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Photo Ukrinform-UATV
On January 29, 1918, a few hundred Ukrainian defenders from across the country, most of them students, were led by Cossack military commander Averkiy Goncharenko, in a heroic defensive battle against the Bolshevik Army.
The battle lasted until nightfall, with the Ukrainians mostly killed, wounded, and captured.
Goncharenko then ordered a retreat to a small railway station, Kruty, some two kilometers away from the site of the battle in Bakhmach, a city in the Chernihiv region. As they retreated, the approximately one hundred defenders remaining were surrounded by the Bolsheviks. Though they desperately tried to resist, their forces were unequal to the 4,000 Bolshevik troops led by commander Mikhail Muravyov.
At the final stand at Kruty, twenty-seven Ukrainian troops were captured, including teenagers, and those captured were mostly executed.
After the shootings, the Bolsheviks did not allow local peasants to bury the bodies of the dead. Only after the liberation of Kyiv from the Bolsheviks, could a solemn reburial occur for the students, on March 19, 1918 at Askold’s Grave in the center of Kyiv.
Solemn reburial of students in Kiev on March 19, 1918
Photo naszwybir.pl
The battle of Kruty delayed the Bolshevik offensive on Ukraine’s capital by several days. This allowed the government in Kyiv to sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and declare independence, which was recognized by all World War I parties.
The historical events are now recognized by the Ukrainian state as a part of the history of the formation of the state and representative of the patriotism and sacrifice of its citizens.
“The events of January 29, 1918, have been forever carved in the memory of generations of Ukrainians. After all, under the Kruty, the story of the young state has begun. The state, which, through its blood, incredible efforts, and tragic losses, declared its right to be free from the empire’s slavery,” Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko wrote on Facebook.
The true story of the battle was hidden by the Soviet Government. Only recently, a monument was set up to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Kruty at Askold’s Grave, and a commemorative hryvnia coin was minted. In 2006, the Kruty Heroes Monument was erected on the site of the historic battle and is remembered each year.
