of War of the UPR. Goncharenko’s last position in the Ukrainian army was as a course officer at the Kamenets-Podolsk military school. His track record does not reveal any desire to serve in the ranks - the main “hero Krut” was always looking for a quiet rear position. Even in the division SS "Galicia"", where he ended up in September 1944, 54-year-old Goncharenko settled down at the headquarters of one of the regiments.
And no one remembers that the First Armored Division of Lieutenant Colonel Cherny, consisting of 4 armored vehicles, sent from Kiev to help Ukrainian cadets and students near Kruty, simply refused to unload from the train, citing the fact that the terrain was not suitable for an attack. According to Lieutenant Colonel of the UPR Army Stepan Samoilenko, “all the servicemen of the armored vehicles (I stood on the platform next to the heavy armored vehicle “Khortytsia”) were silent witnesses of the battle near Kruty.”
A participant in this battle, Igor Losky, concluded his memoirs, published in Lvov in 1929, with the following: “The mention of the tragic tragedy can be deprived of the terrible memento of our Ukrainian inevitability by organizing the moral forces that exist in Ukraine.”
This assessment is especially important considering that it was given by one of the survivors of that action, which he himself called a “tragedy.”