Kozma hooks biography briefly the most important. Kozma Kryuchkov - the legendary hero of the First World War
- Cossack traditions We reveal the traditions of the Cossacks, what was and what was not!
- Taste of the villages We cook dishes of Cossack cuisine, try and share recipes!
- Cossack costume We tell and show how the Cossacks dressed, each costume has its own story!
- Love to sing! We talk about Cossack songs and sing them!
- Cossacks write... We read poems written by Cossacks before the revolution or in exile, while getting acquainted with authors who are no less interesting than their works.
- Regiment path We trace the glorious military path of the Cossack military units that left their mark on history!
- Battles with the Cossacks We reconstruct the battles that glorified the Cossack weapons. Move with us to the battlefield with the Cossacks!
- Cossack armory We tell with what in their hands and on what the Cossacks defended the fatherland.
(microhistory)
- Here are the Cossacks! We talk about the Cossacks, looking at the military exploits of which, we can definitely say: “These are the Cossacks!”
- Cossacks are not only warriors Cossacks are warriors, but not only! If necessary, they can head the Academy of Sciences, and make films, and discover new lands, but they can do anything ... In Soviet times, the Cossack origin of these famous personalities who won victories in the civilian field was often hushed up for obvious reasons ... And we will tell you about them in this section!
- The commander is good, the ataman is remote! We talk about the famous chieftains and commanders who led the Cossacks into battle to defend the fatherland and shared the laurels of victory with them, in a word, about those about whom, paraphrasing the words of a well-known Cossack song, we can say: “The commander is good, the ataman is daring!”
GOST:
The First World War, which began in 1914, was supposed to be a quick and victorious campaign from the point of view of all the participants in the war. The Russian Empire, hastily mobilizing forces, pulled out a lot of people from their usual way of life and a peaceful state, and sent them to the front. The first days of the war began under the general impulse of patriotism. People went into battle, driven by the idea of the Second Patriotic War against Western adversaries. It was during these first days that an event took place that was imprinted in the memory of the population, raised the morale of hundreds of thousands of people and played a significant role in the war.
The young Don Cossack Kuzma Kryuchkov, 24 years old, served at the beginning of the war in the 3rd Don Cossack regiment named after Yermak Timofeev, and was considered one of the most experienced fighters of the regiment. Kuzma demonstrated his experience and fighting spirit in the very first battle that took place at the end of July 1914.
an excerpt about the feat of Kuzma Kryuchkov in the documentary film World War I / World War I. 1 Series. /StarMedia. Babich Design. 2014.
The regiment where Kuzma Kryuchkov served was located in Poland, near the town of Kalwaria. One morning, four Cossacks, one of whom was Kryuchkov, went on patrol. Having traveled several versts, the Cossacks climbed a hill in order to inspect the surroundings and faced nose to nose with a German detachment of lancers numbering about thirty people. It should be noted that lancers are one of the types of light cavalry in European troops. Armed with pikes, sabers and pistols, they are a great danger to both infantry and enemy cavalry.
Portrait of the Don Cossack Kozma Kryuchkov
However, the meeting of the two detachments was unexpected for both sides. A firefight ensued, during which the German detachment began to retreat. Probably, the German officers thought that they had stumbled upon a whole regiment, but soon realizing that there were only four Cossacks, they decided to take them prisoner. The Germans surrounded the Cossacks, and those, realizing that they could not get out, began to fight in order to sell their lives at a higher price.
In the whirlwind of battle, Kuzma Kryuchkov found himself alone against eleven horsemen. Despite such inequality, Kuzma struck with his saber and snatched lance from side to side, and after a while all the attackers were defeated. Three other Cossacks were also able to deal with the Germans and even take two people prisoner.
The result of this bloody but heroic skirmish was 22 killed German lancers, two prisoners, and four wounded Cossacks. Upon returning to the regiment, Kuzma spent several days in the infirmary, where he was visited by the army commander Pavel Rennenkampf, who awarded the Cossack for valor and courage with the St. George Cross of the 4th degree, it was the first time during the First World War that this cross was awarded. Three of his comrades were awarded St. George medals.
News of the glorious feat of the young Cossack spread throughout Russia. In a short time, he became a symbol of military prowess and courage, almost the heir to the epic heroes. His portraits were printed on posters and leaflets, cigarette packs and postcards. Even Emperor Nicholas II was informed about the heroic Cossack.
However, the fallen fame rather burdened Kuzma, who grew up in an Old Believer family on the Nizhne-Kalmykov farm of the Ust-Khoperskaya village of the Don Cossack Army, and from childhood accustomed to the simple and hardworking life of a farmer. Therefore, sent to serve in the headquarters, the young hero of his own free will returned to his regiment, in which he reached the end of the war, receiving new wounds and awards, and wishing to finally live a peaceful life with his family, left by him since the beginning of the war. But the events that took place in the country did not give him such an opportunity. The country split into warring parties and Kuzma Kryuchkov, loyal to his army, sided with the White movement.
But the luck that accompanied the Cossack hero throughout the hardest war could not save him from the bullets of the Bolsheviks. At the end of August 1919, Kuzma Kryuchkov was mortally wounded in a battle near the village of Lopukhovka, Saratov province, and soon died. He was buried in the cemetery in his native farm.
GOST:
Shtaniy, R. I. Kuzma Kryuchkov - First Knight of St. George of the First World War [Electronic resource] / R. I. Shtaniy // Light of the villages. 2018. No. 7 (8). ISSN 2619-1539.. (date of access: 08.03.2020)
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Such a phrase as "national hero" during the First World War has not yet come into use in our country. But the brave Cossack Kozma Kryuchkov was precisely a national hero - his images adorned packs of cigarettes and boxes of sweets, posters dedicated to him were printed in millions of copies. He was a man - a symbol, a man - a legend.Kozma became a man - a legend in the very first days of the war - August 12, 1914. On this day, near the Polish city of Kalvaria, the 3rd Don Cossack Regiment named after Yermak Timofeev under the command of the clerk (the rank corresponds to the army corporal) Kozma Kryuchkov collided with the German lancers. The numerical superiority was on the side of the Germans - 27 horsemen against 4. Kryuchkov knew in advance about the enemy siding from the local peasants and sent one comrade to the rear with a report on the enemy, and he, together with the remaining three Cossacks of his siding, decided to take an unequal battle. Four against twenty-seven. The Cossacks had to fight with the lancers, and let us recall that the cavalry units in any army in the world of those years were elite units. And the lancers were the elite of the German army - the heroes of posters and magazine covers. And the reputation of the elite, the heroes of newspaper pages among the German lancers was largely deserved. It would seem that the only thing left for the Cossacks is to sell their lives at a higher price. But the outcome of the battle was completely different. Here is how Kryuchkov himself describes this fight:
At ten o'clock in the morning we headed from the city of Kalvaria to the Alexandrovo estate. There were four of us - me and my comrades: Ivan Shchegolkov, Vasily Astakhov and Mikhail Ivankov. We began to climb the hill and stumbled upon a German patrol of 27 people, including an officer and a non-commissioned officer. At first the Germans were frightened, but then they climbed on us. However, we met them steadfastly and put a few people to bed. Dodging the attack, we had to separate. Eleven people surrounded me. Not wanting to be alive, I decided to sell my life dearly. My horse is agile and obedient. I wanted to use the rifle, but in a hurry the cartridge jumped in, and at that time the German slashed me on the fingers of the hand, and I threw the rifle. Grabbed the sword and began to work. Received several minor wounds. I feel the blood flowing, but I realize that the wounds are not important. For every wound I answer with a mortal blow, from which the German lays down forever. Having laid down several people, I felt that it was difficult to work with a saber, and therefore I grabbed their own pike and put the rest one by one. At this time, my comrades coped with others. Twenty-four corpses lay on the ground, and several unwounded horses rushed about in fear. My comrades received light wounds, I also received sixteen wounds, but all of them were empty, so - injections in the back, in the neck, in the arms. My horse also received eleven wounds, but then I rode it back six miles. On August 1, General Rennenkampf, commander of the army, arrived in Belaya Olita, took off his St. George ribbon, pinned it on my chest and congratulated me on the first St. George cross.
Our brave Cossack Kryuchkov
catches enemies on the field.
A lot, a little, doesn’t he think
picks them up everywhere.
How to catch up not - pardons,
behind, front stuffing,
if possible, Christmas tree -
how many fit them at the peak.Tsarist propaganda worked quite quickly - the famous battle of Kozma Kryuchkov took place on August 12, and exactly a month later, on September 12, censorship allows this poster to be printed.
One Cossack in one battle laid down eleven experienced hardened opponents! The first St. George cross mentioned by Kryuchkov (award number 5501) was the first St. George awarded during the war. Three comrades of Kryuchkov, participants in the famous battle, also became holders of this order. But for the brave Cossack, this order was not the last - he became a full Knight of St. George. The statute of this highest order for the lower ranks, introduced back in 1807, implied four degrees of distinction (the degrees were introduced in 1856 and finally fixed in 1913). The full St. George Cavalier received an officer's rank, hereditary nobility, one hundred acres of land and 120 rubles of pension per year (at that time it was possible to live comfortably on this amount). Kryuchkov ended the war as a cadet (the lowest officer rank in the Cossack troops) and commander of a hundred. According to some reports, he was also awarded the golden St. George weapon.
Bogatyr's case of Kozma Kryuchkov
Glory did not go to his head. He was not only a picture from cigarette packs and posters on the walls, but also a completely living person. For example, he had a wife and two children. A well-deserved vacation, the attention of the press, photographers, high-ranking persons - all this, of course, is pleasant. But the war continues and there is no end in sight. From his native village and the capitals that welcomed the illustrious hero, Kryuchkov returns to his 3rd Don Cossack, where he regularly fights on the Romanian front. In addition to new awards, he also receives new injuries. At the end of 1916, when he was in a hospital in Rostov, his awards were stolen. This unfortunate incident was the cause of the latest burst of media attention to the hero of the first days of the war.
And then there was February 1917. Kryuchkov, who has just returned from the hospital, is elected head of the regimental committee. After the front finally collapsed, Kryuchkov's regiment returned to the Don to their native villages. But one could only dream of a peaceful life - a new war, the Civil War, began. The Cossacks were divided. Some of the Cossacks were attracted by the ideas of the Reds, someone remained faithful to the old Russia, and someone was captured by the idea of creating a great independent Cossack state on the banks of the Don.
Kryuchkov takes White's side. And, for example, his comrade, a participant in the famous battle near Kalvary, Mikhail Ivankov finds himself in the ranks of the Red Army. Later, he will tell the details of this battle to Mikhail Sholokhov. But in the interpretation of the famous writer, who was on the side of the Reds, the battle of Kryuchkov, who went over to the side of the Whites, will turn into an accidental skirmish in which there was nothing heroic:
“After this, they made a feat. Kryuchkov, a favorite of the commander of a hundred, received Georgy according to his report. His comrades remained in the shadows. influential ladies and gentlemen officers came to look at him. The ladies gasped, the ladies treated the Don Cossack with expensive cigarettes and sweets, and he first smacked them with a thousand obscenities, and then, under the beneficial influence of staff sycophants in officer epaulettes, made this a profitable profession: he talked about "feat", thickening the colors to blackness, he lied without a twinge of conscience, and the ladies admired, looked with admiration at the pockmarked robber face of the Cossack hero ...
And it happened like this: people collided on the field of death, who had not yet had time to break their hands in the destruction of their own kind, in the animal horror that declared them, they stumbled, collided, delivered blind blows, disfigured themselves and horses and fled, frightened by a shot that killed a man, dispersed, morally crippled . It was called a feat…”And Kozma Kryuchkov, having returned home, continues to serve - he serves in the Don Army - the army of the Great Don Army, the self-proclaimed Cossack Republic. In battles with the Reds, he receives the rank of cornet.
Posters with Kozma Kryuchkov
Kozma Kryuchkov died in August 1919, at the age of 29. How exactly he died, we will never know. Only one thing can be said with certainty - he died in battle. The legendary Cossack remained a legend even after his death - he simply could not die from a stray bullet. And, of course, the legends about his death could not help but appear. All legends are united by one detail - Kryuchkov fought in the rearguard, covering the withdrawal of his own. According to one of the legends, he died in a one-on-one knightly duel with the commander of the Red regiment. Another legend is spelled out in more detail - everything happened at the bridge over the Medvezhya River, near the village of Ostrovskaya. The Reds had already crossed the bridge, put up machine guns on the approaches and began to dig in. And then Kryuchkov rushed at fifty Red Army men and two machine guns with his saber unsheathed. He managed to chop down one machine gun crew (for greater drama in this version of the legend, the machine gunners were Chinese), but was mowed down by a burst of the second machine gun. His comrades arrived to help the mortally wounded commander, who carried him out from under fire. The bullets hit him in the stomach, and there was no way to send Kryuchkov to the rear. He was left to die in the village of Ostrovskaya. And he accepted death at the hands of ... Budyonny. The commander, according to legend, was drunk, yelled at the hero "Get up, white nit" and only shouting, hacked to death a mortally wounded Cossack. Of course, this legend cannot be true. She makes the protagonist not the smartest person, the Red Army soldiers also look like idiots who do not know how to handle weapons, and the hero’s comrades-in-arms, who left their commander to be torn to pieces by the enemy, also do not look the best. But be that as it may, this legend is popular today. You can't deny her a certain beauty.
In 1911, a young free Don Cossack Kozma was drafted into the army. He ended up in the 3rd Cossack regiment named after ataman, hero and conqueror of Siberia Yermak Timofeech. By the beginning of the war, Kryuchkov had repeatedly distinguished himself during training battles and received the rank of orderly, that is, he became a junior commander of a small detachment.
Kozma was a real hero of his time, an example for his contemporaries. However, many documentary evidence of his exploits were destroyed without a trace. Only a modest story of the most courageous Cossack and a few stories of the chroniclers of that time have come down to us.
The events took place in the summer of 1914, on the eve of the outbreak of hostilities on the Eastern Front. Germany was well prepared and actively attacked. The Germans felt very at ease and were already looking forward to a quick victory. But no one could have imagined at that moment that the Russian soldiers in general and the Don Cossacks in particular would be able to provide such powerful resistance, cracking down on the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.
One morning, Kryuchkov, with his small detachment, which included three more of his fighting buddies and comrades-in-arms, went on reconnaissance. They made their way on horseback through the territory near the location of the German troops, crossed the Prussian border and continued to move inland. Suddenly, the Don Cossacks came to the German siding. In the enemy camp at that moment there were 28 cavalrymen, including two officers.
The enemy immediately noticed the brave Cossacks. Kryuchkov and his comrades were well aware that the forces were not equal and they could not get out of the enemy's lair alive, but they began to shoot back, trying to lay down as many Germans as possible. Those suddenly, on the orders of one of the officers, began to retreat. They apparently decided that a whole regiment of Cossacks came out on them. However, the Germans soon changed tactics. They stopped and began to surround Kryuchkov and his comrades. Kozma first tried to shoot, but he was wounded. Then the dashing Cossack drew his saber and began to chop the Germans right and left.
By that time, he himself had already received quite a lot of injuries, but did not notice them. Following the checker, a peak went into action. The defeated enemy fell around the brave Cossack in piles. By the end of the battle, Kryuchkov had about 16 wounds on his body, and his horse suffered not much less. Combat comrades-in-arms who fought shoulder to shoulder with him also received numerous minor injuries. As a result, the enemy was defeated - corpses lay around. And the dashing Don Cossacks, who had already said goodbye to life, went home.
The First World War, declared at the very beginning in our country as the "Second Patriotic War" and causing a surge of patriotism, like all wars, gave rise to its heroes and its own mythology. However, in Soviet times, there was a de-heroization of the First World War. Many real facts of the heroism of Russian soldiers and officers were hushed up or declared myths. They were opposed to the heroism of the soldiers of the Red Army during the Civil War. In the post-Soviet period, interest in the events of the First World War grew. There is a restoration of the real picture of the combat life of the Russian army in 1914-1918, and therefore it is important to get rid of the mythology created during the First World War.
We will try to reconstruct from the original source one of the first feats of Russian soldiers at the beginning of the World War, which was massively “hyped” by the media of that time. We are talking about the feat of the Don Cossack Kozma Kryuchkov.
The Cossacks entered the war at the peak of their combat capability. The Don Army sent about 115,000 Cossacks to the front. During the war, 193 Don officers and more than 37,000 ordinary Cossacks were awarded the Order of St. George, St. George's arms, St. George's crosses and medals, the highest signs of military prowess and glory.
Participating in almost all the most important battles during the Great War, the Don Cossack units suffered insignificant losses: the good professional training of the Cossacks and their officers, who beat the enemy and did not set their heads in vain, affected. Killed in battle - 182 officers and 3444 Cossacks (3% of those called up), wounded and shell-shocked - 777 officers and 11,898 Cossacks, missing - 54 officers and 2453 Cossacks, obviously captured - 32 officers and 132 Cossacks. Yes, these are not millions of prisoners of 1941! Not a single branch of the Russian army knew such a low percentage of combat losses. The Don Cossack became the first Knight of St. George of the World War.
Kozma Firsovich Kryuchkov (1888-1919) Cossack of the Nizhne-Kalmykov farm of the Ust-Khopyor village, from the Old Believers, orderly of the 3rd Don Cossack Regiment.
His feat thundered throughout Russia. There were many descriptions of this event. But they were contained in propaganda pamphlets. In his book "Old Veshki", V.N. Korolev summarized all versions of the battle that glorified Kozma Kryuchkov and the Don Cossacks. It turned out something like the following. Before our offensive in East Prussia in July 1914, a Cossack post (4 Cossacks) attacked a German patrol of 27 horsemen and began to pursue him. The Germans retreated, engaging in skirmishes, then, choosing the moment, they attacked the Cossacks. The Cossacks met the Germans with fire, on foot, killed the officer, managed to mount their horses and accepted the attack, fighting off with sabers and rifles. Either scattering across the field, or huddling together, they killed all the Germans. Only five survived, two of them were wounded. Kryuchkov killed 11 people and, being wounded 16 times, received 11 more wounds “in the horse”. The army commander visited the wounded man, removed the St. George ribbon from his chest and pinned Kryuchkov.
Some saw it as a common propaganda trick. Already after the war, completely opposite information about the feat appeared in the press. Describing the beginning of the First World War, officer of the 27th Infantry Division K.M. The division was assigned fifty Don Cossacks and a hundred border guards. The Cossacks were sent by the commander of the 105th Orenburg Regiment to guard the border. From the German side, patrols of the 10th Cavalry Chasseur Regiment approached the border, but were driven away by the Cossacks. German losses - 1 killed, Cossack losses - 1 wounded. As a result, the first St. George Cavalier of War appeared.
Objective information could be expected from the author of the four-volume "History of the Cossacks" A. A. Gordeev. Andrey Andreevich Gordeev, a countryman and almost the same age as Kryuchkov (village of Ust-Khoperskaya, born in 1886), graduated from the Vilna Military School in 1914. He himself was a cavalier of the St. George weapons. On June 3, 1915, near the village of Bonov, he covered the retreat of the rearguard with fifty; the rearguard artillery and carts were bogged down in the sand, and at that time the German cavalry attacked from both flanks. Gordeev counterattacked with his fifty and edged weapons stopped the Germans, gave the rearguard the opportunity to get on a good road. Throughout the Civil War, Gordeev and Kryuchkov served in the same regiment named after Ataman Nazarov. But, describing some battles in detail and colors, Gordeev does not mention Kryuchkov at all in his four-volume book.
Another surge of attention to the feat of Kozma Kryuchkov coincided with the beginning of the revival of the Cossacks and the search for new ideals. There were no special works devoted to the feat itself, but it was constantly mentioned in studies on the participation of the Cossacks in the First World War. The first to appear were the works of G. L. Voskoboynikov and N. V. Ryzhkova.
In her subsequent work, N. V. Ryzhkova, referring to the brochure “The Fearless Hero of the Don Cossack Kuzma Kryuchkov ...”, confirmed that the Cossack post “... utterly defeated the German cavalry platoon of 27 people. In the ensuing hand-to-hand fight, the orderly Kozma Kryuchkov personally destroyed 11 enemy soldiers, but he himself received as many as 16 wounds in a fierce battle. He became the first Russian soldier who was deservedly awarded the St. George Cross of the 4th degree during the war years. This Don Cossack literally in a matter of days turned into a true national hero of Russia, ”and noted:“ We ... do not find reliable and full-fledged grounds to dispute the long-established assessment of the feat of the Don Cossack Kozma Kryuchkov.
V.P. Trut, in a later work devoted to the Cossack troops of Russia during the period of wars and revolutions of the early twentieth century, also cited as a given: “In the course of an unequal and cruel battle, the brave four Cossacks utterly defeated the German cavalry platoon. Of the 27 Germans, 22 were killed, two were found wounded and captured, and only three managed to escape from the battlefield. Nevertheless, the author noted the inconsistency of the versions of the described battle and gave an explanation for this: “This combat episode was reflected in the official publications of that time and in the epic of M. A. Sholokhov “Quiet Flows the Don”, in the works of historians V. N. Korolev and G. L Voskoboynikov, literary local historian G. Ya. Sivovolov and in other publications. At the same time, it should be noted that the coverage of this battle was directly affected by a number of such negative factors as the newspaper hype raised back at that time, as a result of which even cigarettes with a portrait of K.F. reporters, the publication of government officialdom and hastily composed pathetic poems on this topic, and even a completely uncritical approach to the description of this battle by M.A. Sholokhov and later, rather contradictory retellings of historians, local historians and writers. As a result, at present there are at least four different versions of the account of this event. In the appendices to his work, V. P. Trut cites the versions of G. L. Voskoboinikov, G. Ya.
G. L. Voskoboynikov, being a professional military man, was well aware that such a number of enemies could be killed only by pursuing the fleeing, but by no means face to face, and he wrote that the Cossacks on foot repulsed the German attack, and then rushed to pursue them and hack. G. Ya. Sivovolov simply uncritically retold an episode of the novel Quiet Flows the Don. G. V. Gubarev and A. I. Skrylov, Cossacks themselves, focused on the fact that the Don people were surrounded by the Germans, but made their way and, being wounded, rode away.
“The most complete and objective,” says V.P. Trut, “the feat of the four Don Cossacks is described in the work of V.N. Korolev, who based the written testimonies of K.F. Kryuchkov himself.” We will turn to one of these testimonies.
Of the papers written by the hand of K. F. Kryuchkov himself and available to V. N. Korolev, in the fund 55 of the State Archive of the Rostov Region (the fund of the director of the Don Museum Kh. I. Popov), only a letter to the Don Museum was preserved, in which the hero offered the museum to purchase his horse to be stuffed later. But the fact that Kryuchkov himself, being literate, described his feat is indisputable.
In August 1914, the newspaper "Priazovsky Krai" published "The Story of Kozma Kryuchkov", explaining that the senior doctor of the infirmary where the hero was treated sent a story written by Kryuchkov about his feat to the newspaper. Donskoy officialdom "Don Regional Gazette" did not reprint the story, and in general, Kryuchkov reported sparingly about the feat, apparently because people who were versed in military affairs read it mostly.
Kryuchkov's later stories about that battle differ in many ways from the first. But it is precisely this, the first message of the hero himself, that has special significance for us.
In his story, Kryuchkov lists the Cossacks who were on duty. From the Ust-Khoperskaya village there were Kozma Firsovich Kryuchkov (Nizhne-Kalmykov farm), Ivan Nikanorovich Shchegolkov (Astakhov farm), Vasily Alexandrovich Astakhov, Georgy Rvachev (Rubashkin farm) and Mikhail Pavlovich Ivankov from Vyoshenskaya village (Kargin farm). V. A. Astakhov was in charge of the post.
Kryuchkov writes that on July 30, a hundred occupied posts "above the border." On the night of July 29-30, a local guard told the Cossacks that the peasants had seen a spy pass three miles from the town. Apparently, it was a stranger, unknown to the peasants. “The Cossacks, having heard about the spies, carefully stood at their posts all night and did not sleep.
On the morning of July 30, they boiled potatoes for themselves, just ate, Kryuchkov lay down to sleep, Astakhov looked after the enemy, and Shchegolkov and Ivankov went to the horses for hay ... "
Naturally, Kryuchkov, "Mr. old Cossack", who has been serving in the regiment for the fourth year, went to rest first.
We read further: “The peasants resort to the Cossack Astakhov from the field and say that in the west, in the meadow, 27 German horsemen, dismounted, lead horses and hide in ditches. Astakhov sent for Shchegolkov and Ivankov, so that they would run to wake Kryuchkov as soon as possible. "Get up quickly, what are we going to do, 27 Germans are leading horses in the meadow." Kryuchkov got up and, taking the binoculars, looked: they had already landed and began to hide over the mountain. He said to saddle the horses as soon as possible, and, having saddled, galloped after them, and Rvachev took away a report about the appearance of the enemy in 27 people.
What emerges from this passage? The guys fell asleep. The Germans came, but their horses were not saddled. And there was no discipline. They didn’t listen to the boss, they ran to wake up the “old man”: “Get up quickly, what are we going to do ...” It’s good that the Germans had stained horses. They led them across the meadow, the way horses are usually drawn after a long race. Well, what if they drove into the town on moraine? Only a miracle saved the Cossacks.
We read further: “They galloped to where they appeared, but they passed from the rear over the river to the south, the Cossacks turned, Kryuchkov, Ivankov and the border guards of the soldiers chased after them, and Astakhov, Shchegolkov and one orderly soldier went ahead of them.
Kryuchkov, Ivankov and the border guard caught up with them in the swamp, but they did not go, but turned from the swamp to attack the Cossacks, the Cossacks dismounted and began to shoot at them, they retreated and moved on. The Cossacks landed and went after them, found the Cossacks Shchegolkov and Astakhov, and the four of them chased the Germans, and the border guard and the orderly returned.
Finally, the denouement came: “Noticing them close in the meadow, the Cossacks dismounted and began to shoot at them, but they, noticing that there were four Cossacks, rushed to attack them; then the Cossacks mounted their horses and began to fight with them in hand-to-hand combat. When the Germans rode on the attack, the Cossacks killed the officer with a rifle. When the Germans caught up, they began to stab Ivankov with lances, since he was behind everyone, but the Cossacks returned. So, the first victim of the battle was a German officer. One source claims that the bullet went through his horse's ear and hit him in the heart when he wanted to hack Ivankov to death. That is, the Cossacks very competently deprived the Germans of command - they shot their officer first. And they themselves, as it turns out, rushed to flee, and the Germans caught up with Ivankov, since "he was behind everyone," and then the Cossacks returned. The first blows are described by Kryuchkov in surprising detail: “... and three Cossacks fought in a heap, so that one German pricks Astakhov, and Shchegolkov pricks the German, knocked him off his horse, and the other German wanted to cut down Shchegolkov’s saber, but Ivankov beat him off and began to chop him, chopped him hastily, but could do nothing; then Ivankov hit him on the neck with his broadsword, and the German fell off his horse.
Cavalry combat is fleeting. Horses get scared and do not stand still. And, having exchanged the first blows with the German, the Cossacks, according to Kryuchkov, galloped again: “Astakhov and Ivankov galloped to the right of the Germans, and Shchegolkov to the left. Six people were chasing Ivankov and Astakhov, and they fought them off and rode away, and three people were chasing Shchegolkov, he fought them off. When the Germans gave up chasing Ivankov and Astakhov, they chased Kryuchkov. He fought with three, but when Astakhov and Ivankov were abandoned and they all turned to Kryuchkov, there were 12 of them.”
It turns out that the Germans were originally 15-7 people. And it also turns out that Ivankov, Astakhov and Shchegolkov abandoned Kryuchkov and rode off. However, everything will become clearer if we look at “who is who” at the post. Astakhov is the head of the post, Ivankov is the first year. The head of the post, Astakhov, snatched the first-year Ivankov out of the fight and galloped away with him. Ivankov, as we will see later, is all punctured, while Astakhov has the fewest wounds. And Kryuchkov and Shchegolkov - "gentlemen old Cossacks" - were delayed. Kryuchkov, who was the last to leave, as we shall see below, caught up with Shchegolkov.
Further, Kryuchkov follows a description of how he personally fought the Germans from the very beginning of the skirmish (the Cossacks had just fired at the Germans, and Kryuchkov had a rifle in his hands): “The non-commissioned officer pulled out his broadsword and wanted to cut down Kryuchkov, but he waved him off with a rifle. The German grabbed three fingers from Kryuchkov at the right hand, in which he held the rifle, but did not cut off the fingers, Kryuchkov threw the rifle, pulled out his broadsword and slashed the non-commissioned officer on the helmet, but did not cut through, the helmet bent, he slashed him on the back, did not cut through. When the German began to leave, Kryuchkov slashed him on the neck, and he fell off his horse. The remaining 9 people stab Kryuchkov, he, not getting them to chop with a broadsword, pulled out their pike and began to fight them off and stab them.
The end of the whole story is crumpled and does not contain any details: “Here they were all stabbed and galloped to the city for dressing.”
It can be seen that the Germans on their stained horses were simply tired of chasing Kryuchkov, who was left alone. It is known that out of 16 wounds from Kryuchkov’s lance blows, 9 were in the back, 1-inch deep, that is, they stabbed him after him, bending down, “under the skin”, otherwise even one wound of 2 inches, that is, 8 centimeters deep, would become deadly.
“Kryuchkov caught up with Shchegolkov, and they galloped together for the dressing. Rode 6 versts. Kryuchkov could not drive a horse and could not sit on it, he got up to prick, and his head began to spin. They left on the main road. A peasant was riding, they dismounted from their horses, got into his cart and drove to the city for dressing.
On dressing, Kryuchkov had 16 pike wounds and an urub on three fingers, Shchegolkov had 2 pike wounds, Ivankov had 3 pike wounds, and Astakhov had 1 pike wound. Kryuchkov’s horse was wounded and given 11 wounds with a pike, Shchegolkov’s horse 4 wounds, Ivankov’s horse was stabbed with a pike 10 wounds.
The commander of the 1st Army, General Rennenkampf, did not need victims who had galloped away from the post for dressing, he needed a hero, and the general removed the St. George ribbon from his chest to attach it to Kryuchkov's gymnast. Now you could go on the offensive.
And here is the end according to Kryuchkov himself: “The Germans turned out to be from 27 people 5 people. alive, who could have escaped, of the five Germans, two lay wounded. The Cossacks recovered and entered the battle again. Here Kryuchkov either invents or retells someone's version. Even if the Cossacks killed so many Germans, how did Kryuchkov, himself wounded and in a hurry to get dressed, considered that among the 22 corpses there were 2 wounded?
The conclusion is banal. Without the first official reports in hand, neither from the regiment where K. Kryuchkov served, nor from neighboring units, whose forward posts could observe this short fight, this event itself, already repeatedly decorated and distorted, cannot be reproduced. But none of the researchers has ever referred to such official reports “from below”. K. F. Kryuchkov himself, contrary to popular belief, did not become a full Knight of St. George. During the Civil War, he fought in the ranks of the Don Army, rose to the rank of centurion and died in battle with the Bolsheviks in September 1919.
All of the above in no way casts doubt on the heroism of the Don Cossacks during the First World War. Their fighting qualities are reflected by impartial statistics. As for the clash we have considered, then, even discarding the unnaturally large losses of the enemy (it turns out that for each wound received by his horse, Kryuchkov killed a German), we get the following on the basis of the original source: 1) the Cossacks were not afraid to pursue the enemy many times superior to them and impose fight him; 2) saving a lagging comrade, they met hand-to-hand with this enemy; 3) they inflicted damage on the enemy, at the very beginning of the battle they shot a German officer and thereby deprived the enemy of qualified leadership; 4) in a battle with a numerically superior enemy, the Cossacks did not lose a single person killed or captured. And it is not their fault that this act, which really demonstrated the courage and high fighting qualities of the Don Cossacks, was inflated by official propaganda and turned into a myth of the First World War.
NOTES
- Ryzhkova N.V. Don Cossacks in the wars of Russia in the early twentieth century. Rostov n / a, 2003.
- Korolev V. N. Old Veshki: a story about the Cossacks. Rostov n / D, 1991. S. 448-53.
- Adaridi K.M. 27th Infantry Division in the Battle of Stallupenen and in the Battle of Gumbinen // Military Historical Gazette. 1964. No. 23. P. 9.
- Gordeev A. A. History of the Cossacks. T. 1-. M., 1991-1993.
- Voskoboynikov G. L. Cossacks in the First World War 1914-918. M., 1994.
- Ryzhkova N. V. For Faith, Fatherland and Friends. Don Cossacks in the Great War of 1914-917. Rostov n / a, 1998.
- The fearless hero of the Don Cossack Kuzma Kryuchkov and his glorious victories over the enemies, how he alone killed 11 Germans. Rostov n / a, 1914.
- Trut V.P. Dear glory and loss. Cossack troops during wars and revolutions. M., 2007.
- Sivovolov G. Ya. "Quiet Flows the Don": stories about prototypes. Rostov n / D, 1991. S. 142-43.
- Cossack dictionary-reference book. T. 2. San Anselmo, 1968. S. 94-5.
- The story of Kozma Kryuchkov // Priaz. edge. 1914. 27 Aug.
- Nelyubin G. Don Cossack Kozma Kryuchkov the first Knight of St. George of the Great Struggle of Nations. 1914 [Pernov], 1914.
- According to a number of sources - 1890.
During the First World War, the name of Kuzma Kryuchkov was known throughout Russia. The brave Cossack flaunted on posters and leaflets, cigarette packs and postcards, his portraits and drawings depicting his feat were published in newspapers and magazines. And the Cossack distinguished himself in the first days of the war in a battle with German cavalry near the Polish town of Kalvaria. The Cossack guard patrol headed by him entered into battle with a group of German cavalrymen and, as recorded in the award documents, Kuzma Kryuchkov personally hacked to death with a saber and stabbed 11 people with a lance during a cavalry battle.
Feat
Kuzma (Kozma) Kryuchkov was born in 1890 on the Nizhne-Kalmykovsky farm of the Ust-Khoperskaya village of the Ust-Medveditsky district of the Don Cossack Army in the family of a native Cossack-Old Believer Firs Larionovich Kryuchkov. Like all Cossacks, Kuzma studied at the village school (the Cossacks honored education) and in 1911 he was called up for active service in the 3rd Don Cossack regiment named after Yermak Timofeev. By the beginning of the war, he already had the rank of orderly (corresponding to a corporal in the army) and was considered an experienced fighter, which he demonstrated in the very first battle.
This is how Kuzma Kryuchkov himself described this battle: “About ten o'clock in the morning we headed from the city of Kalvaria to the Alexandrovo estate. There were four of us - me and my comrades: Ivan Shchegolkov, Vasily Astakhov and Mikhail Ivankov. We began to climb the hill and stumbled upon a German patrol of 27 people, including an officer and a non-commissioned officer. At first the Germans were frightened, but then they climbed on us. However, we met them steadfastly and put a few people to bed. Dodging the attack, we had to separate. Eleven people surrounded me. Not wanting to be alive, I decided to sell my life dearly. My horse is agile and obedient. I wanted to use the rifle, but in a hurry the cartridge jumped in, and at that time the German slashed me on the fingers of the hand, and I threw the rifle. Grabbed the sword and began to work. Received several minor wounds. I feel the blood flowing, but I realize that the wounds are not important. For every wound I answer with a mortal blow, from which the German lays down forever. Having laid down several people, I felt that it was difficult to work with a saber, and therefore I grabbed their own pike and put the rest one by one. At this time, my comrades coped with others. Twenty-four corpses lay on the ground, and several unwounded horses rushed about in fear. My comrades received light wounds, I also received sixteen wounds, but all of them were empty, so - injections in the back, in the neck, in the arms. My horse also received eleven wounds, but then I rode it back six miles. On August 1, the commander of the army, General Rennenkampf, arrived in Belaya Olita, who took off the St. George ribbon, pinned it on my chest and congratulated me on the first St. George cross.
In the presentation of the Cossack, all this looks almost ordinary, and yet they clashed not with hastily mobilized infantrymen, but with cavalrymen, who have always been the elite of any army and had the appropriate training. The more incredible the outcome of the battle looks. No wonder the commander of the army himself came to congratulate the Cossack for such a feat. By the way, General Rennenkampf himself was an experienced cavalry commander and understood a lot about the cavalry cabin. For this feat, all four Cossacks became Knights of St. George, and the St. George Cross of the 4th degree, number 5501, which Kuzma Kryuchkov received, became the first St. George award presented in this war.
This feat was reported to the emperor and published in the newspapers. The brave Cossack instantly became a Russian celebrity, and he was only 24 years old. Kryuchkov, after spending 5 days in the infirmary after the battle, Kuzma Kryuchkov returned to the regiment and received leave to his homeland. One can imagine with what furor the Cossack appeared in the village with George on his chest, and, probably, he didn’t forget to grab newspapers describing his feat. By this time he was married, had a son and a daughter, so that the reflections of his glory were reflected on them. A short visit flew by quickly, and the war was just beginning. And her Cossack went, as they say, from bell to bell. He also had new battles with fierce cavalry felling, and new wounds, fortunately not fatal, and new awards. By the end of the war, he became a cadet (the first officer rank in the Cossack troops), received another St. George cross and two St. George medals. There is information that he managed to receive the golden St. George, a very honorable award among the officers.
Kuzma Kryuchkov after World War I
After the February Revolution, Kuzma Kryuchkov was elected chairman of the regimental committee, and after the collapse of the front, he returned to the Don together with the regiment. There was no peaceful life. Even the former monopoly sums ended up on opposite sides of the bloody boundary that divided Russia. So, a participant in the legendary battle, Mikhail Ivankov, served in the Red Army, later met with Sholokhov and told him about that first fight. Either the Cossack told the writer something wrong, or, following the writer's intention, Sholokhov deliberately distorted the facts, but in the novel Quiet Flows the Don, the famous battle between Kryuchkov and the Germans is described as an absurd skirmish. Well, yes, this, as they say, is from another opera. And on the Don, Kryuchkov had to assemble a partisan detachment in order to confront another well-known Cossack - Philip Mironov, the future commander of the 2nd Cavalry Army. The battles were difficult, because on both sides of the front there were experienced, fierce fighters, who at one time jointly learned the science of combat in fierce battles with the Germans. The Cossack fought skillfully, by the summer of 1919 he became a centurion. Kuzma Kryuchkov died, as befits a Cossack, taking a machine-gun burst with his chest in battle. According to other sources, he was seriously wounded, captured and shot by the Reds. Kryuchkov Buried Kuzma Firsovich Kryuchkov in the cemetery of his native farm.
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