The Battle of Kruty was a battle which took place on January 29, 1918, near railway station "Kruty" (today village of Pamiatne, Borzna Raion, Chernihiv Oblast

Chernihiv Oblast

Chernihiv Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Chernihiv.-Geography:The total area of the province is around 31,900 km²....

) about 130 kilometre northeast of Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

, which was at the time part of the Nizhyn

Nizhyn

Nizhyn is a city located in the Chernihiv Oblast of northern Ukraine, along the Oster River, north-east of the nation's capital, Kiev. It is the administrative center of the Nizhynsky Raion, though the city itself is also designated as a district in the oblast...

 Uyezd

Uyezd

Uyezd or uezd was an administrative subdivision of Rus', Muscovy, Russian Empire, and the early Russian SFSR which was in use from the 13th century. Uyezds for most of the history in Russia were a secondary-level of administrative division...

, Chernigov Governorate

Chernigov Governorate

The Chernigov Governorate , also known as the Government of Chernigov, was a guberniya in the historical Left-bank Ukraine region of the Russian Empire, which was officially created in 1802 from the disbanded Malorossiya Governorate with an administrative centre of Chernigov...

.

Order of battle

Ukrainian forces

• Sich Riflemen
  Sich Riflemen
  The Sich Riflemen Halych-Bukovyna Kurin were one of the first regular military units of the Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The unit operated from 1917 to 1919 and was formed from Ukrainian soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, local population and former commanders of the Ukrainian Sich...
  
   auxiliary student battalion (kurin) - Vasyl Svaryka
  • 1st Company (sotnia) - Petro Omelchenko (116 soldiers) was split in four platoons
• Cadet Corps of the 1st Ukrainian military school of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi - Averkiy Hocharenko (~200 soldiers)
• A company size element of Free Cossacks
  Free Cossacks
  Free Cossacks was the Ukrainian association volunteer militia units that arose somewhat spontaneously during the decomposition of the Russian Imperial Army in spring of 1917....
  
   (80 soldiers)

Russian forces

• Baltic sea sailors of Remnyov
• 1st Petrograd unit

Brief description

As Bolshevik

Bolshevik

The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 forces of about 4,000 men, commanded by Mikhail Muravyov, advanced toward Kiev

Kiev

Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, a small Ukrainian

Ukrainian People's Republic

The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...

 unit of 400 soldiers (about 300 of which were students), commanded by Captain Averkiy Honcharenko, was hastily organized and sent to the front. The small unit consisted mainly of the Student Battalion (Kurin

Kurin

Kurin is a military term that was established by the cossacks.During the Second World War, the basic combat unit of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was a kurin...

) of Sich Riflemen

Sich Riflemen

The Sich Riflemen Halych-Bukovyna Kurin were one of the first regular military units of the Army of the Ukrainian People's Republic. The unit operated from 1917 to 1919 and was formed from Ukrainian soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian army, local population and former commanders of the Ukrainian Sich...

, a unit of the Khmelnytsky Cadet School, and a Free Cossacks

Free Cossacks

Free Cossacks was the Ukrainian association volunteer militia units that arose somewhat spontaneously during the decomposition of the Russian Imperial Army in spring of 1917....

 company. About half of the 400 men were killed during the battle, lasting up to 5 hours. The Haidamaka Kish of Symon Petlyura that stayed in a close vicinity turned to Kiev due to the Bolshevik's Arsenal Uprising

Kiev Arsenal January Uprising

Kiev Arsenal January Uprising, sometimes called simply the January Uprising or the January Rebellion , was the Bolshevik organized workers' armed revolt that started on January 29, 1918 at the Kiev Arsenal factory during the Ukrainian-Soviet War....

 that occurred that same day.

Afterwards

Eleven of the students were re-buried at Askold's Grave

Askold's Grave

Askold’s Grave is an opera in 4 acts by Alexey Verstovsky to a libretto by Mikhail Zagoskin ....

 in the centre of Kiev after the return of the Tsentralna Rada

Tsentralna Rada

The Tsentralna Rada or Central Rada at first was the All-Ukrainian council that united political, public, cultural, professional organizations. Later after the All-Ukrainian National Congress that council became the revolutionary parliament of Ukraine...

 to the capital in March 1918. At the funeral the then President of the

President of Ukraine

Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...

 Ukrainian People's Republic

Ukrainian People's Republic

The Ukrainian People's Republic or Ukrainian National Republic was a republic that was declared in part of the territory of modern Ukraine after the Russian Revolution, eventually headed by Symon Petliura.-Revolutionary Wave:...

, Mykhailo Hrushevsky

Mykhailo Hrushevsky

Mykhailo Serhiyovych Hrushevsky was a Ukrainian academician, politician, historian, and statesman, one of the most important figures of the Ukrainian national revival of the early 20th century...

 called every one of the 400 students who fought in the battle heroes. In addition, poet Pavlo Tychyna

Pavlo Tychyna

Pavlo Tychyna was a major Ukrainian poet, interpreter, publicist, public activist, academician, and statesman.-Life:Born in Pisky in 1891, he was baptized on January 27 that mistakenly was considered his birth date until recently. His father, Hryhoriy Timofiyovych Tychyna, was a village deacon and...

 dedicated a poem to 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.

Ukrainian legacy

Throughout the years, the true story of the battle was hidden from view by the Soviet Government

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. Only recently, a monument was set up to commemorate the 80 years' anniversary of the Battle of Kruty at Askold's Grave

Askold's Grave

Askold’s Grave is an opera in 4 acts by Alexey Verstovsky to a libretto by Mikhail Zagoskin ....

, and a commemorative hryvnia

Ukrainian hryvnia

The hryvnia, sometimes hryvnya or grivna ; sign: ₴, code: , has been the national currency of Ukraine since September 2, 1996. The hryvnia is subdivided into 100 kopiyok. In medieval times, it was a currency of Kievan Rus'....

 coin was minted. Eight years later in 2006, the Kruty Heroes Monument

Kruty Heroes Memorial

Kruty Heroes Memorial is a monument honoring 500 cadets who died defending Kiev at the Battle of Kruty delaying the advancement of Bolshevik Red Army on January 29, 1918. The memorial is a 10 metre red column situated on a hill, and includes a chapel and a cross-shaped lake...

 was erected on the cite of the historic battle and is remembered each year on or around January 29.

Important personalities

• Leonid Butkevych, the youngest soldier who was in the sixth grade
• Yakiv Ryabokin-Rohoza-Rozanov
• Ivano Hrushetsky, later an Orthodox priest who eventually died in Soviet prison in August 1940
• Mytrofan Shvydun, later continued to fight on armored trains "Shooter" and "Free Ukraine" and in 1941 organized the Lutsk Battalion of OUN
  Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
  The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
  
  
• Mykhailo Mykhailyk, later wrote a detail memoirs about the battle
• Numerous former students of Kruty became the base of the officer corps of the legendary Cavalry Regiment of Black Zaporizhians
• Mykola Kryvopusk and Hnat Martynyuk in 1920-1921 served as personal bodyguards of Symon Petlyura, Martynyuk later 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 appointed a commander in 1945
• Petro Franchuk, one of the members of SS Halychyna

To the memory of thirties

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 Pavlo Tychyna Pavlo Tychyna was a major Ukrainian poet, interpreter, publicist, public activist, academician, and statesman.-Life:Born in Pisky in 1891, he was baptized on January 27 that mistakenly was considered his birth date until recently. His father, Hryhoriy Timofiyovych Tychyna, was a village deacon and... , 1918 (free translation)