A. Druzhinina, student of the Faculty of History and social sciences Leningrad State Regional University named after. A. S. Pushkin.

Victor Tretyakevich.

Sergei Tyulenin.

Ulyana Gromova.

Ivan Zemnukhov.

Oleg Koshevoy.

Lyubov Shevtsova.

The “Oath” monument on the Young Guard Square in Krasnodon.

A corner of the museum dedicated to the Young Guards displays the banner of the organization and the sleds on which they carried weapons. Krasnodon.

Anna Iosifovna, the mother of Viktor Tretyakevich, waited for the day when her son’s honorable name was restored.

Having spent three years studying how the “Young Guard” arose and how it worked behind enemy lines, I realized that the main thing in its history is not the organization itself and its structure, not even the feats it accomplished (although, of course, everything done by the guys causes immense respect and admiration). Indeed, during the Second World War, hundreds of such underground or partisan detachments were created in the occupied territory of the USSR, but the “Young Guard” became the first organization that became known almost immediately after the death of its participants. And almost everyone died - about a hundred people. The main thing in the history of the Young Guard began precisely on January 1, 1943, when its leading troika were arrested.

Now some journalists write with disdain that the Young Guards did not do anything special, that they were generally OUN members, or even just “the Krasnodon lads.” It’s amazing how seemingly serious people cannot understand (or don’t want to?) that they - these boys and girls - accomplished the main feat of their lives precisely there, in prison, where they experienced inhuman torture, but to the end, until death from a bullet at the abandoned pit, where many were thrown while still alive, they remained people.

On the anniversary of their memory, I would like to remember at least some episodes from the life of the Young Guard and how they died. They deserve it. (All facts are taken from documentary books and essays, conversations with eyewitnesses of those days and archival documents.)

They were brought to an abandoned mine -
and pushed out of the car.
The guys led each other by the arm,
supported at the hour of death.
Beaten, exhausted, they walked into the night
in bloody scraps of clothing.
And the boys tried to help the girls
and even joked like before...

Yes, that’s right, most of the members of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard”, which fought against the Nazis in the small Ukrainian town of Krasnodon in 1942, lost their lives near an abandoned mine. It turned out to be the first underground youth organization about which it was possible to collect fairly detailed information. The Young Guards were then called heroes (they were heroes) who gave their lives for their Motherland. A little over ten years ago, everyone knew about the Young Guard. The novel of the same name by Alexander Fadeev was studied in schools; while watching Sergei Gerasimov's film, people could not hold back their tears; motor ships, streets, hundreds of educational institutions and pioneer detachments. More than three hundred Young Guard museums were created throughout the country (and even abroad), and the Krasnodon Museum was visited by about 11 million people.

Who knows about the Krasnodon underground fighters now? The Krasnodon museum has been empty and quiet in recent years, out of three hundred school museums in the country only eight remain, and in the press (both in Russia and Ukraine) young heroes are increasingly called “nationalists”, “unorganized Komsomol lads”, and some then he denies their existence altogether.

What were they like, these young men and women who called themselves Young Guards?

The Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground included seventy-one people: forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls. The youngest was fourteen years old, and fifty-five of them never turned nineteen. The most ordinary guys, no different from the same boys and girls of our country, the guys made friends and quarreled, studied and fell in love, ran to dances and chased pigeons. They were involved in school clubs, sports clubs, and played strings. musical instruments, wrote poetry, many drew well.

We studied in different ways - some were excellent students, while others had difficulty mastering the granite of science. There were also a lot of tomboys. We dreamed about our future adult life. They wanted to become pilots, engineers, lawyers, someone was going to enter the drama school, and some - to the pedagogical institute.

The “Young Guard” was as multinational as the population of these southern regions of the USSR. Russians, Ukrainians (there were also Cossacks among them), Armenians, Belarusians, Jews, Azerbaijanis and Moldovans, ready to come to each other’s aid at any moment, fought the fascists.

The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. And almost immediately the first leaflets appeared in the city, a new bathhouse began to burn, already ready for German barracks. It was Seryozhka Tyulenin who began to act. One.

On August 12, 1942 he turned seventeen. Sergei wrote leaflets on pieces of old newspapers, and the police often found them in their pockets. He began to collect weapons, not even doubting that they would definitely come in handy. And he was the first to attract a group of guys ready to fight. At first it consisted of eight people. However, by the first days of September, several groups were already operating in Krasnodon, not connected with one another - in total there were 25 people in them. The birthday of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was September 30: then a plan for creating a detachment was adopted, specific actions for underground work were planned, and a headquarters was created. It included Ivan Zemnukhov, the chief of staff, Vasily Levashov, the commander of the central group, Georgy Arutyunyants and Sergei Tyulenin, members of the headquarters. Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissioner. The guys unanimously supported Tyulenin’s proposal to name the detachment “Young Guard”. And at the beginning of October, all the scattered underground groups were united into one organization. Later, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Oleg Koshevoy and Ivan Turkenich joined the headquarters.

Now you can often hear that the Young Guards did nothing special. Well, they posted leaflets, collected weapons, burned and contaminated grain intended for the occupiers. Well, they hung several flags on the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, burned the Labor Exchange, and rescued several dozen prisoners of war. Other underground organizations have existed longer and done more!

And do these would-be critics understand that everything, literally everything, these boys and girls did was on the brink of life and death. Is it easy to walk down the street when warnings are posted on almost every house and fence that failure to surrender weapons will result in execution? And at the bottom of the bag, under the potatoes, there are two grenades, and you have to walk past several dozen police officers with an independent look, and anyone can stop you... By the beginning of December, the Young Guards already had 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges in their warehouse, 10 pistols, 65 kilograms of explosives and several hundred meters of fuse.

Isn’t it scary to sneak past a German patrol at night, knowing that you will be shot if you appear on the street after six in the evening? But most of the work was done at night. At night they burned the German Labor Exchange - and two and a half thousand Krasnodon residents were spared from German hard labor. On the night of November 7, the Young Guards hung out red flags - and the next morning, when they saw them, people experienced great joy: “They remember us, we are not forgotten by ours!” At night, prisoners of war were released, telephone wires were cut, German vehicles were attacked, a herd of 500 head of cattle was recaptured from the Nazis and dispersed to nearby farms and villages.

Even leaflets were posted mainly at night, although it happened that they had to do this during the day. At first, leaflets were written by hand, then they began to be printed in their own organized printing house. In total, the Young Guards issued about 30 separate leaflets with a total circulation of almost five thousand copies - from them Krasnodon residents learned the latest reports from the Sovinformburo.

In December, the first disagreements appeared at the headquarters, which later became the basis of the legend that still lives and according to which Oleg Koshevoy is considered the commissar of the Young Guard.

What happened? Koshevoy began to insist that from all the underground fighters a detachment of 15-20 people be selected, capable of operating separately from the main detachment. This is where Kosheva was supposed to become commissar. The guys did not support this proposal. And yet, after the next admission of a group of youth to the Komsomol, Oleg took temporary Komsomol tickets from Vanya Zemnukhov, but did not give them, as always, to Viktor Tretyakevich, but issued them to the newly admitted ones himself, signing: “Commissar of the partisan detachment “Hammer” Kashuk.”

On January 1, 1943, three Young Guard members were arrested: Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov - the fascists found themselves in the very heart of the organization. On the same day, the remaining members of the headquarters urgently gathered and made a decision: all Young Guards should immediately leave the city, and the leaders should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. One of them, who was a member of the group in the village of Pervomaika, Gennady Pocheptsov, upon learning about the arrests, chickened out and wrote a statement to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

The entire punitive apparatus came into motion. Mass arrests began. But why did most of the Young Guards not follow the orders of headquarters? After all, this first disobedience, and therefore the violation of the oath, cost almost all of them their lives! Probably affected by the absence life experience. At first, the guys did not realize that a catastrophe had happened and their leading three would no longer get out of prison. Many could not decide for themselves: whether to leave the city, whether to help those arrested, or voluntarily share their fate. They did not understand that the headquarters had already considered all the options and took the only correct one. But the majority did not fulfill it. Almost everyone was afraid for their parents.

Only twelve Young Guards managed to escape in those days. But later, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless arrested. The city's four police cells were packed to capacity. All the boys were terribly tortured. The office of the police chief Solikovsky looked more like a slaughterhouse - it was so spattered with blood. So that the screams of the tortured would not be heard in the yard, the monsters started up a gramophone and turned it on at full volume.

The underground members were hung by the neck from a window frame, simulating execution by hanging, and by the legs from a ceiling hook. And they beat, beat, beat - with sticks and wire whips with nuts at the end. Girls were hanged by their braids, and their hair could not stand it and broke off. The Young Guards had their fingers crushed by the door, shoe needles were driven under their fingernails, they were placed on a hot stove, and stars were cut out on their chests and backs. Their bones were broken, their eyes were knocked out and burned out, their arms and legs were cut off...

The executioners, having learned from Pocheptsov that Tretyakevich was one of the leaders of the Young Guard, decided to force him to speak at any cost, believing that then it would be easier to deal with the others. He was tortured with extreme cruelty and was mutilated beyond recognition. But Victor was silent. Then a rumor was spread among those arrested and in the city: Tretyakevich had betrayed everyone. But Victor’s comrades did not believe it.

On the cold winter night of January 15, 1943, the first group of Young Guards, among them Tretyakevich, was taken to the destroyed mine for execution. When they were placed on the edge of the pit, Victor grabbed the deputy chief of police by the neck and tried to drag him along with him to a depth of 50 meters. The frightened executioner turned pale with fear and hardly resisted, and only a gendarme who arrived in time and hit Tretyakevich on the head with a pistol saved the policeman from death.

On January 16, the second group of underground fighters was shot, and on the 31st, the third. One of this group managed to escape from the execution site. It was Anatoly Kovalev, who later went missing.

Four remained in prison. They were taken to the city of Rovenki, Krasnodon region, and shot on February 9, along with Oleg Koshev, who was there.

Krasnodon entered on February 14 Soviet troops. The day of February 17 became mournful, full of crying and lamentations. From the deep, dark pit, the bodies of tortured young men and women were taken out in buckets. It was difficult to recognize them; some of the children were identified by their parents only by their clothes.

A wooden obelisk was placed on the mass grave with the names of the victims and the words:

And drops of your hot blood,
Like sparks, they will flash in the darkness of life
And many brave hearts will be lit!

The name of Viktor Tretyakevich was not on the obelisk! And his mother, Anna Iosifovna, never took off her black dress again and tried to go to the grave later so as not to meet anyone there. She, of course, did not believe in her son’s betrayal, just as most of her fellow countrymen did not believe, but the conclusions of the commission of the Komsomol Central Committee under the leadership of Toritsin and Fadeev’s artistically remarkable novel that was subsequently published had an impact on the minds and hearts of millions of people. One can only regret that in compliance historical truth Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” did not turn out to be as wonderful.

The investigative authorities also accepted the version of Tretyakevich’s betrayal, and even when the true traitor Pocheptsov, who was subsequently arrested, confessed to everything, the charge against Victor was not dropped. And since, according to the party leaders, a traitor cannot be a commissar, Oleg Koshevoy, whose signature was on the December Komsomol tickets - “Commissar of the partisan detachment “Hammer” Kashuk”, was elevated to this rank.

After 16 years, they managed to arrest one of the most ferocious executioners who tortured the Young Guard, Vasily Podtynny. During the investigation, he stated: Tretyakevich was slandered, but despite severe torture and beatings, he did not betray anyone.

So, almost 17 years later, the truth triumphed. By decree of December 13, 1960, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated Viktor Tretyakevich and awarded him the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously). His name began to be included in all official documents along with the names of other heroes of the Young Guard.

Anna Iosifovna, Victor’s mother, who never took off her black mourning clothes, stood in front of the presidium of the ceremonial meeting in Voroshilovgrad when she was presented with her son’s posthumous award. The crowded hall stood and applauded her, but it seemed that she was no longer happy with what was happening. Perhaps because the mother always knew: her son was an honest person... Anna Iosifovna turned to the comrade who was rewarding her with only one request: not to show the film “The Young Guard” in the city these days.

So, the mark of a traitor was removed from Viktor Tretyakevich, but he was never restored to the rank of commissar and the title of Hero Soviet Union, which was awarded to the other dead members of the Young Guard headquarters, was not awarded.

Concluding this short story about the heroic and tragic days of the Krasnodon residents, I would like to say that the heroism and tragedy of the “Young Guard” are probably still far from being revealed. But this is our history, and we have no right to forget it.

In Soviet times, ships and schools were named in honor of these boys and girls, monuments were erected to them, books, songs and films were dedicated to their feat. Their actions were cited as an example of the mass heroism of Komsomol youth in the Great Patriotic War.

Then, in the wake of the post-reform boom of “glasnost,” many people surfaced who wanted to “reconsider” the services of young heroes to the fatherland. Active myth-making has done its job: today, a considerable number of modern people associate the word “Young Guards” with the youth wing of a popular political party rather than with the fallen Komsomol members of the Great Patriotic War. And in the homeland of heroes, in general, part of the population raises the names of their executioners on the flag...

Meanwhile, every honest person should know the true story of the feat and the true tragedy of the death of the “Young Guards”.

School amateur club. In a Cossack costume - Seryozha Tyulenin, a future underground worker.

“Young Guard” is an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization that operated during the Great Patriotic War from September 1942 to January 1943 in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region of the Ukrainian SSR. The organization was created shortly after the occupation of the city of Krasnodon by Nazi Germany, which began on July 20, 1942.

The first underground youth groups to fight the fascist invasion arose in Krasnodon immediately after its occupation by German troops in July 1942. The core of one of them consisted of soldiers of the Red Army, who, by the will of military fate, found themselves surrounded in the rear of the Germans, such as soldiers Evgeny Moshkov, Ivan Turkenich, Vasily Gukov, sailors Dmitry Ogurtsov, Nikolai Zhukov, Vasily Tkachev.

At the end of September 1942, underground youth groups united into a single organization “Young Guard”, the name of which was proposed by Sergei Tyulenin.

Ivan Turkenich was appointed commander of the organization. The members of the headquarters were Georgy Arutyunyants - responsible for information, Ivan Zemnukhov - chief of staff, Oleg Koshevoy - responsible for conspiracy and security, Vasily Levashov - commander of the central group, Sergei Tyulenin - commander of the combat group. Later, Ulyana Gromova and Lyubov Shevtsova were brought into the headquarters. The overwhelming majority of the Young Guard members were Komsomol members; temporary Komsomol certificates for them were printed in the organization’s underground printing house along with leaflets.

Younger guys aged 14-17 were messengers and scouts. The Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground included about 100 people, more than 70 were very active. According to the lists of underground fighters and partisans arrested by the Germans, the organization includes forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls. The youngest of the prisoners was fourteen years old, and fifty-five of them never turned nineteen...

Lyuba Shevtsova with friends (pictured first on the left in the second row)

The most ordinary guys, no different from the same boys and girls of our country, the guys made friends and quarreled, studied and fell in love, ran to dances and chased pigeons. They participated in school clubs and sports clubs, played stringed musical instruments, wrote poetry, and many drew well. We studied in different ways - some were excellent students, while others had difficulty mastering the granite of science. There were also a lot of tomboys. We dreamed about our future adult life. They wanted to become pilots, engineers, lawyers, some were going to go to a theater school, and others to a pedagogical institute...

The “Young Guard” was as multinational as the population of these southern regions of the USSR. Russians, Ukrainians (there were also Cossacks among them), Armenians, Belarusians, Jews, Azerbaijanis and Moldovans, ready to come to each other’s aid at any moment, fought the fascists.

The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. And almost immediately the first leaflets appeared in the city, a new bathhouse began to burn, already ready for German barracks. It was Seryozha Tyulenin who began to act. There is still only one...
On August 12, 1942 he turned seventeen. Sergei wrote leaflets on pieces of old newspapers, and the police often found them even in their pockets. He began to slowly steal weapons from the policemen, without even doubting that they would definitely come in handy. And he was the first to attract a group of guys ready to fight. At first it consisted of eight people. However, by the first days of September, several groups were already operating in Krasnodon, practically unrelated to one another - in total there were about 25 people in them.

The birthday of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was September 30: then a plan was adopted to create a detachment, specific actions of underground work were outlined, a headquarters was created, the active members of the organization were divided into fighting fives. For the purpose of secrecy, each member of the five knew only his comrades and commander, being unaware of the full composition of the headquarters.

The “Young Guards” put up leaflets - first handwritten ones, then they took out a printing press and opened a real printing house. 30 series of leaflets were published with a total circulation of about 5 thousand copies. The content is mainly calls for sabotage of forced labor and fragments of Sovinformburo reports received thanks to a secretly stored radio receiver.

On occasion, Komsomol members stole weapons from Germans and policemen - at the time of the defeat of the organization, 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges, 10 pistols, 65 kilograms of explosives and several hundred meters of fuse cord had already been accumulated in its secret warehouse. With this arsenal, Oleg Koshevoy was going to arm the Komsomol partisan detachment “Molot”, which he intended to soon separate from the organization and redeploy outside the city to openly fight the enemy, but these plans were no longer destined to come true...
The guys burned a barn with bread that the Germans had taken by force from the population. On the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, red flags were hung around the city of Krasnodon, which the girls had sewn the day before from the red curtains of the stage of the former House of Culture. Several dozen prisoners of war were rescued from the camp.

Most of the Young Guard's actions took place at night. By the way, there was a curfew in Krasnodon during the entire period of occupation, and a simple walk around the city after six in the evening was punishable by arrest followed by execution. The Komsomol members also tried to establish contact with the partisan detachments operating in the Rostov region. However, it was not possible to find the Voroshilovgrad partisans and underground fighters. First of all, because in the forests the partisans kept a good secret, and in the city the underground was already defeated by the enemy and virtually ceased to exist.

This is where the first myth arises, created during the era of work on the famous novel by the writer Alexander Fadeev. As if the Komsomol members of Krasnodon fought against fascism exclusively as messengers and saboteurs under the leadership of an underground party organization led by Nikolai Barakov and Philip Lyutikov. Senior comrades develop an operation plan - Komsomol members, risking their lives, carry it out...

By the way, in the first edition of Fadeev’s novel there is no mention of the “adult” communist underground. Only by the second edition the author “strengthened” the connections between the Komsomol and the “adult” underground and introduced a scene of joint preparation for sabotage in one of the mines that the Germans wanted to launch.

In fact, the communist miners Barakov and Lyutikov really planned to disrupt the launch of the mine. But - completely independent of the “Young Guards”. The guys also prepared sabotage - on their own - and it was they who carried out it.
For the Nazis, coal was a strategic raw material, so they sought to put at least one of the Krasnodon mines into operation. Using the labor of prisoners of war and the force of driven local residents, the Germans prepared Sorokin mine No. 1 for launch.

But literally on the eve of the start of work at night, underground Komsomol member Yuri Yatsinovsky entered the pile driver and damaged the cage lift: he misregulated the mechanism and cut the lifting ropes. As a result, when the lift was launched, the cage with mining tools, in which there were also German foreman, and policemen with weapons, and forced miners, and several strikebreakers who voluntarily agreed to work for the enemy, collapsed into the mine shaft. I feel sorry for the dead slaves of fascism. But the launch of the mine was disrupted; until the end of the occupation, the Germans were unable to raise the cage and clear the shaft pit of the collapsed parts of the lift. As a result, during the six months of their rule, the Germans were never able to remove a ton of coal from Krasnodon.

Krasnodon Komsomol members also thwarted the mass deportation of their peers to Germany. The Young Guards introduced one of the underground workers into the labor exchange, who copied the list of young people compiled by the Germans. Having learned about the number and timing of the departure of the train of “Ostarbeiters,” the guys burned the stock exchange with all the documentation, and warned potential farm laborers of the need to flee the city. This action infuriated the police and the German commandant's office, and almost two thousand Krasnodon residents were spared from German hard labor.

Even such a seemingly purely demonstrative action as hanging red flags on November 7 and congratulating residents on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution was of great importance for the occupied city. The residents, eagerly awaiting liberation, realized: “They remember us, we are not forgotten by our people!”

Oleg Koshevoy

In addition, the “Young Guards” recaptured more than 500 head of livestock confiscated from the population from the horse-riding police. Animals were returned to those who could, the rest of the cows, horses and goats were simply distributed to the population of the surrounding farms, who were very poor after being robbed by German marauders. How many peasant families were saved from hunger thanks to such a “partisan gift” is now difficult to even calculate.

The real combat operation was the organization, jointly with the partisans, of a mass escape of prisoners of war from a temporary camp organized by the invaders outside the city near open air. Those of the Red Army soldiers who were not yet completely exhausted from wounds and beatings joined the partisan detachment. Those unable to hold weapons were sheltered in their homes by villagers - and everyone left. Thus, the lives of almost 50 people were saved.

The German telephone wires were regularly cut. Moreover, the restless Seryozha Tyulenev came up with or read somewhere about a cunning method: the wire was cut in two places lengthwise with a thin knife. Then, using a crochet hook similar to a crochet hook, a section of the copper core was removed between the cuts. Outwardly, the wire looked intact, until you feel it along its entire length - you simply cannot find these thinnest cuts. Therefore, it was not easy for German signalmen to repair the communication gap - most often they were forced to re-lay the line.

Basically, the guys acted secretly, the only armed action of the underground took place on the eve of the New Year 1943 - the Young Guards made a daring raid on German vehicles with New Year's gifts for Wehrmacht soldiers and officers. The cargo was confiscated. In the future, German gifts, consisting mainly of food and warm clothes, were planned to be distributed to Krasnodon families with children. The Komsomol members decided to slowly sell the cigarettes, which were also gifts, at a local flea market, and use the proceeds for the needs of the organization.

Isn’t this what ruined the young underground fighters? In 1998, one of the surviving “Young Guards” Vasily Levashov put forward his version of the disclosure of the organization. According to his recollections, some of the cigarettes were given to a boy of 12-13 years old who knew the underground, who went to the market to exchange tobacco for food. During the raid, the guy was caught and didn’t have time to throw away the goods. They began to interrogate him, and with cruelty. And the teenager “split” under the beatings, admitting that his older friend, Genka Pocheptsov, gave him the cigarettes. On the same day, the Pocheptsovs’ home was searched, Gennady himself was arrested and also tortured.

According to Levashov’s version, it was Gennady, who was tortured in the presence of the named father - Vasily Grigorievich Gromov, the head of mine No. 1-bis and part-time secret agent of the Krasnodon police - on January 2, 1943, began to admit to participating in the underground. The Germans extracted from the guy all the information he possessed, and the commandant’s office became aware of the names of those underground fighters whose group operated in the Pervomaika area.

Then the Germans took the search for the partisans seriously, and within a few days two high school students were arrested because they did not have time to safely hide the bags of gifts. Levashov did not name the names of these guys, as well as his younger friend Gena Pocheptsov.

Levashov’s version can be doubted because, according to his memoirs, Gena Pocheptsov began speaking on January 2. And on the first day, the Germans took three “Young Guards” - Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Vanya Zemnukhov. Most likely, this was the result of an investigation that the Germans conducted after the Komsomol attack on a convoy carrying Christmas gifts.

On the day of the arrest of three members of the Young Guard headquarters, a secret meeting of Komsomol members took place. And at it a decision was made: all “Young Guards” should immediately leave the city, and the leaders of the combat groups should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. But the entire punitive apparatus has already begun to move. Mass arrests began...

Why did most of the “Young Guards” not follow the orders of headquarters? After all, this first disobedience cost almost all of them their lives? There can be only one answer: during the days of mass arrests, the Germans spread information throughout the city that they knew the full composition of the “gangster partisan gang.” And that if any of the suspects leave the city, their families will be shot en masse.

The guys knew that if they ran away, their relatives would be arrested in their place. Therefore, they remained faithful children to the end and did not try to protect themselves by the death of their parents,” surviving underground fighter Vladimir Minaev later said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists.

Only twelve “Young Guards,” at the insistence of their relatives, managed to escape in those days. But later, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless arrested. The four cells of the city police jail were packed to capacity. In one they kept girls, in the other three – boys.

No matter how much they have previously written about the Young Guard, as a rule, researchers spare the feelings of readers. They write carefully - that Komsomol members were beaten, sometimes, following Fadeev, they talk about bloody stars carved on the body. The reality is even worse... But none of the popular publications mentions the names of the torturers in detail - only general phrases: “fascist monsters, occupiers and accomplices of the occupiers.” However, documents from the regional department of state security indicate that mass torture and executions were not carried out by ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers. For the role of executioners, the Germans used either special SS units - Einsatzgruppen, or police units recruited from the local population.

The SS Einsatzgruppe arrived in the Lugansk region in September 1942, the headquarters was located in Starobelsk, the special detachment of executioners was commanded by SS Brigadefuehrer Major General of Police Max Thomas. However, he, a professional torturer, preferred to place his soldiers in the cordon of the prison, dispatching only three hefty soldiers to punish the prisoners with rubber whips. And, in fact, the reprisal against the underground was carried out mainly by policemen of the local Krasnodon branch. Cossacks, as they called themselves...

Leaflet "Young Guard"

What these monsters - both the SS men and their local henchmen - did to the young partisans is scary to even read. But we have to. Because without this it is impossible to fully understand either the horrors of fascism or the heroism of those who dared to oppose themselves to it.

Almost immediately after the massacre of the teenagers, Krasnodon was liberated from the fascist invaders - in February 1943. Within two days, NKVD investigators began arresting individuals involved in the death of the underground organization. As a result, lists of people directly involved in the crimes were compiled - both Germans and local Nazi servants. Hence the special scrupulousness of the investigation and the search for criminals.

Lidiya Androsova was arrested on January 12. According to Pocheptsov's denunciation. It was the police who took her - and according to the testimony of the girls’ parents, during the search they mercilessly looted the house, not even disdaining women’s underwear. The girl spent five days in the police custody... When Lida’s body was removed from the pit of the mine where she was executed, her relatives identified her daughter only by the remnants of her clothes. The girl’s face was mutilated, one eye was cut out, her ears were cut off, her hand was chopped off with an ax, her back was striped with whips so that her ribs were visible through the cut skin. A piece of the rope loop with which Lida was dragged to execution remained on her neck.

Lida Androsova

Kolya Sumsky, whom his friends considered Lida’s first friend and even boyfriend, was taken on January 4 at the mine, where he was picking out coal crumbs from a waste heap. Ten days later they were sent to Krasnodon, and four days later they were executed. The teenager’s body was also mutilated: traces of beatings, broken arms and legs, cut off ears...

The same police arrested Alexandra Bondareva and her brother Vasily on January 11. The torture began on the first day. The brother and sister were kept in separate cells. On January 15, Vasya Bondarev was led to execution. He was not allowed to say goodbye to his sister. The young man was thrown alive into the same pit of mine No. 5 where Lida Androsova was killed. On the evening of January 16, Shura was also taken to execution. Before pushing the girl into the mine, the police beat her again with rifle butts until she fell into the snow. Vasya and Shura’s mother Praskovya Titovna, when she saw the bodies of her children raised from the mine, almost died of a heart attack.

Shura Bondareva

Seventeen-year-old Nina Gerasimova was executed on January 11. From the protocol of identification of the body by relatives: “A girl of 16-17 years old, thin build, was thrown into a pit almost naked - in her underwear. Broken left hand; the whole body, and especially the chest, are black from beatings, the right side of the face is completely disfigured” (RGASPI Fund M-1, inventory 53, item 329.)

Close friends Borya Glavan and Zhenya Shepelev were executed together - tied face to face with barbed wire. During torture, Boris's face was smashed with a rifle butt, both hands were cut off, and they stabbed him in the stomach with a bayonet. Evgeniy’s head was pierced, and his hands were also chopped off with an axe.

Borya Glavan

Mikhail Grigoriev tried to escape on January 31 along the road to the place of execution. Pushing the guard aside, he rushed across the virgin snow into the darkness... The police quickly overtook the teenager, exhausted from the beatings, but finally dragged him to the mine and threw him into the pit alive. The women who went to the waste heap for coal chips heard for several days that Misha remained alive for a long time, groaning in the trunk, but they could not help - the pit was guarded by a police patrol.

Vasily Gukov, executed on January 15, was identified by his mother by the scar on his chest. The young man's face was trampled under police boots, his teeth were knocked out, and his eyes were cut out.

Seventeen-year-old Leonid Dadyshev was tortured for ten days. They mercilessly flogged him and cut off the hand on his right hand. Lenya was shot with a pistol and thrown into a pit on January 15.

Zhenya Shepelev

Maya Peglivanova experienced such tortures before her death that no inquisitor would have imagined. The girl's nipples were cut off with a knife and both legs were broken.

Maya's friend Shura Dubrovina probably could have even been saved - the Germans were never able to prove her connection with the underground. In prison, the girl looked after the wounded Maya until the very end and was literally forced to carry her friend to execution in her arms. The police also cut Alexandra Dubrovina's chest with knives, and then right next to the mine shaft, they killed the girl with the butt of a rifle.

Zhenya Kiikova, arrested on January 13, gave her family a note from prison. “Dear mom, don’t worry about me - I’m fine. Kiss grandpa for me, feel sorry for yourself. Your daughter is Zhenya.” It was last letter– during the next interrogation, all the girl’s fingers were broken. In five days at the police station, Zhenya turned gray like an old woman. She was executed together with her friend Tosya Dyachenko, who had been arrested the day before, tied up. The friends were then buried in the same coffin.

Maya Peglivanova

Antonina Eliseenko was arrested on January 13 at two in the morning. The police burst into the room where Antonina was sleeping and ordered her to get dressed. The girl refused to dress in front of men. The police were forced to leave. The girl was executed on January 18. Antonina's body was disfigured, with her genitals, eyes, ears cut out...

“Tosya Eliseenko, 22 years old, was executed in a pit. During torture, she was forced to sit on a hot potbelly stove; her body was removed from the mine with 3rd and 4th degree burns on her thighs and buttocks.”

Tosya Eliseenko

Vladimir Zhdanov was taken from his home on January 3. He also gave his family a note, hiding it in the bloody laundry that was being taken out for washing: “Hello, dears... I’m still alive. My fate is unknown. I don't know anything about the others. I am sitting separately from everyone in solitary confinement. Goodbye, they’ll probably kill me soon... I kiss you deeply.” On January 16, Vladimir, along with other Young Guard members, was taken to the pit. The square was cordoned off by police. They brought 2-3 people to the place of execution, shot the prisoners in the head and threw them into the mine. Tied up, having suffered severe beatings with a rubber whip and a Cossack whip, Vovka Zhdanov at the last moment tried to push the chief of police Solikovsky, who was observing the execution, into the pit with his head. Luckily for the executioner, he stood on his feet, and the executioners immediately began to torture Vovka himself further, and then shot him. When the young man’s body was lifted from the mine, the parents fainted: “Volodya Zhdanov, 17 years old, was pulled out with a laceration in the left temporal region from point-blank shooting, the fingers of both hands were broken and twisted, there were bruises under the nails, two stripes three times wide were cut on his back centimeter long, twenty-five centimeters, eyes gouged out and ears cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 36).

At the beginning of January, Kolya Zhukov was also arrested. After torture, on January 16, 1943, the guy was shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5: “Nikolai Zhukov, 20 years old, was taken out without ears, tongue, teeth, his arm was cut off at the elbow and his foot was cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 73).

Vladimir Zagoruiko was arrested on January 28. Police Chief Solikovsky personally took part in the arrest. On the way to prison, the chief policeman was sitting in a cart, Vladimir was walking through the snowdrifts, tied up, barefoot, in only his underwear, in a frost of minus 15. The police pushed the guy with rifle butts, pinned him with bayonets and offered to warm up... by dancing: “Dance, red-bellied, they say you are before the war I studied in a dance ensemble!” During the torture, Volodya had his arms twisted at the shoulders on a rack and hung by his hair. They threw him into the pit alive.

Vova Zhdanov

Antonina Ivanikhina was arrested on January 11. Until the last hour, the girl looked after her comrades, weakened after torture. Execution - January 16. “Tonya Ivanikhina, 19 years old, was taken out of the mine without eyes, her head was tied with a scarf, under which a wreath of barbed wire was tightly placed on her head, her breasts were cut out” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 75).

Antonina's sister Lilia was arrested on January 10 and executed on the 16th. The surviving third sister, Lyubasha, who was very young during the war, recalled: “One day, our distant relative, the wife of a policeman, came to us and said: “My husband was placed as a watchman near mine No. 5. I don’t know if yours are there or not, but My husband found combs and combs... Look at the things, maybe you’ll find your own. Most likely, don’t look for your daughters, probably yours are there, in the pit.” When they were shooting, my grandfather, who was collecting coal, was forced to leave. But he climbed onto the waste heap and saw from above: some girls jumped on their own, not wanting to be touched by the hands of the executioners, some friends or lovers jumped hugging each other, the guys sometimes resisted - they spat at the police, cursed them with the last words, pushed them, tried to drag them into the trunk the mines behind them... When the Red Army soldiers later dismantled the mine, they brought the dead sisters. Lily's hand was cut off and her eyes were blindfolded with wire. Tonya is also mutilated. Then they brought coffins, and our Ivanikhins were put in one coffin.”

Tonya Ivanikhina

Klavdiya Kovaleva was arrested in early January and executed on the 16th: “Klavdiya Kovaleva, 17 years old, was taken out swollen from beatings. The right breast was cut off, the soles of the feet were burned, the left arm was cut off, the head was tied with a scarf, and black traces of beatings were visible on the body. The girl’s body was found ten meters from the trunk, between the trolleys, she was probably thrown alive and was able to crawl away from the pit” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 10.)

Antonina Mashchenko was executed on January 16. Antonina’s mother Maria Alexandrovna recalled: “As I found out later, my beloved child was also executed with terrible torture. When Antonina’s corpse was pulled out of the pit along with other Young Guards, it was difficult to identify my girl in it. She had barbed wire in her braids and half of her full hair was missing. My daughter was hung up and tortured by animals.”

Klava Kovaleva. Fragment of a family portrait with mother and uncle

Nina Minaeva was executed on January 16. The underground worker’s brother Vladimir recalled: “...My sister was recognized by her woolen gaiters - the only clothing that remained on her. Nina’s arms were broken, one eye was knocked out, there were shapeless wounds on her chest, her whole body was covered in black stripes...”

Nina Minaeva

Police officers Krasnov and Kalitventsev led Evgeniy Moshkov tied up around the city all night. It was severely frosty. The policemen brought Zhenka to the water intake well and began to dunk him in there on a rope. Into icy water. Dropped several times. Then Kalitventsev froze and brought everyone to his home. Moshkov was seated by the stove. They even gave me a cigarette. They drank the moonshine themselves, warmed up and took them out again... Zhenya was tortured all night, by dawn he could no longer move independently. The twenty-two-year-old “Young Guard,” a communist, nevertheless, choosing the right moment during the interrogation, hit the policeman. Then the fascist beasts hung Moshkov by his legs and kept him in this position until blood gushed from his nose and throat. They removed him and began interrogating him again. But Moshkov only spat in the executioner’s face. The enraged investigator who was torturing Moshkov hit him backhand. Exhausted by torture, the communist hero fell, hitting the back of his head on the door frame, and lost consciousness. They threw him into the pit unconscious, perhaps he had already died.

Zhenya Moshkov with friends (left)

Vladimir Osmukhin, who spent ten days in the hands of the police, was identified by sister Lyudmila from the remains of his clothes: “When I saw Vovochka, mutilated, almost completely headless, missing his left arm up to the elbow, I thought I was going crazy. I didn't believe it was him. He was wearing only one sock, and his other foot was completely bare. Instead of a belt, wear a warm scarf. No outerwear. The head is broken. The back of the head had completely fallen out, leaving only the face, on which only teeth remained. Everything else is mutilated. The lips are twisted, the mouth is torn, the nose is almost completely gone ... "

Viktor Petrov was arrested on January 6. On the night of January 15-16, he was thrown into a pit alive. Victor’s sister Natasha recalls: “When Vitya was taken out of the pit, he could have been about 80 years old. A gray-haired, emaciated old man... His left ear, nose, and both eyes were missing, his teeth were knocked out, hair remained only on the back of his head. There were black stripes around the neck, apparently traces of strangulation in a noose, all the fingers on the hands were finely broken, the skin on the soles of the feet was raised like a blister from a burn, there was a large deep wound on the chest, inflicted by a cold weapon. Obviously, it was inflicted while still in prison, because the jacket and shirt were not torn.”

Shura Dubrovina

Anatoly Popov was born on January 16. On his birthday, January 16, he was thrown into a pit alive. The last meeting of the Young Guard headquarters took place at Anatoly Popov’s apartment. From the protocol for examining the young man’s body: “Beaten, the fingers on his left hand and the foot on his right leg were cut off” (RGASPI F-1 Op.53 D.332.)

Angelina Samoshina was executed on January 16. From the protocol for examining the body: “Traces of torture were found on Angelina’s body: her arms were twisted, her ears were cut off, a star was carved on her cheek” (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331.). Geli’s mother, Anastasia Emelyanovna, wrote: “She sent a note from prison, where she wrote that they wouldn’t hand over a lot of food, that she felt good here, “like at a resort.” On January 18, they did not accept the transfer from us; they said that they were sent to a concentration camp. Nina Minaeva’s mother and I went to the camp in Dolzhanka, where they were not there. Then the policeman warned us not to go and look for us. But rumors spread that they were thrown into the pit of mine No. 5, where they were found. This is how my daughter died..."

Gelya Samoshina

Anna Sopova's parents - Dmitry Petrovich and Praskovya Ionovna - witnessed the torture of their daughter. Parents were specifically forced to watch this, in the hope that the older generation would persuade the young partisans to confess and hand over their comrades. The old miner recalled: “They started asking my daughter who she knew, who she had a connection with, what did she do? She was silent. They ordered her to undress - naked, in front of the police and her father... She turned pale - and did not move. And she was beautiful, her braids were huge, lush, down to her waist. They tore off her clothes, wrapped her dress over her head, laid her on the floor and began to whip her with a wire whip. She screamed terribly. And then, when they started beating her on her hands and head, she couldn’t stand it, the poor thing, and asked for mercy. Then she fell silent again. Then Plokhikh - one of the main executioners of the police - hit her in the head with something...” Anya was lifted out of the pit half bald - in order to further torture the girl, they hung her on her own braid and tore out half of her hair.

Anya Sopova with friends by the sea (second from left)

Among the last to be lifted from the mine was Viktor Tretyakevich. His father, Joseph Kuzmich, in a thin patched coat, stood day after day, clutching the post, and did not take his eyes off the pit. And when they recognized his son - without a face, with a black and blue back, with crushed hands - he, as if knocked down, fell to the ground. No traces of bullets were found on Victor’s body, which means they dumped him alive...

Nina Startseva was taken out of the pit on the third day after the execution - the girl almost did not live to see the liberation of the city. Mom recognized her by her hair and the embroidery on the sleeve of her shirt. Nina had needles driven under her fingers, strips of skin were cut on her chest, and her left side was burned with a hot iron. Before being thrown into the pit, the girl was shot in the back of the head.

Demyan Fomin, on whom a sketch of a leaflet was found during a search, was subjected to especially cruel torture and was executed by beheading. Before his death, the guy had all the skin cut off from his back in narrow strips. When asked what he was like, Dyoma’s mother Maria Frantsevna answered: “A kind, gentle, responsive son. I was interested in technology and dreamed of driving trains.”

Alexander Shishchenko was arrested on January 8, executed on the 16th: “The nose, ears, lips were cut off, arms were twisted, the whole body was cut up, shot in the head...”

Ulyana Gromova kept a diary right up to her execution, managing to smuggle the notebook even into the dungeon. The entry in it dated November 9, 1942: “It is much easier to see heroes die than to listen to the cries of some coward for mercy. Jack London". Executed on January 16. “Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, had a five-pointed star carved on her back, right hand broken, broken ribs"

Ulya Gromova

In total, at the end of January, the occupiers and police threw 71 people, alive or shot, into the pit of mine No. 5, among whom were both “Young Guards” and members of the underground party organization. Other members of the Young Guard, including Oleg Koshevoy, were shot on February 9 in the city of Rovenki in the Thunderous Forest.
In the liberated city of Krasnodon, there were many living witnesses to both the struggle of the “Young Guards” and their deaths.

Uli's letter from prison

The first document of the declassified archival criminal case is a statement from Mikhail Kuleshov addressed to the leadership of the regional NKVD department dated February 20, 1943, says Vasily Shkola. - Then the first investigative actions were carried out. The facts of brutal torture of young people, whose bodies were removed from the pit of mine No. 5, have been established. In the materials of interrogations of members of the organization who were still alive at that time and who were subjected to torture, there is a description of the office of the police officer of the city of Krasnodon Solikovsky. - It is said that there are whips and heavy objects, including wooden ones.

From the testimony of Captain Emil Renatus, who commanded the Krasnodon district gendarmerie during the occupation: “Those arrested, suspected of criminal activities and who refused to testify, were laid on a bench and beaten with rubber whips until they confessed. If previous measures did not produce results, they were transferred to a cold room, where they had to lie on an ice floor. The same arrested persons had their arms and legs tied behind their backs, hung in this position with their face to the ground and held until the arrested person confessed. Moreover, all these executions were accompanied by regular beatings.”

Krasnodon resident Nina Ganochkina said: “I and two other women, on the orders of the police, were cleaning the girls’ cell. They could not do the cleaning themselves, since they were constantly taken for interrogation, and after torture they could not even get up. I once saw how Ulya Gromova was interrogated. Ulya did not answer questions accompanied by abuse. Policeman Popov hit her on the head so that the comb holding the scythe broke. He shouts: “Pick it up!” She bent down, and the policeman began to hit her in the face and everywhere. I was already cleaning the floor in the corridor, and Ulya had just finished torturing her. She, having lost consciousness, was dragged along the corridor and thrown into a cell.”

Oleg Koshevoy

As the burgomaster of Krasnodon Vasily Statsenkov showed during interrogation after the war in 1949, over 70 people were arrested for involvement in the Young Guard in Krasnodon and the surrounding areas alone within a few days.

Walter Eichhorn, who as part of the gendarme group directly participated in the beatings and executions of members of the Young Guard, was found in Thuringia, where he worked... in a doll factory. Ernst-Emil Renatus, the former head of the German district gendarmerie in Krasnodon, who also tortured the “Young Guards” and ordered the police to gouge out the guys’ eyes, was also found and arrested in Germany.

From Eichhorn’s testimony (9.III.1949):
“While still in Magdeburg, before being sent to occupied Soviet territory, we received a number of instructions regarding the establishment of a “new order” in the East, which stated that the gendarmes should see in every Soviet citizen a communist partisan, and therefore, with all composure, each of We are obliged to exterminate peaceful Soviet citizens as our opponents.”

From the testimony of Renatus (VII.1949):
Arriving in July 1942 as part of a gendarme team in the city of Stalino, I participated in a meeting of officers of the “Einsatzkommando gendarmerie”... At this meeting, the head of the team, Lieutenant Colonel Ganzog, instructed us to first of all focus on the arrests of communists, Jews and Soviet activists. At the same time, Gantsog emphasized that the arrest of these persons does not require any action against the Germans. At the same time, Gantzog explained that all communists and Soviet activists should be exterminated and only as an exception imprisoned in concentration camps. Having been appointed head of the German gendarmerie in the city. Krasnodon, I followed these directives..."

“Artes Lina, a translator, told me that Zons and Solikovsky torture those arrested. Zons especially loved to torture arrested people. It was a great pleasure for him to summon prisoners after dinner and subject them to torture. Zons told me that he only brings prisoners to confession through torture. Artes Lina asked me to release her from work in the gendarmerie due to the fact that she could not be present during the beatings of those arrested.”

From the testimony of district police investigator Cherenkov:

“I interrogated members of the Young Guard organization, Komsomol members Ulyana Gromova, two Ivanikhin sisters, brother and sister Bondarevs, Maya Peglivanova, Antonina Eliseenko, Nina Minaeva, Viktor Petrov, Klavdiya Kovaleva, Vasily Pirozhok, Anatoly Popov, about 15 people in total... Using special measures of influence (torture and bullying), we established that soon after the Germans arrived in the Donbass, the youth of Krasnodon, mostly Komsomol members, organized themselves and waged an underground struggle against the Germans... I admit that during interrogations I beat the arrested members of the underground Komsomol organization Gromova and the Ivanikhin sisters "

Volodya Osmukhin

From the testimony of policeman Lukyanov (11/11/1947):
“The first time I participated in the mass execution of Soviet patriots was at the end of September 1942 in the Krasnodon city park... At night, a group of German gendarmes led by officer Kozak arrived at the Krasnodon police in cars. After a short conversation between Kozak and Solikovsky and Orlov, according to a pre-compiled list, the police began to take the arrested people out of their cells. In total, more than 30 people were selected, mainly communists... Having announced to the arrested that they were being transported to Voroshilovgrad, they were taken out of the police building and driven to the Krasnodon city park. Upon arrival at the park, the arrested were tied by the hands in groups of five and taken into a pit that had previously served as a refuge from German air raids and there they were shot. ... Some of those shot were still alive, and therefore the gendarmes who remained with us began to shoot those who still showed signs of life. However, the gendarmes soon got tired of this activity, and they ordered to bury the victims, among whom there were still living ones...”

Among the recently declassified investigative documents is a statement written by Gennady Pocheptsov. According to Levashov - under torture, according to the parents of those executed - voluntarily. ..

“To the head of mine No. 1 bis Mr. Zhukov
from Mr. Pocheptsov Gennady Prokofievich
Statement
Mr. Zhukov, an underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was organized in Krasnodon, of which I became an active member. I ask you to come to my apartment in your free time and I will tell you in detail about this organization and its members. My address: st. Chkalova, house 12, entrance No. 1, apartment of Gromov D.G.
20.XII.1942 Pocheptsov.”

From the testimony of Guriy Fadeev, an agent of German special forces:
“The police had such an order that first of all the arrested person was brought to Solikovsky, he brought him to consciousness, and ordered the investigator to interrogate him. Pocheptsov was called to the police. He said that he was indeed a member of an underground youth organization that existed in Krasnodon and its environs. He named the leaders of this organization, or rather, the city headquarters, namely: Tretyakevich, Zemnukhov, Lukashov, Safonov and Koshevoy. Pocheptsov named Tretyakevich as the head of the citywide organization. He himself is a member of the Pervomaisk organization, whose leader is Anatoly Popov. The May Day organization consisted of 11 people, including Popov, Glavan, Zhukov, Bondarevs (two), Chernyshov and a number of others. He said that the headquarters had weapons at its disposal: Popov had a rifle, Nikolaev and Zhukov had machine guns, Chernyshov had a pistol. He also said that in one of the quarries in the pit there was a weapons warehouse. There used to be a Red Army warehouse there, which was blown up during the retreat, but the youth found a lot of ammunition there. The organizational structure was as follows: headquarters, Pervomaiskaya organization, organization in the village of Krasnodon and city organization. He did not name the total number of participants. Before I was removed from my job, up to 30 people were arrested. Personally, I interrogated 12 people, incl. Pocheptsov, Tretyakevich, Lukashov, Petrov, Vasily Pirozhka and others. Of the members of the headquarters of this organization, Kosheva and Safonov were not arrested, because they disappeared.

As a rule, preliminary interrogations were carried out personally by Solikovsky, Zakharov and the gendarmerie, using whips, fists, etc. Even investigators were not allowed to be present during such “interrogations.” Such methods have no precedent in the history of criminal law.

After I was recruited by the police to identify individuals distributing Young Guard leaflets, I met several times with the deputy chief of the Krasnodon police, Zakharov. During one of the interrogations, Zakharov asked me a question: “Which of the partisans recruited your sister Alla?” Knowing this from the words of my mother M.V. Fadeeva, I betrayed Vanya Zemnukhov to Zakharov, who actually made an offer to my sister to join an underground anti-fascist organization. I told him that in Korostylev’s apartment, Korostylev’s sister Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya and her son Oleg Koshevoy, who was recording messages from the Sovinformburo, were listening to radio broadcasts from Moscow”...

From the testimony of the head of the Rovenkovo ​​district police, Orlov (XI 14, 1943)
“Oleg Koshevoy was arrested at the end of January 1943 by a German gendarme and a railway policeman at a crossing 7 km from the city of Rovenki and brought to my police station. During the arrest, Koshevoy’s revolver was confiscated, and during a second search at the Rovenkovo ​​police, a seal of the Komsomol organization and some two blank forms were found on him. I interrogated Koshevoy and received testimony from him that he is the leader of the Krasnodon underground organization.”

From the testimony of policeman Bautkin:
“At the beginning of January 1943, I arrested and brought to the police a member of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” discovered by the police in Krasnodon... Dymchenko, who lived at mine No. 5. She was tortured by the police and, along with her other friends in the underground, was shot by the Germans... I arrested a “Young Guard” who lived at mine No. 2-4 (I don’t remember his last name) from whose apartment, during a search, we found and seized three notebooks with prepared texts anti-fascist leaflets."

From Renatus' testimony:
“...In February, Wenner and Zons reported to me that my order to shoot Krasnodon Komsomol members had been carried out. Some of those arrested... were shot in Krasnodon in mid-January, and the other part, due to the approach of the front line to Krasnodon, was taken from there and shot in the mountains. Rovenki."

From the testimony of policeman Davidenko:
“I admit that I took part in the executions of the “Young Guards” three times and with my participation about 35 Komsomol members were shot... In front of the “Young Guards”, first 6 Jews were shot, and then one by one all 13 “Young Guards”, whose corpses were thrown into the pit shaft No. 5 is about 80 meters deep. Some were thrown into the mine pit alive. To prevent shouting and proclamation of Soviet patriotic slogans, girls' dresses were lifted and twirled over their heads; in this state, the doomed were dragged to the mine shaft, after which they were shot and then pushed into the mine shaft.”

From the testimony of Schultz, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in Rovenki:
“At the end of January, I took part 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 I had to shoot him 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 shot him in the back of the head.

...Before escaping from Rovenki on February 8 or 9, 1943, Fromme ordered me, Drewitz and other gendarmes to shoot a group of Soviet citizens held in the Rovenki prison. These victims included five men, a woman with a three-year-old child, and active Young Guard member Shevtsova. Having delivered the arrested to the Rovenkovsky city park, Fromme ordered me to shoot Shevtsova. I led Shevtsova to the edge of the pit, walked away a few steps and shot her in the back of the head, but the trigger mechanism on my carbine turned out to be faulty and it misfired. Then Hollender, who was standing next to me, shot at Shevtsova. During the execution, Shevtsova behaved courageously, standing on the edge of the grave with her head held high, her dark shawl slid over her shoulders and the wind ruffled her hair. Before the execution, she did not utter a word about mercy...”

From the testimony of Geist, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in Rovenki:
“...I took part, together with... other gendarmes, in the execution in Rovenkovsky Park of Komsomol members arrested in Krasnodon for underground work against the Germans. Of the executed members of the Young Guard organization, I remember only Shevtsova. I remember her because I interrogated her. In addition, she attracted attention with her courageous behavior during the execution...”

From the testimony of policeman Kolotovich:
“Arriving at the mother of Young Guard member Vasily Bondarev, Davidenko and Sevastyanov told her that the police were sending her son to work in Germany, and he was asking her to give him things. Bondarev's mother gave Davidenko gloves and socks. The latter took gloves for himself upon leaving, and gave Sevastyanov socks and said: “There is a start!”

Then we went to the house of the Young Guard Nikolaev. Entering Nikolaev's house, Davidenko, turning to Nikolaev's sister, said that the police were sending her brother to work in Germany, and he asked for food and things for the road. Nikolaev’s sister apparently knew that he had been shot, so she refused to give him any things or food. After that, Davidenko and Sevastyanov, a policeman (I don’t know her last name) and I forcibly took away her man’s coat and sheep. Then we went to another Young Guard member (I don’t know his last name) and they also forcibly took four pieces of lard and a man’s shirt from the latter’s mother. Having put the lard in the sleigh, we went to the family of the Young Guard Zhukov. In this way, Davidenko, Sevastyanov and others robbed the families of the Young Guard.”

Vanya Turkenich

From the testimony of Orlov, the head of the Rovenkovsky district police:
“Shevtsova was required to indicate the storage location of the radio transmitter that she used to communicate with the Red Army. Shevtsova categorically refused, saying that she was not Lyadskaya, and called us monsters. The next day, Shevtsova was handed over to the gendarmerie department and shot”...

It's time to talk about another myth related to the history of the Young Guard. In Fadeev’s novel, written hot on the heels of the liberation of the city, the collapse of the underground is explained by betrayal. The names of the informers are mentioned - a certain Stakhovich, Vyrikova, Lyadskaya and Polyanskaya.

Where did the writer get these “traitors”? The fact is that literally immediately after the arrest of three representatives of the headquarters, the Germans started a rumor that Viktor Tretyakevich “split during interrogation. The writer, who was staying with Oleg Koshevoy’s mother while working on the book, allegedly received a note in which an unknown local resident named the names of the informers...

The version does not stand up to criticism. Fadeev wrote the book hastily; he did not even have time to meet the relatives of many Young Guards, for which many Krasnodon residents later reproached him. Meanwhile, the parents of many Young Guards are L. Androsova, G. Harutyunyanants, V. Zhdanova. O. Koshevoy, A. Nikolaev, V. Osmukhin, V. Petrov, V. Tretyakevich - not only knew about the underground activities of their sons and daughters, but also helped them in every possible way in equipping the printing house, storing weapons, radios, collecting medicines, making leaflets , red flags...

The note itself has not survived, which may be why until now researchers have not been able to establish the authorship of the forged document. But for a long time there was a rumor in Krasnodon that Viktor Tretyakevich was brought out under the name of Stakhovich in Fadeev’s novel. Until 1990, the Tretyakevich family was labeled as “relatives of a traitor.” For many years they collected eyewitness accounts and documents about Victor’s innocence...

Olga Lyadskaya is a real person. The girl was only 17 years old when she was captured by the Germans for the first time. The young beauty attracted the attention of Deputy Chief of Police Zakharov, who had a separate office for intimate meetings. A few days later, her mother managed to ransom her daughter from her concubines for moonshine and warm clothes. But the stigma of “police litter” remained with Olya. The frightened girl, whom the policeman promised to hang if she did not return to him, and who was condemned by all her neighbors for her connection with the punisher, was even afraid to leave the house. Is this why Lyuba Shevtsova uttered the words “I’m not Lyadskaya to you!” during one of the interrogations?

After Krasnodon’s release, Olga initially served as a witness in the case of police atrocities, but later told the SMERSH investigator that she was taken to confront the arrested “Young Guardsmen.” They asked: “Do you know such and such?” And she, seeing that her peers were being cruelly tortured, said that she went to school with some of the kids, danced with someone in an ensemble, made gliders with someone in the House of Pioneers... Lyadskaya allegedly said nothing about the underground , because I simply didn’t know about it. But nevertheless, in the investigation materials there is a confession signed by Olya personally in cooperation with the occupiers and the police. Most likely, the girl, with her will broken even by Zakharov, thought that for cohabitation with a policeman, especially a forced one, in the worst case, she would simply be exiled. And living for several years away from shame, even in Siberia, seemed to her not the worst outcome of the matter... But as a result, Olga received ten years in Stalin’s camps...

And after the publication of the novel “The Young Guard,” the investigation into the case of “Lyadskaya’s betrayal” was resumed, and a show trial was being prepared. True, it did not take place: Olga fell ill with tuberculosis and was released, and there was clearly little evidence “from the book” for Soviet justice. She managed to recover, even finish her studies at the institute, get married, give birth to a son... Later, Olga Lyadskaya, through the prosecutor’s office, applied for further investigation – herself. And all charges of betrayal of the “Young Guards” were dropped after a careful study of the materials of her case.

Zina Vyrikova and Serafima Polyanskaya, released from the police as “not involved in a partisan gang,” also went into exile in Bugulma after the liberation of the city. SMERSH arrested them even before the publication of Fadeev’s book. Subsequently, Zinaida Vyrikova also got married, changed her last name and left for another city, but until her death she was afraid that she would be identified as a “traitor” and arrested... Neither Zina nor Sima, by the way, could extradite any of the “Moldovan Guards” - their own knowledge of the composition and activities of the underground was limited to rumors that “the leaflets were planted by boys from our school.”

His parents stood up for Vitya Treryakevich, who died in fascist dungeons and was slandered by German henchmen. They wrote all the way to the Komsomol Central Committee, seeking the truth. Only 16 years after the war, it was possible to arrest one of the most ferocious executioners who tortured the Young Guard, policeman Vasily Podtynny. During the investigation, he stated: Tretyakevich was slandered. In this way they wanted to “set an example for other partisans” - they say, your leader has already spoken, it’s time for you to loosen your tongue! Created after the trial of a policeman, a special state commission established that Viktor Tretyakevich was the victim of a deliberate slander, and “one of the organization’s members, Gennady Pocheptsov, was identified as the real traitor.”

The surviving underground fighter Levashov confirmed that his father was arrested three times to find out where his son was hiding. Levashov Sr. sat with Tretyakevich in the same cell, where he saw how the latter was brought from interrogations completely crippled, which, in the opinion of Levashov’s father himself, was clear evidence that “...Viktor still did not split.”

By the way, the fate of Gennady Pocheptsov himself, who was released from the police three days after the denunciation, was cruel but fair: after the liberation of the city of Krasnodon by the Red Army, Gena Pocheptsov, as well as police agents Gromov and Kuleshov, were put on trial.

The investigation into the case of the Young Guard traitors lasted 5 months. On August 1, 1943, an indictment was presented to Pocheptsov and Gromov. Having familiarized himself with it, Pocheptsov stated: “I plead guilty in full to the charges brought against me, namely that, as a member of the underground youth organization “Young Guard,” I betrayed its members to the police, named the leaders of this organization and told the police about the presence of weapons.” .

After the indictment was approved by the head of the operational group of the NKGB of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant Colonel Bondarenko, the case against Pocheptsov and his stepfather was considered by the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk) region, the visiting sessions of which were held in Krasnodon from August 15 to 18, 1943. When Gromov, contrary to previous in his testimony, began to assert that he did not advise his stepson to betray the underground members, the latter asked to speak and said, “Gromov is not telling the truth, he advised me to file a police report against members of the youth organization, telling me that by doing this I would save my life and the life of my family, according to We never quarreled with him on this issue." In his last word Pocheptsov, addressing the court, said: “I am guilty, I committed a crime against my Motherland, I betrayed my comrades, judge me as the law requires.”

Funeral of the "Young Guards"

Having found Gromov and Pocheptsov guilty of treason, the Military Tribunal sentenced them to capital punishment - execution with confiscation of personal property.

On September 9, 1943, the issue of the verdict of the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops was discussed at the Military Council of the Southwestern Front. His resolution, signed by the front commander, Army General R.Ya. Malinovsky, stated: “The verdict of the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad region dated August 18 of this year in relation to ... Vasily Grigorievich Gromov and Gennady Prokofievich Pocheptsov is to be approved and carried out on place where the crime was committed - in public."

Having familiarized themselves with the verdict of the Military Tribunal, Gromov and Pocheptsov appealed to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with a petition for pardon. Pocheptsov wrote: “I consider the verdict of the tribunal to be correct: I filed a statement with the police as a member of an underground youth organization, saving my life and the life of my family. But the organization was discovered for other reasons. My statement did not play a corresponding role, because it was written later than "The organization was exposed. And therefore I ask the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Union to save my life, since I am still young. I ask for the opportunity to wash away the black stain that has fallen on me. I ask to be sent to the front line."
However, the petitions of the convicts were rejected, and the verdict of the Military Tribunal was carried out on September 19, 1943. A native of Krasnodon, Igor Cherednichenko, who studied the history of the organization, cited in one of his articles the words of his godfather, who witnessed the execution:

“Gromov stood scared, as white as chalk. His eyes ran around, hunched over, he was trembling like a hunted animal. Pocheptsov first fell, a crowd of residents moved towards him, they wanted to tear him to pieces, but the soldiers at the last moment managed to snatch him from the crowd. And Kuleshov stood near the side of the car with his head raised and it seemed that this did not concern him. He died with indifference on his face... Pocheptsova was even going to shoot her own mother, but someone held her, although she was roaring and demanding to give her rifle. By the way, his mother was a very respected person in the city. She trimmed everyone at the lowest prices, did not refuse anyone."

So, almost 17 years later, the truth triumphed. By decree of December 13, 1960, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated Viktor Tretyakevich and awarded him the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously). His name began to be included in all official documents along with the names of other heroes of the Young Guard.

Anna Iosifovna, Victor’s mother, who never took off her black mourning clothes until the end of her life, stood in front of the presidium of the ceremonial meeting in Voroshilovgrad when she was presented with her son’s posthumous award. The crowded hall stood and applauded her. Anna Iosifovna turned to her comrade who was rewarding her with only one request: not to show the film “The Young Guard” in the city these days, shot by the brilliant director Gerasimov based on the novel by Fadeev...

By the decision of the Presidium of the Lugansk Regional Court, which, implementing the law of Ukraine of April 17, 1991 “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in Ukraine,” on December 9, 1992, reviewed the conclusion of the Lugansk Regional Prosecutor’s Office on criminal cases charging Gromov and Pocheptsov, it was recognized that these citizens were convicted justifiably and are not subject to rehabilitation.

Thus another myth collapsed. And the feat will remain for centuries...

The pit of Mine No. 5, where the heroes were executed, became part of the memorial park

"Young guard"

The heroic history of the underground organization of Krasnodon boys and girls who fought against the Nazis and laid down their lives in this fight was known to every Soviet person. Now this story is remembered much less often...

The famous novel played a huge role in glorifying the feat of the Young Guards Alexandra Fadeeva and the film of the same name Sergei Gerasimov. In the 90s of the last century, they began to forget about The Young Guard: Fadeev’s novel was removed from school curriculum, and the story itself was declared almost an invention of Soviet propagandists.

Meanwhile, in the name of the freedom of their Motherland, the boys and girls of Krasnodon fought against the German occupiers, showing steadfastness and heroism, withstood torture and bullying and died very young. Their feat cannot be forgotten, says Doctor of Historical Sciences Nina PETROVA– compiler of the collection of documents “The True History of the Young Guard.”

Almost everyone died...

– Did the study of the heroic history of the Krasnodon Komsomol underground begin during the war?

– In the Soviet Union, it was officially believed that 3,350 Komsomol and youth underground organizations operated in the temporarily occupied territory. But we don’t know the history of each of them. For example, practically nothing is still known about the youth organization that arose in the city of Stalino (now Donetsk). And the Young Guards really found themselves in the spotlight. It was the largest organization in terms of numbers, almost all of whose members died.

Soon after the liberation of Krasnodon on February 14, 1943, Soviet and party authorities began collecting information about the Young Guard. Already on March 31, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR Vasily Sergienko reported on the activities of this organization to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev brought the information received to the attention of Joseph Stalin, and the story of the “Young Guard” received wide publicity and people started talking about it. And in July 1943, based on the results of a trip to Krasnodon, the deputy head of the special department of the Komsomol Central Committee Anatoly Toritsyn(later Major General of the KGB) and Central Committee instructor N. Sokolov prepared a memorandum on the emergence and activities of the Young Guard.

– How and when did this organization arise?

– Krasnodon is a small mining town. Mining villages grew up around it - Pervomaika, Semeykino and others. At the end of July 1942, Krasnodon was occupied. It is officially recognized that the Young Guard arose at the end of September. But we must keep in mind that small underground youth organizations appeared not only in the city, but also in the villages. And at first they were not related to each other.

I believe that the process of forming the Young Guard began at the end of August and was completed by November 7. The documents contain information that in August an attempt was made to unite the youth of Krasnodon Sergey Tyulenin. According to the recollections of his teachers, Sergei was a very proactive young man, thoughtful and serious. He loved literature and dreamed of becoming a pilot.

In September appeared in Krasnodon Victor Tretyakevich. His family came from Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk). Tretyakevich was left underground by the regional committee of the Komsomol and immediately began to play a leading role in the activities of the Krasnodon underground organization. By that time he had already fought in a partisan detachment...

– Disputes about how responsibilities were distributed at the organization’s headquarters have not subsided for more than 70 years. Who headed the Young Guard - Viktor Tretyakevich or Oleg Koshevoy? As far as I understand, even the few surviving Young Guards expressed different opinions on this matter...

– Oleg Koshevoy was a 16-year-old boy , joined the Komsomol in 1942. How could he create such a fighting organization when there were older people nearby? How could Koshevoy seize the initiative from Tretyakevich, having come to the Young Guard later than him?

We can confidently say that the organization was led by Tretyakevich, a member of the Komsomol since January 1939. Ivan Turkenich, who served in the Red Army, was much older than Koshevoy. He managed to avoid arrest in January 1943, spoke at the funeral of Young Guards and managed to talk about the activities of the organization without delay. Turkenich died during the liberation of Poland. From his repeated official statements it followed that Koshevoy appeared in the Young Guard on the eve of November 7, 1942. True, after some time Oleg actually became the secretary of the Komsomol organization, collected membership fees, and took part in some actions. But he was still not the leader.

– How many people were part of the underground organization?

– There is still no consensus on this. IN Soviet time for some reason it was believed that the more underground workers, the better. But, as a rule, the larger the underground organization, the more difficult it is to maintain secrecy. And the failure of the Young Guard is an example of this. If we take official data on the number, they range from 70 to 100 people. Some local researchers talk about 130 Young Guards.

Promotional poster for the film “Young Guard”, directed by Sergei Gerasimov. 1947

In addition, the question arises: who should be considered members of the Young Guard? Only those who worked there constantly, or also those who helped occasionally, carrying out one-time assignments? There were people who sympathized with the Young Guards, but personally did nothing within the organization or did very little. Should those who wrote and distributed only a few leaflets during the occupation be considered underground workers? This question arose after the war, when being a Young Guard member became prestigious and people whose participation in the organization was previously unknown began to ask to confirm their membership in the Young Guard.

– What ideas and motivations underlay the activities of the Young Guards?

– Boys and girls grew up in families of miners, received education in Soviet schools, were brought up in a patriotic spirit. They loved literature – both Russian and Ukrainian. They wanted to convey to their fellow countrymen the truth about the true state of affairs at the front, to dispel the myth of the invincibility of Hitler's Germany. That's why they distributed leaflets. The guys were eager to do at least some harm to their enemies.

– What damage did the Young Guards cause to the invaders? What do they get credit for?

“The Young Guards, without thinking about what their descendants would call them and whether they were doing everything right, simply did what they could, what was within their power. They burned the building of the German Labor Exchange with lists of those who were going to be driven to Germany. By decision of the Young Guard headquarters, over 80 Soviet prisoners of war were released from a concentration camp, and a herd of 500 head of cattle was recaptured. Bugs were introduced into grain that was being prepared for shipment to Germany, which led to the spoilage of several tons of grain. The young men attacked motorcyclists: they obtained weapons in order to begin an open armed struggle at the right moment.

SMALL CELLS WERE CREATED IN DIFFERENT PLACES OF KRASNODON AND IN THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization

Members of the Young Guard exposed the disinformation spread by the invaders and instilled in the people faith in the inevitable defeat of the invaders. Members of the organization wrote leaflets by hand or printed leaflets in a primitive printing house and distributed Sovinformburo reports. In leaflets, the Young Guards exposed the lies of fascist propaganda and sought to tell the truth about the Soviet Union and the Red Army. In the first months of the occupation, the Germans, calling on young people to work in Germany, promised everyone a good life there. And some succumbed to these promises. It was important to dispel illusions.

On the night of November 7, 1942, the guys hung red flags on school buildings, the gendarmerie and other institutions. The flags were hand-sewn by the girls from white fabric, then painted scarlet - a color that symbolized freedom for the Young Guard. On New Year's Eve 1943, members of the organization attacked a German car carrying gifts and mail for the invaders. The boys took the gifts with them, burned the mail, and hid the rest.

Unconquered. Hood. F.T. Kostenko

– How long did the Young Guard operate?

- The arrests began immediately after Catholic Christmas - at the end of December 1942. Accordingly, the period of active activity of the organization lasted about three months.

Young Guards. Biographical sketches about members of the Krasnodon party-Komsomol underground / Comp. R.M. Aptekar, A.G. Nikitenko. Donetsk, 1981

The true history of the “Young Guard” / Comp. N.K. Petrova. M., 2015

Who really betrayed?

– Various people were blamed for the failure of the Young Guard. Is it possible today to draw final conclusions and name who betrayed the underground fighters to the enemy and is responsible for their deaths?

– He was declared a traitor in 1943 Gennady Pocheptsov, whom Tretyakevich accepted into the organization. However, 15-year-old Pocheptsov had no relation to the governing bodies and was not even very active in the Young Guard. He could not know all its members. Even Turkenich and Koshevoy did not know everyone. This was prevented by the very principle of building an organization proposed by Tretyakevich. Small cells were created in different places in Krasnodon and in surrounding villages. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization.

Testimony against Pocheptsov was given by a former lawyer of the Krasnodon city government who collaborated with the Germans Mikhail Kuleshov- During the occupation, a district police investigator. He claimed that on December 24 or 25 he went into the office of the commandant of the Krasnodon region and the head of the local police, Vasily Solikovsky, and saw Pocheptsov’s statement on his desk. Then they said that the young man allegedly handed over a list of Young Guard members to the police through his stepfather. But where is this list? Nobody saw him. Pocheptsov's stepfather, Vasily Gromov, after Krasnodon’s release, he testified that he did not take any list to the police. Despite this, on September 19, 1943, Pocheptsov, his stepfather Gromov and Kuleshov were publicly shot. Before his execution, a 15-year-old boy rolled on the ground and shouted that he was not guilty...

– Is there now an established point of view about who the traitor was?

– There are two points of view. According to the first version, Pocheptsov betrayed. According to the second, the failure did not occur because of betrayal, but because of poor conspiracy. Vasily Levashov and some other surviving Young Guard members argued that if not for the attack on the car with Christmas gifts, the organization could have survived. Boxes of canned food, sweets, biscuits, cigarettes, and other things were stolen from the car. All this was carried home. Valeria Borts I took a raccoon coat for myself. When the arrests began, Valeria's mother cut the fur coat into small pieces, which she then destroyed.

Young underground workers were caught smoking cigarettes. I sold them Mitrofan Puzyrev. The police were also led on the trail by candy wrappers that the guys threw anywhere. And so the arrests began even before the new year. So, I think, the organization was ruined by non-compliance with the rules of secrecy, the naivety and gullibility of some of its members.

Everyone was arrested before Evgenia Moshkova- the only communist among the Young Guards; he was brutally tortured. On January 1, Ivan Zemnukhov and Viktor Tretyakevich were captured.

After the release of Krasnodon, rumors spread that Tretyakevich allegedly could not stand the torture and betrayed his comrades. But there is no documentary evidence of this. And many facts do not fit with the version of Tretyakevich’s betrayal. He was one of the first to be arrested and until the very day of his execution, that is, for two weeks, he was cruelly tortured. Why if he has already named everyone? It is also unclear why the Young Guards were taken in groups. The last group They took him on the night of January 30-31, 1943 - a month after Tretyakevich himself was arrested. According to the testimony of Hitler’s accomplices who tortured the Young Guard, the torture did not break Victor.

The version of his betrayal also contradicts the fact that Tretyakevich was thrown into the mine first and still alive. It is known that at the last moment he tried to drag the chief of police Solikovsky and the chief of the German gendarmerie Zons into the pit with him. For this, Victor received a blow to the head with the butt of a pistol.

During the arrests and investigations, policemen Solikovsky, Zakharov, as well as Plokhikh and Sevastyanov tried their best. They mutilated Ivan Zemnukhov beyond recognition. Yevgeny Moshkov was doused with water, taken outside, then put on the stove, and then again taken for interrogation. Sergei Tyulenin had a wound on his hand cauterized with a hot rod. When Sergei’s fingers stuck into the door and closed it, he screamed and, unable to bear the pain, lost consciousness. Ulyana Gromova was suspended from the ceiling by her braids. The guys had their ribs broken, their fingers cut off, their eyes gouged out...

Ulyana Gromova (1924–1943). The girl’s suicide letter became known thanks to her friend Vera Krotova, who, after the release of Krasnodon, went through all the cells and discovered this tragic inscription on the wall. She copied the text onto a piece of paper...

“There was no party underground in Krasnodon”

– Why were they tortured so brutally?

“I think that the Germans wanted to go into the party underground, that’s why they tortured me like that. But there was no party underground in Krasnodon. Having not received the information they needed, the Nazis executed members of the Young Guard. Most of the Young Guards were executed at mine No. 5-bis on the night of January 15, 1943. 50 members of the organization were thrown into the pit of a mine 53 meters deep.

–In print you can find the number 72...

– 72 people are total number executed there, so many corpses were raised from the mine. Among the dead were 20 communists and captured Red Army soldiers who had no relation to the Young Guard. Some Young Guard members were shot, others were thrown into a pit alive.

However, not everyone was executed that day. Oleg Koshevoy, for example, was detained only on January 22. On the road near the Kartushino station, police stopped him, searched him, found a pistol, beat him and sent him under escort to Rovenki. There he was searched again and under the lining of his coat they found two forms of temporary membership cards and a homemade Young Guard seal. The police chief recognized the young man: Oleg was the nephew of his friend. When Koshevoy was interrogated and beaten, Oleg shouted that he was the commissar of the Young Guard. Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Viktor Subbotin and Dmitry Ogurtsov were also tortured in Rovenki.

Funeral of Young Guards in the city of Krasnodon on March 1, 1943

Koshevoy was shot on January 26, and Lyubov Shevtsova and all the others were shot on the night of February 9. Just five days later, on February 14, Krasnodon was liberated. The bodies of the Young Guards were taken out of the mine. On March 1, 1943, a funeral took place in the Lenin Komsomol Park from morning to evening.

– Which of the Young Guards survived?

“The only one who escaped on the way to the place of execution was Anatoly Kovalev. According to recollections, he was a brave and courageous young man. Little has always been said about him, although his story is interesting in its own way. He signed up for the police, but only served there for a few days. Then he joined the Young Guard. Was arrested. Mikhail Grigoriev helped Anatoly escape, who untied the rope with his teeth. When I was in Krasnodon, I met Antonina Titova, Kovalev’s girlfriend. At first, the wounded Anatoly was hiding with her. Then his relatives took him to the Dnepropetrovsk region, where he disappeared, and his further fate is still unknown. The Young Guard’s feat was not even noted with the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” because Kovalev served as a policeman for several days. Antonina Titova waited for him for a long time, wrote memoirs, collected documents. But she never published anything.

ALL DISPUTES ON SPECIFIC ISSUES AND ABOUT THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE IN THE ORGANIZATION SHOULD NOT THROW A SHADOW ON THE GREATNESS OF THE FEAT accomplished by the young underground fighters of Krasnodon

The survivors were Ivan Turkenich, Valeria Borts, Olga and Nina Ivantsov, Radik Yurkin, Georgy Arutyunyants, Mikhail Shishchenko, Anatoly Lopukhov and Vasily Levashov. I will especially say about the latter. On April 27, 1989, employees of the Komsomol Central Archive held a meeting with him and Tretyakevich’s brother Vladimir. A tape recording was made. Levashov said that he fled near Amvrosyevka, to the village of Puteynikova. When the Red Army arrived, he declared his desire to go to war. In September 1943, during an inspection, he admitted that he was in the temporarily occupied territory in Krasnodon, where he was abandoned after graduating from intelligence school. Not knowing that the story of the Young Guard had already become famous, Vasily said that he was a member of it. After the interrogation, the officer sent Levashov to the barn, where a young man was already sitting. They started talking. At that meeting in 1989, Levashov said: “Only 40 years later, I realized that it was an agent of that security officer when I compared what he asked and what I answered.”

As a result, they believed Levashov and he was sent to the front. He liberated Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, Chisinau and Warsaw, and took Berlin as part of the 5th Shock Army.

Roman Fadeeva

– Work on the book “Young Guard” Alexander Fadeev started in 1943. But the original version of the novel was criticized for not reflecting the leadership of the Communist Party. The writer took the criticism into account and revised the novel. Has historical truth suffered from this?

– I believe that the first version of the novel was successful and was more in line with historical realities. In the second version, a description of the leading role of the party organization appeared, although in reality the Krasnodon party organization did not manifest itself in any way. The remaining communists in the city were arrested. They were tortured and executed. It is significant that no one made any attempts to recapture the captured communists and Young Guards from the Germans. The boys were taken home like kittens. Those who were arrested in the villages were then transported in sleighs over a distance of ten kilometers or more. They were accompanied by only two or three policemen. Has anyone tried to fight them off? No.

Only a few people left Krasnodon. Some, like Anna Sopova, had the opportunity to escape, but did not take advantage of it.

Alexander Fadeev and Valeria Borts, one of the few surviving members of the Young Guard, at a meeting with readers. 1947

- Why?

“They were afraid that their relatives would suffer because of them.”

– How accurately did Fadeev manage to reflect the history of the Young Guard and in what ways did he deviate from the historical truth?

– Fadeev himself said about this: “Although the heroes of my novel have real names and surnames, I was not writing the real history of the Young Guard, but a work of art in which there is a lot of fiction and even there are fictitious persons. Roman has the right to this." And when Fadeev was asked whether it was worth making the Young Guards so bright and ideal, he replied that he wrote as he saw fit. Basically, the author accurately reflected the events that took place in Krasnodon, but there are also discrepancies with reality. So, in the novel the traitor Stakhovich is written out. This is a fictional collective image. And it was written from Tretyakevich - one to one.

Dissatisfaction with the way certain episodes of the history of the Young Guard were shown in the novel became full voice to speak out to the relatives and friends of the victims immediately after the publication of the book. For example, the mother of Lydia Androsova addressed Fadeev with a letter. She claimed that, contrary to what was written in the novel, her daughter's diary and other notes were never given to the police and could not have been the reason for the arrests. In a response letter dated August 31, 1947 to D.K. and M.P. Androsov, Lydia’s parents, Fadeev admitted:

“Everything that I wrote about your daughter shows her as a very devoted and persistent girl. I deliberately made it so that her diary allegedly ended up with the Germans after her arrest. You know better than me that there is not a single entry in the diary that speaks about the activities of the Young Guard and could be of benefit to the Germans in terms of revealing the Young Guard. In this regard, your daughter was very careful. Therefore, by allowing such fiction in the novel, I do not put any stain on your daughter.”

“My parents thought differently...

- Certainly. And most of all, the residents of Krasnodon were indignant at the role assigned by the writer Oleg Koshevoy. Koshevoy’s mother claimed (and this was included in the novel) that the underground gathered at their home on Sadovaya Street, 6. But the Krasnodon residents knew for sure that German officers were quartered with her! This is not Elena Nikolaevna’s fault: she had decent housing, so the Germans preferred it. But how could the headquarters of the Young Guard meet there?! In fact, the headquarters of the organization gathered with Harutyunyants, Tretyakevich and others.

Koshevoy's mother was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1943. Even Oleg’s grandmother, Vera Vasilyevna Korostyleva, was awarded the medal “For Military Merit”! The stories in the novel about her heroic role look anecdotal. She did not perform any feats. Later, Elena Nikolaevna wrote the book “The Tale of a Son.” More precisely, other people wrote it. When the regional committee of the Komsomol asked her if everything in the book was correct and objective, she replied: “You know, writers wrote the book. But from my story."

- Interesting position.

– What’s even more interesting is that Oleg Koshevoy’s father was alive. He was divorced from Oleg’s mother and lived in a neighboring city. So Elena Nikolaevna declared him dead! Although the father came to his son’s grave and mourned him.

Koshevoy's mother was an interesting, charming woman. Her story greatly influenced Fadeev. It must be said that the writer did not hold meetings with the relatives of all the dead Young Guards. In particular, he refused to accept Sergei Tyulenin’s relatives. Access to the author of The Young Guard was regulated by Elena Nikolaevna.

Another thing is noteworthy. Parents and grandmothers strive to preserve drawings and notes made by their children and grandchildren at different ages. And Elena Nikolaevna, being the head of the kindergarten, destroyed all of Oleg’s diaries and notebooks, so there is no way to even see his handwriting. But the poems written by Elena Nikolaevna’s hand have been preserved, which she declared to belong to Oleg. There were rumors that she had composed them herself.

We must not forget about the main thing

– Clarity in controversial issues the surviving Young Guards could contribute. Did they get together after the war?

– All together – not once. In fact, there was a split. They did not agree on the question of who should be considered the commissar of the Young Guard. Borts, Ivantsov and Shishchenko considered him Koshevoy, and Yurkin, Arutyunyants and Levashov considered Tretyakevich. Moreover, in the period from 1943 to the end of the 1950s, Tretyakevich was considered a traitor. His older brother Mikhail was relieved of his post as secretary of the Lugansk regional party committee. Another brother, Vladimir, an army political worker, was punished by the party and demobilized from the army. Tretyakevich’s parents also experienced this injustice hard: his mother was ill, his father was paralyzed.

In 1959, Victor was rehabilitated, his feat was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. However, in May 1965, only Yurkin, Lopukhov and Levashov from the Young Guard came to the opening of a monument to Tretyakevich in the village of Yasenki, Kursk region, where he was born. According to Valeria Borts, the Komsomol Central Committee in the 1980s gathered the surviving members of the Krasnodon underground organization. But there are no documents about this meeting in the archives. And the disagreements between the Young Guards were never eliminated.

Monument "Oath" on the central square of Krasnodon

– What impression did films about young underground fighters make on you? After all, the story of the “Young Guard” has been filmed more than once.

– I like Sergei Gerasimov’s film. The black and white film accurately and dynamically conveyed that time, the state of mind and experiences of the Soviet people. But on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, veterans and the whole country received a very strange “gift” from Channel One. The series “Young Guard” was announced as the “true story” of an underground organization. On the basis of what this supposedly true story was created, they did not bother to explain to us. The heroes of The Young Guard, whose images were captured on the screen, were probably rolling over in their graves. Creators of historical films need to carefully read documents and works that truly reflect a bygone era.

– Roman Fadeev, who was part of the school curriculum for many decades, has long been excluded from it. Do you think it might be worth bringing it back?

– I like the novel, and I advocate that it be included in the school curriculum. It correctly reflects the thoughts and feelings of young people of that time, and truthfully depicts their characters. This work rightfully entered the golden fund of Soviet literature, combining both documentary truth and artistic comprehension. The educational potential of the novel continues to this day. In my opinion, it would be good to re-release the novel in its first version, not corrected by Fadeev himself. Moreover, the publication should be accompanied by an article that would briefly outline what we were talking about. It must be emphasized that the novel is a novel, and not the story of the Young Guard. The history of the Krasnodon underground must be studied from documents. And this topic is not closed yet.

At the same time, we must not forget about the main thing. All disputes on specific issues and the role of individual people in the organization should not cast a shadow on the greatness of the feat accomplished by the young underground fighters of Krasnodon. Oleg Koshevoy, Viktor Tretyakevich and other Young Guards gave their lives for the freedom of the Motherland. And we have no right to forget about this. And further. Speaking about the activities of the Young Guard, we must remember that this is not a feat of individuals. This is a collective feat of Krasnodon youth. We need to talk more about the contribution of each Young Guard member to the struggle, and not argue about who held what position in the organization.

Interviewed by Oleg Nazarov

Elizaveta Starichenkova, Ruzanna Arushanyan, 9th grade students

The presentation is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the creation of the underground organization “Young Guard” in the city of Krasnodon. It tells about the activities of the Young Guard during the Great Patriotic War, about the heroes of Krasnodon, about how we now preserve the memory of them...

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Dedicated to the heroes of Krasnodon... Completed by: Starichenkova E., Arushanyan R., 9th grade students of school 594, St. Petersburg

Even if you died... But in the song of the brave and strong in spirit You will always be a living example, a proud call to freedom, to light! We sing a song to the madness of the brave!

“Young Guard” is an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization that operated during the Great Patriotic War, mainly in the city of Krasnodon, Lugansk (Voroshilovgrad) region (Ukrainian SSR). It consisted of about 110 participants. Many of them have just finished school. The youngest was 14 years old. The members of the organization are called Young Guards.

Underground youth groups arose in Krasnodon immediately after its occupation by German troops. At the end of September 1942, underground youth groups united into the “Young Guard”, the name was proposed by Sergei Tyulenin. Ivan Turkenich became the commander of the organization.

"...I swear to take merciless revenge for the devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people. If this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment of hesitation." Oath of the Young Guards

Activities of the Young Guard The Young Guard issued and distributed more than 5 thousand anti-fascist leaflets. Members of the organization destroyed enemy vehicles with soldiers, ammunition and fuel.

They set fire to the labor exchange building, where lists of people destined for deportation to Germany were kept, thereby saving about 2,000 people from being deported to Germany. They were preparing to stage an armed uprising in Krasnodon in order to defeat the German garrison and join the advancing units of the Soviet army.

Disclosure of the "Young Guard" The search for partisans intensified after the Young Guard carried out a daring raid on German cars with New Year's gifts that the underground wanted to use for their needs. G. Pocheptsov, who was a member of the Young Guard, and his stepfather V. Gromov reported on Komsomol members and communists known to them, while G. Pocheptsov reported the names of members of the Young Guard known to him. On January 5, 1943, the police began mass arrests, which continued until January 11.

The fate of the Young Guards In the fascist dungeons, the Young Guards courageously and steadfastly withstood the most severe torture. On January 15, 16 and 31, 1943, the Nazis dropped 71 people, some alive, some shot. into the pit of mine No. 5, 53 m deep.

E.N. Koshevaya with the surviving Young Guard members - Nina Ivantsova, Anatoly Lopukhov, Georgy Arutyunyants. 1947

Still from the film “Young Guard” Director Sergei Gerasimov

Young Guard members All were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree. They were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.

Ivan Turkenich (1920-1944) In May-July 1942 he was at the front. Having been captured in one of the battles on the Don, he escaped, returned to Krasnodon and became the commander of the Young Guard. On August 13, 1944, during the battle for the Polish town of Glogow, Captain Ivan Turkenich was mortally wounded and died a day later. He was buried in the Polish city of Rzeszow at the cemetery of Soviet soldiers.

Ivan Zemnukhov (1923-1943) Important role belongs to him in the creation of an underground printing house. In December 1942 he became the circle administrator amateur performances them. A. Gorky. This club essentially became the headquarters of the Young Guards. On the night of January 15-16, 1943, after terrible torture together with his comrades, he was thrown alive into the pit of mine No. 5. He was buried in a mass grave in the city of Krasnodon.

Oleg Koshevoy (1926-1943) In 1940, Oleg began studying at the school named after A. Gorky, where he met the future Young Guards and became one of them. Koshevoy tried to cross the front line, but was captured at the Kartushino station - during a routine search at the checkpoint, he was found to have a pistol, blank forms of an underground participant and a Komsomol card sewn into his clothes, which he refused to leave, contrary to the requirements of conspiracy. After torture he was shot on February 9, 1943.

Ulyana Gromova (1924-1943) Gromova was elected a member of the headquarters of the underground Komsomol organization. She took part in the preparation of military operations, distributed leaflets, and collected. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, together with Anatoly Popov, Ulyana hung a red flag on the mine chimney. In January 1943, she was arrested by the Gestapo. A five-pointed star was carved on her back, and her right arm was broken.

Lyubov Shevtsova (1924-1943) In February 1942 she joined the Komsomol. In the summer of 1942, she graduated from the intelligence school of the State Security Administration and was left to work in occupied Voroshilovgrad. For various reasons, she was left without leadership and independently contacted the Krasnodon underground. As a result of betrayal, she was arrested by the Krasnodon police on January 8, 1943 and, after brutal torture, on February 9, she was shot in the Thunderous Forest on the outskirts of the city of Rovenki.

Sergei Tyulenin (1925-1943) Successfully carried out combat missions of the organization’s headquarters: participated in distributing leaflets, collecting weapons, ammunition, and explosives. On the night of December 6, 1942, he participated in the arson of the labor exchange. On January 27, 1943, Sergei Tyulenin was arrested by the occupation authorities and, after severe torture, on January 31, he was shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.

Eternal memory to the Young Guards... How scary it is to die at 16, How you want to fucking live. Don't shed tears, but smile, fall in love and raise children. But the sun is setting. They won't be able to meet the dawn anymore. The boys went into immortality, In the prime of their youth...

The feat of the heroes of the "Young Guard" is captured in novel of the same name A.A. Fadeeva. "This heroic theme captured me. He wrote with enormous energy and passion. I write about everything as it really happened.” – A.A. Fadeev. Eternal memory to the Young Guards...

The hero’s mother, Elena Koshevaya, talks about the life of Oleg Koshevoy and his selfless struggle in her book. The book is imbued with unspent motherly love and affection. Eternal memory to the Young Guards...

A museum in Krasnodon dedicated to the heroes of the Young Guard. The largest repository of documents on the organization's activities. A fragment of the exhibition of the museum Eternal Memory of the Young Guards...

Monuments to Oleg Koshevoy and Lyuba Shevtsova in the city of Kharkov. Eternal memory to the Young Guards...

Monument “Oath” in Krasnodon Monument to Ulyana Gromova in Togliatti Eternal memory to the Young Guards...

Eternal memory to the Young Guard... In 1956, a monument was erected in the Ekateringofsky Park of Leningrad to the members of the underground organization “Young Guard” who died in 1943. The monument is the author’s repetition of the monument built in Krasnodon. Since then, the two cities have been connected by the memory of the heroic deeds of the Young Guard.

In the summer of 1943, after returning from a front-line trip, the writer Alexander Aleksandrovich Fadeev was invited to the Central Committee of the Komsomol. There he was introduced to people who had just returned from the Donetsk city of Krasnodon, where they were collecting information about the underground youth organization “Young Guard”.

The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942 and from the first days established a regime of brutal terror there - raids, executions, mobilization for work in Germany.

Several high school students and recent school graduates created a combat headquarters and united around it battle group peers and began their underground war with the fascists.

The history of the “Young Guard” is briefly as follows. At the end of September 1942, after the Donbass was captured by the Germans, an underground organization spontaneously arose in the small mining town of Krasnodon (before the war, according to the census - 22 thousand inhabitants). Its core consisted of young people aged 14 to 25 years, the total number was up to 100 people. 16-17 year old boys and girls wrote and distributed leaflets among the population, attacked German vehicles, and destroyed food prepared by the Nazis for their troops. They managed to free a large group of prisoners of war and disrupt the mobilization of young people to work in Germany. They collected a lot of weapons in order to raise an armed uprising in the city by the time the Soviet troops approached.

Leaflets appeared on the walls of houses, on November 7 a red flag was raised, and anti-fascist agitation was carried out among the population.

By the end of December 1942, the Young Guard included about a hundred people, the organization's arsenal was 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 10 pistols, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges, 65 kilograms of explosives. The organization did not exist for long and in early January 1943, after an attack on a car with gifts for German officers, it was discovered.

On January 1, 1943, several members of the organization were taken into custody by the police due to stupidity. The betrayal that followed led to the fact that by January 10, 1943, almost the entire Young Guard was in prison. The Young Guards were brutally tortured.

A star was carved on the back of Uli Gromova, a beautiful slender girl. Tosya Eliseenko was placed on a hot stove. Tolya Popov's foot was cut off, and Volodya Osmukhin's hand was cut off. Vita Petrov's eyes were gouged out.

One of the jailers, the defector Lukyanov, who was later tried, said: “There was a continuous groan in the police, as during the entire interrogation the arrested people were beaten. They lost consciousness, but they were brought to their senses and beaten again. I myself was sometimes terrified to look at this torment.” .

They were tortured terribly - they were put on stoves, needles were driven under their nails, stars were cut out - and in the end they were all executed - they were thrown alive into shaft No. 5. They were thrown in separate parties, 15-20 people each. The bullets were not used, and dynamite, sleepers, and trolleys flew into the mine after those executed. The mine was mined and filled with water, so the grave was ready.

On February 14, 1943, Soviet troops entered the city. The parents came to the police building where the Young Guards spent their last days. In the cells they saw traces of blood on the floor, and on the walls there were inscriptions: “Death German occupiers", a drawn heart pierced by an arrow, and a series of names of the girls sitting there.

Pink streams flowed from the police yard - there was a thaw. With a shudder, people realized that it was blood and melted snow.

Then the parents went to the pit of mine No. 5. For several days they removed stones, piles of earth, rails, and trolleys from the mine, then parts of the bodies of Young Guards began to come across. Having thrown the children into the pit, the Nazis threw grenades into the mine to cover their tracks. There were no faces, and relatives recognized their children, sisters and brothers only by special signs, by clothing. It was all creepy - 14-16 year old boys and girls tortured to a terrible death. More than 30 bodies were recovered from the mine, but not all were identified. They tried to quickly put Vanya Zemnukhov’s head in a coffin and nail it so that the mother would not suffer. And for her this atrocity was a secret for a long time. The corpses that could not fit in the bathhouse were laid out on the street, in the snow, under the walls of the bathhouse. Painting. it was creepy. In the bathhouse and around the bathhouse there are corpses and corpses, seventy-one corpses.

Parents recognized their children, washed them, dressed them, and placed them in the coffins they brought.

By March 1, 1943, all extraction work was completed. A mass grave was prepared in the park named after Lenin Komsomol. Coffins containing the bodies of the dead were brought here. A lot of people gathered military unit. Funeral fireworks - and the Young Guards were buried in solemn sadness.

In the fall of 1943, the Young Guards were awarded. Five were awarded the title "Hero of the Soviet Union". The Young Guard Museum was created in Krasnodon.

In 1946, the children’s feat was highlighted by Alexander Fadeev in the novel “The Young Guard”.

2. 2 HEROES OF KRASNODON: MYTH OR REALITY?

Materials on the “Young Guard” are in various archives of Ukraine and Russia, some of them have been lost, the facts of its activities have been distorted more than once, but the main problem, from my point of view, was the problem of reticence, the desire to artificially make “heroes”, stone idols out of these children , zombified robots that do not have internal contradictions and human feelings. And it is completely unclear why this had to be done? They were already heroes, and even greater than those that propaganda tried to create from them.

About how these children lived, what they read, what they wrote about in their diaries, how they treated each other, what questions tormented them, what they thought about themselves and their lives - Alexander Fadeev asked himself all these questions when he was working on the book. .

What kind of people were these? What force guided them through life? What did they dream of there, in the pit, when they groaned from their wounds, lying under the weight of the bodies of their comrades, under the weight of sleepers and trolleys dumped on them?

Did these children even exist? Is this not fiction? Isn't this the work of Soviet propaganda?

Yes, they were, they lived and suffered, they were tormented, but they died unbroken.

TWO COMMISSIONERS

2. 3VIKTOR TRETYAKEVICH

Meanwhile, the history of the Young Guard and the novel itself contain many mysteries and even secrets.

Soon after the book was published, Fadeev said in one of his letters: “The novel as a whole was received favorably, but there was an ominous silence from Krasnodon.” Until the end of his days, Alexander Alexandrovich never dared to visit the homeland of his heroes again. Moreover, in every possible way he avoided meeting with their parents, with the surviving Young Guards. And there were good reasons for that.

Take, for example, the story of Viktor Tretyakevich. He stood at the origins of the creation of the Young Guard and was its first commissioner. Fadeev could not help but know this. Of course, one can argue whether he brought out Tretyakevich in the image of Stakhovich or not. We have no direct evidence, and Fadeev himself has repeatedly emphasized that his novel is a work of art. Another thing is that in the martyrology published on the last page, Tretyakevich’s surname is missing. And this is already a fact:

Before the occupation of Krasnodon, Viktor Tretyakevich fought in a partisan detachment, and then he was sent to the city to organize the underground. Tretyakevich participated in many military operations of the Young Guard. Being among the first to be arrested, Victor held firm during interrogations. The father of the Young Guard Vasily Levashov was in the same cell with Tretyakevich and said that he recognized him only by his voice: he was so disfigured.

In order to persuade the arrested man to confess and take revenge on the commissar for his daring behavior, the fascists spread rumors about his betrayal through the cells. However, the real traitor was free, and Victor suffered martyrdom in a mine pit on January 15, 1943.

In the very first publications about the Young Guard, Viktor Tretyakevich is still mentioned. With the start of the work of the KGB commission headed by A.V. Toritsyn, Viktor was declared a traitor, and Oleg Koshevoy was declared a commissar.

Fadeev used the commission’s report. This is how the image of Stakhovich appears in the novel, but at the end of the book, Tretyakevich’s name is not among the listed names of the dead.

Victor's surviving comrades spared no effort to restore the commissar's honest name.

Only in 1959 did publications appear about his innocence, and he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War.

Then a sharp turn in the history of the Young Guard began again. To please unknown officials, the name of Viktor Tretyakevich, the commissar, was erased from the temporary Komsomol certificates issued by the headquarters.

Today, only a few people in our country remember the story of the Young Guards: Ukraine is already a different state, Fadeev’s novel has long been removed from school curricula. But historical truth must triumph, and the honorable name of Commissioner Victor

Tretyakevich must be restored.

2. 4 OLEG KOSHEVOY

For some, Oleg Koshevoy was a hero, for others - a victim, for others - an instrument for the ideological indoctrination of the youth of the Land of the Soviets. Who exactly was this guy?

Thanks to Alexander Fadeev, Oleg Koshevoy was raised to an unattainable height. Although his friends, members of the Young Guard, deserve no less kind words, as well as fame and honor.

Now it is difficult to say why so much attention was paid to the image of Koshevoy. But there is one unofficial version this: the close relationship between Fadeev and Oleg Koshevoy’s mother.

For the most part, the parents of the Young Guard were poorly educated people, and Elena Nikolaevna stood out from them in her youth, intelligence, and extraordinary beauty. Maybe that’s why she kept herself somewhat aloof; almost none of her parents maintained contact with her. Nevertheless, it was she who was elected to the regional party committee, a delegate to various party and Komsomol congresses. It seems that popular rumor could not forgive her for the increased attention to herself. And rumors about a close relationship between Kosheva and Fadeev probably appeared due to ordinary jealousy.

Oleg’s father was scared that his son had no desire for any craft. The guy was only interested in books, music and dancing. Dramatic changes occurred with Oleg after the death of his stepfather. By that time it was the first death in my life loved one. This had such an effect on him that he became more serious and more attentive to his family.

In Krasnodon for short term Oleg gained authority among his comrades. And this was not surprising. A strong, literate and intelligent guy beyond his years could not help but attract attention. Even in the first grade, he amazed teachers with his knowledge, composed poems, and drew. And he studied in the first grade for only three days, after which he was immediately transferred to the second.

The director of Krasnodon school No. 1 admired Oleg’s analytical mind, who could quote Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” in entire chapters. But at the same time he continued to be the soul of any cheerful company. The girls were crazy about him.

After the defeat of the Young Guard and the arrests that began, Oleg tried to escape from Krasnodon along with some other members of the organization, but was captured following the denunciation of a traitor in Rovenki. “During interrogations with the chief of police, Oleg behaved courageously. In the cell, Oleg did not let his comrades lose heart, he said that he would never ask for mercy from the executioners

Oleg tried to escape. Someone handed him a nail file. During the night, with the help of his comrades, he sawed through the bars on the window and escaped, but could not get far - weakened, he was caught by the Gestapo and again subjected to severe torture. He taught the young people in his cell to sing songs, and he himself was the first to sing,” this is what his mother Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya writes about Oleg in “The Tale of a Son.” (3)

After the liberation of Rovenek, not finding her son among the dead Young Guards in Krasnodon, she went there, hoping to find her son alive. But this was not destined to happen.

“My son, who was not yet seventeen years old, lay gray-haired in front of me. The hair at the temples was white-white, as if sprinkled with chalk. The Germans gouged out Oleg’s left eye, smashed the back of his head with a bullet and burned his Komsomol card number on his chest with an iron.”

During interrogation in November 1947, gendarme Yakov Schultz said: “At the end of January 1943, I participated in the execution of members of the underground organization “Young Guard”, including the leader of the organization Koshevoy. This group was shot in the Rovenkovo ​​forest. I remembered Koshevoy because he had to be shot twice.

After the first shot, all those arrested fell and lay motionless, only Koshevoy stood up and, turning around, looked intently in our direction. This greatly angered the commander of the gendarme platoon Frome, and he ordered the gendarme Derwitz to finish him off, which he did, shooting Koshevoy in the back of the head.”

To please some political figures, Oleg Kosheva and A. Fadeev, and Soviet propaganda, was declared a commissar of the Young Guard, although today it is known for certain that he was Viktor Tretyakevich. But this does not make his feat any less significant.

One thing is certain: if Oleg Koshevoy is brought down from the ideological heavens and the dust of propaganda is shaken off his personality, he is worthy of glory, eternal memory and fresh flowers on his grave.

2. 5IVAN TURKENICH

The situation with the commander of the Young Guard, Ivan Turkenich, remains a mystery. His subordinates are Heroes, and he “only” has the Order of the Red Banner.

In the novel about the commander, as if in passing. Same question: why?

Before his appearance in Krasnodon, Turkenich, being in the rank of senior lieutenant, fought, found himself surrounded, captured, but managed to escape. Unfortunately for him, like hundreds of thousands of other soldiers and commanders, in the summer of 1941 Stalin’s order No. 270 was issued, which stated that all military personnel remaining in enemy-occupied territory would be declared traitors. There were two options: either fight your way to your own people and then atone for the “temporary error” in battles with blood, or shoot yourself. Turkenich did neither one nor the other.

The authority of 22-year-old Turkenich among the underground was indisputable. He introduced military discipline into the organization, taught how to use weapons and camouflage. In accordance with all the rules of military affairs, he developed combat operations; he himself was a direct participant in many of them: the destruction of enemy vehicles, the liberation of prisoners of war from the Volchensky camp and Pervomaiskaya hospital, the execution of police officers.

Thanks to Fadeev’s light hand, he seemed to be out of work. The author mentions him only in passing. The writer’s logic is clear: someone who has been in German captivity cannot be a hero. Obvious absurdity: ordinary members of the Young Guard are Heroes, but the commander is not.

When the arrests of the Young Guard began, the commander managed to escape unnoticed and crossed the front line. Endless interrogations began at SMERSH, but then a decree of September 13 arrived. Turkenich is sent to the active army. He will never know that in the presentation of the military council of the Southwestern Front of the Young Guards to the highest ranks, he was listed as No. 1:

Turkenich fought bravely, and, as his comrades testified, he was not afraid of death. One of them, director high school in the Zhytomyr region, Alexander Leontievich Rudnitsky, talked about last days commander In a fierce battle for the Polish city of Gongow, Turkenich died a hero's death.

IN Central Archive The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation keeps a presentation on Turkenich - for the battle near Gonguv. It is clear from it that commanders of all levels - from battalion commander to army commander - were in favor of awarding Captain Turkenich the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

At the last moment, again, someone’s evil will put an end to the fate of the brave officer. And only 46 years later was the truth able to triumph - the commander of the Young Guard was posthumously awarded this high rank.

2. 6 LYUBOV SHEVTSOVA

Lyubov Shevtsova appears in life completely different from A. Fadeev’s novel.

In the novel, she is a beautiful, cheerful, brave, charming girl with a laugh. “Sergei Tyulenin in a skirt,” Fadeev writes about her.

Only after the liberation of Krasnodon did some facts from the life of Lyubov Shevtsova become known. She was left in the city as a radio operator to communicate with the underground. Knowing well the future leaders of the Young Guard from school, Lyuba could not help but become one of its active members who participated in the most daring attacks of the Young Guard.

After the defeat of the organization, she was captured in Rovenki.

She did not give evidence and, as a radio operator, categorically refused to cooperate.

She was tortured in a way that makes the Inquisition pale. A friend managed to send padded trousers to Lyuba’s cell: the open wounds did not allow her to sit or lie down. As if as a mockery, on the eve of her execution she was offered to wash herself in the bathhouse. Shevtsova replied: “The earth will accept me even like that!” Lyubov Shevtsova was shot on February 9, 1943 in the Thunderous Forest. And soon units of the Red Army entered the city.

The legend says: just before her death, Lyubka sang “On the wide expanses of Moscow.”

All those shot were buried in the forest.

When the bodies were raised to the surface, a note of religious content, as archival evidence calls it, was found in Lyubin’s trouser pocket. Mom sent her daughter the Lord's Prayer. And in response I received a letter full of childhood melancholy and adult pain:

“Hello, Mommy and Mikhailovna! Mommy, I really regret now that I didn’t listen to you. I never thought that it would be so difficult for me. Mommy, I don’t know how to ask you to forgive me, but now it’s too late. Mommy "Don't be offended! Your daughter Lyubasha. I'll see my dad in the next world."

A pure, simple, cheerful, brave girl from the Izvarino mine. What permanents and silk stockings! Felt boots for the winter, canvas slippers for going out, the rest of the time - barefoot. She was not good at reading and writing. I didn't get along well with discipline. She graduated from the seven-year school as an “overage”, just before the war. I was eager to go to the front. The military registration and enlistment office refused, but was remembered as an active comrade, although not a Komsomol member. Only the best are hired there!

She was accepted into the Komsomol quickly: in February 1942, when the issue of enrollment in the NKVD school was finally resolved.

In Fadeev’s novel, as we see, a gloss has been put on many of the heroes. They have almost no flaws, because Soviet heroes cannot have flaws. Komsomol member Lyubov Shevtsova cannot believe in God, she cannot study diligently, etc.

Communist ideologists were in such a hurry to use the names of new heroes that they themselves got the names mixed up. For example, Vanya Zemnukhov was actually Zimnukhov. Sergei Tyulenin actually bore the surname Tyulenev. But when a decree was issued conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on him, it was too late. It is interesting that later even the parents had to change their surnames to incorrect, but already famous ones.

2. 7TRAITORS

The criminal case against 16 traitors, one way or another involved in the death of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" in occupied Krasnodon, was sent to the archives back in 1957.

In the famous novel by Alexander Fadeev there is not a word about these people - they were arrested after the book was published. And therefore their testimony remained “top secret”. Otherwise, History would have to be corrected. After all, Fadeev’s book does not answer the main question - who is to blame for the failure of the Young Guard. The author himself repeated more than once: “I was not writing the true history of the Young Guard, but a novel that not only allows, but even presupposes artistic fiction.”

What is the truth in this tragedy and what does History stubbornly keep silent about?

"Book" traitors

The novel was published in 1946. According to the surviving members of the underground, Fadeev very accurately conveyed the characters’ characters. However, the artistically remarkable book was not up to par in terms of maintaining historical truth. First of all, this concerned the personalities of the traitors who were responsible for the failure of the Young Guard. For Fadeev, they were the Young Guard member Stakhovich, who betrayed his comrades during torture, as well as two schoolgirl friends who collaborated with the police - Lyadskaya and Vyrikova.

Stakhovich is a fictitious surname. The prototype of this anti-hero was one of the organizers of the Young Guard, Viktor Tretyakevich. But it is not Fadeev’s fault that the name of this fighter was anathematized. The version about Tretyakevich’s cowardly behavior during interrogations was presented to the writer as an absolute truth (as is known, in 1960 Viktor Tretyakevich was completely rehabilitated and was even posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree).

Unlike the fictional Stakhovich, Zinaida Vyrikova and Olga Lyadskaya are real people, and therefore the novel “The Young Guard” played a tragic role in their lives. Both girls were convicted of treason and sent to camps for a long time. Moreover, suspicion fell on Lyadskaya, for example, only because she spent 9 days in police custody and returned home safe and sound. Olga Alexandrovna herself later said that the police simply abused her. And they were never even interrogated. And they let her out for a bottle of moonshine - her mother brought it.

The stigma of traitors from women was removed only in 1990 after their numerous complaints and strict checks by the prosecutor's office.

Here, for example, is the “certificate” Olga Aleksandrovna Lyadskaya received after 47 years of shame: “The criminal case on charges of O. A. Lyadskaya, born in 1926, was reviewed by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District on March 16, 1990. Resolution of the Special Meeting at "The USSR MGB dated October 29, 1949 against O. A. Lyadskaya was canceled and the criminal case was discontinued due to the lack of corpus delicti in her actions. Olga Aleksandrovna Lyadskaya was rehabilitated in this case."

Zinaida Vyrikova, who served in the camps for more than 10 years, received approximately the same document. By the way, these women were never friends, as described in the novel, and met for the first time only after rehabilitation. (6)

We see how Fadeev’s book crippled the fates of these two women. When talking about the feat of some people, we must not forget that other people lived and suffered next to these heroes. A writer, like no one else, must feel responsible for his words.

2. 8 WAS THERE A PARTY LEADERSHIP?

But the biggest mistake was the status of “party-Komsomol underground” imposed on the Young Guard in 1982.

The organizational formation of the Young Guard took place in August - October 1942 without party patronage. But, having read Fadeev’s novel, Stalin discovered that the author did not show the leading and guiding role of the party. The leader's position was voiced by the newspaper Pravda. It was picked up by other media, abruptly moving from praise to accusations that this, they say, was done by the writer almost intentionally. The Lugansk Regional Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine also made claims against the author for the fact that the retreat and evacuation from Krasnodon in July 1942 was shown as a spontaneous, uncontrollable process. And Alexander Fadeev had to rewrite the novel, creating monumental images of communists - the leaders of the underground.

The Young Guards are simply children who loved their fatherland and were so well brought up that they were not afraid to stand up for it.

And the party leaders should have been proud that, without any prompting from above, these children already in the first days of the war understood what and how they needed to do.

We see how the party “leadership” of literature crippled the destinies of many people, how, for the sake of truth, events and people were portrayed not as they really were, but as the party leaders wanted them to be.

3. CONCLUSION

A. A. Fadeev, of course, conjectured a lot in his novel “The Young Guard,” but he wrote a work of art, literally in hot pursuit. He needed to embellish the events, otherwise his book would simply not be interesting to readers. And yet, there is probably more truth in the work than fiction. The author tried to bring his “Young Guard” as close as possible to the one that is turning 60 years old the other day!

In connection with the anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, conversations about the “Young Guard” are of keen interest to journalists and writers, and although it is said that the history of the “Young Guard” is still awaiting detailed study, some facts have become known for certain. But what’s paradoxical is that if you ask someone about Oleg Koshev, the answer will be associated with the Young Guard, and if you name the name of, say, Anna Sopova, you will only receive a surprised look in response. People do not forget those they are reminded of. But they are not the only ones who deserve respect and glory. After all, there were still dozens of Young Guards who were not awarded the title of Hero. But their feat was no less significant.

Of course, the Young Guards were and will remain heroes, only the older generation does not need to be reminded of their feat, and the current generation does not even know about the existence of A. A Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard”; they began to forget about it and removed it from the school curriculum. But this is our memory and we can’t live without it! Maybe we should think about this?