On January 29, Ukraine commemorates the Day of Remembrance of the Kruty Heroes – defenders of the Ukrainian People's Republic, who in 1918 halted the advance of Bolshevik forces on Kyiv near the Kruty railway station, UNN reports.
The date has long gone beyond the school textbook. Now this day is about the price of statehood, about society's readiness for defense, and about how legends sometimes replace a complex but necessary truth.
Background: how the front approached Kyiv
In late January 1918, fierce battles raged for Bakhmach station. Ukrainian units were forced to retreat to Kruty, where reinforcements were sent: units of the First Ukrainian Youth School named after Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the volunteer Auxiliary Student Kuren. This moment is important for understanding the events: Kruty was not a romantic act of students, as it can sometimes be read in fiction. It was an episode of defense in conditions of lack of time, forces, and established command.
What happened at Kruty
The battle took place on January 29, 1918, in the Chernihiv region, between Nizhyn and Bakhmach. According to the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, on the Ukrainian side at Kruty there were up to 520 soldiers and cadets, armed, in particular, with up to 16 machine guns and one cannon on a railway platform. Against them, Bolshevik units numbering more than 4,000 people advanced, with artillery and armored trains.
The soldiers held their positions primarily to gain time. After several hours of fighting, some Ukrainian units managed to retreat, damaging infrastructure to slow down the enemy's advance. Historians emphasize: the delay of the offensive had political significance for the UPR at a time when diplomacy was trying to consolidate Ukraine's subjectivity in the international arena.
Why January 29 became a day of remembrance
The Day of Remembrance of the Kruty Heroes is celebrated annually on January 29 – on the anniversary of the battle. At the state level, the commemoration began to be coordinated back in 2003 by a government decree on the memory of the Kruty Heroes, and the annual celebration of the feat was enshrined by a resolution of the Verkhovna Rada in 2013.
The tragic story of the prisoners became a separate symbol. After the battle, some of the young men were captured and shot near the station. In March 1918, their bodies were transported to Kyiv and solemnly buried in Askold's Grave. At the same time, cultural reflections of this event appeared, in particular Pavlo Tychyna's poem "To the Memory of Thirty."
Convenient but inaccurate myths about Kruty
The most famous cliché about Kruty is "300 student-Spartans." The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINP) emphasizes: on the Ukrainian side there were about 500 defenders, and these were not only students, but also cadets and officers. Similarly, the idea that "everyone died" is incorrect: the losses were heavy, but some units retreated.
A separate line of myth-making is associated with the Soviet period, when the event was either hushed up or turned into a set of clichés. Educational reviews emphasize: the Soviet interpretation, in particular, fueled the idea of "children" instead of soldiers and cadets, although the real composition of the defenders was different.
Day of Remembrance of the Kruty Heroes in modern Ukraine
In the 21st century, the date is perceived through the prism of the "price of time" and reminds of the vulnerability of a young state, when society had not yet managed to assemble institutions, the army, and governance into a single mechanism. That is why political interpretations are so easily born around Kruty: some make the event a complete pathos, others – a complete betrayal.
Researchers of historical memory have repeatedly drawn attention: a myth can work as a symbol, but it becomes toxic when it replaces the analysis of causes and consequences. And another lesson that sounds maximally modern: memory requires accuracy. When facts are blurred, propaganda quickly occupies them, and this always works against society.
On January 29, flower-laying ceremonies, remembrance lessons, lectures, and exhibitions traditionally take place, including at the battle site near the memorial complex in the Chernihiv region. According to the UINP, the complex includes several objects: a mound with a 10-meter red column, a cross-shaped reservoir, a recreation of a railway platform, and museum car-halls with an exposition. The idea of creating a memorial matured since the 1990s, and the current complex has become part of systematic work with national memory.
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