“The Battle of Kruty” without any frills. Heroes of Krut: who are they and what did they fight for? Cool 1918

More recently, during the “orange-lemon” rule, Defender of the Fatherland Day, i.e. Our “men's holiday”, which was the day of February 23, celebrated by our grandfathers and fathers, was wanted to be moved by the former President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko to January 29. Either because of his birthday (who doesn’t know, he was born on February 23), or for a purely ideological reason. The date January 29 did not arise by chance. On this day back in 1918, a battle took place that entered the modern history of Ukraine as the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of Krut. But do we know everything about this battle, its results, and most importantly - the participants, because even today historians cross self-writing pens like swords in order to give an answer through research duels - who is right and who...

“History is the truth that turns into lies, and myths are lies that turn into truth”

Jean Cocteau

Of course, it is not history itself that turns into a lie, but rather those “celestials” who use history to their advantage in a single epoch-making episode. The same can be said about the events of January 29, 1918, which were indeed a tragic truth, which over time turned into a myth bordering on lies. After all, apart from the well-known phrases “Heroes Are Cool” and “Ant Killer”, a significant part of society does not know anything specific. And it’s time, because the time has come to transfer lies into the category of myths, and to extract grains of truth from mythology.

I agree with the researchers of this historical episode, Andrei Samarsky and Yaroslav Tinchenko, who confirm that that battle really took place. The very fact of the battle near Kruty was hushed up or distorted in Soviet historical scholarship, and in the modern history of Ukraine, expressing opinions that diverged from the position of “official orange historians” and the former government was equated with treason.

So what really happened?

Memorial to the Heroes of Krut

Today is another date - the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of Krut. But neither politicians nor government officials are opening new memorials or carrying out large-scale budgetary and expenditure measures. Of course, some political organizations will hold a remembrance event and demand that a “revision of national heroism” be prevented, etc. Are they necessary, these actions, as well as preserving the memory of the events near Kruty? Of course we do. But not for further mythologization, but in order not to repeat the mistakes of the past, which is so rich in the bloody history of the civil war.

There is no need to repeat common phrases about “the heroism of Ukrainian students near Kruty,” because enough has already been written about this historical episode. But is that all?

Not all modern historians of Ukraine agree with the assessment of the events of the January days of 1918 and the number of deaths. Suffice it to say that the number announced at the highest state level - 300 dead students - was taken in relation to the history of Ancient Greece, when this number is directly associated with the legendary 300 Spartans. This is already a myth of modern Ukrainian history. The whole point is that 27 guys died (and I sincerely feel sorry for the boys who didn’t see life, didn’t see love).

Even the chronicler of the UPR, and eventually the “herald-bawler” of the Ukrainian SSR, Pavlo Tychyna, wrote “on the death of heroes” back in February 1918:

There were thirty of them, according to Tychyna, who over time “rebuilt” and wrote completely different poems, for example, about Petlyura’s carriage, which traveled around the country (all the time to the west), as the only capital in the world on wheels, but without a country: The carriage has a Directory - there is a territory under the carriage...

The capital car is “on the sidings” in Fastov...

The only honest politician of that era, the chairman of the General Secretariat of the Central Rada of the UPR, Dmitry Doroshenko, left us with an excellent work “War and Revolution in Ukraine,” which assesses 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 were 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.”.

Now it becomes absolutely clear why the 1918 model carriages are displayed at the memorial. After all, many saw their heroic-historical destiny, and they were examples of cowardice and betrayal. And the fact that today young people will visit such “Hills of Glory” is wonderful - let them remember how the “father-commanders” abandoned their chicks, who believed in them recklessly, to their mercy.

Sometimes, adapting the events near Kruty to the decisions of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, some historians showed that battle as if it were with the troops of the former Russian Empire, seeing in it a confrontation between the UPR authorities and Dukhonin’s army.

An offensive by Russian regular troops was not even planned for January 1918, since it, like the Ukrainian one, simply did not exist. And the group of Yuri Kotsyubinsky (the son of the famous Ukrainian writer) was really heading towards Kyiv, consisting of a heterogeneous mass of armed Russians, Little Russians, Latvians and even... Chinese. And Muravyov’s “famous” detachment, the backbone of which were Latvian riflemen, was even replenished by the so-called UPR troops. And it is true.

If you don’t believe the author of the article, believe Vladimir Vinnichenko: “Our influence was less. It was already 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 ... "

Or: “The regiments named after various hetmans, who so consciously, so orderly, so decisively entered the capital of Ukraine for its defense... these regiments after just a couple of weeks, in an amazing way, first lost all their zeal, then entered into apathy, into “neutrality” towards Bolsheviks, and then... turned their bayonets with these Bolsheviks against us". (V. Vinnychenko. “Rebirth of the Nation.” Retrospective view).

In fact, the “newly created” Ukrainian units did not want to fight, hold rallies in Kyiv, or fight the “Arenalites.”

Walking - yes, but facing bullets... let the students go, they believe in the revolution, they did it, so let them go...

This is exactly how it all happened - simple in essence, but scary in cynicism.

And the dead students were indeed buried in Kyiv, or rather, reburied at Askold’s grave, but this did not happen immediately after the battle, but on March 18, 1918. In January there was no time to remember the dead. Moreover, who should remember? To those who ran away and left the boys to their fate? They were made heroes by the decisions of the Brest-Litovsk Peace, when the opportunity arose to look for heroes of the Ukrainian revolution, and in the literal sense of the word, since, apart from 27 Kyiv guys, there were simply no other “heroes”.

Reburial of 27 Kyiv students and cadets. Kyiv March 18, 1918

Today there is no mass grave under the Kruty station, and there is no burial left at Askold’s grave. In 1934, after making the decision to move the capital from Kharkov to Kyiv, the Ukrainian Soviet government adopted a resolution to liquidate the Askold cemetery and create a landscape park in its place. Those who wished to rebury their loved ones in another place were given monetary compensation for reburial, and “unclaimed” graves were liquidated. Only one grave has survived to this day, in which two young people were buried: Vladimir Naumovich and Vladimir Shulgin. Both were from eminent Ukrainian families and prominent politicians of that time. Their stepfather Vladimir Naumovich Alexander Ivanov reburied them at the Lukyanovsky cemetery.

The only surviving grave of the “Heroes of Krut”

And a few more words about the battle itself near Kruty. According to the research of Yaroslav Tinchenko, based on memoirs and documents of that time, 420 people took part in the battle on the “Ukrainian side”: 250 officers and cadets of the 1st Ukrainian Military School, 118 students and high school students from the 1st hundred Student Kuren, about 50 local free Cossacks - officers and volunteers.

On January 29, 1918, only a few people died; all the rest, carrying away the bodies of their comrades, retreated to the trains and left for Kyiv. And only one platoon out of a hundred students, consisting of 34 people, was captured due to its own oversight. Six of them were wounded, one turned out to be the son of a driver mobilized by the Bolsheviks. Everyone was put on a train and sent to Kharkov (they would later be released from captivity).

The heroes of Krut will forever remain in the memory of Ukrainians as an example of the struggle for the freedom of the country.

The Ukrainian people have had a difficult fate. For several centuries now, there has been a constant struggle for Ukraine to become a truly independent country and have equal rights with all other countries. Unfortunately, neighbors from all sides tried to seize at least a piece of Ukrainian land. For a long time the country was divided between neighboring powers. Therefore, the main dream of all patriots was the reunification of Ukrainian lands and the formation of an independent state.

If we carefully analyze the history of the centuries-old struggle, we will see that young people have been the driving force at all times. It was they who showed true fearlessness in the fight against the enemy. Take, for example, the events of the last two years - students were the first to express their negative opinion on the decision of the Yanukovych government. Back then, few could have imagined what the dispersal of the peaceful protest of these young people would lead to. But, as it turned out, the students turned out to be the banner that the rest of the country’s patriots followed.

And here it is absolutely necessary to remember about other students who, almost a hundred years ago, stood up to defend their homeland. For a long time, Soviet propaganda suppressed the facts of the struggle of the Ukrainian people for independence against the Bolshevik regime. Perhaps the most tragic page in this struggle is the battle near the village of Kruty; to be precise, this battle took place at the Kruty station. The forces were clearly unequal - 520 UPR soldiers and military school youths opposed 4,800 Red Guards, already seasoned in battle. But in this battle the Bolsheviks suffered three times more losses than the Ukrainian soldiers. That is why, in a rage, the Bolshevik commander brutally dealt with the captured students. And before the execution they sang “Ukraine is not yet dead”!

Despite this numerical and qualitative superiority, the battle lasted 8 hours. By and large, this was a battle for Ukraine and its future. And although the Bolshevik advance was stopped only for four days, these were not ordinary four days, but turning points for Ukrainian history. Ukrainian politicians used them for international recognition of the independent state proclaimed on January 22, which occurred as a result of the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

The young republic was weak, and it was not then that it was not possible to defend independence. But the heroism of the youngest freedom fighters, many of whom died brave men near Kruty, became an example for all subsequent generations of fighters for real freedom of Ukraine. It is not without reason that from the first days of the declaration of independence of Ukraine at the end of the last century, more patriotic forces reminded all Ukrainians of the events of those distant days. And now January 29 is celebrated at the state level as the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of Krut.

Valentina Handzyuk

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Losses of the parties

Klimko A. “Battle of Kruty”

As for the number of deaths on the defending side, in addition to Grushevsky’s “three hundred Spartans”, different figures were given. Thus, Doroshenko gives a name list of the dead 11 students, although he says that several of them died earlier, in addition, 27 prisoners were shot - as revenge for the death of 300 Red Army soldiers. In 1958, in Munich and New York, the publishing house “Ways of Youth” published the results of S. Zbarazhsky’s 40-year study “Cool. The 40th anniversary of the great rank was 29 June 1918 - 29 September 1958.” The list names 18 people. who are buried in Kyiv at Askold’s grave. Although the retreating UPR troops brought 27 killed in that battle to Kyiv.

The losses of the attackers have varied estimates, but researchers have not found any documentary sources confirming any of the versions.

Contemporary assessments

This is how the former chairman of the General Secretariat of the Central Rada of the UPR Dmitry Doroshenko described these events:

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.

Doroshenko. War and revolution in Ukraine

Funeral of fallen defenders

In March 1918, after the Central Rada returned to Kyiv, relatives and friends raised the question of reburial of the dead. The story quickly became known to the general public, as well as the subject of political disputes within the UPR. The opposition used the battle near Kruty as a pretext to criticize the Central Rada and its administrative and military failure. It was then that information about “hundreds of dead,” which were never documented, was first made public.

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...

In turn, the UPR government used these events to raise patriotic sentiments. Thus, at a meeting of the Malaya Rada, the head of the UPR, Mikhail Grushevsky, proposed to honor the memory of those killed at Kruty and rebury them at Askold’s grave in Kyiv. A crowded funeral took place on March 19, 1918. Their relatives, students, high school students, soldiers, clergy, a choir led by A. Koshits, and many Kiev residents gathered for the funeral service. Mikhail Grushevsky addressed the meeting with a plaintive and solemn speech:

From this tree, if their houses are transported in front of the Central Rada, the Ukrainian statehood 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 captivity, in which she lived for two one hundred and sixty years old. 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.

According to the press of that time, 17 coffins were lowered into the mass grave at the Askoldov cemetery.

Assessments of events at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries

According to Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Soldatenko, who assesses the events taking place in Ukraine since 2005:

In modern Ukraine, it has become a custom at the end of January of each year to draw public attention to an episode that happened at the height of the revolutionary turning point - the battle of Kruty. It would seem that after almost nine decades it is possible to reliably recreate the picture of what actually happened, and, in the end, to impartially and balancedly qualify both the episode itself and the much broader problem that it (this episode) illuminates extremely clearly .

However, the battle at Kruty obviously belongs to those phenomena around which the truth of life, its stunning transformation for the sake of politics and the opportunistic use of a complexly formulated palliative were initially tied into a tight knot...

... Having acquired a certain inertial self-sufficiency, in Ukrainian historiography the event near Kruty received exaggerated assessments, became overgrown with myths, began to be equated with the famous feat of the Spartans at Thermopylae, and all 300 young men, of which 250 students and high school students, increasingly began to be called dead. In the absence of other striking examples of the manifestation of national self-awareness and sacrifice, this event is increasingly being addressed through educational activities, especially among young people.

Memorial

Memorial to the Heroes of Krut- a memorial complex dedicated to the battle of Kruty. It includes a monument, a symbolic burial mound, a chapel, a lake in the shape of a cross, as well as a museum exhibition located in ancient railway carriages. The memorial is located near the village of Pamyatnoye, Borznyansky district, Chernihiv region.

Since the early 1990s, Ukrainian authorities have been considering plans to erect a large monument in Kruty, in addition to the existing small memorial at Askold's Grave in Kyiv. However, it was only in 2000 that the architect Vladimir Pavlenko began designing the monument. On August 25, 2006, the “Memorial of the Heroes of Kruty” at the Kruty railway station was officially opened by the President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko. The author of the memorial, Anatoly Gaidamaka, presented the monument as a mound 7 meters high, on which a 10-meter red column was installed. The red column symbolizes the similar columns of the Kyiv Imperial University of St. Vladimir, where most of the dead students studied. A chapel was built near the foot of the mound, and an artificial lake in the shape of a cross was created next to the monument.

In 2008, the memorial was supplemented with seven railway carriages and an open military train flatcar. The installed carriages are similar to those used by the participants in the battle when they went to the front. Inside the carriages there is a mini-museum with weapons from the Civil War, as well as soldiers' household items, front-line photographs, archival documents and the like.

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 a brief description of the 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 you come across modern Ukrainian history, you come across a conscious 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)medved This is not the “official version” - this is the version of franko.lviv.ua - who else would sing the anthem if not a Galician - in Ukrainian there is no concept of “off-history” - so what needs to be corrected like 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

On January 5, 1918, that is, on the day of the surrender of Poltava, at a meeting of junior students at the Kyiv University of 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)

The reasons for the changes are incorrect design, stuck-on definition of everything at once that should be moved accordingly. sections. About the troops, at least “Soviet” ones, if no one else objects. I proceeded from considerations of specificity, because the Red Guards appeared there? And “Soviet” troops are a very broad concept. Your interest, apparently, is lobbying for “Soviet patriotism.” Patriotism may, in my opinion, relate to the land, and not to the Soviet regime. But this is not relevant to the article. Do you still have any significant objections to the proposed option? --Diogen15 11:10, January 30, 2014 (UTC) I'm already tired of your attacks on me specifically and your VP: ALL OVER. I have already told you that I am against changes. Your version is worse than what has been in the article for several days and which is a consensus stable version written by the mediator of two forced mediations that intersect on this topic (VP:UKR and VP:GVR). Besides, you are poorly versed in the topic if you think that I am defending something there and that the term “Soviet troops” is a “vague concept.” The term “Soviet troops” is precisely the most accurate, since these were precisely the military formations that were for Soviet power. That's where the term comes from. I advise you to read the rule VP: POS. HOBOPOCC 11:19, January 30, 2014 (UTC) But I know the rules. It’s not me who’s going around in circles here, but you. “Worse” (in your opinion) is not an argument. Are there any specific issues that are flawed? We will probably still invite a forced intermediary. I'll look for it in a minute. --Diogen15 18:02, 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 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)

Novoross, are you a communist? :))) ... I insist, I outlined the reasons, and then let the mediator decide. --Diogen15 20:12, 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]

1. 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.
2. 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, 17 August 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 refers 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).

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 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 grades 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, leaving the officer Goncharenko in the battle for the whole hour, standing at the station, 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, 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. 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, over and over again they 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, the main reason for the lost battle was the banal escape of the headquarters train along with the cartridges. Goncharenko also hints at this:
“Here the headquarters of 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 Kyiv 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.”