The Soviet people first learned the history of the “Young Guard” in 1943, immediately after the liberation of Krasnodon by the Red Army. The underground organization “Young Guard” included seventy-one people: forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls, the youngest was 14 years old.

Krasnodon was occupied by the enemy on July 20, 1942. Sergei Tyulenin was the first to start underground activities. He acted boldly, scattered leaflets, began collecting weapons, and attracted a group of guys ready for an underground struggle. This is how the story of the Young Guard began.

On September 30, the detachment’s action plan was approved and headquarters was organized. Ivan Zemnukhov was appointed chief of staff, Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissar. Tyulenin came up with a name for the underground organization - “Young Guard”. By October, all the disparate groups united and the legendary Oleg Koshevoy and Ivan Turkenich, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova entered the headquarters of the Young Guard.

The Young Guards posted leaflets, collected weapons, burned grain and poisoned food intended for the occupiers. On the day of the October Revolution, several flags were hung, the Labor Exchange was burned, and this saved more than 2,000 people sent to work in Germany. By December 1942, the Young Guards had a fair amount of weapons and explosives stored in their warehouse. They were preparing for open battle. In total, the underground organization “Young Guard” distributed more than five thousand leaflets - from them residents of occupied Krasnodon learned news from the fronts.

The underground organization “Young Guard” committed many desperately bold acts, and the most active and courageous members of the “Young Guard”, such as Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Zemnukhov, could not be restrained from recklessness. They wanted to completely “twist the hands of the enemy”, already before the arrival of the Victorious Red Army.

Their careless actions (seizure of the New Year's convoy with gifts for the Germans in December 1942) led to punitive actions.

On January 1, 1943, Young Guard members Viktor Tretyakevich, Ivan Zemnukhov, and Evgeniy Moshkov were arrested. The headquarters decided to immediately leave the city, and all Young Guards were ordered not to spend the night at home. Headquarters liaison officers conveyed the news to all underground fighters. Among the connections there was a traitor - Gennady Pocheptsov, when he learned about the arrests, he chickened out and reported to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

Mass arrests began. Many members of the underground organization “Young Guard” thought that leaving meant betraying their captured comrades. They did not realize that it was better to retreat to their own, save lives and fight until victory. Most didn't leave. Everyone was afraid for their parents. Only twelve Young Guards escaped. 10 survived, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless caught.

Youth, fearlessness, and courage helped the majority of the Young Guards to withstand with honor the cruel tortures to which they were subjected by a ruthless enemy. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” describes terrible episodes of torture.

Pocheptsov betrayed Tretyakevich as one of the leaders of the underground organization “Young Guard”. He was tortured with extreme cruelty. The young hero courageously remained silent, then a rumor was spread among those arrested and in the city that it was Tretyakevich who betrayed everyone.

Young Guard member Viktor Tretyakevich, accused of treason, was acquitted only in the 50s, when the trial of one of the executioners, Vasily Podtynny, took place, who admitted that it was not Tretyakevich, but Pocheptsov who betrayed everyone.

And only on December 13, 1960, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Viktor Tretyakevich was rehabilitated and posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

When Viktor Tretyakevich’s mother was presented with the award, she asked not to show Sergei Gerasimov’s film “The Young Guard,” where her son appears as a traitor.
More than 50 young people died at the very beginning of their lives, after terrible suffering, without betraying their idea, their Motherland, or faith in Victory.

Executions of Young Guards took place from mid-January to February 1943; batches of exhausted Komsomol members were thrown into abandoned coal mines. Many could not be identified after their bodies were removed by relatives and friends, so they were mutilated beyond recognition.

Soviet troops entered Krasnodon on February 14. On February 17, the city dressed in mourning. A wooden obelisk was erected at 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 courage of the Young Guards instilled courage and dedication in future generations of Soviet youth. The names of the Young Guard are sacred to us, and it’s scary to think today that someone is trying to depersonalize and belittle their heroic lives, sacrificed to the common goal of the Great Victory.

Victoria Maltseva

“Young Guard” is a Komsomol underground organization with a short but heroic and tragic history. It intertwined feat and betrayal, reality and fiction, truth and lies. It was formed during the Great Patriotic War.

Creation of the "Young Guard"

In July 1942, Krasnodon was occupied by the Nazis. Despite this, leaflets appear in the city, and a bathhouse, which was prepared as a German barracks, catches fire. One person could do all this. Sergei Tyulenin is a 17-year-old boy. In addition, he gathers young guys to fight enemies. The founding date of the underground organization was September 30, 1942, the day the headquarters and action plan of the underground were created.

Composition of the underground organization

Initially, the core of the organization consisted of Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Vasily Levashov, Georgy Arutyunyants, Viktor Tretyakevich, who was elected commissioner. A little later, Ivan Turkenich, Oleg Koshevoy, Lyubov Shevtsova, and Ulyana Gromova joined the headquarters. This was an international, multi-age organization (from 14 to 29 years old), united by one goal - to cleanse their hometown of fascist evil spirits. It consisted of about 110 people.

Confrontation with the “brown plague”

The guys printed leaflets, collected weapons and medicine, and destroyed enemy vehicles. They account for dozens of released prisoners of war. Thanks to them, thousands of people managed to escape hard labor. The Young Guards burned down the labor exchange, where all the named lists of people who were to go to work in Germany were burned. Their most famous act was the appearance of red flags hanging on the streets of the city by November 7th.

Split

In December 1942, disagreements arose within the team. Koshevoy insisted on singling out 15-20 people from the organization for active armed struggle. Under the command of Turkenich, a small partisan detachment called “Hammer” was created. Oleg Koshevoy was appointed commissar of this detachment. This led to the fact that later Oleg Koshevoy began to be considered the main person of the Young Guard.

Tragedy of Krasnodon

At the beginning of 1943, the fascists struck at the very heart of the organization, arresting Tretyakevich, Moshkov, and Zemnukhov. One of the Young Guards, Pocheptsov, having learned about the fate of the leaders, became frightened and reported his comrades to the police. All the arrested boys endured terrible torture, bullying, and beatings. The punishers learned from Pocheptsov that Viktor Tretyakevich is one of the leaders of the organization. By spreading a rumor in the city that he was the traitor, the enemy hoped to “loose” the tongues of the members of the Young Guard.

As long as the memory is alive, the person is alive

71 Krasnodon residents were shot by punitive forces, their bodies were thrown into the pit of the abandoned mine No. 5. The rest of those arrested were executed in the Thundering Forest. Members of the headquarters were posthumously awarded the titles of Heroes of the Soviet Union. The name of Viktor Tretyakevich was consigned to oblivion due to slander, and only in 1960 was he rehabilitated. However, he was not restored to the rank of commissar and for many people remained a private of the Young Guard. Krasnodon residents became a symbol of courage, fearlessness and fortitude during the war.

Is it a myth or reality on the pages of the history of the Soviet Union? Many still believe that this is a fiction. But unfortunately, this whole story is the true and bitter truth. February...

Is it a myth or reality on the pages of the history of the Soviet Union? Many still believe that this is a fiction. But unfortunately, this whole story is the true and bitter truth.

February 1943 liberation of the town of Krasnodon, Donetsk region, from the German occupiers. Soviet soldiers retrieved dozens of brutally mutilated bodies from mine No. 5 near the village. These were the bodies of teenagers from a local town who, while in the occupied territory, were active participants in the illegal association “Young Guard”. Near the forgotten mine, most of the members of the illegal Komsomol organization “Young Guard” saw sunlight for the last time. They were killed.

Young Komsomol members, starting in 1942, resisted the fascists in the small town of Krasnodon, which is located on the territory of Ukraine. Previously, there was very little information about such organizations. And “Young Guard” is the first youth society about which we managed to find a lot of detailed data. The Young Guards, as they were called from now on, were true patriots who, at the cost of their lives, fought for the freedom of their homeland. Just recently, everyone knew about these guys without exception.

The feat of these guys is captured in the book by A. Fadeev, in the film by S. Gerasimov, ships, schools, pioneer detachments, and so on were named in their honor. Who are these heroic guys?

The Komsomol youth organization of Krasnodon included 71 participants: 47 of them were boys and 24 girls. The youngest of them was 14 years old, and most of them never celebrated their nineteenth birthday. These were simple guys of their country, they were characterized by the most ordinary human feelings, they lived the most ordinary life of a Soviet person.

The organization did not know national boundaries, they did not divide into their own and not very much. Each of them was ready to come to the aid of the other even at the cost of his life.

The capture of Krasnodon took place on July 20, 1942. The Germans immediately encountered partisan activity. Sergei Tyulenin, a seventeen-year-old boy, began the underground struggle alone. Sergei was the first to unite young people to fight the Germans.

At the beginning there were only 8 of them. September 30 became the day from which the date of creation of the organization should be considered. A project for the formation of a society was established, certain actions were planned, and a headquarters was founded. Everyone unanimously agreed to name the organization “Young Guard”.

Already in October, small autonomous illegal groups united into one organization. Ivan Zemnukhov was appointed chief of staff, Vasily Levashov - commander of the central group, Georgy Arutyunyants and Sergey Tyulenin became members of the headquarters. Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissioner.

Today you can often hear that these guys did absolutely nothing heroic. Leaflets, collecting weapons, arson - all this did not solve anything in the fight against the fascists. But those who say this don’t know what it’s like to first print leaflets, and then go paste them in the night, when for this they can be shot on the spot, or carry a couple of grenades in a bag, for which death is also inevitable. They set fires, hung red flags, freed prisoners, and took away livestock. The guys did all this clearly realizing that any of these actions would result in death.

Alas, December was marked by the first infighting. It was because of them that in the future Oleg Koshevoy was considered the commissar of the Young Guards. And this happened because Koshevoy wanted one and a half to two dozen people to be singled out from among the members of the underground who would act autonomously from everyone else, and Koshevoy himself would be their commissar. He was not supported. But Koshevoy did not calm down and signed temporary Komsomol cards for the newly admitted guys, instead of Tretyakevich.

On the very first day of 1943, E. Moshkov, V. Tretyakevich and I. Zemnukhov were arrested. The remaining members of the underground, having learned about the arrest, decided to leave the city. But the notorious human factor. One of the Young Guards, G. Pocheptsov, having heard about the arrests, behaved like a coward and made a denunciation to the police about the underground.

The punitive forces are on the move. Arrests followed one after another. Many of those who were not arrested were hesitant to leave the city. In fact, they violated the decision of the headquarters to leave Krasnodon. Only 12 guys took the plunge and disappeared. However, this did not save Tyulenin and Koshevoy; they were captured anyway.

Mass monstrous and inhuman torture of captured Young Guards began. The fascists, having learned that Tretyakevich was the leader of the Young Guard, tortured him with particular cruelty; they needed his testimony, but this did not help. They spread gossip around the city that Victor had told everything. Everyone who knew him did not believe it.

On January 15, 1943, the first Young Guards were executed, including Tretyakevich. They were thrown into an old mine.

January 31 - the third group was shot. Allegedly, A. Kovalev was lucky enough to escape, but then there was no information about him.

Only four of the underground guys remained, among them Koshevoy. On February 9 in Rovenki they were killed and shot.

On February 14, soldiers of the Soviet Union army came to the city. From now on, February 17 will forever be mournful and filled with grief. On this day, the bodies of the Young Guards were taken out. A monument was erected at the grave with the names of those killed; Tretyakevich’s name is not on it. His mother spent the rest of her life in mourning. Many refused to believe in the betrayal of the head of the organization, but the commission did not confirm her innocence.

After 16 years, it was possible to detain the most brutal executioner; it was he who subjected the young guys, V. Podtynny, to sophisticated torture. During interrogations they finally found out that Tretyakevich had been slandered.

It took 17 long years for his good name to be restored, to be rewarded, his mother waited until her son’s name was cleared. As a result, the label of a traitor was removed from V. Tretyakevich, but the title of commissar was not returned and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, like the others, was not awarded.

For decades, the heroes of the Young Guard have aroused and continue to arouse the admiration of new generations. However, in the mid-1950s, new details about the activities of the Young Guards unexpectedly emerged. Newspaper publications signed by Kim Kostenko caused a real shock in society.

Mysteries of Russian history / Nikolai Nepomnyashchy. - M.: Veche, 2012.

The fact is that at the end of the Khrushchev Thaw, the special correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda, Kim Kostenko, managed to get acquainted with secret materials concerning the Young Guard. The journalist found out absolutely incredible, at first glance, facts. It turned out that members of the organization Stakhovich, Vyrikova, Lyadskaya, Polyanskaya, called traitors in A. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard,” were in fact honest patriots. Moreover, it was Viktor Tretyakevich (in the book - Stakhovich), and not Oleg Koshevoy, who was the commissioner of the Young Guard!

Victor Tretyakevich

Tretyakevich was captured on the same day as Moshkov and Zemnukhov. He did not betray anyone and died as a hero. The underground organization was betrayed by a completely different person - Gennady Pocheptsov. Having learned about the first arrests, he got scared and wrote a denunciation to the police, in which he listed all the Young Guard members.

Gennady Pocheptsov

In the last row: second from right - Gennady Pocheptsov

It is unlikely that Alexander Fadeev could not have been unaware of these facts. However, he fulfilled the social order of the party, and Fadeev was advised by a major from the KGB. It should also be taken into account that when the writer arrived in Krasnodon, he received a paper in which the role of each underground fighter was briefly outlined, and the names of the traitors were mentioned separately: Tretyakevich, Vyrikova, Lyadskaya and Polyanskaya. So far, researchers have not been able to establish the authorship of the forged document.

Of course, Fadeev did not want to destroy these people. However, the customer of the book - the Komsomol Central Committee - demanded that the book be created in an extremely short time. In this rush there was no way to check all existing documents. Oleg Koshevoy’s mother, with whom Fadeev lived, also played a significant role in distorting the truth. It was her personal memories that formed the basis of the novel. Many families of Krasnodon heroes bitterly complained that the writer never came to see them and talked to them.

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. It was only seven years ago that he was finally rehabilitated.

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

In 1990, the real commander of the Young Guard, Ivan Turkenich, was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Previously, this was unthinkable, because Turkenich ended up in Krasnodon after escaping from German captivity.

Commander of the Young Guard Ivan Turkenich, 1943

Olga Lyadskaya 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 for a bottle of moonshine. After the release of Krasnodon, Olga told the SMERSH investigator her epic story. He decided to “help” her and handed the girl a piece of paper, which she signed without looking. This was a confession of complicity with the occupiers. For him, Olga Alexandrovna received ten years in prison. And after the publication of the novel “The Young Guard,” she became an important state criminal and found herself in the Lubyanka. The authorities wanted to arrange a show trial over her, but it did not take place - Lyadskaya was diagnosed with a severe form of tuberculosis. The “traitor to the Young Guard” was released only in 1956. In her hometown, no one ever reproached her. Olga managed to graduate from college and give birth to a child. However, in the 60s, publications about the Young Guard reappeared, in which she again appeared as a traitor. Lyadskaya wrote everywhere, demanding justice! Finally, the letter reached the desk of a decent person - an employee of the prosecutor's office, and he, having carefully studied her case, dropped the serious charges.

Olga Lyadskaya (in the center) was also called a traitor, although she could not betray anyone

Both Zinaida Vyrikova and Sima Polyanskaya were injured. Almost nothing is known about the fate of the second. Vyrikova saw Sima among those exiled in Bugulma. Zinaida Alekseevna herself had to go through both exile and camps. She was arrested before the novel was published. He was released already in 1944, but was soon expelled from the Komsomol. Zinaida Alekseevna got married, changed her last name, and moved to live in another city. But they still recognized her: “Oh, the same one who betrayed the Young Guard!” For many years, the innocent woman lived in fear of possible arrest. Of course, she also wrote and tried to reach higher authorities, but to no avail.

Zinaida Vyrikova

By the way, the surviving Young Guards knew very well about the innocence of Tretyakevich, Lyadskaya, Vyrikova, but for some reason they remained silent...

One of the mythologized pages of the history of the USSR, which, unfortunately, is still perceived by many even now, but which has always been true. In mid-February 1943, after the liberation of Donetsk Krasnodon by Soviet troops, several dozen corpses of teenagers tortured by the Nazis, who were members of the underground organization “Young Guard” during the occupation, were extracted from the pit of the N5 mine located near the city...
Near an abandoned mine, most 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. 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 twenty 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 were named after Young Guards. 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 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 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 allocated, 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, the lack of life experience had an effect.
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.

Soviet troops entered Krasnodon on February 14. 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 respecting historical truth, Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” did not turn out to be just 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 was not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, which was awarded to the other dead members of the Young Guard headquarters.
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.

Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.
On January 31, 1943, after severe torture, Anya was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5. She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.
...now "Young Guard" is on television. I remember how we loved this picture as children! They dreamed of being like the brave Krasnodon residents... they swore to avenge their death. What can I say, the tragic and beautiful story of the Young Guards shocked the whole world, and not just the fragile minds of children.
The film became the box office leader in 1948, and the leading actors, unknown students of VGIK, immediately received the title of Stalin Prize Laureate - an exceptional case. “Woke up famous” is about them.
Ivanov, Mordyukova, Makarova, Gurzo, Shagalova - letters from all over the world came to them in bags.
Gerasimov, of course, felt sorry for the audience. Fadeev - readers.
Neither paper nor film could convey what really happened that winter in Krasnodon.

Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old
“….a five-pointed star is cut out on the back, the right arm is broken, the ribs are broken” (KGB Archives of the USSR Council of Ministers).

Lida Androsova, 18 years old
“...extracted without an eye, an ear, a hand, with a rope around the neck, which cut heavily into the body. The baked blood is visible on the neck” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 16).

Anya Sopova, 18 years old
“They beat her, hung her by her braids... They lifted Anya out of the pit with one braid - the other broke off.”

Shura Bondareva, 20 years old
"...extracted without the head and right breast, the whole body was beaten, bruised, and black in color."

Lyuba Shevtsova, 18 years old (pictured first on the left in the second row)

Lyuba Shevtsova, 18 years old
On February 9, 1943, after a month of torture, she was shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city along with Oleg Koshev, S. Ostapenko, D. Ogurtsov and V. Subbotin.

Angelina Samoshina, 18 years old.
“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)

Shura Dubrovina, 23 years old
“Two images appear before my eyes: the cheerful young Komsomol member Shura Dubrovina and the mutilated body raised from the mine. I saw her corpse only with the lower jaw. Her friend Maya Peglivanova was lying in a coffin without eyes, without lips, with her arms twisted... "

Maya Peglivanova, 17 years old
"Maya's corpse was disfigured: her breasts were cut off, her legs were broken. All outer clothing was removed." (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331) She was lying in the coffin without lips, with her arms twisted.”

Tonya Ivanikhina, 19 years old
"... taken out without eyes, head bandaged with a scarf and wire, breasts cut out."

Serezha Tyulenin, 17 years old
“On January 27, 1943, Sergei was arrested. Soon his father and mother were taken away, all his belongings were confiscated. The police severely tortured Sergei in the presence of his mother, they confronted him with a member of the Young Guard, Viktor Lukyancheiko, but they did not recognize each other.
On January 31, Sergei was tortured for the last time, and then, half-dead, he and other comrades were taken to the pit of mine No. 5..."

Funeral of Sergei Tyulenin

Nina Minaeva, 18 years old
“...My sister was recognized by her woolen gaiters - the only clothes 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...”

Tosya Eliseenko, 22 years old
“Tosia’s corpse was disfigured, tortured, and she was put on a hot stove.”

Victor Tretyakevich, 18 years old
"...Among the last, they raised Viktor Tretyakevich. His father, Joseph Kuzmich, in a thin patched coat, stood day after day, clutching a pole, not taking his eyes off the pit. And when they recognized his son, he was faceless, with a black face. blue back, with shattered arms - he fell to the ground, as if knocked down. No traces of bullets were found on Victor's body - which means they threw him out alive..."

Oleg Koshevoy, 16 years old
When arrests began in January 1943, he attempted to cross the front line. However, he is forced to return to the city. Near the railway Kortushino station was captured by the Nazis and sent first to the police and then to the district Gestapo office in Rovenki. After terrible torture, together with L.G. Shevtsova, S.M. Ostapenko, D.U. Ogurtsov and V.F. Subbotin, on February 9, 1943, he was shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city.

Boris Glavan, 22 years old
“He was pulled out of the pit, tied up with Evgeniy Shepelev with barbed wire face to face, his hands were cut off. His face was mutilated, his stomach was ripped open.”

Evgeny Shepelev, 19 years old
"...Evgeniy's hands were cut off, his stomach was torn out, his head was broken...." (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331)

Volodya Zhdanov, 17 years old
“He was taken out with a laceration in the left temporal region, his fingers were broken and twisted, there were bruises under the nails, two strips three centimeters wide and twenty-five centimeters long were cut out on his back, his eyes were gouged out and his ears were cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d .36)

Klava Kovaleva, 17 years old
“... was pulled out swollen, the right breast was cut off, the feet were burned, the left hand was cut off, the head was tied with a scarf, traces of beatings were visible on the body. Found ten meters from the trunk, between the trolleys, it was probably thrown alive” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 10)

Evgeniy Moshkov, 22 years old (pictured left)
"... Young Guard communist Yevgeny Moshkov, choosing the right moment during interrogation, hit the policeman. Then the fascist animals hung Moshkov by his legs and kept him in that position until blood gushed from his nose and throat. They took him down and "They began to interrogate again. But Moshkov only spat in the executioner's face. The enraged investigator who was torturing Moshkov hit him with a backhand blow. Exhausted by the torture, the communist hero fell, hitting the back of his head on the door frame and died."

Volodya Osmukhin, 18 years old
“When I saw Vovochka, mutilated, almost headless, without 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 the other leg was completely bare. Instead of a belt, he was wearing a scarf warm. No outer clothing. Hungry animals took them off.
The head is broken. The back of the head had completely fallen out, only the face remained, on which only Volodin’s teeth remained. Everything else is mutilated. The lips are distorted, the nose is almost completely gone. My grandmother and I washed Vovochka, dressed her, and decorated her with flowers. A wreath was nailed to the coffin. Let the road lie peacefully."

Parents of Ulyana Gromova

Uli's last letter

Funeral of the Young Guards, 1943

In 1993, a press conference of a special commission to study the history of the Young Guard was held in Lugansk. As Izvestia wrote then (05/12/1993), after two years of work, the commission gave its assessment of the versions that had excited the public for almost half a century. The researchers' conclusions boiled down to several fundamental points.
In July-August 1942, after the Nazis captured the Luhansk region, many underground youth groups spontaneously arose in the mining town of Krasnodon and its surrounding villages. They, according to the recollections of contemporaries, were called “Star”, “Sickle”, “Hammer”, etc. However, there is no need to talk about any party leadership of them. In October 1942, Viktor Tretyakevich united them into the “Young Guard”.
It was he, and not Oleg Koshevoy, according to the commission’s findings, who became the commissioner of the underground organization. There were almost twice as many “Young Guard” participants as was later recognized by the competent authorities. The guys fought like a guerrilla, taking risks, suffering heavy losses, and this, as was noted at the press conference, ultimately led to the failure of the organization.
“….Blessed memory to these girls and boys… who were infinite times stronger… all of us, millions of us, combined...”