, image =

, caption = Bykivnia central monument , image2 = Kyiv Bykivnia map

, caption2 = Map of Bykivnia grave site , header1 = , data1 = , label2 = Location , data2 =

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...

, Ukraine , label3 = Founded , data3 = April 30, 1994 (as a complex). , label4 = Purpose , data4 = "To commemorate the victims of political repressions". , label5 = Architects , data5 = M.Kysly, R.Kukharenko, V.Chepelyk (sculptor). , label6 = Designation , data6 = ''Historic complex of Ukraine'' , label7 = Established , data7 = April 30, 1994. , label8 = Type , data8 = Memorial site , label9 = Prescribed , data9 = May 22, 2001. , label10 = Declared , data10 = National monument,
May 17, 2006.Information at the Science-Researching Institute in Preservation of Monuments
nbsp;^{''with no Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
''} The Bykivnia graves ( uk, Биківнянські могили) are a National Historic Memorial next to the former village of Bykivnia ( uk, Биківня, pl, Bykownia) within

woodland, Bykivnia Forest. During the

Stalinist Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory o ...

period in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

, it was one of the unmarked mass grave sites where the

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

, the Soviet secret police, disposed of thousands of executed "enemies of the Soviet state". Bykivnia as a residential place still exists as an locality with the same Bykivnia Forest. The National Memorial is located across

Brovarskyi prospect Brovarskyi prospect ( uk, Броварський проспект) is a arterial and the longest public roadway in Kyiv, Ukraine. It stretches from the Kyiv Metro Bridge over Dnieper to the city of Brovary. The roadway was created in the second ...

from Bykivnia, next to the former Rybne Soviet fishery in the thick of the woods. The number of dead bodies buried there is estimated between "dozens of thousand," to 30,000,"Ukraine reburies 2,000 victims of Stalin's rule"
Reuters. 27 October 2007 to 100,000. Some estimates place the number as high as 200,000.

Burial site

From the early 1920s until the late 1940s throughout the

Stalinist purges The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

, the Soviet government hauled the bodies of tortured and killed political prisoners to the pine forests outside the village of Bykivnia and buried them in a grave that spanned . So far, 210 separate

mass grave A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...

s have been identified by Polish and Ukrainian archaeologists working at the site. During the Soviet retreat in the early stages of

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

, Red Army troops levelled the village to the ground. The mass grave site was discovered by the Germans along with many other such sites throughout the Soviet Union. However, following the discovery of the

Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...

, the burial sites of Bykivnya was no longer part of German propaganda. After the Soviet recapture of the area during the Second Battle of Kyiv in 1943, the site was again classified by the

. In the 1950s the village was reconstructed as a suburb of Kyiv. In the 1970s the Soviet authorities planned to construct a large bus station on the mass grave site, but the plan was abandoned. A document attesting to the origins of the Bykovnia victims was found by Polish émigré historians, research in the Nazi German archives after the war. Polish researchers estimate that, apart from the Soviet victims of

the Great Terror The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secret ...

, the site might be the final resting place of 3,435 Polish officers captured by the Red Army during the

Soviet invasion of Poland The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, 16 days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subse ...

, together with Nazi Germany in 1939, most of whom were executed in the spring of 1940 with over 20,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in the

. As the Soviet authorities denied responsibility, there was no way to confirm that the victims of the Stalinist purges were buried there. During the Soviet era the existence of the site was brought up to authorities numerous times with the most famous incident occurring in 1962 when the Ukrainian poet Vasyl Symonenko did so. He was badly beaten up by Soviet law enforcement agents and died in the hospital from kidney failure soon after.

Commemoration

It was not until the 1990s that the authorities of independent Ukraine confirmed the burial of thousands of victims there. On April 30, 1994, a large memorial to the victims of communism was opened in Bykivnia. Around the same time archaeological works started, with both Ukrainian and Polish scientists taking part. In 2001 the government of

Viktor Yanukovych Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych ( uk, Віктор Федорович Янукович, ; ; born 9 July 1950) is a former politician who served as the fourth president of Ukraine from 2010 until he was removed from office in the Revolution of Di ...

proclaimed the will to convert the Bykivnia woods into a ''State Historical-Memorial Complex "Graves of Bykivnia"''. The plan was brought to life by

Viktor Yushchenko Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko ( uk, Віктор Андрійович Ющенко, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010. As an informal leader of th ...

on May 17, 2006. In a step toward uncovering this part of Ukraine's history,

became the first Ukrainian president to take part in the annual Day of Remembrance ceremony on May 21 to honor the estimated 100,000 people buried in the mass grave on the outskirts of Kyiv. "We must know the truth. Why did our nation lose more than 10 million people without a war?" Yushchenko said during the 2006 event. Kyiv Bykivnia monument 3

Since 2006, Polish researchers have found a number of bodies of Poles, prisoners killed in spring 1940 during the

. Apart from bodies, Polish researchers found everyday items, such as a comb, on which the owner, an unknown Polish officer, carved several names, such as Franciszek Strzelecki, Ludwik Dworak and Szczyrad. This might refer to Colonel Bronisław Mikołaj Szczyradłowski, the deputy commandant of

Lwów Lviv ( uk, Львів) is the largest city in western Ukraine, and the seventh-largest in Ukraine, with a population of . It serves as the administrative centre of Lviv Oblast and Lviv Raion, and is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine ...

's defense in September 1939. A

dog tag Dog tag is an informal but common term for a specific type of identification tag worn by military personnel. The tags' primary use is for the identification of casualties; they have information about the individual written on them, including i ...

belonging to a Sergeant Józef Naglik, soldier of the

Skalat Skálat (; pl, Skałat, links=no, yi, סקאלאט, Skalat) is a town in Ternopil, Ternopil Oblast (province) of western Ukraine. It hosts the administration of Skalat urban hromada, one of the hromadas of Ukraine. Population: History Sk ...

Battalion of the

Border Defence Corps The Border Protection Corps ( pl, Korpus Ochrony Pogranicza, KOP) was a military formation of the Second Polish Republic that was created in 1924 to defend the country's eastern borders against armed Soviet incursions and local bandits. Other b ...

, was found at the same spot. All the names belong to the "

Ukrainian Katyn List The Ukrainian Katyn List (Ukraińska Lista Katyńska) also known as the Tsvetukhin List (Lista Cwietuchina) is the list of Polish citizens murdered by the NKVD in Ukraine on the basis of the decision of the Politburo of the All-Union Communist Pa ...

" of Katyn massacre victims, and serve as proof that Bykivnya is connected to the Katyn crime.

Notes and references

External links

Twentieth Century Atlas - Casualty Statistics - BykivniaUkraine reburies Stalin's victims
* *.

New Tang Dynasty Television New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD Television) is a multilingual American television broadcaster, founded by adherents of the Falun Gong new religious movement and based in New York City. The station was founded in 2001 as a Chinese-language ...

, May 23, 2008 {{Authority control Geography of Kyiv Oblast Mass graves in Ukraine Massacres in Ukraine Massacres in the Soviet Union Massacres committed by the Soviet Union NKVD Political repression in the Soviet Union Prisoner of war massacres Soviet World War II crimes Historic sites in Ukraine Landmarks in Kyiv Protected areas of Ukraine Protected areas established in 2001 Monuments and memorials in Kyiv Cemeteries in Ukraine Tourist attractions in Kyiv Oblast Execution sites

Burial site

Commemoration

See also

Notes and references

External links