At a time when bloody battles are being fought in Ukraine with Russian occupation troops, where the best sons and daughters of Ukraine are dying, and Russian bombs and missiles are falling on peaceful Ukrainian cities, the greatest duty of the current and future generations is to preserve the memory of historical events that affirmed the sovereignty of the state and preserved the independence of the Ukrainian nation. Among these is the battle near Kruty on January 29 (according to some sources, January 30), 1918.
This is a tragic and at the same time legendary event that occurred during the liberation struggle of 1917–1921 and became a symbol of the sacrificial struggle for Ukrainian independence.
On this day, 107 years ago, several hundred young, brave Ukrainian defenders, including students and gymnasium students of the 1st Ukrainian Military School, clashed in an unequal battle near the Kruty railway station, 130 km northeast of Kyiv, with Muravyov's several thousand-strong Bolshevik army.
The battle was successful for the defenders of Ukrainian statehood – the defenders carried out the command order and stopped the enemy’s attack. The Ukrainian defenders retreated in an organized manner, destroying the tracks and bridges behind them. The Moscow attackers partially lost their combat capability and were able to continue their attack on Kyiv in just a few days. This delay of the enemy allowed the Ukrainian delegation to conclude the Brest Peace Treaty with the states of the Quadruple Alliance, which at that time saved Ukrainian statehood.
But on the cold battlefield near a small railway station, the flower of the Ukrainian nation, hundreds of young men, died. The most tragic episode of the battle near Kruty was the death of a student platoon. Several dozen young men got lost during their retreat and ended up at the station, which by that time had already been occupied by the Bolsheviks. The enemy was not going to properly treat the prisoners, just like the Russians are now; then the Bolsheviks tortured the Ukrainian prisoners for a long time, and the next day they shot them with explosive bullets. The peasants were forbidden to bury their bodies.
This tragedy was not just a page of the war. It was to become the line, having crossed which the Russian occupiers were to forever distinguish themselves as Inhumans and murderers. But the Bolsheviks won and wrote their own history, in which they became the heroes of this battle, and the students and high school students were considered traitors and enemies of the people for over 70 years. And although many memoirs of the participants in the battle near Kruty were published in the diaspora, and they themselves could tell a lot (Averkiy Goncharenko died in 1980 in the USA, having lived 89 years, and the last participant in the battle near Kruty, Matviy Danylyuk, lived until 1994, having died at the age of 103), in Soviet Ukraine the events of those days were not remembered. The memory of the Heroes of Kruty was first honored only on the eve of the declaration of independence of Ukraine - January 29, 1991.
In 1999, the Kyiv City Council adopted a resolution “On Commemorating the Memory of the Heroes of Kruty”. And in 2003, at the initiative of the board of the Taras Shevchenko VUT “Prosvita”, the order “On Honoring the Memory of the Heroes of Kruty” was issued. In 2006, the Memorial Complex “In Memory of the Heroes of Kruty” was opened at the Kruty station. Every year on January 29, a mourning procession takes place from the Arsenalna metro station to Askoldovaya Grave, where a rally-requiem is held. It was at Askoldovaya Grave that the bodies of the participants in the battle were reburied in March 1918, but the Soviet authorities later destroyed the mass grave, and its location is currently unknown.
Today, let us remember those who did not live a long and happy life in the struggle for freedom and a better destiny of Ukraine, who sleep in known and unnamed graves, whose names are forever engraved in the history of the struggle for Ukrainian statehood and independence. With gratitude and respect, let us bow to all those who stood up for the defense of Ukraine. Then. Now. Forever. In memory of the fallen fighters for the independence and sovereignty of the Ukrainian state!