The full truth about the young guard is far from being fully revealed. Myths and truth about the Young Guard

While the girls were alive, they tore off their braids, cut out stars, put them on a hot stove, raped them, twisted their arms - this is not a complete list of the tortures to which members of the young underground organization “Young Guard” from the small mining town of Krasnodon were subjected.

This still makes my heart freeze with horror. The main tormentors are policemen from the ranks of local traitors.

But the torment continued after the war. Parents of undeservedly slandered dead heroes throughout for long years experienced enormous moral pressure. Several generations of relatives of supposed traitors carried their heavy cross in Soviet time. But justice finally prevailed. It was a bitter celebration.

Hostages of military fate

Injustice and grief have surrounded everything connected with the Young Guard for many years. During the era of perestroika, the very existence of this organization was seriously questioned. But there were young boys and girls, full of strength and desire to live and fight the hated occupiers, who, by the will of fate, became hostages of tragic circumstances.

When the country first learned about the tragedy in Krasnodon
An echo of hatred swept across the country after the news of the execution of young people. Military journalist Vladimir Smirnov was the first to write about this in the newspaper “Son of the Fatherland.” It is interesting that the journalist did not put his last name. In his article, for the first time he does not write about the organization of a youth underground in Krasnodon. An important fact. A military journalist writes about the core of the organization. He lists six people. And in first place are Sergei Tyulenin, Viktor Tretyakevich, Vanya Zemnukhov, Oleg Koshevoy, Stepan Safonov, Anatoly Popov.

The primary role of Oleg Koshevoy is not mentioned anywhere in the article. The article indicates that young underground fighters gathered in his uncle’s yard. They listened to radio broadcasts from Moscow in order to prepare and post leaflets in the city based on the reports. Sometimes Oleg Koshevoy recorded messages from Moscow.

A real commander

The article said nothing about the real commander of the organization, Ivan Turkenich. The former assistant chief of staff of the 614th anti-tank artillery regiment Turkenich was captured on the Don, fled and hid with relatives in Krasnodon. Captivity was considered a disgrace.

Robbery of a German car on New Year's Eve

And it all started with the fact that New Year a German car was robbed. Some of the supplies were found in the possession of teenager Sasha Grinev, who was trying to sell a pack of cigarettes at the market. Few people know today, but the Germans created a special service to combat homelessness. Therefore, a little boy without parents immediately caught the eye of the police. He said that the cigarettes came from the head of the local club, Evgeniy Moshkov. At the same time, the head of the string circle, Viktor Tretyakevich, was arrested.

Traitor #1

Not long ago, the Russian FSB declassified some of the cases related to the investigation of police crimes in Krasnodon. One fatal accident turned out to be true - the police came to search Olga Lyadskaya and quite accidentally pulled the edge of the tablecloth. A letter fell out. Olga wrote there that she did not want to go to Germany as a slave. The word “slavery” was written in huge letters. Lyadskaya was threatened with death - she named several more names.

Traitor #2

Traitor for a long time they named the nephew of the chief of the Krasnodon police, Gennady Pocheptsov, who wrote a denunciation against the group operating in the village of Pervomaisky.
So one after another there were numerous arrests and executions. The Germans threw 71 people into the pit of mine No. 5. The rest were shot in the forest of the city of Rovenki, 70 kilometers from Krasnodon. Only ten people remained alive.

Oleg Koshevoy's tantrums

Oleg Koshevoy’s behavior during interrogation speaks volumes. His hysteria immediately catches the eye of the German officer, who is surprised to hear Oleg’s repeated cries that he is a commissar. Nobody asks Oleg to talk about this. Moreover, the Germans did not know who they detained.
Krasnodon residents hated Koshevoy’s mother

The greatest injustice began when Krasnodon was completely engulfed in the crying and howling of orphaned mothers. No one could understand where Oleg Koshevoy’s mother disappeared for several days? Everyone wanted to enjoy the thirst for revenge - to tear off her smooth hair, beat her and pour out the whole thicket of hatred on her. And there was a reason for it. German officers were standing at her apartment.

Oleg’s grandmother and mother prepared food for them and entertained them with conversations. Oleg's mother was very well-mannered, she received a good education and compared favorably with other miner’s mothers, who were not taught literacy and manners.

Alexander Fadeev and Elena Koshevaya
It was these qualities of Oleg Koshevoy’s mother that attracted the Moscow writer Alexander Fadeev. He, having received a party order personally from Comrade Stalin, came to collect facts for a grandiose novel. Stopped at Kosheva's. He only worked with her. She told him about the huge role her son played in the organization. The boy, who had just turned 16, never actually had the qualities that his orphaned mother attributed to him.

Fadeev preferred not to meet with other mothers. Rumors spread. The writer was even accused of having a love affair with Koshevoy’s mother. He quickly got ready for Moscow, where he wrote and published the infamous novel, which was rewritten twice. But its main essence - Oleg Koshevoy - a hero, and Stakhovich (in reality Viktor Tretyakevich) - a traitor, remained unchanged. The writer explained his lies simply - this is artistic fiction. But it was already too late. After all, Fadeev wrote out the characters realistically. For several characteristic features people identified a traitor - the deceased Tretyakevich. When his parents meet on the street, they shower him with abuse and spit in his face. Victor's mother sneaks into her son's grave at night. Only years later Tretyakevich was rehabilitated and awarded the order.

Novel Destroyer

This novel destroyed the writer's life. Caused irreparable harm to many families. The surviving members of the Young Guard were forced to voice the official version all their lives. Although there were those who spoke the truth. Valentina Borts, instructed on leading role Oleg Koshevoy. And others said that the boy could not lead a serious organization. They were right.

IN Soviet years Oleg Koshevoy was a national hero, and millions read Alexander Fadeev’s novel

In Soviet times, the novel Alexandra Fadeeva"Young Guard" was incredibly popular. But after perestroika, when it became fashionable to doubt the veracity of the existence of the heroes of the Civil and Great Patriotic War, a lot of dirt was poured on the Young Guards. I especially got it Oleg Koshevoy. On the Hero's birthday Soviet Union the site looks into why this happened and how it really happened.

Why exactly "Young Guard"?

There were a lot of underground organizations during the war. But why exactly did the Young Guard become an example of heroism and courage? All events took place in the mining town of Krasnodon, which is located 50 kilometers from Lugansk (then the city was called Voroshilovgrad). It was occupied by the German army in July 1942. It is known that almost immediately after the occupation, several underground youth groups, independent from each other, were formed there; Red Army soldiers who escaped from captivity often joined the young underground fighters, as happened with Ivan Turkenich, who became the commander of the Young Guard.

Already in February 1943 the city was liberated. In the USSR, special commissions worked that recorded crimes committed by the German army. When the Red Army entered Krasnodon, it immediately became known about the brutal torture and murder of more than 70 teenagers who participated in the local underground organization. The investigation began.

A few months later, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev wrote Joseph Stalin a report in which he spoke in detail about the activities of the Young Guard and proposed to nominate the guys for awards. As a result, on September 13, a decree was issued to award five of them posthumously, including Oleg Koshevoy. Newspapers began to write about the Young Guards.

Two Odessa journalists visited Krasnodon Lyaskovsky And Kotov. By February 23, 1944, they published the book “Hearts of the Brave,” after reading which he went to Krasnodon Alexander Fadeev. Two years later, his novel “The Young Guard” was published, which at one time was considered the most a book to read in Soviet Union. And in 1948 a film of the same name was released. Both the novel and the film were works of fiction, and it was fiction that played an important role in the era of exposing “myths.”

Who was Oleg Koshevoy?

Oleg Koshevoy, one of the brightest heroes of The Young Guard, as readers of the book and viewers remember him, was born on June 8, 1926 in the small town of Priluki, Chernigov region. Official sources say that Oleg’s parents separated, that until 1939 the boy lived with his father, and then moved to his mother in Krasnodon. When Fadeev arrived in the city, he, on the advice of Odessa journalists, settled in the house of Oleg Koshevoy’s mother. And he wrote most of the novel from memories Elena Nikolaevna. And she chose to forget about ex-husband. Even in her book “The Tale of a Son” she wrote that Oleg’s father disappeared.

In fact, Vasily Fedoseevich Koshevoy lived and worked in Krasnodon. He died only in 1967. Local residents told local historians that the man was very worried about the death of his son and suffered because of injustice. And the guides did not even suspect that the elderly man who often appears in the Young Guard museum is the living, real father of Oleg Koshevoy.

They say that Oleg moved in with his mother only because his father was drafted into the army. An excellent student, he drew beautifully, went in for sports, was fond of shooting, wrote poetry, worked as a lifeguard and tutored poor students. When the war began, Koshevoy helped in the hospital and published a wall newspaper with reports from the Information Bureau for wounded soldiers.

On June 8, 1942, he turned 16 years old. The fighting was already close to Krasnodon, and the mother tried to send her son to evacuate, but he did not have time to leave. During the occupation, together with his friends and classmates, Oleg organized a Komsomol group, which in September 1943, along with other youth groups, became part of the underground organization “Young Guard”. Koshevoy became one of the leaders of the movement; the sixteen-year-old boy was responsible for security and developed operations.

Feats of the Young Guards

The Young Guard operated underground for only a few months. But during this time, the students managed to do a lot. The Young Guard assembled a radio receiver, created a printing house, printed leaflets with Information Bureau reports, posting them around the city and the surrounding area. They destroyed the bread that was being prepared for shipment to Germany. The underground workers burned the labor exchange and all the documents in it, thereby saving about 2,000 people who were planned to be taken to work in Germany.

In honor of the anniversary October revolution Red flags appeared in Krasnodon. This was also their doing. Today, many may be surprised: why take the risk, take such an action, which smacks of boyishness? But then, in the occupied city, it had a special meaning: we are not giving up, victory will be ours.

It was after this action that the Nazis began to look for members of the underground movement with particular diligence. There is still debate about who actually turned out to be a traitor. The problem is that Fadeev’s novel was extremely popular and people believed him. And there was quite a lot of fiction in it; some of the events described by the writer did not happen at all. Moreover, the prototypes of the novel's heroes, whom Fadeev made traitors, were accused of this and real life. They had to prove and achieve their rehabilitation.

After perestroika, a lot of contradictory information appeared, a variety of versions were expressed, even to the point that the Young Guards were an underground organization of Ukrainian nationalists. The Ukrainian government is propagating the version that the “hand of the Kremlin” was behind the feat of the Young Guard. But there were documents that described in detail the corpses of tortured young men and women extracted from mine No. 5, with stars carved on their cheeks or backs, broken arms and legs, cut off ears, torn out lips. Yes, Soviet propaganda worked in full, but this does not detract from the courage, audacity and love of freedom of the young underground fighters.

Oleg Koshevoy, as a “commissar”, was subjected to particularly terrible torture by the Germans. He was shot on February 9, 1943. When the grave of the Young Guards executed in the Thundering Forest was discovered, it turned out that the 17-year-old boy had turned gray. He did not live only a few days before the liberation of Krasnodon.

Many people still come to the Young Guard Museum today – primarily schoolchildren from different parts of Donbass. In the city itself, the memory of the young heroes who wrote their names in the history of the Victory is highly respected. Most of the Young Guards were descendants of Cossacks, and Cossacks always regarded the defense of their homeland as the main work of their lives.

On September 28, 1942, in Krasnodon, young underground fighters united into the Young Guard organization.

Novel and film "hot on the heels".

In 1946, the novel by writer Alexander Fadeev, “The Young Guard,” was published in the Soviet Union, dedicated to the struggle of young underground fighters against the fascists. Fadeev’s novel was destined to become a bestseller for several decades to come: “The Young Guard” went through more than 270 editions during the Soviet period with a total circulation of over 26 million copies.
The Young Guard was included in school curriculum, and there was not a single Soviet student who had not heard of Oleg Koshev, Lyuba Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova.
In 1948, Alexander Fadeev’s novel was filmed - a film of the same name “The Young Guard” was directed by Sergei Gerasimov, involving students from the acting department of VGIK. The path to stardom for Nonna Mordyukova, Inna Makarova, Georgy Yumatov, Vyacheslav Tikhonov began with “Young Guard”...

Both the book and the film had an amazing feature - they were created not just based on real events, but literally “hot on the heels”. The actors came to the places where everything happened and talked with the parents and friends of the dead heroes. Vladimir Ivanov, who played Oleg Koshevoy, was two years older than his hero. Nonna Mordyukova was only a year younger than Ulyana Gromova, Inna Makarova was a couple of years younger than Lyuba Shevtsova. All this gave the picture incredible realism.
Years later, during the collapse of the USSR, the efficiency of creating works of art will become an argument with which they will prove that the history of the underground organization “Young Guard” is fiction Soviet propaganda. Why suddenly were young underground fighters from Krasnodon given so much attention? There were, after all, much more successful groups that did not receive a little fame and recognition from the Young Guard?

Mine number five.

No matter how cruel it sounds, the popularity of the Young Guard was predetermined by its tragic ending, which occurred shortly before the liberation of the city of Krasnodon from the Nazis.
In 1943, the Soviet Union was already carrying out systematic work to document Nazi crimes in the occupied territories. Immediately after the liberation of cities and villages, commissions were formed whose task was to record cases of massacres of Soviet citizens, establish the burial places of victims, and identify witnesses to crimes.
On February 14, 1943, the Red Army liberated Krasnodon. Almost immediately, local residents became aware of the massacre committed by the Nazis against young underground fighters.
The snow in the prison yard still contained traces of their blood. In the cells on the walls, relatives and friends found the last messages of the Young Guards who were leaving to die. The location of the bodies of those executed was also no secret. Most of the Young Guards were thrown into the 58-meter pit of the Krasnodon mine No. 5.

The work of lifting bodies was hard both physically and psychologically. The executed Young Guards were subjected to sophisticated torture before their death.
The protocols for examining corpses speak for themselves:
“Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, carved on her back five pointed star, right hand broken, broken ribs..."
“Lida Androsova, 18 years old, was taken out without an eye, ear, hand, with a rope around her neck, which cut heavily into her body. Dried blood is visible on the neck.”
“Angelina Samoshina, 18 years old. Signs of torture were found on the body: arms were twisted, ears were cut off, a star was carved on the cheek...”
“Maya Peglivanova, 17 years old. The corpse was disfigured: breasts, lips were cut off, legs were broken. All outer clothing has been removed."
“Shura Bondareva, 20 years old, was taken out without her head and right breast, her whole body was beaten, bruised, black in color.”
“Viktor Tretyakevich, 18 years old. He was pulled out without a face, with a black and blue back, with crushed arms.”

"I may die, but I have to get her"

In the process of studying the remains, another terrible detail became clear - some of the guys were thrown into the mine alive and died as a result of falling from a great height.
A few days later, work was suspended - due to the decomposition of the bodies, lifting them became dangerous for the living. The bodies of the others were much lower and it seemed that they could not be raised.
The father of the deceased Lida Androsova, Makar Timofeevich, an experienced miner, said: “Even if I die from the poison of my daughter’s corpse, but I have to get her.”

The mother of the deceased Yuri Vintsenovsky recalled: “A gaping abyss around which small parts of our children’s clothes were lying: socks, combs, felt boots, bras, etc. The wall of the waste heap is all splattered with blood and brains. With a heart-rending cry, each mother recognized the expensive things of her children. Moans, screams, fainting... The corpses that could not fit in the bathhouse were laid out on the street, in the snow under the walls of the bathhouse. A terrible picture! In the bathhouse, around the bathhouse there are corpses, corpses. 71 corpses!
On March 1, 1943, Krasnodon saw off the Young Guard on their last journey. They were buried with military honors in a mass grave in the Komsomol Park.

Comrade Khrushchev reports...

Soviet investigators fell into the hands of not only material evidence of the massacre, but also German documents, as well as Hitler’s accomplices who were directly related to the death of the Young Guard.
It was not possible to quickly understand the circumstances of the activities and deaths of other underground groups due to a lack of information. The uniqueness of the “Young Guard” was that, as it seemed, everything about it became known at once.
In September 1943, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Nikita Khrushchev wrote a report on the activities of the Young Guard based on established data: “The Young Guard began their activities with the creation of a primitive printing house. Students in grades 9-10 - members of an underground organization - made a radio receiver on their own. After some time, they were already receiving messages from the Soviet Information Bureau and began publishing leaflets. Leaflets were posted everywhere: on the walls of houses, in buildings, on telephone poles. Several times the Young Guard managed to stick leaflets on the backs of police officers... Members of the Young Guard also wrote slogans on the walls of houses and fences. In days religious holidays they came to church and stuffed handwritten pieces of paper into the pockets of believers with the following content: “As we lived, so we will live, as we were, so we will be under the Stalinist banner,” or: “Down with Hitler’s 300 grams, let’s go with Stalin’s kilograms.” . On the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, a red banner hoisted by members of an underground organization hoisted over the city...
The Young Guard did not limit itself to propaganda work; it made active preparations for an armed uprising. For this purpose, they collected: 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15,000 rounds of ammunition and 65 kg of explosives. By the beginning of the winter of 1942, the organization was a cohesive, fighting detachment with experience in political and military activities. The underground members thwarted the mobilization of several thousand residents of Krasnodon to Germany, burned the labor exchange, saved the lives of dozens of prisoners of war, recaptured 500 head of cattle from the Germans and returned them to the residents, and carried out a number of other acts of sabotage and terrorism.”

Operational award.

Khrushchev further suggests: “To perpetuate the memory of the victims and popularize their heroic deeds, I ask:
1. To assign /posthumously/ to Oleg Vasilievich KOSHEV, Ivan Alexandrovich ZEMNUKHOV, Sergei Gavrilovich TYULENIN, Ulyana Matveevna GROMOVA, Lyubov Grigorievna SHEVTSOVA the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, as the most outstanding organizers and leaders of the “Young Guard”.
2. Award 44 active members of the “Young Guard” with the Order of the USSR for their valor and courage in the fight against the German invaders behind enemy lines / of which 37 people were posthumously /.”
Stalin supported Khrushchev's proposal. The note addressed to the leader was dated September 8, and already on September 13, a Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was issued on awarding Young Guards.
No unnecessary feats were attributed to the boys and girls from the Young Guard - they managed to do a lot for untrained amateur underground fighters. And this is the case when there was no need to embellish anything.

What was corrected in the film and book?

And yet, there are things that are still debated. For example, about the contribution to the common cause of each of the leaders. Or about whether it is legal to call Oleg Koshevoy a commissioner of the organization. Or about who was responsible for the failure.
For example, one of the Nazi collaborators stated at the trial that Viktor Tretyakevich betrayed the Young Guard, unable to withstand torture. Only 16 years later, in 1959, during the trial of Vasily Podtynny, who served as deputy chief of the Krasnodon city police in 1942-1943, it became known that Tretyakevich had become a victim of a slander, and the real informer was Gennady Pocheptsov.
Pocheptsov and his stepfather Vasily Gromov were exposed as Nazi collaborators back in 1943, and were shot by a tribunal. But Pocheptsov’s role in the death of the Young Guard was revealed much later.
Due to new information, in 1964 Sergei Gerasimov even re-edited and partially re-scored the film “The Young Guard”.
Alexander Fadeev had to rewrite the novel. And not because of inaccuracies, which the writer explained by the fact that the book was fiction and not documentary, but because of the special opinion of Comrade Stalin. The leader did not like the fact that the youth in the book acted without the help and guidance of their older communist comrades. As a result, in the 1951 version of the book, Koshevoy and his comrades were already guided by wise party members.

Patriots without special training.

Such additions were then used to denounce the Young Guard as a whole. And some people are ready to present the relatively recently discovered fact that Lyuba Shevtsova completed a three-month NKVD course as a radio operator as proof that the Young Guards are not patriotic schoolchildren, but seasoned saboteurs.
In reality, there was neither a leading role of the party nor sabotage preparation. The guys did not know the basics of underground activities, improvising on the go. Under such conditions, failure was inevitable.
It is enough to remember how Oleg Koshevoy died. He managed to avoid detention in Krasnodon, but did not succeed in crossing the front line as he had planned.
He was detained by field gendarmerie near the city of Rovenki. Koshevoy was not known by sight, and he could well have avoided exposure if not for a mistake that was completely impossible for a professional illegal intelligence officer. During the search, they found a Komsomol card sewn into his clothes, as well as several other documents incriminating him as a member of the Young Guard.

Their courage amazed their enemies.

The desire to keep a Komsomol card in such a situation is a crazy act, life-threatening boyishness. But Oleg was a boy, he was only 16 years old... His last hour He faced February 9, 1943 with steadfastness and courage. From the testimony of Schultz, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in the city of Rovenki: “At the end of January, I participated in the execution of a group of members of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”, among whom was the leader of this organization Koshevoy... I remember him especially clearly because the shooting I had to go into it twice. After the shots, all those arrested fell to the ground and lay motionless, only Koshevoy stood up and, turning around, looked in our direction. This greatly angered Fromme and he ordered the gendarme Drewitz to finish him off. Drewitz approached the lying Koshevoy and killed him with a shot in the back of the head...”
His comrades also died fearlessly. SS man Drewitz told during interrogation about last minutes life of Lyuba Shevtsova: “Of those executed in the second batch, I remember Shevtsova well. She drew my attention with her appearance. She had a beautiful, slender figure and a long face. Despite her youth, she behaved very courageously. Before the execution, I brought Shevtsova to the edge of the execution pit. She did not utter a word about mercy and calmly, with her head raised, accepted death.”
“I didn’t join the organization to then ask for your forgiveness; I only regret one thing, that we didn’t have time to do enough!” Ulyana Gromova threw it in the face of the Nazi investigator.

“Bandera’s myth”: how Young Guards were registered as Ukrainian nationalists...

During the years of independent Ukraine, a new misfortune befell the Young Guard - it was suddenly declared... an underground organization of Ukrainian nationalists.
This version is recognized by all historians who have studied documents related to the Young Guard as complete nonsense. It must be said that the city of Krasnodon, adjacent to the modern Russian-Ukrainian border, has never belonged to the territory where the positions of nationalists are strong.
The author of the “stuffing” is US citizen Evgeniy Stakhov. A veteran of the Bandera movement in the early 1990s, he began to introduce himself in interviews as the organizer of the nationalist underground in the Donbass, to which he “joined” the Young Guard. Stakhov’s revelations were refuted not only by the real facts in which he was confused, but also by the statements of those Young Guards who survived and lived until the 1990s. However, to this day in Ukraine and in Russia you can sometimes hear about the “Bandera trace” of the Young Guard.
After Euromaidan in Ukraine, the desecration of the memory of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War became the norm. The Young Guard members are lucky - the city of Krasnodon is located on the territory of the Lugansk People's Republic, where the memory of the patriots who gave their lives for their Motherland is still sacred.

Pre-war Krasnodon. In the background, on the mountain, you can see the city bathhouse. It was on it on November 7, 1942 that the Young Guard hung a red flag, which enraged the fascists and policemen

On February 13, 1943, Voroshilovgrad was liberated by the Red Army. On February 14, 1943, Krasnodon was liberated. On February 18, a small article “Heroes of the Young Guard” appeared in the army newspaper “Son of the Fatherland” of the Southwestern Front, dedicated to the feat and tragedy of the Young Guard. 70 years have passed since then...

Still on post-Soviet space Disputes and political speculation do not subside on a number of issues - what was the Komsomol-youth association under the name “Young Guard”, what did they do, who were their leaders?

Apparently, seven decades later, it is worth once again turning to the history of the feat and trying to put everything in its place, so as not to give food to the “jackals of history” to discredit the name of real patriots.

The Soviet people first learned about the “Young Guard” precisely from the front-line newspaper in the issue dated February 18 (not April, as previously thought), and not from the novel of the same name by A.A. Fadeeva. And given that the territory of the eastern part of Ukraine was the first territory liberated from long-term fascist occupation, the attitude towards terror in the temporarily occupied Soviet territory was formed in the public consciousness precisely in the Donbass.

Only later, in the autumn of 1943, did the nightmares of the tyranny of Babyn Yar, the Berdichev and Yalta ghettos, the torture of Soviet underground fighters in Kyiv, Malin, Chernigov, Zhitomir become known...

All this happened, but then. The first news of the terrible truth came from Krasnodon and the Komsomol youth organization “Young Guard”.

I in no way urge you to re-read (although for a more complete perception it wouldn’t hurt) the first or second edition of the novel of the same name by Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeev, just as I don’t urge you to re-read the film of the same name by Sergei Appolinarievich Gerasimov (although it wouldn’t hurt either), but I urge you to so that on the basis historical facts again and again touch the truth of the “Young Guard”, and see for yourself where the new fundamental content was manifested, and where the “nationalist overlay” that actively surfaced during the years of the “Orange Revolution” seeped through.

First myth, supported by a number of “visionary” publications of Ukraine, which historians from some western regions of Ukraine, territorially and spiritually far from Krasnodon and Rovenky, seize on, is that, supposedly, there was no “Young Guard” as such, and if there was something like that, then she didn’t do anything except hang out leaflets. Unlike, as they say, from the boys and girls from the “cache”.

Those “lords” and “ladies” who think so are mistaken. There were leaflets with reports “From the Soviet Information Bureau” in the combat chronicle of the “Young Guard”, there was also the hanging of red flags on November 7, 1942, there was an armed attack in December 1942 on a column with Christmas gifts for German and Italian soldiers, there was also arson “labour exchange”, there was also the release of 73 Soviet prisoners of war on the Volchensky farm. True, “connoisseurs” and “guardians” of the activities of the Young Guards grab at the fact that the Volchensky farm is located on the territory of the Kamensky district of the Rostov region, outside of Ukraine, forgetting that it is practically on the Russian-Ukrainian border, as well as the fact that then it was a single and indivisible country.

Painting by artist A. I. Reznichenko “Liberation by the Young GuardsSoviet prisoners of war on the Volchensky farm"

And all the military exploits of the Young Guard in chronological order verified and double-checked, and most importantly, documented in the Young Guard Museum in Ukraine. Moreover, the most recent examination of the activities of the Young Guard was carried out in 2003, as stated “at the urgent request of some Russian and Ukrainian historical and analytical organizations.” And who doesn’t believe this, please come to Krasnodon and study the entire military path of young Soviet patriots.

Second myth is that, supposedly, the “Young Guard” had no need to fight the “provisional administration”, because the “cultural German nation”, based on the conditions economic feasibility, in every possible way supported a peaceful way of life in the Donbass, ensured the safety and paid work of miners and metallurgists, because the German Third Reich needed coal and metal, and not underground partisan confrontation.

Such notices in Ukrainian were posted in all mining towns and villages of Donbass

Nazi Germany really really needed highly qualified miners extracting Donbass coal for the Krupp steel concerns.

And when it became clear that the coal mines of the Lugansk (Voroshilovgrad) region were flooded, unlike the mines of the Stalin (Donetsk) region, the active “voluntary-forced” involvement of miners in coal mining in the mines began. And this category included all boys and men whose age range was from 14 to 64 years. But there was no trace of the “cultural equality” that the “national patriots” are shouting about.

There was a clear division into three groups: true Aryans, “Ukrainian patriots” and... Russians. And this attitude was expressed in the most terrible division by caste and rights, even in the right... to water.

But when it became clear that the coal industry veterans and youth remaining in the occupied territory were not eager to help the fascist military-industrial machine, total terror began. And the “Young Guard” also took an active part in clarifying the truth about work in coal mines in the name of the Third Reich, in explaining that every ton of Donbass coal mined means the death of hundreds of Soviet soldiers at the front from weapons produced by the Nazis. The leaflets and posters hung by the Young Guards infuriated the Gestapo, because the Donbass was declared by Hitler to be a vital area of ​​the Reich economy, and for everything that stopped the work of the mines there was a terrible punishment for both the new owners and the “saboteurs”, for those who called not work to strengthen the Reich. And calls for sabotage of work for the fascists in the mines were spread not by anyone, but by the Young Guard. The third myth

Alas, alas, and again, alas. When historians talk about the size of the Komsomol youth underground organization “Young Guard,” they usually use a vague formulation - “about 100 people.” But the participation of 109 active members in the activities of the Krasnodon underground has already been clearly established. The activities of another eight are assessed as an auxiliary group. The organization itself was created immediately after the start of the fascist occupation of Krasnodon - on July 20, 1942, but at that time there was no “Young Guard”, either as a single movement or as a militant underground organization. This is true. Immediately after the occupation, spontaneous underground youth groups “Zvezda”, “Serp” and “Molot” arose in three workers’ villages of Krasnodon.

And only in October, thanks to the efforts of Viktor Tretyakevich and the youth enthusiasm of Oleg Koshevoy, all three groups were united into the “Young Guard”.

By May 9, 1993, work was completed in Lugansk special commission from a study of the history of the Young Guard, which clearly confirmed the presence of a large number of young men and women in the organization, as well as the fact that there was no organized leadership along the party line. The final part of the report, published on May 12, 1993, stated: “The guys, whose ages were from 14 to 18 years old, fought in a guerrilla style, risky, suffering heavy losses, and this ultimately led to the failure of the organization.” .

But they could not do otherwise, because hatred was stronger than reason. The Nazis and police began arresting them on January 1, 1943. And on January 15, 16 and 31, 72 underground workers were thrown into the pit of mine No. 5. They dumped some alive and some shot.

On February 9, four days before liberation, Oleg Koshevoy, Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Dmitry Ogurtsov, and Viktor Subbotin were shot in the city of Rovenki in the Thundering Forest. All Young Guards were terribly tortured and tormented before their death.

The front was approaching Donbass, and the invaders threw all their efforts into destroying the militant underground in their rear, especially dealing with the Young Guards.

And director Gerasimov also felt sorry for the audience - the film does not show all the torture that the guys endured. They were almost children, the youngest was barely 16. It’s scary to read these lines.

It’s scary to think about the inhuman suffering they endured. But we must know and remember what fascism is. The worst thing is that among those who mockingly killed the Young Guard, there were mainly policemen from the local population (the city of Krasnodon, where the tragedy occurred, is located in the Lugansk region). It is all the more terrible to watch now the revival of Nazism in Ukraine, the torchlight processions, and the slogans “Bandera is a hero!”

There is no doubt that today's twenty-year-old neo-fascists, the same age as their brutally tortured fellow countrymen, have not read this book or seen these photographs.

“They beat her and hung her by her braids. They lifted Anya out of the pit with one scythe - the other was broken.

Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.
On January 31, 1943, after severe torture, Anya was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.

Soviet people dreamed of being like the brave Krasnodon residents... They swore to avenge their death.
What can I say, the tragic and beautiful story of the Young Guards shocked the whole world, and not just the fragile minds of children.
The film became the box office leader in 1948, and the leading actors, unknown VGIK students, immediately received the title of Stalin Prize Laureate - an exceptional case. “Woke up famous” is about them.
Ivanov, Mordyukova, Makarova, Gurzo, Shagalova - letters from all over the world came to them in bags.
Gerasimov, of course, took pity on the audience. Fadeev - readers.
Neither paper nor film could convey what really happened that winter in Krasnodon.

But what is happening now in Ukraine.