Youth
Born and raised in the village of Korzhovka, Velikoschimelsky volost, Gorodnyansky district, Chernihiv province (since 1924 - Snovsk, now the regional center of Shchors, Chernihiv region of Ukraine). Born into the family of a wealthy peasant landowner (according to another version - from the family of a railway worker).
In 1914 he graduated from the military paramedic school in Kyiv. At the end of the year, the Russian Empire entered the First World War. Nikolai went to the front first as a military paramedic.
In 1916, 21-year-old Shchors was sent to a four-month accelerated course at the Vilna Military School, which by that time had been evacuated to Poltava. Then a junior officer on the Southwestern Front. As part of the 335th Anapa Infantry Regiment of the 84th Infantry Division of the Southwestern Front, Shchors spent almost three years. During the war, Nikolai fell ill with tuberculosis, and on December 30, 1917 (after the October Revolution of 1917), Lieutenant Shchors was released from military service due to illness and left for his native farm.
Civil War
In February 1918, in Korzhovka, Shchors created a Red Guard partisan detachment, in March - April he commanded a united detachment of the Novozybkovsky district, which, as part of the 1st revolutionary army, participated in battles with German invaders.
In September 1918, in the Unecha region, he formed the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Regiment named after P.I. Bohun. In October - November, he commanded the Bogunsky regiment in battles with German interventionists and hetmans, from November 1918 - the 2nd brigade of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet division (Bogunsky and Tarashchansky regiments), which captured Chernigov, Kyiv and Fastov, repelling them from the troops of the Ukrainian directory .
On February 5, 1919, he was appointed commandant of Kyiv and, by decision of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine, was awarded an honorary weapon.
From March 6 to August 15, 1919, Shchors commanded the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Division, which, during a swift offensive, recaptured Zhytomyr, Vinnitsa, Zhmerynka from the Petliurists, defeated the main forces of the Petliurists in the Sarny - Rovno - Brody - Proskurov region, and then in the summer of 1919 defended in the region of Sarny - Novograd-Volynsky - Shepetovka from the troops of the Polish Republic and the Petliurists, but was forced to retreat to the east under pressure from superior forces.
From August 21, 1919 - commander of the 44th Infantry Division (the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Division joined it), which stubbornly defended the Korosten railway junction, which ensured the evacuation of Kyiv (August 31, captured by Denikin's troops) and the exit from the encirclement of the Southern Group of the 12th army.
On August 30, 1919, while in the advanced chains of the Bogunsky regiment, in a battle against the 7th brigade of the II Corps of the UGA near the village of Beloshitsa (now the village of Shchorsovka, Korostensky district, Zhytomyr region, Ukraine), Shchors was killed under unclear circumstances. He was shot in the back of the head at close range, presumably from 5-10 paces.
Shchors' body was transported to Samara, where he was buried at the Orthodox All-Saints Cemetery (now the territory of the Samara Cable Company). According to one version, he was taken to Samara, as the parents of his wife Fruma Efimovna lived there.
In 1949, the remains of Shchors were exhumed in Kuibyshev. On July 10, 1949, in a solemn ceremony, the ashes of Shchors were reburied on the main alley of the Kuibyshev city cemetery. In 1954, when the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Russia and Ukraine was celebrated, a granite obelisk was erected on the grave. Architect - Alexey Morgun, sculptor - Alexey Frolov.
Doom studies
The official version that Shchors died in battle from a bullet of a Petlyura machine gunner began to be criticized with the onset of the “thaw” of the 1960s.
Initially, the investigators charged only the commander of the Kharkov Military District, Ivan Dubovyi, who during the Civil War was Nikolai Shchors's deputy in the 44th division, was charged with killing the commander. The 1935 collection “Legendary Commander” contains the testimony of Ivan Dubovoy: “The enemy opened heavy machine-gun fire and, I especially remember, showed “dashing” one machine gun at the railway booth ... Shchors took binoculars and began to look where the machine-gun fire came from. But a moment passed, and the binoculars from the hands of Shchors fell to the ground, Shchors' head too ... ". The head of the mortally wounded Shchors was bandaged by Oak. Shchors died in his arms. “The bullet entered from the front,” writes Dubovoy, “and exited from behind,” although he could not help but know that the entrance bullet hole was smaller than the exit one. When the nurse of the Bogunsky regiment, Anna Rosenblum, wanted to change the first, very hasty bandage on the head of the already dead Shchors to a more accurate one, Dubovoy did not allow it. By order of Oak, Shchors' body was sent without a medical examination to be prepared for burial. Witness to the death of Shchors was not only Oak. Nearby were the commander of the Bogunsky regiment, Kazimir Kvyatyk, and the authorized representative of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army, Pavel Tankhil-Tankhilevich, sent with an inspection by a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army, Semyon Aralov, a protege of Trotsky.
The likely perpetrator of the murder of the red commander is Pavel Samuilovich Tankhil-Tankhilevich. He was twenty-six years old, he was born in Odessa, graduated from high school, spoke French and German. In the summer of 1919 he became a political inspector of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army. Two months after the death of Shchors, he left Ukraine and arrived on the Southern Front as a senior censor-controller of the Military Censorship Department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 10th Army.
The exhumation of the body, carried out in 1949 in Kuibyshev during the reburial, confirmed that he was killed at close range by a shot in the back of the head. Near Rovno, Shchorsovite Timofey Chernyak, the commander of the Novgorod-Seversky regiment, was later killed. Then Vasily Bozhenko, the brigade commander, died. He was poisoned in Zhytomyr (according to the official version, he died in Zhytomyr from pneumonia). Both were the closest associates of Nikolai Shchors.
Memory
- A monument was erected on the grave of Shchors in Samara.
- Equestrian monument in Kyiv, erected in 1954.
- In the USSR, the publishing house "IZOGIZ" issued a postcard with the image of N. Shchors.
- In 1944, a USSR postage stamp dedicated to Shchors was issued.
- The village of Shchorsovka, Korostensky district, Zhytomyr region bears his name.
- The urban-type settlement of Shchorsk in the Krinichansky district of the Dnepropetrovsk region is named after him.
- Streets in the following cities are named after him: Chernigov, Balakovo, Bykhov, Nakhodka, Novaya Kakhovka, Korosten, Moscow, Dnepropetrovsk, Baku, Yalta, Grodno, Dudinka, Kirov, Krasnoyarsk, Donetsk, Vinnitsa, Odessa, Orsk, Brest, Podolsk, Voronezh, Krasnodar, Novorossiysk, Tuapse, Belgorod, Minsk, Bryansk, Kalach-on-Don, Konotop, Izhevsk, Irpen, Tomsk, Zhitomir, Ufa, Yekaterinburg, Smolensk, Tver, Yeysk, Bogorodsk, Tyumen, Buzuluk, Saratov, Lugansk, Ryazan Belaya Church, children's park in Samara (founded on the site of the former All Saints cemetery), Shchors Park in Lugansk.
- Until 1935, the name of Shchors was not widely known, even the TSB did not mention him. In February 1935, while presenting the Order of Lenin to Alexander Dovzhenko, Stalin suggested that the artist create a film about the "Ukrainian Chapaev", which was done. Later, several books, songs, even an opera were written about Shchors, schools, streets, villages and even a city were named after him. In 1936, Matvey Blanter (music) and Mikhail Golodny (lyrics) wrote "Song of Shchors":
- When the body of Nikolai Shchors was exhumed in Kuibyshev in 1949, it was found well-preserved, practically incorrupt, although it had lain in a coffin for 30 years. This is explained by the fact that when Shchors was buried in 1919, his body was previously embalmed, soaked in a steep solution of table salt and placed in a sealed zinc coffin.
Russian empire
Ukrainian SSR
served as chief
Nikolai Shchors on a postcard from IZOGIZ, USSR
Nikolai Alexandrovich Shchors(May 25 (June 6) - August 30) - second lieutenant, red commander, division commander during the Civil War in Russia. Member of the Communist Party since 1918, before that he was close to the Left SRs.
Biography
Youth
Born and raised in the village of Korzhovka, Velikoschimelsky volost, Gorodnyansky district, Chernihiv province (from - the city of Snovsk, now the regional center of Shchors, Chernihiv region of Ukraine). Born into the family of a wealthy peasant landowner (according to another version - from the family of a railway worker).
Civil War
In September 1918, in the Unecha region, he formed the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Regiment named after P.I. Bohun. In October - November, he commanded the Bogunsky regiment in battles with the German interventionists and hetmans, from November 1918 - the 2nd brigade of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet division (Bogunsky and Tarashchansky regiments), which captured Chernigov, Kyiv and Fastov, repelling them from the troops of the Ukrainian directory .
On August 15, 1919, the 1st Ukrainian Soviet division under the command of N. A. Shchors was merged with the 44th border division under the command of I. N. Dubovoy, becoming the 44th rifle division. On August 21, Shchors became her head, and Dubova became the deputy head of the division. The division consisted of four brigades.
The division, which stubbornly defended the Korosten railway junction, which ensured the evacuation of Kyiv (on August 31, the city was taken by the Volunteer Army of General Denikin) and the exit from the encirclement of the Southern Group of the 12th Army.
Doom studies
The official version that Shchors died in battle from a bullet of a Petlyura machine gunner began to be criticized with the onset of the “thaw” of the 1960s.
Initially, the researchers charged the murder of the commander only with the commander of the Kharkov military district, Ivan Dubovoi, who during the Civil War was Nikolai Shchors's deputy in the 44th division. The 1935 collection “Legendary Commander” contains the testimony of Ivan Dubovoy: “The enemy opened heavy machine-gun fire and, I especially remember, showed “dashing” one machine gun at the railway booth ... Shchors took binoculars and began to look where the machine-gun fire came from. But a moment passed, and the binoculars from the hands of Shchors fell to the ground, Shchors' head too ... ". The head of the mortally wounded Shchors was bandaged by Oak. Shchors died in his arms. “The bullet entered from the front,” writes Dubovoy, “and exited from behind,” although he could not help but know that the entrance bullet hole was smaller than the exit one. When the nurse of the Bogunsky regiment, Anna Rosenblum, wanted to change the first, very hasty bandage on the head of the already dead Shchors to a more accurate one, Dubovoy did not allow it. By order of Oak, Shchors' body was sent without a medical examination to be prepared for burial. Witness to the death of Shchors was not only Oak. Nearby were the commander of the Bogunsky regiment, Kazimir Kvyatyk, and the authorized representative of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army, Pavel Tankhil-Tankhilevich, sent with an inspection by a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army, Semyon Aralov, a protege of Trotsky. He was twenty-six years old, he was born in Odessa, graduated from high school, spoke French and German. In the summer of 1919 he became a political inspector of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army. Two months after the death of Shchors, he left Ukraine and arrived on the Southern Front as a senior censor-controller of the Military Censorship Department of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 10th Army.
The exhumation of the body, carried out in 1949 in Kuibyshev during the reburial, confirmed that he was killed at close range by a shot in the back of the head. Near Rovno, Shchorsovite Timofey Chernyak, the commander of the Novgorod-Seversky regiment, was later killed. Then Vasily Bozhenko, the brigade commander, died. He was poisoned
Shchors Nikolai Alexandrovich in Bryansk region
N. A. Shchors, as a remarkable organizer and commander of the first detachments of the Red Army, began his activity on the territory of the Novozybkovsky, Klintsovsky, Unechsky regions, which in 1918 were part of Ukraine.
When the "Austro-German troops, which included 41 corps, began to attack Novozybkov from Gomel, dozens of Red Guard and partisan detachments of workers and peasants led by the communists rose to meet them: One of such detachments led by N. A. Shchors arrived in the village of Semenovka, Iovozybkovsky district.Having united with the Semenovsky partisan detachment, Shchors made an attempt to detain the Germans in Zlynka.
After a heavy battle, under the command of Shchors, a small group of fighters shriveled. But that didn't stop him. Having replenished the detachment with new volunteers in Novozybkovo with the help of the city party organization, Shchors continued the fight against the aeyevYiyi. okkup "amtami. Holding back their offensive, he fought back from Novo-zybkov to Klintsy and further to Unecha - to the border of Soviet Russia,
After the very first battles with the Germans, Shchors realized that it was impossible to fight the enemy’s regular troops armed to the teeth, “having small scattered small partisan detachments. He begins to create regular units of the Red Army from partisan detachments.
In September 1918, in Unecha, he organized the First Ukrainian Soviet Insurgent Regiment named after Bohun (Bogun Regiment) from partisan masses. Shchors prepared the regiment for an offensive to support the popular uprising that had intensified in Ukraine. At the same time, he established contact with the partisan detachments operating in the forests of the Chernihiv region. Through Shchors there was help from Soviet Russia to the struggling Ukraine.
Not far from the location of the Bogunsky regiment, several more rebel regiments were formed from partisan detachments at the same time. In the village of Seredina-Buda, the Kyiv carpenter Vasily Bozhenko formed the Tara-Shansky regiment. And in the forests east of Novgorod-Seversk, the Novgorod-Seversky regiment was formed. All these regiments later merged into the First Ukrainian Insurgent Division.
The revolution in Germany somewhat changed the situation. In Unecha, at the headquarters of the Bogunsky regiment, a delegation of soldiers from the German garrison from the village of Lyschich and, bypassing her command, began negotiations on the evacuation of her units. A rally was organized at the Unecha station, which was attended by delegates, local communists, fighters of the Bogunsky regiment and other military units. Shchors sent a telegram to Moscow addressed to V. I. Lenin, in which he reported that a delegation with music, banners, with the Bogunsky regiment in full combat strength went on the morning of November 13, to a demonstration beyond the demarcation line with. Lyschichy and in Kustichi Vryanovy, from where representatives from the German units arrived.
No longer relying on their soldiers, the German command began to hastily replace them with Russian White Guards and Ukrainian nationalists. Petlyura, the strangler of freedom, swam out again to Siena. This created a great danger for the revolution. A quick offensive against the enemies of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples was necessary.
At this time, a powerful popular uprising began in Ukraine. On November 11, the Council of People's Commissars, chaired by V. j. Lenin gave the command of the Red Army a directive: within ten days to begin (an offensive to support the insurgent workers and peasants in Ukraine. On November 1, on the initiative of V.I. Lenin, the Ukrainian Revolutionary Military Council was created under the chairmanship of I.V. order to attack Kiev. By this time, in the neutral zone, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was formed from separate units and partisan detachments, consisting of two divisions. Fulfilling the instructions of Lenin and Stalin, despite the opposition of the Trotskyist traitors, this army quickly went on the offensive. The First Ukrainian the division from the Unechi region advanced on Kiev, led by the Bogunsky regiment of Shchors, led by the Tarashchansky regiment of Bozhenko, who was subordinate to Shchors as a brigade commander.
How. As soon as Shchors went on the offensive, volunteers again reached out to him from all sides. Almost every village fielded a platoon or company of rebels who had been waiting for Shchors for a long time. Shchors reported: “The population everywhere welcomes joyfully. Great influx of volunteers vouched for by the Councils and Committees of the Poor.”
As far as Klintsy, where the 106th German regiment was concentrated for evacuation, the Bogunians passed without a fight. In Klintsy, a trap was being prepared for Shchors. The German command openly announced the evacuation of troops, and armed the urban bourgeoisie and the Haidamaks. Shchors moved the regiment into the city, counting on the neutrality of the Germans, but when the first and third battalions of the Bogunians set foot in Klintsy, the Germans, calmly letting them through, suddenly hit in the rear. Shchors quickly turned his battalions against the Germans and cleared his way back with a swift blow. Bogunsky regiment - withdrew to their original positions. The cunning of the German command forced Shchors to change tactics. He ordered the first battalion of the Tarashansky regiment, which had already occupied Ogarodub, to immediately turn to the Svyatets junction and, having gone to the rear of the Germans, to cross the Klintsy-Novozybkov railway. Maneuver
Shchorsa - turned out to be successful - Now the Germans were trapped. The Klintsrva garrison of the invaders was surrounded. The German soldiers refused to obey their officers and laid down their arms. Thus ended the attempt by the invaders to delay the advance of Shchors. German-; the command was forced to negotiate about. evacuation. The meeting took place in the village of Turosna, the Germans undertook to clear Klintsy on December 11 and, on the way, to leave the bridges, telephone and telegraph in complete safety. A hasty evacuation began in Klintsy. tion. The Germans, selling weapons, left Ukraine, the Gaidamaks, having lost the support of the occupiers, fled the city. Shchors telegraphed to the division headquarters: “Klintsy is occupied by revolutionary troops at 10 o’clock in the morning. The workers met the troops with banners, bread and salt, with shouts of "Hurrah".
From Klintsy, the Germans retreated along the railway to Novozybkov - Gomel. Every day the retreat of the invaders became more hasty and disorderly. - the western part of the territory of the Bryansk Territory The threat to Bryansk has passed.
In Unecha, Novozybkov, Zlynka, the buildings where the headquarters of the units of the Bogunsky regiment were located have been preserved to this day; and in Klintsy a house was preserved, where there was a coffin with the body of the legendary commander N. A. Shchors, who was killed near Korosten. There is a memorial plaque on the house. In Klintsy and Novozybkov, the working people erected monuments to N. A. Shchors.
The name of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Shchors, a hero of the Civil War, a talented commander of the Red Army, is dear and close to the workers of our region. In the Bryansk region, he began his activities as an organizer and commander of the first detachments of the Red Army.
N. A. Shchors was born in the village of Snovsk (now the city of Shchors) in the Chernigov province in the family of a railway engineer. He received his primary education at the Snovskaya railway school. In 1910 he entered the military paramedic school in Kyiv. The end of school coincided with the beginning of the First World War. Shchors serves as a military paramedic, and after graduating from the ensign school in 1915, as a junior officer on the Austrian front. In the autumn of 1917, after being discharged from the hospital, Shchors arrived in his native Snovsk, where he contacted an underground Bolshevik organization, and in March 1918, Shchors went to the village of Semyonovna to form an insurgent Red Guard detachment.
In February 1918, the governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary began the occupation of Ukraine. German troops occupied the western districts of our region. Of great importance in organizing a rebuff to the German invaders was the arrival of N. A. Shchors with a detachment to the Bryansk region.
In September 1918, N. A. Shchors, on behalf of the Central Ukrainian Military Revolutionary Committee, formed the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Regiment named after Bohun, a brave associate of B. Khmelnitsky, from separate rebel detachments in the Unecha region. Party organizations of the Bryansk region actively participated in the formation of the regiment. The workers of Starodub, Klintsov, Novozybkov, and Klimov went to N. Shchors. In October, the Bogunsky regiment already numbered over one and a half thousand bayonets.
In November 1918, a revolution broke out in Germany. The Bogunians fraternize with the soldiers of the German garrisons in the border zone near the village. Lyshchichi and send a telegram to V. I. Lenin. A response telegram from the leader arrives in Unecha: "Thank you for the greeting... I am especially touched by the greeting of the revolutionary soldiers of Germany." Further indicating what measures should be taken for the immediate liberation of Ukraine, V. I. Lenin writes: “Time does not endure, not an hour can be lost ...”
At the end of November 1918, the Bogunsky and Tarashchansky regiments went on the offensive. On December 13, the Bogunians liberated the city of Klintsy, on the 25th Novozybkov, having occupied Zlynka, began an attack on Chernigov. On February 5, 1919, the Bogunsky regiment entered Kyiv. Here the regiment was awarded an honorary revolutionary banner, and commander Shchors was awarded an honorary golden weapon "For skillful leadership and maintenance of revolutionary discipline."
In early March, by order of the Revolutionary Military Council, N.A. Shchors was appointed commander of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Division, which successfully operated against the Petliurites and Belottolyaks near Zhitomir and Vinnitsa, Berdichev and Shepetovka, Rivne and Dubpo, Proskurov and Korosten.
By the summer of 1919, Denikin became the main opponent for the Soviet Republic, but the Shchors division remained in the West, where, in accordance with the plan of the Entente, the Petliurists began to attack. I. N. Dubova, former deputy commander of the Shchors division, writes about this difficult time: “It was near Korosten. Then it was the only Soviet foothold in Ukraine, where the Red Banner victoriously fluttered. We were surrounded by enemies. On the one hand, the Galician, Petliura troops, on the other, Denikin’s troops, and on the third, the White Poles squeezed tighter and tighter the ring around the division, which by this time had received the numbering of the 44th. In these difficult conditions, both on the offensive and on the defensive, Shchors showed himself to be a master of a wide, bold maneuver. He successfully combined the combat operations of regular troops with the actions of partisan detachments.
August 30 in the battle near Korosten II. A. Shchors was killed Nachdiv was 24 years old. The Bolsheviks of the division decided to take the body of Shchors to the rear, to Samara (now the city of Kuibyshev), where he was buried. Nikolai Alexandrovich Shchors enjoyed great prestige among the troops and among the population. Having joined the ranks of the Bolshevik Party in 1918, he wholeheartedly served the party and the revolution until the end of his life.
The death of N. A. Shchors echoed with deep sorrow in the hearts of the working people of the Bryansk region. The inhabitants of Klintsy wished to say goodbye to the ashes of their beloved hero-commander. The coffin with the body of Nikolai Alexandrovich was brought to Klintsy and installed in the house of the county party committee.
People's memory carefully preserves the image of a talented commander. In the cities of Shchors, Kyiv, Korosten, Zhitomir, Klintsy, Unecha, monuments were erected on the grave in Kuibyshev. In places associated with the stay of N. Shchors in the Bryansk region, memorial plaques were installed.
May 25, 1895 - August 30, 1919
red commander, commander of the Civil War in Russia
Biography
Youth
Born and raised in the village of Korzhovka, Velikoschimelsky volost, Gorodnyansky district, Chernihiv province (since 1924 - Snovsk, now the regional center of Shchors, Chernihiv region of Ukraine). Born into the family of a wealthy peasant landowner (according to another version - from the family of a railway worker).
In 1914 he graduated from the military paramedic school in Kyiv. At the end of the year, the Russian Empire entered the First World War. Nikolai went to the front first as a military paramedic.
In 1916, the 21-year-old Shchors was sent to a four-month accelerated course at the Vilna Military School, which by that time had been evacuated to Poltava. Then a junior officer on the Southwestern Front. As part of the 335th Anapa Infantry Regiment of the 84th Infantry Division of the Southwestern Front, Shchors spent almost three years. During the war, Nikolai fell ill with tuberculosis, and on December 30, 1917 (after the October Revolution of 1917), Lieutenant Shchors was released from military service due to illness and left for his native farm.
Civil War
In February 1918, in Korzhovka, Shchors created a Red Guard partisan detachment, in March - April he commanded a united detachment of the Novozybkovsky district, which, as part of the 1st revolutionary army, participated in battles with German invaders.
In September 1918, in the Unecha region, he formed the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Regiment named after P.I. Bohun. In October - November, he commanded the Bogunsky regiment in battles with the German interventionists and hetmans, from November 1918 - the 2nd brigade of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet division (Bogunsky and Tarashchansky regiments), which captured Chernigov, Kyiv and Fastov, repelling them from the troops of the Ukrainian directory .
On February 5, 1919, he was appointed commandant of Kyiv and, by decision of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine, was awarded an honorary weapon.
From March 6 to August 15, 1919, Shchors commanded the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Division, which, during a swift offensive, recaptured Zhytomyr, Vinnitsa, Zhmerinka from the Petliurists, defeated the main forces of the Petliurists in the area of Sarny - Rovno - Brody - Proskurov, and then in the summer of 1919 defended in the region of Sarny - Novograd-Volynsky - Shepetovka from the troops of the Polish Republic and the Petliurists, but was forced to retreat to the east under pressure from superior forces.
From August 21, 1919 - commander of the 44th Infantry Division (the 1st Ukrainian Soviet Division joined it), which stubbornly defended the Korosten railway junction, which ensured the evacuation of Kyiv (August 31, captured by Denikin's troops) and the exit from the encirclement of the Southern Group of the 12th army.
On August 30, 1919, while in the advanced chains of the Bogunsky regiment, in a battle against the 7th brigade of the II Corps of the UGA near the village of Beloshitsa (now the village of Shchorsovka, Korostensky district, Zhytomyr region, Ukraine), Shchors was killed under unclear circumstances. He was shot in the back of the head at close range, presumably from 5-10 paces.
"There was a detachment along the shore,
Went from afar
Went under the red flag
Regiment Commander"
These lines must have been heard more than once even by those who grew up in post-Soviet times. But not everyone knows that they were taken from the Song of Shchors.
Nikolai Shchors in the Soviet period of history, he was included in the list of heroes of the revolution, whose exploits children learned about in elementary school, if not in kindergarten. Comrade Shchors was one of those who gave their lives in the struggle for the happiness of the working people. That is why he, like other fallen revolutionaries, was not affected by the subsequent stages of the political struggle against the exclusion from history of yesterday's comrades-in-arms, declared "enemies of the people."
Nikolai Alexandrovich Shchors (1895-1919), red commander, commander of the Civil War in Russia. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
Nikolai Alexandrovich Shchors was born on June 6, 1895 in the Chernihiv region, in the village of Snovsk, Velikoshchimelsky volost, Gorodnyansky district, according to some sources, in the family of a wealthy peasant, according to others, a railway worker.
The future revolutionary hero did not think about class battles in his youth. Kolya Shchors could well have made a spiritual career - after graduating from a parochial school, he studied at the Chernigov Theological School, and then at the Kyiv Seminary.
Shchors' life changed with the outbreak of the First World War. A failed priest graduates from a military paramedic school and is appointed to the post of military paramedic of an artillery regiment as a volunteer. In 1914-1915 he took part in the fighting on the North-Western Front.
Sub-lieutenant with tuberculosis
In October 1915, his status changed - 20-year-old Shchors was assigned to active military service and transferred as a private to a reserve battalion. In January 1916, he was sent to a four-month accelerated course at the Vilna Military School, evacuated to Poltava.
By that time, the Russian army had a serious problem with officer cadres, so everyone who, from the point of view of command, had abilities, was sent for training.
After graduating from school with the rank of warrant officer, Nikolai Shchors served as a junior company officer in the 335th Anapa Infantry Regiment of the 84th Infantry Division, which operated on the Southwestern and Romanian fronts. In April 1917, Shchors was awarded the rank of second lieutenant.
The commanders who sent the young soldier for training were not mistaken: he really had the makings of a commander. He knew how to win over his subordinates, to become an authority for them.
Lieutenant Shchors, however, in addition to officer epaulettes, earned himself tuberculosis in the war, for the treatment of which he was sent to a military hospital in Simferopol.
It was there that the hitherto apolitical Nicholas joined the revolutionary movement, falling under the influence of agitators.
Shchors' military career could have ended in December 1917, when the Bolsheviks, who had embarked on a course to exit the war, began to demobilize the army. Nikolai Shchors also went home.
Reproduction of the plate "Song of Shchors". The work of Palekh masters. Palekh village. Photo: RIA Novosti / Khomenko
Field commander
The peaceful life of Shchors did not last long - in March 1918, Chernihiv region was occupied by German troops. Shchors was among those who decided to fight the invaders with weapons in their hands.
In the very first skirmishes, Shchors shows courage, determination and becomes the leader of the rebels, and a little later the commander of a united partisan detachment created from disparate groups.
Within two months, the Shchors detachment caused a lot of headaches for the German army, but the forces were too unequal. In May 1918, the partisans retreat to the territory of Soviet Russia, where they cease military activities.
Shchors makes another attempt to integrate into civilian life by applying for admission to the medical faculty of Moscow University. However, the Civil War is gaining momentum, and Shchors accepts the offer of one of his comrades in the partisan detachment Kazimierz Kwiatek re-enter the armed struggle for the liberation of Ukraine.
In July 1918, the All-Ukrainian Central Military Revolutionary Committee (VTsVRK) was formed in Kursk, which plans to carry out a large-scale Bolshevik armed uprising in Ukraine. The VTsRVK needs commanders with experience in fighting in Ukraine, and Shchors comes in handy.
Shchors is given the task of forming a regiment from among the local residents in the neutral zone between the German troops and the territory of Soviet Russia, which should become part of the 1st Ukrainian Insurgent Division.
Shchors copes with the task brilliantly and becomes the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet regiment named after the appointed hetman assembled by him Ivan Bohun, which was listed in the documents as "Ukrainian revolutionary regiment named after Comrade Bohun."
The rebuke of "Ataman" Shchors to "Pan-Hetman" Petliura, 1919. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
The commandant of Kyiv and the thunderstorm of the Petliurists
The Shchors Regiment very quickly turns out to be one of the most effective combat units among the rebel formations. Already in October 1918, the merits of Shchors were marked by the appointment of the commander of the 2nd brigade as part of the Bogunsky and Tarashchansky regiments of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet division.
The brigade commander Shchors, with whom the fighters literally fall in love, conducts successful operations to take Chernigov, Kyiv and Fastov.
On February 5, 1919, the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government of Ukraine appoints Mykola Shchors as the commandant of Kyiv and awards him with an honorary golden weapon.
And the hero, whom the fighters respectfully call "dad", is only 23 years old ...
The Civil War has its own laws. Military leaders who achieve success often become people who do not have sufficient military education, very young people who carry people along not so much with their skills as with pressure, determination and energy. This is exactly what Nikolai Shchors was.
In March 1919, Shchors became the commander of the 1st Ukrainian Soviet division and turned into a real nightmare for the enemy. The Shchors division is conducting a decisive offensive against the Petliurists, defeating their main forces and occupying Zhytomyr, Vinnitsa and Zhmerinka. The Ukrainian nationalists are saved from a complete catastrophe by the intervention of Poland, whose troops support the Petliurists. Shchors is forced to retreat, but his retreat does not even closely resemble the flight of other Bolshevik units.
In the summer of 1919, the Ukrainian insurgent Soviet units were included in the united Red Army. The 1st Ukrainian Soviet Division merges into the 44th Rifle Division of the Red Army, headed by Nikolai Shchors.
In this position, Shchors would have been approved on August 21 and stayed in it for only nine days. On August 30, 1919, the division commander died in battle with the 7th brigade of the 2nd corps of the Petliura Galician army near the village of Beloshitsa.
Shchors was buried in Samara, where his wife's parents lived Frum Rostova. The daughter of Shchors Valentina was born after the death of her father.
Monument at the grave of Shchors in Samara, erected in 1954. Photo: commons.wikimedia.org
PR Comrade Stalin
Oddly enough, in the 1920s, the name of Nikolai Shchors was not very familiar to anyone. The rise of its popularity occurred in the 1930s, when the authorities of the Soviet Union seriously set about creating a heroic epic about the revolution and the Civil War, on which new generations of Soviet citizens were to be brought up.
In 1935 Joseph Stalin, presenting the Order of Lenin film director Alexander Dovzhenko, noted that it would be nice to create a heroic film about the "Ukrainian Chapaev" Nikolai Shchors.
Such a film was indeed made, it was released in 1939. But even before its release, books about Shchors appeared, songs, the most famous of which was written in 1936 Matvey Blanter and Mikhail Golodny“Song of Shchors” - lines from it are given at the beginning of this material.
The name of Shchors began to be called streets, squares, towns and cities, monuments to him appeared in various cities of the USSR. In 1954, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine and Russia, a monument to the hero of the two peoples was erected in Kyiv.
The image of Shchors successfully survived all the winds of change, right up to the collapse of the USSR, when everyone who fought on the side of the Reds was subjected to defamation.
Shchors has a particularly hard time after Euromaidan: firstly, he is a red commander, and everything connected with the Bolsheviks is now anathematized in Ukraine; secondly, he famously smashed the Petliura formations, declared by the current Kyiv regime "hero-patriots", which, of course, they cannot forgive him.
Shot in the back of the head
In the history of Nikolai Shchors there is one mystery that has not been solved so far - how exactly did the “Ukrainian Chapaev” die?
Reproduction of the painting "Death of the Commander" (part of the triptych "Shchors"). Artist Pavel Sokolov-Skalya. Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Photo: RIA Novosti
The classic version says: Shchors was killed by a bullet from a Petlyura machine gunner. However, among people close to Shchors, there was persistent talk that he died at the hands of his own.
In 1949, in the year of the 30th anniversary of the death of Shchors, in Kuibyshev (as Samara was called during this period), the exhumation of the remains of the hero and his solemn reburial at the central cemetery of the city took place.
The results of the examination of the remains, conducted in 1949, were classified. The reason was that the examination showed that Shchors was shot in the back of the head.
In the 1960s, when these data became known, the version about the elimination of Shchors by his comrades-in-arms became very common.
True, it will not be possible to habitually blame Comrade Stalin for this, and the point is not only that it was the “leader and teacher” who launched the campaign to glorify Shchors. It’s just that in 1919, Joseph Vissarionovich solved completely different tasks and did not have the influence necessary for such actions. And in principle, Shchors could not interfere with Stalin in any way.
Shchors "ordered" by Trotsky?
Another thing Lev Davidovich Trotsky. At that time, the second man in Soviet Russia after Lenin, Trotsky was busy forming a regular Red Army, in which iron discipline was imposed. Uncontrollable and too obstinate commanders were disposed of without any sentimentality.
The charismatic Shchors belonged precisely to the category of commanders whom Trotsky did not like. The subordinates of Shchors were first of all devoted to the commander, and only then to the cause of the revolution.
Among those who could carry out the order to eliminate Shchors, they named the name of his deputy Ivan Oak, as well as the authorized Revolutionary Military Council of the 12th Army Pavel Tankhil-Tankhilevich, subordinate GRU founding father Semyon Aralov.
According to this version, during the shootout with the Petliurists, one of them shot Shchors in the back of the head, then passing it off as enemy fire.
Most of the arguments are against Ivan Oak, who personally bandaged the mortal wound of Shchors and did not allow the regimental paramedic to examine it. It was Dubovoi who became the new division commander after the death of Shchors.
In the 1930s, Dubova managed to write a book of memoirs about Shchors. But in 1937, Dubova, who had risen to the position of commander of the Kharkov military district, was arrested, accused of a Trotskyist conspiracy and shot. For this reason, he could not object to the accusations made in the 1960s.
If we proceed from the version that Shchors was shot to get rid of the "non-systemic" commander, it turns out that Trotsky was very unhappy with him. But the facts say otherwise.
Shortly before the death of its commander, the Shchors division stubbornly defended the Korosten railway junction, which made it possible to organize a planned evacuation of Kyiv before the army attacked Denikin. Thanks to the resilience of the Shchors fighters, the retreat of the Red Army did not turn into a full-scale disaster for it. As already mentioned, nine days before his death, Trotsky approved Shchors as commander of the 44th division. It is unlikely that this will be done in relation to a person whom they are going to get rid of in the very near future.
Reproduction of the painting "N. A. Shchors at V. I. Lenin. 1938 Author Nikita Romanovich Popenko. Kyiv branch of the Central Museum of V. I. Lenin. Photo: RIA Novosti / Pavel Balabanov
fatal ricochet
But what if the murder of Shchors was not an “initiative from above”, but a personal plan of the ambitious deputy Dubovoy? This is also hard to believe. Such a plan would surface, and Dubovoi would not have taken his head off - either from the fighters of Shchors, who adored the commander, or from the wrath of Trotsky, who extremely disliked such actions carried out without his own approval.
There remains one more option, quite plausible, but not popular with conspiracy theorists - division commander Shchors could become a victim of a bullet ricochet. At the place where it all happened, according to eyewitnesses, there were enough stones that could cause the bullet to bounce off them and hit the back of the head of the red commander. Moreover, the ricochet could be caused both by a shot from the Petliurists, or by a shot from one of the Red Army soldiers.
In this situation, there is an explanation for the fact that Oak himself bandaged Shchors' wound, not letting anyone in to her. Seeing that the bullet hit the back of the head, the deputy division commander was simply frightened. Ordinary fighters, having heard about a bullet in the back of the head, could easily deal with "traitors" - there were plenty of such cases during the Civil War. Therefore, Dubovoy hurried to transfer his anger towards the enemy, and quite successfully. Enraged by the death of the commander, the soldiers of Shchors attacked the positions of the Galicians, forcing them to retreat. At the same time, the Red Army did not take prisoners that day.
It is hardly possible today to establish for certain all the circumstances of the death of Nikolai Shchors, and it does not matter in principle. The red commander Shchors has long taken his place in the history of the Civil War in Ukraine, and the song about him has entered the folklore, regardless of how historians evaluate his personality.
A little less than a hundred years after the death of Nikolai Shchors, the Civil War blazes again in Ukraine, and the new Shchors are fighting to the death with the new Petliurites. But, as they say, that's a completely different story.
