An underground organization in Krasnodon. History of the Young Guard

During the Great Patriotic War in German-occupied Soviet territories There were many underground organizations that fought against the Nazis. One of these organizations worked in Krasnodon. It consisted not of experienced military personnel, but of boys and girls who were barely 18 years old. The youngest member of the Young Guard at that time was only 14.

What did the Young Guard do?

Sergei Tyulenin started it all. After the city was occupied German troops in July 1942, he single-handedly began collecting weapons for fighters, posting anti-fascist leaflets, helping the Red Army resist the enemy. A little later, he assembled a whole detachment, and already on September 30, 1942, the organization consisted of more than 50 people, led by the chief of staff, Ivan Zemnukhov. [C-BLOCK]

Young Guards carried out sabotage in the electromechanical workshops of the city. On the night of November 7, 1942, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Young Guards hoisted eight red flags on the tallest buildings in the city of Krasnodon and its surrounding villages.

On the night of December 5-6, 1942, on the Constitution Day of the USSR, Young Guards set fire to the building of the German labor exchange (people dubbed it the “black exchange”), where lists of people (with addresses and completed work cards) intended to be stolen for forced labor were kept. work to Nazi Germany, thereby about two thousand boys and girls from the Krasnodon region were saved from forced deportation. [C-BLOCK]

The Young Guards were also preparing to stage an armed uprising in Krasnodon in order to defeat the German garrison and join the advancing units of the Red Army. However, shortly before the planned uprising, the organization was discovered.

On January 1, 1943, three Young Guard members were arrested: Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov - the fascists found themselves in the very heart of the organization. [C-BLOCK]

On the same day, the remaining members of the headquarters urgently gathered and made a decision: all Young Guards should immediately leave the city, and the leaders should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. One of them, who was a member of the group in the village of Pervomaika, Gennady Pocheptsov, upon learning about the arrests, chickened out and wrote a statement to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

Massacre

One of the jailers, the defector Lukyanov, who was later convicted, said: “There was a continuous groan in the police, as during the entire interrogation the arrested people were beaten. They lost consciousness, but they were brought to their senses and beaten again. At times it was terrible for me to watch this torment.” They were shot in January 1943. 57 Young Guards. The Germans never obtained any “sincere confessions” from Krasnodon schoolchildren. This was perhaps the most powerful moment, for the sake of which the entire novel was written.

Viktor Tretyakevich - “the first traitor”

The Young Guards were arrested and sent to prison, where they were subjected to severe torture. Viktor Tretyakevich, the organization's commissioner, was treated with particular cruelty. His body was mutilated beyond recognition. Hence the rumors that it was Tretyakevich, unable to withstand the torture, who betrayed the rest of the guys. Trying to establish the identity of the traitor, the investigative authorities accepted this version. And only a few years later, on the basis of declassified documents, the traitor was identified; it turned out to be not Tretyakevich at all. However, at that time the charge against him was not dropped. This will happen only 16 years later, when the authorities arrest Vasily Podtynny, who participated in torture. During interrogation, he admitted that Tretyakevich had indeed been slandered. Despite the most severe torture, Tretyakevich stood firm and did not betray anyone. He was rehabilitated only in 1960, awarded a posthumous order. [C-BLOCK]

However, at the same time, the Komsomol Central Committee adopted a very strange closed resolution: “There is no point in stirring up the history of the Young Guard, redoing it in accordance with some facts that have become known in the past.” Lately. We believe that it is inappropriate to revise the history of the Young Guard when appearing in the press, lectures, or reports. Fadeev’s novel was published in our country in 22 languages ​​and in 16 languages ​​of foreign countries... Millions of young men and women are and will be educated on the history of the Young Guard. Based on this, we believe that new facts that contradict the novel “The Young Guard” should not be made public.

Who is the traitor?

At the beginning of the 2000s, the Security Service of Ukraine Lugansk region declassified some materials on the Young Guard case. As it turned out, back in 1943, a certain Mikhail Kuleshov was detained by the army counterintelligence SMERSH. When the city was occupied by the Nazis, he offered them his cooperation and soon took up the position of field police investigator. It was Kuleshov who led the investigation into the Young Guard case. Judging by his testimony, the real reason The failure of the underground was the betrayal of the Young Guard Georgy Pocheptsov. When the news arrived that three Young Guards had been arrested, Pocheptsov confessed everything to his stepfather, who worked closely with the German administration. He convinced him to confess to the police. During the first interrogations, he confirmed the authorship of the applicant and his affiliation with the underground Komsomol organization operating in Krasnodon, named the goals and objectives of the underground activities, and indicated the location of storage of weapons and ammunition hidden in the Gundorov mine N18. [C-BLOCK]

As Kuleshov testified during an interrogation by SMERSH on March 15, 1943: “Pocheptsov said that he was indeed a member of an underground Komsomol organization existing in Krasnodon and its environs. He named the leaders of this organization, or rather, the city headquarters, namely: Tretyakevich, Lukashov, Zemnukhov, Safonov, Koshevoy. Pocheptsov named Tretyakevich as the head of the citywide organization. He himself was a member of the Pervomaisk organization, the leader of which was Anatoly Popov, and before that Glavan.” The next day, Pocheptsov was again taken to the police and interrogated. On the same day, he was confronted with Moshkov and Popov, whose interrogations were accompanied by brutal beatings and cruel torture. Pocheptsov confirmed his previous testimony and named all members of the organization known to him. [C-BLOCK] From January 5 to January 11, 1943, based on the denunciation and testimony of Pocheptsov, most of the Young Guards were arrested. This was shown by the former deputy chief of the Krasnodon police, V. Podtyny, who was arrested in 1959. The traitor himself was released and was not arrested until the liberation of Krasnodon Soviet troops. Thus, the information of a secret nature that Pocheptsov had and which became known to the police turned out to be enough to eliminate the Komsomol-youth underground. This is how the organization was discovered, having existed for less than six months.

After the liberation of Krasnodon by the Red Army, Pocheptsov, Gromov (Pocheptsov’s stepfather) and Kuleshov were recognized as traitors to the Motherland and, according to the verdict of the USSR military tribunal, were shot on September 19, 1943. However, the public learned about the real traitors for an unknown reason many years later.

Was there no betrayal?

At the end of the 1990s, one of the surviving Young Guard members, Vasily Levashov, in an interview with one of the well-known newspapers, said that the Germans got on the trail of the Young Guard by accident - due to poor conspiracy. There was supposedly no betrayal. At the end of December 1942, Young Guards robbed a truck loaded with Christmas gifts for the Germans. This was witnessed by a 12-year-old boy who received a pack of cigarettes from members of the organization for his silence. With these cigarettes, the boy fell into the hands of the police and told about the robbery of the car. [C-BLOCK]

On January 1, 1943, three Young Guards who participated in the theft of Christmas gifts were arrested: Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov. Without knowing it, the fascists found themselves in the very heart of the organization. During interrogations, the guys were silent, but during a search in Moshkov’s house, the Germans accidentally discovered a list of 70 members of the Young Guard. This list became the reason for mass arrests and torture.

It must be admitted that Levashov’s “revelations” have not yet been confirmed.

Anna Sopova is one of those members of the Krasnodon underground whose name is not always heard. Even her parents rarely spoke about the circumstances of their daughter’s death. Maybe it was too painful to reopen the heart wound, or maybe they didn’t know how to take their pain out on people.

Anna Dmitrievna Sopova born on May 10, 1924 in the village of Shevyrevka, Krasnodonsky district, into a working-class family. In 1932 I went to first grade, and in 1935 the Sopov family moved to the city of Krasnodon. Anna continued her studies at school No. 1 named after A. M. Gorky. She studied well. Repeatedly, the teaching staff of the school awarded her with certificates and books, and twice she was awarded tourist trips to the Caucasus.

Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.

In 1939 she joined the ranks of the Lenin Komsomol. She immediately became actively involved in the life of the Komsomol organization of the school. Anya dreamed of becoming a pilot. She told the kids a lot about her favorite heroine, Valentina Grizodubova. When the war began, like many schoolchildren, she took part in the construction of defensive structures. On the eve of the occupation of Krasnodon I finished 10th grade.

At the beginning of October 1942, Sopova joined the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”; her comrades elected her commander of the five.

“There was a lot of gentleness, sensitivity, warmth in the character of this girl, and at the same time a lot of heroism and courage,” recalls teacher K. F. Kuznetsova.

Sopova’s group met at her home or at the house of Yuri Visenovsky, where they wrote leaflets, many of which were authored by Anna. She took part in many military operations.

“In the evening, my daughter Nyusia was not at home. She arrived only in the morning. I didn’t question the girl; I knew that Nyusya often visited her friends. Only in the morning I noticed how she was shining, how her cheerful eyes were laughing. With special joy she kissed me, mother, and kept repeating:

"Under the scarlet banner our people..."

“What are you talking about, Nyusya?” “She took me outside and said: “Admire me, daddy.”

I raised my head and saw a scarlet flag above the directorate.”

“One early January morning someone knocked on our door,” Anna’s parents recalled. - It was the police. They came for our daughter. Nyusya calmly got dressed, asked us not to worry, and kissed us deeply goodbye. Her last words were: “Take care of yourself, dear ones.” She walked away with a firm, confident gait. We never saw her alive again."

...So the gendarmes dragged in a young, fragile girl with dimples on her cheeks and heavy brown braids. "Meister" lazily asked:

- What's your name?

- Anna Sopova...

These were the only words that the Gestapo men heard from the girl. She was twice suspended from the ceiling by her braids. The third time, one of the braids broke and the girl fell to the floor, bleeding. But she didn't say a word to them...

“...They began to ask her who she knew, with whom she had connections, what she did. She was silent. They ordered her to strip naked. She turned pale - and did not move. And she was beautiful, her braids were huge, lush, down to her waist. They tore off her clothes, wrapped her dress over her head, laid her on the floor and began to whip her with a wire whip. She screamed terribly. Then she fell silent again. Then Plokhikh, one of the main executioners of the police, hit her in the head with something...”

From the memoirs of Alexandra Vasilievna Tyulenina.

On January 31, after severe torture, she was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5. Anya was lifted out of the pit with one scythe - the other broke off. But the Nazis did not get a word from her.

She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon. Anna Dmitrievna Sopova was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 1st degree.

Information about the atrocities of the Nazi invaders, about the injuries inflicted on the underground fighters of Krasnodon as a result of interrogations and executions at the pit of mine No. 5 and in the Thunderous Forest of Rovenki. January-February 1943. (Archive of the Young Guard Museum.)

The certificate was drawn up on the basis of the act of investigating the atrocities committed by the Nazis in the Krasnodon region, dated September 12, 1946, on the basis archival documents the “Young Guard” museum and documents from the Voroshilovograd KGB.

DOCUMENT. (DESCRIPTION OF TORTURE):

1. Barakov Nikolay Petrovich, born in 1905. During interrogations, the skull was broken, the tongue and ear were cut off, the teeth and left eye were knocked out, the right hand was cut off, both legs were broken, and the heels were cut off.

2. Vystavkin Daniil Sergeevich, born in 1902, traces of severe torture were found on his body.

3. Vinokurov Gerasim Tikhonovich, born in 1887. He was pulled out with a crushed skull, a smashed face, and a crushed arm.

4. Lyutikov Philip Petrovich, born in 1891. He was thrown into the pit alive. Cervical vertebrae were broken, the nose and ears were cut off, there were wounds on the chest with torn edges.

5. Sokolova Galina Grigorievna, born in 1900. She was among the last to be pulled out with her head crushed. The body is bruised, there is a knife wound on the chest.

6. Yakovlev Stepan Georgievich, born in 1898. He was extracted with a crushed head and a dissected back.

7. Androsova Lidiya Makarovna, born in 1924.

Lydia printed and distributed anti-fascist leaflets and repeatedly damaged Nazi communications. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, Lydia, together with Nina Kezikova and Nadezhda Petrachkova, made the Red Banner, which was hoisted at mine No. 1.

01/12/1943 Lydia was arrested along with other underground fighters. The Nazis brutally tortured Lydia. They cut off her hand, her ear, and cut out her eye. The Nazis executed Lydia by hanging on January 16, 1943; her mutilated body was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.

8. Bondareva Alexandra Ivanovna, born in 1922. The head and right mammary gland were removed. The whole body is beaten, bruised, and black.

9. Vintsenovsky Yuri Semenovich, born in 1924. He was taken out with a swollen face, without clothes. There were no wounds on the body. Apparently he was dropped alive.

10. Glavan Boris Grigorievich, born in 1920. It was recovered from the pit, severely mutilated.

11. Gerasimova Nina Nikolaevna, born in 1924. The victim's head was flattened, her nose was depressed, her left arm was broken, and her body was beaten.

12. Grigoriev Mikhail Nikolaevich, born in 1924.

Mikhail participated in the execution of policemen and in many other military operations of the Young Guard, obtained weapons, printed and distributed anti-fascist leaflets.

01/27/1943 Mikhail was arrested. The Nazis brutally tortured him, beat him, he had lacerations on his head, his face was disfigured, his teeth were knocked out, his legs were chopped up, his body was black from wounds. Mikhail was thrown into pit No. 5 while still alive, causing him a severe gunshot wound.

13. Gromova Ulyana Matveevna, born in 1924.

Ulyana Gromova was one of the organizers of an underground group in the village of Pervomaika, which became part of the Young Guard.

Ulyana prepares and participates in combat operations of the Young Guards, distributes leaflets, collects medicines, and agitates Krasnodon residents to sabotage food supplies and the recruitment of young people to work in Germany.

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, together with Anatoly Popov, Ulyana hung a red flag on the chimney of mine No. 1 - encore.

In January 1943, the Nazis arrested Ulyana. During interrogations, she was severely beaten, hung by her hair, a five-pointed star was cut out on her back, her breasts were cut off, her body was burned with a hot iron, her wounds were sprinkled with salt, she was put on a hot stove, her arm and ribs were broken. On January 16, 1943, the Nazis executed Ulyana and threw her into the pit of mine No. 5.

14. Gukov Vasily Safonovich, born in 1921. Beaten beyond recognition.

15. Dubrovina Alexandra Emelyanovna, born in 1919. She was pulled out without a skull, there were puncture wounds on her back, her arm was broken, her leg was shot.

16. Dyachenko Antonina Nikolaevna, born in 1924. There was an open fracture of the skull with a patchy wound, striped bruises on the body, elongated abrasions and wounds resembling imprints of narrow, hard objects, apparently from blows with a telephone cable.

17. Eliseenko Antonina Zakharovna, born in 1921. The victim had traces of burns and beatings on her body, and there was a trace of a gunshot wound on her temple.

18. Zhdanov Vladimir Alexandrovich, born in 1925. He was extracted with a laceration in the left temporal region. The fingers are broken, which is why they are twisted, and there are bruises under the nails. Two stripes 3 cm wide and 25 cm long were cut out on the back. Eyes were gouged out and ears were cut off.

19. Zhukov Nikolay Dmitrievich, born in 1922. Extracted without ears, tongue, teeth. An arm and a foot were severed.

20. Zagoruiko Vladimir Mikhailovich, born in 1927. Recovered without hair, with a severed hand. Despite the torture, Volodya held on courageously until the very last minutes of his life and when he was pushed into the pit, he shouted:

Long live the Motherland! Long live Stalin!

21. Zemnukhov Ivan Alexandrovich, born in 1923. He was taken out beheaded and beaten. The whole body is swollen. The foot of the left leg and the left arm (at the elbow) are twisted.

22. Ivanikhina Antonina Aeksandrovna, born in 1925. The victim's eyes were gouged out, her head was bandaged with a scarf and wire, and her breasts were cut out.

23. Ivanikhina Liliya Alexandrovna, born in 1925. The head was removed and the left arm was severed.

24. Kezikova Nina Georgievna, born in 1925. She was pulled out with her leg torn off at the knee, her arms twisted. There were no bullet wounds on the body; apparently, she was thrown out alive.

25. Kiikova Evgenia Ivanovna, born in 1924. Extracted without the right foot and right hand.

26. Kovaleva Klavdiya Petrovna, born in 1925. The right breast was pulled out swollen, the right breast was cut off, the feet were burned, the left breast was cut off, the head was tied with a scarf, traces of beatings were visible on the body. Found 10 meters from the trunk, between the trolleys. Probably dropped alive.

27. Koshevoy Oleg Vasilievich, born in 1924.

Oleg is one of the organizers and leaders of the Young Guard, participated in many of its military operations, including the destruction of traitors, obtained weapons, destroyed enemy equipment and food, printed and distributed anti-fascist leaflets.

01/12/1043 Oleg was arrested. The Nazis brutally tortured him, beat him, disfigured his face, and crushed the back of his head. Oleg turned gray from torture. On 02/09/1943, having failed to obtain a confession, the Nazis shot Oleg in the Thunderous Forest.

28. Levashov Sergey Mikhailovich, born in 1924. The radius bone of the left hand was broken. The fall caused dislocations in the hip joints and both legs were broken. One is in the femur and the other is in the knee area. The skin on my right leg was all torn off. No bullet wounds were found. Was dropped alive. They found him crawling far away from the crash site with his mouth full of dirt.

29. Lukashov Gennady Alexandrovich, born in 1924. The man was missing a foot, his hands showed signs of being beaten with an iron rod, and his face was disfigured.

30. Lukyanchenko Viktor Dmitrievich, born in 1927.

He was a member of Sergei Tyulenin's group. He produced and distributed anti-fascist leaflets.

December 5, 1942 Viktor Lukyanchenko Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova participated in the arson of the labor exchange. As a result of the arson, documents of young Krasnodon residents prepared for theft to Germany were destroyed.

On January 27, 1943, at night, Viktor Lukyanchenko was arrested. On January 31, after severe torture, he was shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.

Before the execution, the Nazis cut off the living Victor’s hand, cut out his eye and cut off his nose. He was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.

31. Minaeva Nina Petrovna, born in 1924. She was pulled out with broken arms, a missing eye, and something shapeless was carved on her chest. The entire body is covered with dark blue stripes.

32. Moshkov Evgeniy Yakovlevich, born in 1920. During interrogations, his legs and arms were broken. The body and face are blue-black from beatings.

33. Nikolaev Anatoly Georgievich, born in 1922. The entire body of the extracted man was dissected, his tongue was cut out.

34. Ogurtsov Dmitry Uvarovich, born in 1922. In the Rovenkovo ​​prison he was subjected to inhuman torture.

35. Ostapenko Semyon Makarovich, born in 1927. Ostapenko's body bore signs of cruel torture. The blow of the butt crushed the skull.

36. Osmukhin Vladimir Andreevich, born in 1925. During interrogations, the right hand was cut off, the right eye was gouged out, there were burn marks on the legs, and the back of the skull was crushed.

37. Orlov Anatoly Alekseevich, born in 1925. He was shot in the face with an explosive bullet. The entire back of my head is crushed. Blood is visible on the leg; he was removed with his shoes off.

38. Peglivanova Maya Konstantinovna, born in 1925.

Maya wrote and distributed leaflets, conducted anti-Hitler propaganda among the population, helped Soviet prisoners of war escape, and collected medicines and bandages for them.

On January 11, 1943, Maya was arrested. Translator Reiband told his mother that during interrogation Maya admitted that she was a partisan and proudly threw words of curse and contempt into the face of the executioners. The Nazis brutally tortured Maya: they cut out her eyes, cut off her breasts, and broke her legs. After severe torture, she was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.

After the liberation of Krasnodon, the names of the young guard girls were written on the prison cell walls: Maya Peglivanova, Shura Dubrovina, Ulyasha Gromova and Gerasimova. They wrote: “We are being taken away... What a pity that we won’t see you again. Long live Comrade Stalin!

She was thrown into the pit alive. She was pulled out without eyes or lips, her legs were broken, lacerations were visible on her leg.

39. Petlya Nadezhda Stepanovna, born in 1924. The victim's left arm and legs were broken, her chest was burned. There were no bullet wounds on the body; she was dropped alive.

40. Petrachkova Nadezhda Nikitichna, born in 1924. The body of the extracted woman bore traces of inhuman torture, and was removed without a hand.

41. Petrov Viktor Vladimirovich, born in 1925. A knife wound was inflicted in the chest, fingers were broken at the joints, ears and tongue were cut off, and the soles of the feet were burned.

42. Pirozhok Vasily Makarovich, born in 1925. He was pulled out of the pit beaten. The body is bruised.

43. Polyansky Yuri Fedorovich,1924 year of birth. Extracted without left arm and nose.

44. Popov Anatoly Vladimirovich, born in 1924. The fingers of the left hand were crushed and the foot of the left foot was severed.

45. Rogozin Vladimir Pavlovich, born in 1924. The victim's spine and arms were broken, his teeth were knocked out, and his eye was gouged out.

46. Samoshinova Angelina Tikhonovna, born in 1924. During interrogations, his back was cut with a whip. The right leg was shot in two places.

47. Sopova Anna Dmitrievna, born in 1924.

Anna was the commander of the Five, participated in many military operations of the Young Guard, printed and distributed anti-fascist leaflets. Anna's "Five" planted the Red Flag on the Nazi administration building.

01/25/1043 Anna was arrested. The Nazis brutally tortured her, beat her, and hung her by her braids. Anna's corpse with one scythe was removed from pit No. 5 - the other was torn out with sections of skin.

48. Startseva Nina Illarionovna, born in 1925. She was pulled out with a broken nose and broken legs.

49. Subbotin Viktor Petrovich, born in 1924. The beatings on the face and twisted limbs were visible.

50. Sumskoy Nikolay Stepanovich, born in 1924. The eyes were blindfolded, there was a trace of a gunshot wound on the forehead, there were signs of lashing on the body, traces of injections under the nails were visible on the fingers, the left arm was broken, the nose was pierced, the left eye was missing.

51. Tretyakevich Viktor Iosifovich, born in 1924. The hair was torn out, the left arm was twisted, the lips were cut off, the leg was torn off along with the groin.

52. Tyulenin Sergey Gavrilovich, born in 1924.

Sergei’s “Five” saw off combat operations: stole cattle from the enemy, destroyed food carts, and on the night of 10/07/1942 hoisted the Red Banner at school No. 4. 12/05/1943 Sergei, Lyubov Shevtsova, Viktor Lukyanchenko set fire to the Labor Exchange. In January 1943, Sergei crossed the front line and joined the Red Army. He fought, was captured, wounded and fled to Krasnodon from being shot.

On January 27, 1943, following a denunciation, Sergei was arrested. The Nazis brutally tortured him in front of his mother, broke his spine, and mutilated his entire body. The monsters burned through Sergei’s body, knocked out his teeth and broke his jaw. Sergei died from torture. On January 31, 1943, the Nazis threw Sergei’s body into the pit of mine No. 5.

53. Fomin Dementy Yakovlevich, born in 1925. Removed from a pit with a broken head.

54. Shevtsova Lyubov Grigorievna, born in 1924. Several stars are carved on the body. Shot in the face by an explosive bullet.

55. Shepelev Evgeniy Nikiforovich, born in 1924. Boris Galavan was removed from the pit, bound face to face with barbed wire, his hands were cut off. The face is disfigured, the stomach is ripped open.

56. Shishchenko Alexander Tarasovich, born in 1925. Shishchenko had a head injury, knife wounds on his body, and his ears, nose and upper lip were torn off. The left arm was broken at the shoulder, elbow and hand.

57. Shcherbakov Georgy Kuzmich, born in 1925. The man’s face was bruised, his spine was broken, as a result of which the body was removed in parts. source-

Mine pit No. 5. The procedure for extracting the bodies of the Young Guards brutally tortured by the Nazis

Funeral of Young Guard Sergei Tyulenin

Funeral of Young Guard member Ivan Zemnukhov

Funeral of Young Guard member Vladimir Kulikov

Funeral of Young Guard soldier Gennady Lukashov

IN Soviet years Oleg Koshevoy was a national hero, and millions read Alexander Fadeev’s novel

In Soviet times, a novel Alexandra Fadeeva"Young Guard" was incredibly popular. But after perestroika, when it became fashionable to doubt the veracity of the existence of the heroes of the Civil and Great Patriotic War, a lot of dirt was spilled on the Young Guard. I especially got it Oleg Koshevoy. On the Hero's birthday Soviet Union the site looks into why this happened and how it really happened.

Why exactly "Young Guard"?

There were a lot of underground organizations during the war. But why exactly did the Young Guard become an example of heroism and courage? All events took place in the mining town of Krasnodon, which is located 50 kilometers from Lugansk (then the city was called Voroshilovgrad). It was occupied by the German army in July 1942. It is known that almost immediately after the occupation, several underground youth groups, independent from each other, were formed there; Red Army soldiers who escaped from captivity often joined the young underground fighters, as happened with Ivan Turkenich, who became the commander of the Young Guard.

Already in February 1943 the city was liberated. In the USSR, special commissions worked that recorded crimes committed by the German army. When the Red Army entered Krasnodon, it immediately became known about the brutal torture and murder of more than 70 teenagers who participated in the local underground organization. The investigation began.

A few months later, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev wrote Joseph Stalin a report in which he spoke in detail about the activities of the Young Guard and proposed to nominate the guys for awards. As a result, on September 13, a decree was issued to award five of them posthumously, including Oleg Koshevoy. Newspapers began to write about the Young Guards.

Two Odessa journalists visited Krasnodon Lyaskovsky And Kotov. By February 23, 1944, they published the book “Hearts of the Brave,” after reading which he went to Krasnodon Alexander Fadeev. Two years later, his novel “The Young Guard” was published, which at one time was considered the most a book to read in Soviet Union. And in 1948 a film of the same name was released. Both the novel and the film were works of fiction, and it was fiction that played an important role in the era of exposing “myths.”

Who was Oleg Koshevoy?

Oleg Koshevoy, one of the brightest heroes of The Young Guard, as readers of the book and viewers remember him, was born on June 8, 1926 in the small town of Priluki, Chernigov region. Official sources say that Oleg’s parents separated, that until 1939 the boy lived with his father, and then moved to his mother in Krasnodon. When Fadeev arrived in the city, he, on the advice of Odessa journalists, settled in the house of Oleg Koshevoy’s mother. And he wrote most of the novel from memories Elena Nikolaevna. But she chose to forget about her ex-husband. Even in her book “The Tale of a Son” she wrote that Oleg’s father disappeared.

In fact, Vasily Fedoseevich Koshevoy lived and worked in Krasnodon. He died only in 1967. Local residents told local historians that the man was very worried about the death of his son and suffered because of injustice. And the guides did not even suspect that the elderly man who often appears in the Young Guard museum is the living, real father of Oleg Koshevoy.

They say that Oleg moved in with his mother only because his father was drafted into the army. An excellent student, he drew beautifully, went in for sports, was fond of shooting, wrote poetry, worked as a lifeguard and tutored poor students. When the war began, Koshevoy helped in the hospital and published a wall newspaper with reports from the Information Bureau for wounded soldiers.

On June 8, 1942, he turned 16 years old. The fighting was already close to Krasnodon, and the mother tried to send her son to evacuate, but he did not have time to leave. During the occupation, together with his friends and classmates, Oleg organized a Komsomol group, which in September 1943, along with other youth groups, became part of the underground organization “Young Guard”. Koshevoy became one of the leaders of the movement; the sixteen-year-old boy was responsible for security and developed operations.

Feats of the Young Guards

The Young Guard operated underground for only a few months. But during this time, the students managed to do a lot. The Young Guard assembled a radio receiver, created a printing house, printed leaflets with Information Bureau reports, posting them around the city and the surrounding area. They destroyed the bread that was being prepared for shipment to Germany. The underground workers burned the labor exchange and all the documents in it, thereby saving about 2,000 people who were planned to be taken to work in Germany.

In honor of the anniversary October revolution Red flags appeared in Krasnodon. This was also their doing. Today, many may be surprised: why take the risk, take such an action, which smacks of boyishness? But then, in the occupied city, it had a special meaning: we are not giving up, victory will be ours.

It was after this action that the Nazis began to look for members of the underground movement with particular diligence. There is still debate about who actually turned out to be a traitor. The problem is that Fadeev’s novel was extremely popular and people believed him. And there was quite a lot of fiction in it; some of the events described by the writer did not happen at all. Moreover, the prototypes of the heroes of the novel, whom Fadeev made traitors, were accused of this and real life. They had to prove and achieve their rehabilitation.

After perestroika, a lot of contradictory information appeared, a variety of versions were expressed, even to the point that the Young Guards were an underground organization Ukrainian nationalists. The Ukrainian government is propagating the version that the “hand of the Kremlin” was behind the feat of the Young Guards. But there were documents that described in detail the corpses of tortured young men and women extracted from mine No. 5, with stars carved on their cheeks or backs, broken arms and legs, cut off ears, torn out lips. Yes, Soviet propaganda worked according to full program, but this does not detract from the courage, audacity and love of freedom of the young underground fighters.

Oleg Koshevoy, as a “commissar”, was subjected to particularly terrible torture by the Germans. He was shot on February 9, 1943. When the grave of the Young Guards executed in the Thundering Forest was discovered, it turned out that the 17-year-old boy had turned gray. He did not live only a few days before the liberation of Krasnodon.

Many people still come to the Young Guard Museum today – primarily schoolchildren from different parts of Donbass. In the city itself the memory is highly respected young heroes who wrote their names in the history of the Victory. Most of the Young Guards were descendants of Cossacks, and Cossacks always regarded the defense of their homeland as the main work of their lives.

On September 28, 1942, in Krasnodon, young underground fighters united into the Young Guard organization.

Novel and film "hot on the heels".

In 1946, the novel by writer Alexander Fadeev, “The Young Guard,” was published in the Soviet Union, dedicated to the struggle of young underground fighters against the fascists. Fadeev’s novel was destined to become a bestseller for several decades to come: “The Young Guard” went through more than 270 editions during the Soviet period with a total circulation of over 26 million copies.
The Young Guard was included in school curriculum, and there was not a single Soviet student who had not heard of Oleg Koshev, Lyuba Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova.
In 1948, Alexander Fadeev's novel was filmed - a film with same name“The Young Guard” was directed by Sergei Gerasimov, using students from the acting department of VGIK. The path to stardom for Nonna Mordyukova, Inna Makarova, Georgy Yumatov, Vyacheslav Tikhonov began with “Young Guard”...

Both the book and the film had an amazing feature - they were created not just based on real events, but literally “hot on the heels”. The actors came to the places where everything happened and talked with the parents and friends of the dead heroes. Vladimir Ivanov, who played Oleg Koshevoy, was two years older than his hero. Nonna Mordyukova was only a year younger than Ulyana Gromova, Inna Makarova was a couple of years younger than Lyuba Shevtsova. All this gave the picture incredible realism.
Years later, during the collapse of the USSR, the efficiency of creating works of art will become an argument with which they will prove that the history of the underground organization “Young Guard” is a fiction of Soviet propaganda. Why did the young underground fighters from Krasnodon suddenly get so much attention? There were, after all, much more successful groups that did not receive a little fame and recognition from the Young Guard?

Mine number five.

No matter how cruel it sounds, the popularity of the Young Guard was predetermined by its tragic ending, which occurred shortly before the liberation of the city of Krasnodon from the Nazis.
In 1943, the Soviet Union was already carrying out systematic work to document Nazi crimes in the occupied territories. Immediately after the liberation of cities and villages, commissions were formed whose task was to record cases of massacres of Soviet citizens, establish the burial places of victims, and identify witnesses to crimes.
On February 14, 1943, the Red Army liberated Krasnodon. Almost immediately, local residents became aware of the massacre committed by the Nazis against young underground fighters.
The snow in the prison yard still contained traces of their blood. In the cells on the walls, relatives and friends found the last messages of the Young Guards who were leaving to die. The place where the bodies of those executed were located was also not a secret. Most of the Young Guards were thrown into the 58-meter pit of the Krasnodon mine No. 5.

The work of lifting bodies was hard both physically and psychologically. The executed Young Guards were subjected to sophisticated torture before their death.
The protocols for examining corpses speak for themselves:
“Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, a five-pointed star carved on her back, her right arm broken, broken ribs...”
“Lida Androsova, 18 years old, was taken out without an eye, ear, hand, with a rope around her neck, which cut heavily into her body. Dried blood is visible on the neck.”
“Angelina Samoshina, 18 years old. Signs of torture were found on the body: arms were twisted, ears were cut off, a star was carved on the cheek...”
“Maya Peglivanova, 17 years old. The corpse was disfigured: breasts, lips were cut off, legs were broken. All outer clothing has been removed."
“Shura Bondareva, 20 years old, was taken out without her head and right breast, her whole body was beaten, bruised, black in color.”
“Viktor Tretyakevich, 18 years old. He was pulled out without a face, with a black and blue back, with crushed arms.”

"I may die, but I have to get her"

In the process of studying the remains, another terrible detail became clear - some of the guys were thrown into the mine alive and died as a result of falling from a great height.
A few days later, work was suspended - due to the decomposition of the bodies, lifting them became dangerous for the living. The bodies of the others were much lower and it seemed that they could not be raised.
The father of the deceased Lida Androsova, Makar Timofeevich, an experienced miner, said: “Even if I die from the poison of my daughter’s corpse, but I have to get her.”

The mother of the deceased Yuri Vintsenovsky recalled: “A gaping abyss around which small parts of our children’s clothes were lying: socks, combs, felt boots, bras, etc. The wall of the waste heap is all splattered with blood and brains. With a heart-rending cry, each mother recognized the expensive things of her children. Moans, screams, fainting... The corpses that could not fit in the bathhouse were laid out on the street, in the snow under the walls of the bathhouse. A terrible picture! In the bathhouse, around the bathhouse there are corpses, corpses. 71 corpses!
On March 1, 1943, Krasnodon saw off the Young Guard on their last journey. They were buried with military honors in a mass grave in the Komsomol Park.

Comrade Khrushchev reports...

Soviet investigators fell into the hands of not only material evidence of the massacre, but also German documents, as well as Hitler’s accomplices who were directly related to the death of the Young Guard.
It was not possible to quickly understand the circumstances of the activities and deaths of other underground groups due to a lack of information. The uniqueness of the “Young Guard” was that, as it seemed, everything about it became known at once.
In September 1943, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev wrote a report on the activities of the Young Guard based on established data: “The Young Guard began their activities with the creation of a primitive printing house. Students in grades 9-10 - members of an underground organization - made a radio receiver on their own. After some time, they were already receiving messages from the Soviet Information Bureau and began publishing leaflets. Leaflets were posted everywhere: on the walls of houses, in buildings, on telephone poles. Several times the Young Guard managed to stick leaflets on the backs of police officers... Members of the Young Guard also wrote slogans on the walls of houses and fences. On religious holidays, they came to church and stuffed handwritten leaflets into the pockets of believers with the following content: “As we lived, so we will live, as we were, so we will be under the Stalinist banner,” or: “Down with Hitler’s 300 grams, give me a Stalinist kilogram.” On the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, a red banner hoisted by members of an underground organization hoisted over the city...
The Young Guard did not limit itself to propaganda work; it made active preparations for an armed uprising. For this purpose, they collected: 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15,000 rounds of ammunition and 65 kg of explosives. By the beginning of the winter of 1942, the organization was a cohesive, fighting detachment with experience in political and military activities. The underground members thwarted the mobilization of several thousand residents of Krasnodon to Germany, burned the labor exchange, saved the lives of dozens of prisoners of war, recaptured 500 head of cattle from the Germans and returned them to the residents, and carried out a number of other acts of sabotage and terrorism.”

Operational award.

Khrushchev further suggests: “To perpetuate the memory of the victims and popularize their heroic deeds, I ask:
1. To assign /posthumously/ to Oleg Vasilievich KOSHEV, Ivan Alexandrovich ZEMNUKHOV, Sergei Gavrilovich TYULENIN, Ulyana Matveevna GROMOVA, Lyubov Grigorievna SHEVTSOVA the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, as the most outstanding organizers and leaders of the “Young Guard”.
2. Award 44 active members of the “Young Guard” with the Order of the USSR for their valor and courage in the fight against the German invaders behind enemy lines / of which 37 people were posthumously /.”
Stalin supported Khrushchev's proposal. The note addressed to the leader was dated September 8, and already on September 13, a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued on awarding Young Guards.
No unnecessary feats were attributed to the boys and girls from the Young Guard - they managed to do a lot for untrained amateur underground fighters. And this is the case when there was no need to embellish anything.

What was corrected in the film and book?

And yet, there are things that are still debated. For example, about the contribution to the common cause of each of the leaders. Or about whether it is legal to call Oleg Koshevoy a commissioner of the organization. Or about who was responsible for the failure.
For example, one of the Nazi collaborators stated at the trial that Viktor Tretyakevich betrayed the Young Guard, unable to withstand torture. Only 16 years later, in 1959, during the trial of Vasily Podtynny, who served as deputy chief of the Krasnodon city police in 1942-1943, it became known that Tretyakevich had become a victim of a slander, and the real informer was Gennady Pocheptsov.
Pocheptsov and his stepfather Vasily Gromov were exposed as Nazi collaborators back in 1943, and were shot by a tribunal. But Pocheptsov’s role in the death of the Young Guard was revealed much later.
Due to new information, in 1964 Sergei Gerasimov even re-edited and partially re-scored the film “The Young Guard”.
Alexander Fadeev had to rewrite the novel. And not because of inaccuracies, which the writer explained by the fact that the book was fiction and not documentary, but because of the special opinion of Comrade Stalin. The leader did not like the fact that the youth in the book acted without the help and guidance of their older communist comrades. As a result, in the 1951 version of the book, Koshevoy and his comrades were already guided by wise party members.

Patriots without special training.

Such additions were then used to denounce the Young Guard as a whole. And some people are ready to present the relatively recently discovered fact that Lyuba Shevtsova completed a three-month NKVD course as a radio operator as proof that the Young Guards are not patriotic schoolchildren, but seasoned saboteurs.
In fact, there was neither a leading role of the party nor sabotage preparation. The guys did not know the basics of underground activities, improvising on the go. Under such conditions, failure was inevitable.
It is enough to remember how Oleg Koshevoy died. He managed to avoid detention in Krasnodon, but did not succeed in crossing the front line as he had planned.
He was detained by field gendarmerie near the city of Rovenki. Koshevoy was not known by sight, and he could well have avoided exposure if not for a mistake that was completely impossible for a professional illegal intelligence officer. During the search, they found a Komsomol card sewn into his clothes, as well as several other documents incriminating him as a member of the Young Guard.

Their courage amazed their enemies.

The desire to keep a Komsomol card in such a situation is a crazy act, life-threatening boyishness. But Oleg was a boy, he was only 16 years old... His last hour He faced February 9, 1943 with steadfastness and courage. From the testimony of Schultz, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in the city of Rovenki: “At the end of January, I participated in the execution of a group of members of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”, among whom was the leader of this organization Koshevoy... I remember him especially clearly because the shooting I had to go into it twice. After the shots, all those arrested fell to the ground and lay motionless, only Koshevoy stood up and, turning around, looked in our direction. This greatly angered Fromme and he ordered the gendarme Drewitz to finish him off. Drewitz approached the lying Koshevoy and killed him with a shot in the back of the head...”
His comrades also died fearlessly. SS man Drewitz told during interrogation about last minutes life of Lyuba Shevtsova: “Of those executed in the second batch, I remember Shevtsova well. She drew my attention with her appearance. She had a beautiful, slender figure and a long face. Despite her youth, she behaved very courageously. Before the execution, I brought Shevtsova to the edge of the execution pit. She did not utter a word about mercy and calmly, with her head raised, accepted death.”
“I didn’t join the organization to then ask for your forgiveness; I only regret one thing, that we didn’t have time to do enough!” Ulyana Gromova threw it in the face of the Nazi investigator.

“Bandera’s myth”: how Young Guards were registered as Ukrainian nationalists...

During the years of independent Ukraine, a new misfortune befell the Young Guard - it was suddenly declared... an underground organization of Ukrainian nationalists.
This version is recognized by all historians who have studied documents related to the Young Guard as complete nonsense. It must be said that the city of Krasnodon, adjacent to the modern Russian-Ukrainian border, has never belonged to the territory where the positions of nationalists are strong.
The author of the “stuffing” is US citizen Evgeniy Stakhov. A veteran of the Bandera movement in the early 1990s, he began to introduce himself in interviews as the organizer of the nationalist underground in the Donbass, to which he “joined” the Young Guard. Stakhov’s revelations were refuted not only by the real facts in which he was confused, but also by the statements of those Young Guards who survived and lived until the 1990s. However, to this day in Ukraine and in Russia you can sometimes hear about the “Bandera trace” of the Young Guard.
After Euromaidan in Ukraine, the desecration of the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War became the norm. The Young Guard members are lucky - the city of Krasnodon is located on the territory of the Lugansk People's Republic, where the memory of the patriots who gave their lives for their Motherland is still sacred.

"Young guard"

The heroic history of the underground organization of Krasnodon boys and girls who fought against the Nazis and laid down their lives in this fight was known to everyone to the Soviet man. Now this story is remembered much less often...

The famous novel played a huge role in glorifying the feat of the Young Guards Alexandra Fadeeva and the film of the same name Sergei Gerasimov. In the 90s of the last century, they began to forget about The Young Guard: Fadeev’s novel was removed from the school curriculum, and the story itself was declared almost an invention of Soviet propagandists.

Meanwhile, in the name of the freedom of their Motherland, the boys and girls of Krasnodon fought against the German occupiers, showing steadfastness and heroism, withstood torture and bullying and died very young. Their feat must not be forgotten, says the doctor historical sciences Nina PETROVA– compiler of the collection of documents “The True History of the Young Guard.”

Almost everyone died...

– Did the study of the heroic history of the Krasnodon Komsomol underground begin during the war?

– In the Soviet Union, it was officially believed that 3,350 Komsomol and youth underground organizations operated in the temporarily occupied territory. But we don’t know the history of each of them. For example, practically nothing is still known about the youth organization that arose in the city of Stalino (now Donetsk). And the Young Guards really found themselves in the spotlight. It was the largest organization in terms of numbers, almost all of whose members died.

Soon after the liberation of Krasnodon on February 14, 1943, Soviet and party authorities began collecting information about the Young Guard. Already on March 31, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR Vasily Sergienko reported on the activities of this organization to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev brought the information received to the attention of Joseph Stalin, and the story of the “Young Guard” received wide publicity and people started talking about it. And in July 1943, based on the results of a trip to Krasnodon, the deputy head of the special department of the Komsomol Central Committee Anatoly Toritsyn(later Major General of the KGB) and Central Committee instructor N. Sokolov prepared a memorandum on the emergence and activities of the Young Guard.

– How and when did this organization arise?

– Krasnodon is a small mining town. Mining villages grew up around it - Pervomaika, Semeykino and others. At the end of July 1942, Krasnodon was occupied. It is officially recognized that the Young Guard arose at the end of September. But we must keep in mind that small underground youth organizations appeared not only in the city, but also in the villages. And at first they were not related to each other.

I believe that the process of forming the Young Guard began at the end of August and was completed by November 7. The documents contain information that in August an attempt was made to unite the youth of Krasnodon Sergey Tyulenin. According to the recollections of his teachers, Sergei was a very proactive young man, thoughtful and serious. He loved literature and dreamed of becoming a pilot.

In September appeared in Krasnodon Victor Tretyakevich. His family came from Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk). Tretyakevich was left underground by the regional committee of the Komsomol and immediately began to play a leading role in the activities of the Krasnodon underground organization. By that time he had already fought in a partisan detachment...

– Disputes about how responsibilities were distributed at the organization’s headquarters have not subsided for more than 70 years. Who led the Young Guard - Viktor Tretyakevich or Oleg Koshevoy? As far as I understand, even the few surviving Young Guards expressed different opinions on this matter...

– Oleg Koshevoy was a 16-year-old boy , joined the Komsomol in 1942. How could he create such a fighting organization when there were older people nearby? How could Koshevoy seize the initiative from Tretyakevich, having come to the Young Guard later than him?

We can confidently say that the organization was led by Tretyakevich, a member of the Komsomol since January 1939. Ivan Turkenich, who served in the Red Army, was much older than Koshevoy. He managed to avoid arrest in January 1943, spoke at the funeral of Young Guards and managed to talk about the activities of the organization without delay. Turkenich died during the liberation of Poland. From his repeated official statements it followed that Koshevoy appeared in the Young Guard on the eve of November 7, 1942. True, after some time Oleg actually became the secretary of the Komsomol organization, collected membership fees, and took part in some actions. But he was still not the leader.

– How many people were part of the underground organization?

– There is still no consensus on this. In Soviet times, for some reason it was believed that the more underground workers, the better. But, as a rule, the larger the underground organization, the more difficult it is to maintain secrecy. And the failure of the Young Guard is an example of this. If we take official data on the number, they range from 70 to 100 people. Some local researchers talk about 130 Young Guards.

Promotional poster for the film “Young Guard”, directed by Sergei Gerasimov. 1947

In addition, the question arises: who should be considered members of the Young Guard? Only those who worked there constantly, or also those who helped occasionally, carrying out one-time assignments? There were people who sympathized with the Young Guards, but personally did nothing within the organization or did very little. Should those who wrote and distributed only a few leaflets during the occupation be considered underground workers? This question arose after the war, when being a Young Guard member became prestigious and people whose participation in the organization was previously unknown began to ask to confirm their membership in the Young Guard.

– What ideas and motivations underlay the activities of the Young Guards?

– Boys and girls grew up in families of miners, were educated in Soviet schools, and were brought up in a patriotic spirit. They loved literature – both Russian and Ukrainian. They wanted to convey to their fellow countrymen the truth about the true state of affairs at the front, to dispel the myth of the invincibility of Hitler's Germany. That's why they distributed leaflets. The guys were eager to do at least some harm to their enemies.

– What damage did the Young Guards cause to the invaders? What do they get credit for?

“The Young Guards, without thinking about what their descendants would call them and whether they were doing everything right, simply did what they could, what was within their power. They burned the building of the German Labor Exchange with lists of those who were going to be driven to Germany. By decision of the Young Guard headquarters, over 80 Soviet prisoners of war were released from a concentration camp, and a herd of 500 head of cattle was recaptured. Bugs were introduced into grain that was being prepared for shipment to Germany, which led to the spoilage of several tons of grain. The young men attacked motorcyclists: they obtained weapons in order to begin an open armed struggle at the right moment.

SMALL CELLS WERE CREATED IN DIFFERENT PLACES OF KRASNODON AND IN THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization

Members of the Young Guard exposed the disinformation spread by the invaders and instilled in the people faith in the inevitable defeat of the invaders. Members of the organization wrote leaflets by hand or printed leaflets in a primitive printing house and distributed Sovinformburo reports. In leaflets, the Young Guards exposed the lies of fascist propaganda and sought to tell the truth about the Soviet Union and the Red Army. In the first months of the occupation, the Germans, calling on young people to work in Germany, promised everyone there good life. And some succumbed to these promises. It was important to dispel illusions.

On the night of November 7, 1942, the guys hung red flags on school buildings, the gendarmerie and other institutions. The flags were hand-sewn by the girls from white fabric, then painted scarlet - a color that symbolized freedom for the Young Guard. On New Year's Eve 1943, members of the organization attacked a German car carrying gifts and mail for the invaders. The boys took the gifts with them, burned the mail, and hid the rest.

Unconquered. Hood. F.T. Kostenko

– How long did the Young Guard operate?

- The arrests began immediately after Catholic Christmas - at the end of December 1942. Accordingly, the period of active activity of the organization lasted about three months.

Young Guards. Biographical sketches about members of the Krasnodon party-Komsomol underground / Comp. R.M. Aptekar, A.G. Nikitenko. Donetsk, 1981

The true history of the “Young Guard” / Comp. N.K. Petrova. M., 2015

Who really betrayed?

– The failure of the Young Guard was blamed different people. Is it possible today to draw final conclusions and name who betrayed the underground fighters to the enemy and is responsible for their deaths?

– He was declared a traitor in 1943 Gennady Pocheptsov, whom Tretyakevich accepted into the organization. However, 15-year-old Pocheptsov had no relation to the governing bodies and was not even very active in the Young Guard. He could not know all its members. Even Turkenich and Koshevoy did not know everyone. This was prevented by the very principle of building an organization proposed by Tretyakevich. Small cells were created in different places in Krasnodon and in surrounding villages. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization.

Testimony against Pocheptsov was given by a former lawyer of the Krasnodon city government who collaborated with the Germans Mikhail Kuleshov- During the occupation, a district police investigator. He claimed that on December 24 or 25 he went into the office of the commandant of the Krasnodon region and the head of the local police, Vasily Solikovsky, and saw Pocheptsov’s statement on his desk. Then they said that the young man allegedly handed over a list of Young Guard members to the police through his stepfather. But where is this list? Nobody saw him. Pocheptsov's stepfather, Vasily Gromov, after Krasnodon’s release, he testified that he did not take any list to the police. Despite this, on September 19, 1943, Pocheptsov, his stepfather Gromov and Kuleshov were publicly shot. Before his execution, a 15-year-old boy rolled on the ground and shouted that he was not guilty...

– Is there now an established point of view about who the traitor was?

– There are two points of view. According to the first version, Pocheptsov betrayed. According to the second, the failure did not occur because of betrayal, but because of poor conspiracy. Vasily Levashov and some other surviving Young Guard members argued that if not for the attack on the car with Christmas gifts, the organization could have survived. Boxes of canned food, sweets, biscuits, cigarettes, and other things were stolen from the car. All this was carried home. Valeria Borts I took a raccoon coat for myself. When the arrests began, Valeria's mother cut the fur coat into small pieces, which she then destroyed.

Young underground workers were caught smoking cigarettes. I sold them Mitrofan Puzyrev. The police were also led on the trail by candy wrappers that the guys threw anywhere. And so the arrests began even before the new year. So, I think, the organization was ruined by non-compliance with the rules of secrecy, the naivety and gullibility of some of its members.

Everyone was arrested before Evgenia Moshkova- the only communist among the Young Guards; he was brutally tortured. On January 1, Ivan Zemnukhov and Viktor Tretyakevich were captured.

After the release of Krasnodon, rumors spread that Tretyakevich allegedly could not stand the torture and betrayed his comrades. But there is no documentary evidence of this. And many facts do not fit with the version of Tretyakevich’s betrayal. He was one of the first to be arrested and until the very day of his execution, that is, for two weeks, he was cruelly tortured. Why if he has already named everyone? It is also unclear why the Young Guards were taken in groups. The last group was captured on the night of January 30-31, 1943 - a month after Tretyakevich himself was arrested. According to the testimony of Hitler’s accomplices who tortured the Young Guard, the torture did not break Victor.

The version of his betrayal also contradicts the fact that Tretyakevich was thrown into the mine first and still alive. It is known that at the last moment he tried to drag the chief of police Solikovsky and the chief of the German gendarmerie Zons into the pit with him. For this, Victor received a blow to the head with the butt of a pistol.

During the arrests and investigations, policemen Solikovsky, Zakharov, as well as Plokhikh and Sevastyanov tried their best. They mutilated Ivan Zemnukhov beyond recognition. Yevgeny Moshkov was doused with water, taken outside, then put on the stove, and then again taken for interrogation. Sergei Tyulenin had a wound on his hand cauterized with a hot rod. When Sergei’s fingers stuck into the door and closed it, he screamed and, unable to bear the pain, lost consciousness. Ulyana Gromova was suspended from the ceiling by her braids. The guys had their ribs broken, their fingers cut off, their eyes gouged out...

Ulyana Gromova (1924–1943). The girl’s suicide letter became known thanks to her friend Vera Krotova, who, after the release of Krasnodon, went through all the cells and discovered this tragic inscription on the wall. She copied the text onto a piece of paper...

“There was no party underground in Krasnodon”

– Why were they tortured so brutally?

“I think that the Germans wanted to go into the party underground, that’s why they tortured me like that. But there was no party underground in Krasnodon. Having not received the information they needed, the Nazis executed members of the Young Guard. Most of the Young Guards were executed at mine No. 5-bis on the night of January 15, 1943. 50 members of the organization were thrown into the pit of a mine 53 meters deep.

–In print you can find the number 72...

– 72 people is the total number of people executed there, that’s how many corpses were raised from the mine. Among the dead were 20 communists and captured Red Army soldiers who had no relation to the Young Guard. Some Young Guard members were shot, others were thrown into a pit alive.

However, not everyone was executed that day. Oleg Koshevoy, for example, was detained only on January 22. On the road near the Kartushino station, police stopped him, searched him, found a pistol, beat him and sent him under escort to Rovenki. There he was searched again and under the lining of his coat they found two forms of temporary membership cards and a homemade Young Guard seal. The police chief recognized the young man: Oleg was the nephew of his friend. When Koshevoy was interrogated and beaten, Oleg shouted that he was the commissar of the Young Guard. Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Viktor Subbotin and Dmitry Ogurtsov were also tortured in Rovenki.

Funeral of Young Guards in the city of Krasnodon on March 1, 1943

Koshevoy was shot on January 26, and Lyubov Shevtsova and all the others were shot on the night of February 9. Just five days later, on February 14, Krasnodon was liberated. The bodies of the Young Guards were taken out of the mine. On March 1, 1943, a funeral took place in the Lenin Komsomol Park from morning to evening.

– Which of the Young Guards survived?

“The only one who escaped on the way to the place of execution was Anatoly Kovalev. According to recollections, he was a brave and courageous young man. Little has always been said about him, although his story is interesting in its own way. He signed up for the police, but only served there for a few days. Then he joined the Young Guard. Was arrested. Mikhail Grigoriev helped Anatoly escape, who untied the rope with his teeth. When I was in Krasnodon, I met Antonina Titova, Kovalev’s girlfriend. At first, the wounded Anatoly was hiding with her. Then his relatives took him to the Dnepropetrovsk area, where he disappeared, and his further fate is still unknown. The Young Guard’s feat was not even noted with the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” because Kovalev served as a policeman for several days. Antonina Titova waited for him for a long time, wrote memoirs, collected documents. But she never published anything.

ALL DISPUTES ON SPECIFIC ISSUES AND ABOUT THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE IN THE ORGANIZATION SHOULD NOT THROW A SHADOW ON THE GREATNESS OF THE FEAT accomplished by the young underground fighters of Krasnodon

The survivors were Ivan Turkenich, Valeria Borts, Olga and Nina Ivantsov, Radik Yurkin, Georgy Arutyunyants, Mikhail Shishchenko, Anatoly Lopukhov and Vasily Levashov. I will especially say about the latter. On April 27, 1989, employees of the Komsomol Central Archive held a meeting with him and Tretyakevich’s brother Vladimir. A tape recording was made. Levashov said that he fled near Amvrosyevka, to the village of Puteynikova. When the Red Army arrived, he declared his desire to go to war. In September 1943, during an inspection, he admitted that he was in the temporarily occupied territory in Krasnodon, where he was abandoned after graduating from intelligence school. Not knowing that the story of the Young Guard had already become famous, Vasily said that he was a member of it. After the interrogation, the officer sent Levashov to the barn, where a young man was already sitting. They started talking. At that meeting in 1989, Levashov said: “Only 40 years later, I realized that it was an agent of that security officer when I compared what he asked and what I answered.”

As a result, they believed Levashov and he was sent to the front. He liberated Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, Chisinau and Warsaw, and took Berlin as part of the 5th Shock Army.

Roman Fadeeva

– Work on the book “Young Guard” Alexander Fadeev started in 1943. But the original version of the novel was criticized for not reflecting the leadership of the Communist Party. The writer took the criticism into account and revised the novel. Has historical truth suffered from this?

– I believe that the first version of the novel was successful and was more in line with historical realities. In the second version, a description of the leading role of the party organization appeared, although in reality the Krasnodon party organization did not manifest itself in any way. The remaining communists in the city were arrested. They were tortured and executed. It is significant that no one made any attempts to recapture the captured communists and Young Guards from the Germans. The boys were taken home like kittens. Those who were arrested in the villages were then transported in sleighs over a distance of ten kilometers or more. They were accompanied by only two or three policemen. Has anyone tried to fight them off? No.

Only a few people left Krasnodon. Some, like Anna Sopova, had the opportunity to escape, but did not take advantage of it.

Alexander Fadeev and Valeria Borts, one of the few surviving members of the Young Guard, at a meeting with readers. 1947

- Why?

“They were afraid that their relatives would suffer because of them.”

– How accurately did Fadeev manage to reflect the history of the Young Guard and in what ways did he deviate from the historical truth?

– Fadeev himself said about this: “Although the heroes of my novel bear real names and surnames, I did not write the real history of the Young Guard, but piece of art, in which there is a lot of fiction and even there are fictitious persons. Roman has the right to this." And when Fadeev was asked whether it was worth making the Young Guards so bright and ideal, he replied that he wrote as he saw fit. Basically, the author accurately reflected the events that took place in Krasnodon, but there are also discrepancies with reality. So, in the novel the traitor Stakhovich is written out. This is a fictional collective image. And it was written from Tretyakevich - one to one.

Relatives and friends of the victims began to loudly express their dissatisfaction with the way certain episodes of the history of the Young Guard were shown in the novel immediately after the book was published. For example, the mother of Lydia Androsova addressed Fadeev with a letter. She claimed that, contrary to what was written in the novel, her daughter's diary and other notes were never given to the police and could not have been the reason for the arrests. In a response letter dated August 31, 1947 to D.K. and M.P. Androsov, Lydia’s parents, Fadeev admitted:

“Everything that I wrote about your daughter shows her as a very devoted and persistent girl. I deliberately made it so that her diary allegedly ended up with the Germans after her arrest. You know better than me that there is not a single entry in the diary that speaks about the activities of the Young Guard and could be of benefit to the Germans in terms of revealing the Young Guard. In this regard, your daughter was very careful. Therefore, by allowing such fiction in the novel, I do not put any stain on your daughter.”

“My parents thought differently...

- Certainly. And most of all, the residents of Krasnodon were indignant at the role assigned by the writer Oleg Koshevoy. Koshevoy’s mother claimed (and this was included in the novel) that the underground gathered at their home on Sadovaya Street, 6. But the Krasnodon residents knew for sure that German officers were quartered with her! This is not Elena Nikolaevna’s fault: she had decent housing, so the Germans preferred it. But how could the headquarters of the Young Guard meet there?! In fact, the headquarters of the organization gathered with Harutyunyants, Tretyakevich and others.

Koshevoy's mother was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1943. Even Oleg’s grandmother, Vera Vasilyevna Korostyleva, was awarded the medal “For Military Merit”! The stories in the novel about her heroic role look anecdotal. She did not perform any feats. Later, Elena Nikolaevna wrote the book “The Tale of a Son.” More precisely, other people wrote it. When the regional committee of the Komsomol asked her if everything in the book was correct and objective, she replied: “You know, writers wrote the book. But from my story."

- Interesting position.

– What’s even more interesting is that Oleg Koshevoy’s father was alive. He was divorced from Oleg’s mother and lived in a neighboring city. So Elena Nikolaevna declared him dead! Although the father came to his son’s grave and mourned him.

Koshevoy's mother was an interesting, charming woman. Her story greatly influenced Fadeev. It must be said that the writer did not hold meetings with the relatives of all the dead Young Guards. In particular, he refused to accept Sergei Tyulenin’s relatives. Access to the author of The Young Guard was regulated by Elena Nikolaevna.

Another thing is noteworthy. Parents and grandmothers strive to preserve drawings and notes in at different ages made by their children and grandchildren. And Elena Nikolaevna, being the head of the kindergarten, destroyed all of Oleg’s diaries and notebooks, so there is no way to even see his handwriting. But the poems written by Elena Nikolaevna’s hand have been preserved, which she declared to belong to Oleg. There were rumors that she had composed them herself.

We must not forget about the main thing

– Clarity in controversial issues the surviving Young Guards could contribute. Did they get together after the war?

– All together – not once. In fact, there was a split. They did not agree on the question of who should be considered the commissar of the Young Guard. Borts, Ivantsov and Shishchenko considered him Koshevoy, and Yurkin, Arutyunyants and Levashov considered Tretyakevich. Moreover, in the period from 1943 to the end of the 1950s, Tretyakevich was considered a traitor. His older brother Mikhail was relieved of his post as secretary of the Lugansk regional party committee. Another brother, Vladimir, an army political worker, was punished by the party and demobilized from the army. Tretyakevich’s parents also experienced this injustice hard: his mother was ill, his father was paralyzed.

In 1959, Victor was rehabilitated, his feat was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. However, in May 1965, only Yurkin, Lopukhov and Levashov from the Young Guard came to the opening of a monument to Tretyakevich in the village of Yasenki, Kursk region, where he was born. According to Valeria Borts, the Komsomol Central Committee in the 1980s gathered the surviving members of the Krasnodon underground organization. But there are no documents about this meeting in the archives. And the disagreements between the Young Guards were never eliminated.

Monument "Oath" on the central square of Krasnodon

– What impression did films about young underground fighters make on you? After all, the story of the “Young Guard” has been filmed more than once.

– I like Sergei Gerasimov’s film. The black and white film accurately and dynamically conveyed that time, state of mind and experiences Soviet people. But for the 70th anniversary Great Victory veterans and the whole country received a very strange “gift” from Channel One. The series “Young Guard” was announced as “ true story» underground organization. On the basis of what this supposedly true story was created, they did not bother to explain to us. The heroes of The Young Guard, whose images were captured on the screen, were probably rolling over in their graves. Creators of historical films need to carefully read documents and works that truly reflect a bygone era.

– Roman Fadeev, who was part of the school curriculum for many decades, has long been excluded from it. Do you think it might be worth bringing it back?

– I like the novel, and I advocate that it be included in the school curriculum. It correctly reflects the thoughts and feelings of young people of that time, and truthfully depicts their characters. This work rightfully entered the golden fund of Soviet literature, combining both documentary truth and artistic comprehension. The educational potential of the novel continues to this day. In my opinion, it would be good to re-release the novel in its first version, not corrected by Fadeev himself. Moreover, the publication should be accompanied by an article that would briefly outline what we were talking about. It must be emphasized that the novel is a novel, and not the story of the Young Guard. The history of the Krasnodon underground must be studied from documents. And this topic is not closed yet.

At the same time, we must not forget about the main thing. All disputes on specific issues and the role of individual people in the organization should not cast a shadow on the greatness of the feat accomplished by the young underground fighters of Krasnodon. Oleg Koshevoy, Viktor Tretyakevich and other Young Guards gave their lives for the freedom of the Motherland. And we have no right to forget about this. And further. Speaking about the activities of the Young Guard, we must remember that this is not a feat of individuals. This is a collective feat of Krasnodon youth. We need to talk more about the contribution of each Young Guard member to the struggle, and not argue about who held what position in the organization.

Interviewed by Oleg Nazarov