Battle of Kruty

Location

Starting from the 1890s, the station of Kruty was located at a crossing of two major railway lines and played an important strartegical role. The original wooden station building saw numerous battles during the following period and was eventually destroyed during World War II.

Order of battle

;Ukrainian forces (D. Nosenko)

• 1st Student Company (Sich Riflemen auxiliary kurin) — Petro Omelchenko (fatally wounded) (116 soldiers) was split into four platoons
• Cadet Corps of the 1st Ukrainian military school of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi — Averkii Honcharenko (~200 soldiers)
• Hlukhiv Free Cossacks (80 soldiers)
  • Cavalry detachment
• Ad hoc armed train (consisted of artillery gun on a flatcar) — S. Loshchenko
• Armored train — M. Yartsev (wounded), withdrew to Nizhyn

;Russian forces (Mikhail Muravyov)

• 1st Revolutionary Army (Komdiv Pavel Yegorov) — 1,500
  • Baltic sailors of Remnyov
  • 1st Petrograd Red Guards
    • 1st battalion — Lifanov (wounded)
    • 2nd battalion — Vorobyov
  • 1st Moscow Red Guards — Ye. Lapidus
  • Armored train No. 2
• 2nd Revolutionary Army (Komdiv Reingold Berzin)
  • 436th Novo-Ladoga Regiment
  • 534th Novo-Kyiv Regiment
  • Detachment of Baltic sailors
  • Lenin armored train

The battle

As Bolshevik forces of about 4,000 men, commanded by Mikhail Muravyov, advanced toward Kyiv, a small Ukrainian unit of 400 soldiers of the Bakhmach garrison (about 300 of which were students), commanded initially by Captain F. Tymchenko, withdrew from Bakhmach to a small railroad station Kruty midway towards Nizhyn. The small unit consisted mainly of the Student Battalion (Kurin) of Sich Riflemen, a unit of the Khmelnytsky Cadet School, and a Free Cossacks company.

Just before the assault Tymchenko was replaced by D. Nosenko. Tymchenko left for Nizhyn in attempt to recruit the locally quartered Shevchenko Regiment (800 soldiers) to the Ukrainian side. On January 30, 1918, the Shevchenko regiment sided with the Soviet regime, the news of which forced the Ukrainian garrison of Kruty hastily to withdraw. Over half of the 400 men were killed during the battle, which lasted up to five hours. In Soviet historiography, the battle is mistakenly dated on January 29, 1918 and confused with the Plysky rail station skirmish (:uk:Плиски (станція)).

The Haidamaka Kish of Symon Petlyura (300 soldiers) that rushed to reinforce the Kruty garrison and was delayed due to the Darnytsia railworkers sabotage and stopped in close vicinity at Bobryk railway station. They eventually turned back to Kyiv due to the Bolshevik Arsenal Uprising, which occurred on the same day.

Eighteen of the students were re-buried at Askold's Grave in the centre of Kyiv after the return of the Tsentralna Rada to the capital on 19 March 1918. At the funeral the then President of the Ukrainian Central Rada, Mykhailo Hrushevsky, called every one of the 400 students who fought in the battle, heroes. Poet Pavlo Tychyna wrote his poem "To the memory of the thirty" about the heroic death of the students.

After the fall of the Ukrainian People's Republic, the bodies of the students were moved to the Lukyanivske Cemetery in Kiev.

Notable participants

• Leonid Butkevych, the youngest soldier who was in the sixth grade
• Yakiv Ryabokin-Rohoza-Rozanov
• Volodymyr Shulhyn, a brother of the Ukrainian statesman Oleksander Shulhyn
• Ivano Hrushetsky, later an Orthodox priest who eventually died in a Soviet prison in August 1940
• Mytrofan Shvydun, later continued to fight on the "Shooter" and "Free Ukraine" armored trains and in 1941 organized the Lutsk Battalion of OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists)
• Mykhailo Mykhailyk, later wrote a detailed memoir about the battle
• Numerous former students of Kruty became the base of the officer corps of the legendary Black Zaporizhians Cavalry Regiment
• Mykola Kryvopusk and Hnat Martynyuk in 1920-1921 served as personal bodyguards of Symon Petlyura, Martynyuk, after becoming a priest, perished in Volyn in 1943 under unknown circumstances
• Serhiy Zakhvalsky, eventually became an officer in the Polish Army, however, he was renowned for imprisoning a whole company of the Red Army in 1920, while heading one of the cavalry squads of the Zaliznyak Cavalry Regiment
• Averkiy Honcharenko, in 1943 became one of the organizers of the SS Halychyna of which he was appointed a commander in 1945
• Petro Franchuk, one of the members of SS Halychyna
• Yuri Voronoy, son of Ukrainian mathematician Georgy Voronoy, performed the first human kidney transplant in 1933

Legacy

The battle's first anniversary, which included a memorial service held by families of fallen students, was mentioned in Ukrainian press on 30 January 1919, a few days before the new capture of Kyiv by the Bolsheviks. An accurate history of the battle was long suppressed by the Soviet government. The memory about the event was preserved in Western Ukraine and among the Ukrainian diaspora, where it became a subject of numerous poems and other publications.

Poet Mykola Zerov called the battle's participants "Ukrainian Spartans", comparing them with heroes of the Battle of Thermopylae.

The battle has been described as the "Free World's First Resistance To Communism" by historian Volodymyr Yaniv, as it was one of the earliest examples of a free people resisting an invasion by a foreign communist army intent on subjugating them, a precursor to the Russian invasion of Georgia two years later in 1921.

On 29 January 1991 the People's Movement of Ukraine installed a birch memorial cross in the vicinity of the battlefield. In 1998 a mound with a stele was constructed nearby.

Every anniversary of the Heroes of Kruty is not only a day to honor those people who loved our motherland more than their lives. This is also another reminder to our contemporary politicians regarding their responsibility for the fate of their country and people.|Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko describing the battle}}

|Ex-President Viktor Yuschenko at the 91st anniversary of the battle}}

On 1 March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the area around the villages of Pamiatne and Khoroshe Ozero reportedly resulted in nearly 200 Russian troops being killed in action, according to local officials. Before the fighting, Russian soldiers took photos near the Kruty Heroes Memorial and fired on it.

In culture

Publications

A bibliography of sources related to the battle was published in 1933-1934 in Lviv. For the 40th anniversary in 1958 a brochure was published by V.Yaniv.

Poetry

''To the Memory of the Thirty''

At the Askold Cemetery They were buried, The thirty martyrs-Ukrainians, The glorious young...

At the Askold Cemetery The Ukrainian bloom! — By the bloody roadway For us to follow into the world.

Onto whom has dared to rise The betrayer's hand? Sun is blooming, wind is playing And the Dnieper-river...

Against whom has Cain committed? O, Lord, punish them! Over everything they loved It was their loved land.

They died in the New Testament With the glory of saints. At the Askold Cemetery They were buried.|Pavlo Tychyna, 1918 (free translation)}}

Art

A watercolor painting depicting the Battle of Kruty was created by Ukrainian painter and Ukrainian People's Republic army veteran Leonid Perfetsky. In recent times, a mural dedicated to the battle's participants has been created in Kyiv.

Film

A Ukrainian movie dedicated to the battle was presented in 2018.

Gallery

File:Burying of the fighters of the Battle of Kruty.jpg|Photo showing the burial of Bolshevik terror victims, frequently mistaken for a photo of the burial of the students fallen at Kruty, 10 March 1918 File:Kruty Commemorative coin.jpg|A hryvnia coin commemorating the Battle of Kruty File:Kruty monument on Askold Grave.jpg|Kruty monument on Askold's Grave File:Крути Пам’ятний знак 2.jpg|Memorial stele at the site of the battle

Notes

References

References

1. [http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkPath=pages\K\R\KrutyBattleof.htm Battle of Kruty] at the [[Encyclopedia of Ukraine]]
2. "Kruty, Battle of".
3. Михайло Михайлик: День 29 січня 1918 року. — Львів, 1932 (Ukrainian)
4. (1994). "Енциклопедія українознавства. Словникова частина (ЕУ-II)".
5. Tynchenko, Ya. ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20150203053230/http://www.istpravda.com.ua/articles/2011/01/28/19369/ Life after Kruty. How turned out the fate of participants of January battle]''. [[Ukrayinska Pravda]] (Istorychna Pravda). 28 January 2011
6. Kovalchuk, M. ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20150202125639/http://www.istpravda.com.ua/research/2014/01/29/141189/ Battle of Kruty: known and known pages]. [[Ukrayinska Pravda]] (Historic Pravda). 29 January 2015 ([http://www.istpravda.com.ua/research/2014/01/29/141189/] (original source)''
7. "History of Ukraine".
8. (2021-01-28). "Бій, про який говорили пошепки".
9. "Хірург Вороний, який вперше пересадив нирку людині: українізатор і учасник бою під Крутами". BBC.
10. (2024-01-28). "Так хто ж мав прибути на допомогу під Крути?".
11. (2021-01-29). "Євген Маланюк "Крути. Народини нового українця"".
12. Janiw, Volodymyr. (1958). "The Battle of Kruty: The Free World's First Resistance To Communism". CESUS.
13. [http://photo.unian.net/eng/themes/11188 Events by themes: 91st anniversary of battle near Kruty], [[UNIAN]] (29 January 2009)
14. [http://www.interfax.com.ua/eng/main/6587/ Yuschenko, Tymoshenko address their compatriots on occasion of Battle of Kruty], [[Interfax-Ukraine]], (29 January 2009)
15. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T00JnmDpI_k History of the Battle of Kruty - English], [[YouTube]]
16. (2 March 2022). ["About 200 Russian invaders killed in new battle near Kruty in Chernihiv region]"](https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3418218-about-200-russian-invaders-killed-in-new-battle-near-kruty-in-chernihiv-region.html).
17. Lavrinenko, Yu. ''Shot Renaissance: Anthology 1917-1933: Poetry-prose-drama-essay''. "Prosvita". Kyiv, 2001. 794 p.
18. (2023-01-28). "Невідома станція Крути: як вона виглядала сто років тому насправді".
19. [https://likbez.org.ua/ukrayinska-fotodzherela-ne-plutati-pohoron-zhertv-bilshovikiv-ta-pohoron-geroyiv-krut-berezen-1918-r.html]