News

News

The Youth Action “The Pathways of the War”

The schoolchildren of the Upper Don region take an active part in the youth action “The Pathways of the War” organized by the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov and the Sholokhov District Department of Education.

The schoolchildren of Merkulovsky Village using the war newsreels and a reconstruction of the events made a video film about taking of the hill Ursik, which ensured a reliable protection for the approach of the 197^th infantry division units of M.I.Zaporozhchenko to the artillery and headquarters of the Nazis.

On those days Merkulovsky Village was the front line of defence. The Nazis, who held the heights of Ursik, Kolesnikovo, Podyomchik on the right bank of the Don, could clearly see the Soviet troops deployed in the location between Migulinskaya and Vyoshenskaya, and our soldiers died under the fire of the enemy. And only on taking the height of Ursik as a result of a fierce fighting the course of the battle was changed.

In 1970, the young ethnographers found the wife of Valentin Dmitriyevich Larin, one of the heroes perished in the battle for the height of Ursik and told her about the destiny of her husband. The widow gave the school the copies of the soldier’s letters, and the children read the lines scorched by the war, dedicated poetry and songs to the heroes.

The schoolchildren of Kolundayevsky Village dedicated their historical, literary and musical performance to the work of the mobile hospital in Alimovsky Village. M.M.Konysheva recollected that in 1942, the hospital was placed in the old farm stable located between the pond and the poultry house. When the Soviet troops advanced, the hospital moved behind the front line. The children told about the hard work of the medical staff, about the village children who performed concerts for the wounded, read books to them, helped to write letters to their families.

The pupils of Bazkovskaya school performed their composition about the partisan movement in the Upper Don. The Bazki detachment comprised 35 men under the command of G.I. Kovalenko and N.A. Kadolin.

The schoolchildren of Bazki reconstructed the events of those hard years, told about the partisans, who obtained valuable information behind the enemy lines and gave it to the headquarters of the 197^th artillery division of M.I. Zaporozhchenko, distributed the leaflets. The pupils also told about the death of the teenager squad of Yevdokiya Gritsukova. The traitors gave the squad away to the enemy, and the young partisans were shot. In the memory of their heroism a monument was erected.

A pupil of Bazkovskaya school, Anya Bezruchko, four times went out on reconnaissance behind the enemy lines, brought the information about the troop location, the fire positions, during the combat she saved four wounded Red Army soldiers putting them to the left bank across the River Don.

The members of the action put flowers to the Monument of Glory, where the soldiers died in the combats and in the Alimovsky hospital had been buried, and paid a tribute to the dead with a moment of silence.

The final stage of the action “The Pathways of the War” will take place on December, 13, in Sholokhov school of Vyoshenskaya. 

Svetlana Usova
Valentina Krivulina
Alexander Tyapkin