The destruction of myths: How 300 Ukrainian "Spartans" were killed
Epigraph: “History is the truth turned by descendants into a lie, and myths are a lie turned by them into the truth” (Jean Cocteau).
History teaches us only that does not teach anything! And if this statement is true for an ordinary man in the street, then a non-ordinary man who considers himself powerful in this world prefers to use the definition of comrade. Jean Cocteau, cited here above as an epigraph. Shamelessly and arrogantly using history as a meek, corrupt girl, and also a deaf-mute, unable to even say a word in her defense, for her personal purely selfish purposes, rewriting her back and forth as he pleases. This is especially true of totalitarian regimes. That is why we believe that we live in a country not only with the most unpredictable future, but also with the most unpredictable past.
This definition of Jean Cocteau found its living embodiment in the widely advertised in Ukraine history of 300 Ukrainian Spartans, the 101st anniversary of which was somehow lost against the background of the upcoming elections. And this story, I must say, was heroic and indicative of modern Ukraine. Exactly 101 years ago, on January 29, 1918, in the battle near Kruty with the advancing units of the Red Army that were many times superior to them, 300 Ukrainian students were heroically killed, thrown by the Central Rada to meet them for their salvation. This “cool” story near Kruty during the period of Ukrainian independence was overgrown with such legends and fables that the devil would break his leg there. 300 Ukrainian Spartans laid bones with their bones, but did not let the Bolshevik katsaps enter the sacred Ukrainian land. So the legend goes. Near it, even the Spartans of Tsar Leonid fade with their Thermopylae. Ukroheroi shamed them too. But let's all deal with this story and with these heroic heroes. Here I don’t jerk, they really were heroes! Just the heroism of some is the result of the betrayal and cowardice of others. Well, this is as always. But first things first.
I must say right away that there were not 300, but 420 Ukrainian Spartans, while there were even less deaths - only 29, and they opposed not parts of the Red Army, which was not yet in nature (the Red Army was born, according to Soviet historiography, a month later, 23 February 1918, in the battles near Pskov against the Germans), and a hastily downed Bolshevik detachment, composed of a diverse mass of armed Little Russians, Russians, Latvians, and even ... Chinese. The detachment, according to some reports, reached 3 thousand people, its skeleton consisted of Latvian riflemen under the command of Reinhold Berzin (repressed and executed in 1938, later rehabilitated in 1955) and revolutionary sailors diluted by peasants and soldiers. The general command of the detachment was carried out by the former lieutenant colonel of the tsarist army, Social Revolutionary Mikhail Muravyov (a brutal upstart and adventurer obsessed with becoming the "red Napoleon", surfaced in the wake of the October Revolution and sunk in its abyss, was killed / shot in July 1918 during the Left Revolutionary mutiny, the organizer “Red terror” in Ukraine, not to be confused with Muravyov-Apostol).
Here is how M. Tukhachevsky spoke about him, who almost died at his hands:
Here is another opinion about him, this time the chairman of the Cheka F. Dzerzhinsky:
Indeed, Muravyov, liberating Ukraine, was marked by bloody reprisals and mass terror. Shortly before the battle of Kruty, on January 19, 1918, Muravyov’s troops entered Poltava. During the occupation of Poltava, Muravyov ordered the execution of 98 cadets and officers of the local cadet school. And after Krut, before the storm of Kiev, on February 4, Muravyov gave the green light to the terror:
Which they did. According to the Ukrainian Red Cross, in the first days after the establishment of Bolshevik power in Kiev, up to 5 thousand people were killed, of whom up to 3 thousand were officers. It was one of the largest, if not the largest in the entire Civil War, instantaneous massacre of Russian officers.
A handful of young defenders of the UPR opposed such a person. There are many fables and fables associated with this event in Ukrainian historiography, so you can only trust trusted sources. Here are the eyewitness accounts of those events policy that era, Chairman of the General Secretariat of the Central Council of the UPR, Dmitry Doroshenko:
This is how Doroshenko describes the events, but the reality was even worse - an armored train with officers and ammunition draped even before the rout of the main forces of the army. Actually, his flight served as the reason for their retreat (it’s difficult, you know, to fight without cartridges!).
The detachment opposing Muravyov, according to the military historian Yaroslav Tinchenko, consisted of 420 people: 250 officers and cadets of the 1st Ukrainian military school (the so-called "young men"), 118 students and gymnasium students from the 1st hundred student smokers (t .n. "Sich archers", among whom was the nephew of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Central Rada Shulgin, who died in that battle) and about 50 local free Cossacks - officers and volunteers. Among the gymnasium students were students of the 7th, 8th and even 6th grades of the Kiev Cyril and Methodius Grammar School (i.e. minors). They were all commanded by a former officer of the Russian imperial army, Averkliy Goncharenko, who at that time held the post of commander of the kuren of the Kiev military school (in 1944 this “hero Krut” surfaced at the headquarters of one of the regiments of the SS division “Galichina”). Interestingly, Goncharenko, 2 days before the battle, was able to freely communicate with the station personally by telephone with Muravyov. The latter proposed to lay down their arms and meet “the victorious troops of the Red Army with a hot dinner”. Goncharenko mumbled something vague in response, from which it could be understood that the meeting was being prepared.
And in principle, did not deceive. Since his subordinates were able to inflict a very tangible damage to the red of the 16 machine guns they had in service with, and two guns mounted on the platform of the armored train. According to some reports, Muravyov lost about 300 people in that battle. Therefore, when he managed to capture 34 Ukrainian students from the 1st hundred “Sich Riflemen” who got lost in the dark and left for the station already captured by the Reds, their fate was a foregone conclusion, they were all shot (according to other sources, they were stabbed with bayonets). True, the fact, also confirmed by documents, is not very related to this, that the Bolsheviks released the seven wounded, personally landing them on a train going to Kharkov, where they subsequently cured and released them (one of them turned out to be the son of a driver mobilized by the Reds ) But the death of the remaining 27, plus two more officers who, for some reason, were detained at the station, is also a real fact (18 bodies of the dead were subsequently found and on March 18, 1918 they were solemnly buried at the Askold grave, about which now all foreheads regularly smash themselves the ruling elite of the Ukrainian government, starting with Yushchenko).
That’s the whole myth. Heroic heroes fought heroically against the Reds until they ran out of ammunition and ammunition, which left with an armored train that was dribbling from the station. After that, commander Goncharenko gave the order to retreat, which was done by the cadets of the military school. In the confusion the connection between the units entrusted to Goncharenko was weak, the students were late with a retreat, lost their direction, and in the darkness, one platoon mistakenly entered the station, which by that time was already occupied by the Reds. Everything else you know. Among the 27 students who were shot were Omelchenko, Naumovich and Shulgin - representatives of eminent Ukrainian families and prominent politicians of the time, which honors them and their parents. Such is the story without myths, so to speak, bare facts. But these facts significantly narrow the "pantheon of Ukrainian national heroes." And in some cases they degenerate them.
I must say that present-day Ukraine, counting its history from the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which existed with short breaks from 1917 to 1921, and abandoned its Soviet past, is successfully following the rake of its predecessors. The gene for betrayal in them seems to be in the blood. But in fairness, it must be said, however, that the majority of Ukrainians in 1917 (then they called themselves Little Russians and Rusyns) did not support the ideas of the founders of the UPR. Those remained in a catastrophic minority, a handful of hereditary traitors who have been conducting their genealogy since Mazepa. Having stumbled and offered their services first to Germany, and then to Poland, and nowhere to find defenders, they as a result of the summer offensive of 1920 the Red Army ceased their miserable existence, which was officially fixed in 1921 by the Riga Treaty. But in today's Ukraine, these “heroes” found worthy followers who outdid even their predecessors. But do not rush to judge everyone strictly, such dodgers are again a minority here, just the sponsors of the current ones turned out to be more influential than the former, so they managed to drive the rest of the Ukrainians with the connivance of Russia under the bench. I hope that the Russian Federation will have the strength to expel them from our land, since we ourselves cannot, alas, do this. And the Russians have the brains not to identify these hereditary traitors with all Ukrainians. Although, to be honest, I have almost no hopes for the latter.
History teaches us only that does not teach anything! And if this statement is true for an ordinary man in the street, then a non-ordinary man who considers himself powerful in this world prefers to use the definition of comrade. Jean Cocteau, cited here above as an epigraph. Shamelessly and arrogantly using history as a meek, corrupt girl, and also a deaf-mute, unable to even say a word in her defense, for her personal purely selfish purposes, rewriting her back and forth as he pleases. This is especially true of totalitarian regimes. That is why we believe that we live in a country not only with the most unpredictable future, but also with the most unpredictable past.
This definition of Jean Cocteau found its living embodiment in the widely advertised in Ukraine history of 300 Ukrainian Spartans, the 101st anniversary of which was somehow lost against the background of the upcoming elections. And this story, I must say, was heroic and indicative of modern Ukraine. Exactly 101 years ago, on January 29, 1918, in the battle near Kruty with the advancing units of the Red Army that were many times superior to them, 300 Ukrainian students were heroically killed, thrown by the Central Rada to meet them for their salvation. This “cool” story near Kruty during the period of Ukrainian independence was overgrown with such legends and fables that the devil would break his leg there. 300 Ukrainian Spartans laid bones with their bones, but did not let the Bolshevik katsaps enter the sacred Ukrainian land. So the legend goes. Near it, even the Spartans of Tsar Leonid fade with their Thermopylae. Ukroheroi shamed them too. But let's all deal with this story and with these heroic heroes. Here I don’t jerk, they really were heroes! Just the heroism of some is the result of the betrayal and cowardice of others. Well, this is as always. But first things first.
I must say right away that there were not 300, but 420 Ukrainian Spartans, while there were even less deaths - only 29, and they opposed not parts of the Red Army, which was not yet in nature (the Red Army was born, according to Soviet historiography, a month later, 23 February 1918, in the battles near Pskov against the Germans), and a hastily downed Bolshevik detachment, composed of a diverse mass of armed Little Russians, Russians, Latvians, and even ... Chinese. The detachment, according to some reports, reached 3 thousand people, its skeleton consisted of Latvian riflemen under the command of Reinhold Berzin (repressed and executed in 1938, later rehabilitated in 1955) and revolutionary sailors diluted by peasants and soldiers. The general command of the detachment was carried out by the former lieutenant colonel of the tsarist army, Social Revolutionary Mikhail Muravyov (a brutal upstart and adventurer obsessed with becoming the "red Napoleon", surfaced in the wake of the October Revolution and sunk in its abyss, was killed / shot in July 1918 during the Left Revolutionary mutiny, the organizer “Red terror” in Ukraine, not to be confused with Muravyov-Apostol).
Here is how M. Tukhachevsky spoke about him, who almost died at his hands:
Muravyov was distinguished by frenzied ambition, remarkable personal courage and the ability to electrify the masses of soldiers ... The idea of "becoming Napoleon" haunted him, and this definitely showed through in all his manners, conversations and actions. He did not know how to evaluate the situation. His tasks were completely lifeless. He did not know how to manage. Intervened in trifles, even commanded companies. He fawned on the Red Army men. In order to win their love for himself, he allowed them to rob with impunity, applied the most shameless demagogy and so on. He was extremely cruel. In general, Muravyov’s abilities were many times inferior to the scale of his claims. He was a selfish adventurer, and nothing more.
Here is another opinion about him, this time the chairman of the Cheka F. Dzerzhinsky:
The worst enemy could not do as much harm to us as he did with his nightmarish massacres, executions, and granting soldiers the right to rob cities and villages. He did all this on behalf of our Soviet power, restoring the entire population against us. Robbery and violence - this was a conscious military tactic, which, giving us fleeting success, resulted in defeat and shame.
Indeed, Muravyov, liberating Ukraine, was marked by bloody reprisals and mass terror. Shortly before the battle of Kruty, on January 19, 1918, Muravyov’s troops entered Poltava. During the occupation of Poltava, Muravyov ordered the execution of 98 cadets and officers of the local cadet school. And after Krut, before the storm of Kiev, on February 4, Muravyov gave the green light to the terror:
I order the troops of both armies to mercilessly destroy all officers and junkers, Haidamaks, monarchists and enemies of the revolution in Kiev.
Which they did. According to the Ukrainian Red Cross, in the first days after the establishment of Bolshevik power in Kiev, up to 5 thousand people were killed, of whom up to 3 thousand were officers. It was one of the largest, if not the largest in the entire Civil War, instantaneous massacre of Russian officers.
A handful of young defenders of the UPR opposed such a person. There are many fables and fables associated with this event in Ukrainian historiography, so you can only trust trusted sources. Here are the eyewitness accounts of those events policy that era, Chairman of the General Secretariat of the Central Council of the UPR, Dmitry Doroshenko:
When the Bolshevik echelons moved from Bakhmach and Chernigov to Kiev, the government could not send a single military unit to repulse. Then they hastily assembled a detachment of high school students and gymnasium students and threw them - literally for slaughter - to meet the perfectly armed and numerous Bolshevik forces. Unhappy youths were brought to the Kruty station and dropped off here in a “position”. At a time when the youths (most of whom had never held guns in their hands) fearlessly opposed the approaching Bolshevik detachments, their superiors, a group of officers, remained on the train and arranged for a drinking party in the cars; the Bolsheviks easily defeated a detachment of youth and drove him to the station. Seeing the danger, those on the train hurried to give a signal to leave, not a minute left to take the fleeing with them ... The way to Kiev was now completely open.
This is how Doroshenko describes the events, but the reality was even worse - an armored train with officers and ammunition draped even before the rout of the main forces of the army. Actually, his flight served as the reason for their retreat (it’s difficult, you know, to fight without cartridges!).
The detachment opposing Muravyov, according to the military historian Yaroslav Tinchenko, consisted of 420 people: 250 officers and cadets of the 1st Ukrainian military school (the so-called "young men"), 118 students and gymnasium students from the 1st hundred student smokers (t .n. "Sich archers", among whom was the nephew of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Central Rada Shulgin, who died in that battle) and about 50 local free Cossacks - officers and volunteers. Among the gymnasium students were students of the 7th, 8th and even 6th grades of the Kiev Cyril and Methodius Grammar School (i.e. minors). They were all commanded by a former officer of the Russian imperial army, Averkliy Goncharenko, who at that time held the post of commander of the kuren of the Kiev military school (in 1944 this “hero Krut” surfaced at the headquarters of one of the regiments of the SS division “Galichina”). Interestingly, Goncharenko, 2 days before the battle, was able to freely communicate with the station personally by telephone with Muravyov. The latter proposed to lay down their arms and meet “the victorious troops of the Red Army with a hot dinner”. Goncharenko mumbled something vague in response, from which it could be understood that the meeting was being prepared.
And in principle, did not deceive. Since his subordinates were able to inflict a very tangible damage to the red of the 16 machine guns they had in service with, and two guns mounted on the platform of the armored train. According to some reports, Muravyov lost about 300 people in that battle. Therefore, when he managed to capture 34 Ukrainian students from the 1st hundred “Sich Riflemen” who got lost in the dark and left for the station already captured by the Reds, their fate was a foregone conclusion, they were all shot (according to other sources, they were stabbed with bayonets). True, the fact, also confirmed by documents, is not very related to this, that the Bolsheviks released the seven wounded, personally landing them on a train going to Kharkov, where they subsequently cured and released them (one of them turned out to be the son of a driver mobilized by the Reds ) But the death of the remaining 27, plus two more officers who, for some reason, were detained at the station, is also a real fact (18 bodies of the dead were subsequently found and on March 18, 1918 they were solemnly buried at the Askold grave, about which now all foreheads regularly smash themselves the ruling elite of the Ukrainian government, starting with Yushchenko).
That’s the whole myth. Heroic heroes fought heroically against the Reds until they ran out of ammunition and ammunition, which left with an armored train that was dribbling from the station. After that, commander Goncharenko gave the order to retreat, which was done by the cadets of the military school. In the confusion the connection between the units entrusted to Goncharenko was weak, the students were late with a retreat, lost their direction, and in the darkness, one platoon mistakenly entered the station, which by that time was already occupied by the Reds. Everything else you know. Among the 27 students who were shot were Omelchenko, Naumovich and Shulgin - representatives of eminent Ukrainian families and prominent politicians of the time, which honors them and their parents. Such is the story without myths, so to speak, bare facts. But these facts significantly narrow the "pantheon of Ukrainian national heroes." And in some cases they degenerate them.
I must say that present-day Ukraine, counting its history from the Ukrainian People’s Republic, which existed with short breaks from 1917 to 1921, and abandoned its Soviet past, is successfully following the rake of its predecessors. The gene for betrayal in them seems to be in the blood. But in fairness, it must be said, however, that the majority of Ukrainians in 1917 (then they called themselves Little Russians and Rusyns) did not support the ideas of the founders of the UPR. Those remained in a catastrophic minority, a handful of hereditary traitors who have been conducting their genealogy since Mazepa. Having stumbled and offered their services first to Germany, and then to Poland, and nowhere to find defenders, they as a result of the summer offensive of 1920 the Red Army ceased their miserable existence, which was officially fixed in 1921 by the Riga Treaty. But in today's Ukraine, these “heroes” found worthy followers who outdid even their predecessors. But do not rush to judge everyone strictly, such dodgers are again a minority here, just the sponsors of the current ones turned out to be more influential than the former, so they managed to drive the rest of the Ukrainians with the connivance of Russia under the bench. I hope that the Russian Federation will have the strength to expel them from our land, since we ourselves cannot, alas, do this. And the Russians have the brains not to identify these hereditary traitors with all Ukrainians. Although, to be honest, I have almost no hopes for the latter.
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