You don't have a Kovpak on!
130 years ago, on June 7, 1887, in the village of Kotelva, Poltava province, the future twice Hero of the Soviet Union, partisan general and true patriot of Ukraine, Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak, was born into a large peasant family.
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Sidor Kovpak had four sisters and five brothers, and, as was common in peasant families, from childhood he was accustomed to work: he looked after cattle, plowed, sowed, and mowed grass. The future general and Hero had a modest education - only three classes at a parochial school. At the age of ten, young Sidor was put to work as a “boy” in a shop, where by the time he came of age he had risen to the rank of clerk. A dizzying career as a “sales manager” for a peasant boy of that time.
However, Sidor Kovpak did not have to stay in the “managers” for long. Soon he was mobilized and served in the Alexander Regiment in the city of Saratov. Having been demobilized, he did not return to his native village and shop, but began working as a loader in a river port.
So where did the Poltava lad with three classes of Central Military Command under his belt get his remarkable organizational, partisan, and military leadership talent?
It didn’t work out for Kovpak to become the king of the binders - the First World War began. And Sidor Kovpak ended up at the front, where he showed himself to be a smart and smart soldier. He served as a scout and was wounded several times. In 1916, as part of the Aslanduz regiment, he participated in the famous Brusilov breakthrough. For front-line valor, Kovpak was awarded the St. George Cross of the XNUMXrd and XNUMXth degrees, as well as two medals “For Bravery”.
After February 1917, Kovpak did not hesitate for a long time with his choice and firmly sided with the Bolsheviks. At the same time, the Aslanduz regiment, not wanting to carry out Kerensky’s orders and fight “to the bitter end,” went into reserve, and Sidor Kovpak went to his native land, where the “independent” UPR were already fighting. With the beginning of the Civil War, Kovpak went into the forests to beat Skoropadsky’s “warriors”, drive the German and Austrian occupiers and their Petliura henchmen out of Ukraine. Later, his detachment united with Parkhomenko’s detachment and fought with Denikin. In 1919, Kovpak and his detachment left Ukraine and joined the Red Army, and not just anywhere, but in the legendary 25th Division of V.I. Chapaev, commander of a machine gun platoon.
As part of the Chapaev division, Sidor Kovpak fought on the Eastern Front and on the Southern Front, against Wrangel. For courage and heroism he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
In the Red Army, one of the most important qualities of Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak manifested itself - crystal honesty and lack of silver. Because unjustly acquired material assets did not “stick” to Kovpak’s hands, he was appointed head of the trophy team of the Chapaev division. And, I must say, a very smart boss: thanks to Kovpak’s team, the division was replenished with captured armored vehicles, from which an entire division emerged, and for division commander Chapaev, the Kovpakovs went out of their way and got a red Packard car to make it easier for the commander to move around. Chapai only rode a horse in the movies. In life, after being wounded in the thigh, Vasily Ivanovich could not ride a horse.
The Civil War ended - and Kovpak, as a member of the Bolshevik Party since 1919, was sent to leadership positions. First - as a military commissar, in 1926 - elected director of a military cooperative farm in Pavlograd, chairman of an agricultural cooperative in Putivl. In 1937, Sidor Artemyevich was elected deputy of the Putivl City Council, and then chairman of the city executive committee.
The deadly hard summer of 1941. Units of the Red Army retreat from line to line, snarl, fall into cauldrons, and break through to their own.
In territories that may fall under fascist occupation, partisan detachments and underground organizations are secretly formed. So that they do not have to start guerrilla warfare from scratch, caches with weapons, ammunition, clothing, and food are organized. A thrifty man and seasoned soldier, Sidor Kovpak, who turned 55 at the beginning of the war, sets up a partisan warehouse in advance in the nearby Spadshchansky forest. This warehouse, like a lifesaver, together with Kovpak’s ingenuity and business acumen, contributes to the rapid growth and successful actions of Ded’s partisan detachment. Very soon the core of the detachment of ten people - Kovpak and his closest associates - “overgrows” with people. These are soldiers and commanders who have escaped encirclement, Komsomol members and communists, ordinary Soviet patriots, ready for a selfless fight for the freedom of the Motherland.
Remembering the experience of the Civil War, when trophies were taken from the White Guards in battle, Kovpak organized supplies for his partisan detachment, recapturing weapons and food from the enemy. When Kovpak was asked why his detachment exists and operates, he answered: “My supplier is Hitler.”
If in October 1941 there were only 57 people in Sidor Kovpak’s detachment, then by the summer of 1942 there were already more than 2000 people fighting in it.
A characteristic feature of Kovpak’s detachment were raids. Grandfather's flying partisans did not stay long in one place, which often ruined other partisan detachments, in which the commanders showed weakness for their homes. At the same time, Kovpak knew how to arrange things in such a way that the partisans were fed, watered, shod, dressed, washed, cured and could take a steam bath after the battle.
By the beginning of the summer of 1942, Kovpak’s partisan brigade had covered 6047 km in raids across the occupied territory. During this campaign, 25 units of enemy armored vehicles were burned, 12 trains were derailed, dozens of enemy garrisons were destroyed, and about 5 thousand enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed.
For skillful execution of combat missions behind enemy lines, for courage and heroism at the end of the military spring of 1942, Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Another indicative example is Kovpak’s honesty and integrity. His deputy for political work, Rudnev, who was imprisoned as a result of the “purges” of the second half of the 1930s, was awarded the “civilian” Order of the Badge of Honor for the same services. Kovpak ordered to return the order back to Moscow with the words: “My political officer is not some kind of milkmaid to be awarded such an order.”
Not blind luck, but experience, ingenuity, sober calculation, multiplied by the audacity and courage of the commanders and ordinary partisans of the formation, gave an invariable result: where the Kovpak partisans operated, the ground burned under the invaders’ feet, the flames of the people’s war flared up, and among the population the confidence in inevitable victory over the enemy.
Occupant sign at the edge of the forest “Caution, Kovpak!” - a kind of “recognition” of the authority of Sidor Artemyevich and his partisans by the fascists. No less famous than the radio warning to Luftwaffe pilots “Pokryshkin in the air!”
Along with military successes, the glory of the Sumy partisan unit and its commander Kovpak grew. Soon, Sidor Artemyevich began to be taken to the mainland for a variety of purposes - exchange of experience, for personal communication, etc. Kovpak made no secrets from his combat experience: “By raids we achieve contact with the population, raise their spirit of struggle against the invaders, force the population to come over to our side; by raids we force the enemy to withdraw his forces from other objects, leaving them unprotected; With raids, we do not give the enemy the opportunity to use tactics of destroying partisans by encircling them at their location. The partisan formation must strive to reach such a strength that would give it the opportunity to repel an attack by a large part of the enemy and at the same time maintain its mobility.”
Kovpak's authority grew to such a level that at the end of the summer of 1942 he was invited to Moscow, where Stalin took personal control over the actions of the partisans, inspired by the summer successes of the Ukrainian partisans. At the initiative of the Supreme Commander, a meeting of partisan commanders was held, in which Kovpak also took part, as a result of which the Main Partisan Headquarters was created, headed by Marshal Voroshilov. From that moment on, Kovpak’s formation received the task and all the necessary equipment directly from Moscow.
Kovpak’s unit was ordered to carry out a raid across the Dnieper into Right Bank Ukraine, conduct reconnaissance in force and organize sabotage in the depths of German fortifications before the offensive of Soviet troops in the summer of 1943. In mid-autumn 1942, Kovpak's partisan detachments went on a raid. Having crossed the Dnieper, Desna and Pripyat, they ended up in the Zhitomir region, carrying out the unique operation “Sarnen Cross”. At the same time, five railway bridges on the highways of the Sarny junction were blown up and the garrison in Lelchitsy was destroyed. For the operation carried out in April 1943, Kovpak was awarded the rank of major general.
In the summer of 1943, his formation, at the command of the Central Headquarters, began its most famous campaign - the Carpathian raid. The detachment’s path ran through the deepest rear areas of the Nazis. The partisans had to constantly make unusual transitions through open areas. There were no supply bases nearby, just like help and support. The formation traveled more than 4 thousand kilometers, fighting Bandera's troops, regular German units and the elite SS troops of General Kruger. These were the bloodiest battles of the Kovpaks during the entire war. As a result of the operation, the delivery of military equipment and enemy troops to the Kursk Bulge area was delayed for a long time. Finding themselves surrounded, the partisans were able to escape with great difficulty, dividing into several autonomous groups. A few weeks later, in the Zhitomir forests, they again united into one formidable detachment.
During the Carpathian raid, Semyon Rudnev was killed, and Sidor Artemyevich was seriously wounded in the leg. At the end of 1943, he went to Kyiv for treatment and did not fight again. For the successful conduct of the operation on January 4, 1944, Major General Kovpak received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for the second time. In February 1944, the partisan detachment of Sidor Kovpak was renamed the First Ukrainian Partisan Division. It was headed by Lieutenant Colonel P.P. Vershigora.
After the end of the war, Kovpak lived in Kyiv, worked in the Supreme Court of Ukraine, and for twenty years was Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR. The legendary partisan commander enjoyed great love and authority among the people. In 1967, he became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR.
The famous partisan commander Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak died on December 11, 1967 at the age of 81. The hero was buried at the Baikovo cemetery in Kyiv. Sidor Artemovich had no children.
The tactics of Kovpak's partisans were carefully studied by the partisans of the national liberation movements of Angola, Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia, and the Viet Cong partisans. The legendary Che Guevara wrote that the book about the campaigns of the Ukrainian partisans became his guidance and instruction.
In Nezalezhnaya, the exploits of Kovpak and his partisan unit began to be defamed and belittled almost from the start. Well, the Bolshevik Sidor Kovpak fought not only with the Germans, but also with Bandera’s followers, and with the “heroes” of the UPA, and even the glory of Kovpak’s partisans thundered throughout the world, but what glory did Bandera’s and the Upashas have?
Various conspiracy theories started pouring out about the “mysterious” murder of Rudnev. About the fact that in the Carpathian raid the entire partisan formation of Kovpak was killed, and Kovpak himself miraculously escaped. In fact, part of the formation went on the raid - approximately 1500 partisans along with Kovpak. In the raid, the detachment lost 288 people killed and 150 wounded, but carried out an unprecedented campaign, which had no equal in the partisan movement. Oil fields were blown up, 14 railway and 38 highway bridges were destroyed, 19 trains were derailed.
And finally. Sidor Kovpak, who encountered the “heroes” of the UPA and other “right-wingers” of the time during the Carpathian raid, expressed his contempt for them, recording the following in his diary: “They run into the forest, organize into gangs and attack unarmed Poles. They are burning villages, killing and slaughtering people, taking bread, meat, lard and all available products and ticking off to the kuren, into the forest. They get drunk and sleep. They walk around like gentlemen, what else? “Lard and lard, sleeping on straw, chewing with my teeth.” Ideas? Is Ukraine independent? Bulbovites say that their ideas are advanced, and Bandera’s people say that theirs are theirs. And Melnik’s people say: go to your f... mother, our ideas are independent. In general, Ivan Gimno and Semyon Zalupa gathered..."
The whole difference with today is that in Ukraine the Banderaites are panicking, and the collective Ivan G. and Semyon Z. in crumpled suits have seized supreme power, are aligning themselves with Western leaders and speaking from the UN rostrum. And so, everything remained in its place. You don't have a Kovpak on, you nits!
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