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When is the Day of Partisans and Underground Workers celebrated?
Day of partisans and underground workers is celebrated annually 29 June. On this day in 1941, exactly one week after the start of the Great Patriotic War, a joint Directive of the Council of People’s Commissars (Council of People’s Commissars) and the Central Committee of the All- Communist Party (b) (Central Committee of the All- Communist Party of Bolsheviks) was published. The document, which appeared at the end of the first week of the war, was aimed at organizing a worthy rebuff to the fascist aggressor as soon as possible. The directive ordered the creation of Soviet authorities, party, trade union, Komsomol cells of partisan groups and sabotage detachments aimed at fighting enemy invaders.
The directive of the Council of People’s Commissars and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to the party and Soviet organizations of the front-line regions (as the document was officially called) obliged “all party, Soviet, trade union and Komsomol organizations to put an end to complacency and carelessness and mobilize all our organizations and all the forces of the people to defeat the enemy, to merciless reprisals against the hordes of the attacking German fascism. The compilers of this document, addressing the addressees, demanded that they fight for every inch of Soviet land, “to show courage, initiative and ingenuity, characteristic of our people.” In the last words, one can hear the motive of the unity of the supreme power of the Soviet Union with the masses of the people.
Next come the demands for organizing comprehensive assistance to the army in mobilization, providing food resources, equipping institutions for receiving the wounded, strengthening the rear of the Red Army, combating saboteurs, deserters and panic manifestations. A special explanation was made in the event of the withdrawal of the army and the destruction of property, which in no case should have gone to the enemy. The last two paragraphs of the Directive of June 29 were devoted to the organization of partisan and sabotage detachments in the occupied territories and the immediate submission to the Military Court of all cowards and alarmists, regardless of their identity.
History
The partisan movement, as well as the underground movement during the Great Patriotic War, is inextricably linked with the territory of the Bryansk region, which became one of the centers of fierce resistance to the enemy. Partisans and underground workers have become, in a way, the hallmark of this region of Central Our Country. Historically, it so happened that it was in the Bryansk region that representatives of partisan detachments and the anti-fascist underground were able to overcome disunity faster than others and create a powerful fist to repel the fascist invaders. This process has been shown in domestic films for many years, sung in art and narrative art. The well-known song of the war years about the partisans “The Sternly Bryansk Forest Noisy” was declared the official anthem of the Bryansk region.
Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that the establishment of the Day of Partisans and Underground Workers by the State Duma of Our Country was initiated by the regional Duma of the region. The decision was made in March 2009 “in memory of the selfless struggle behind enemy lines of partisans and underground fighters who made a significant contribution to the victory of the Soviet people over the fascist invaders in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.”
In April of the same year, the law on this memorable date was unanimously supported by the Federation Council and signed by the then President of Our Country Dmitry Medvedev. The establishment of another memorable date associated with the military past of our Motherland took place as part of the adoption of the Federal Law “On Amendments to Article 11 of the Federal Law “On the Days of Military Glory and Commemorative Dates of Our Country””. The Day of Partisans and Underground Workers has become the eighth memorable date in the Federation. This Federal Law, as amended, entered into force on January 1, 2010.
Traditions
The Bryansk region is annually considered the center of events dedicated to the Day of partisans and underground fighters. Although, of course, the date is revered in other regions of the country. Especially in the Oryol and Smolensk regions adjacent to the “partisan region”. In June, representatives of the Central Federal District, another “partisan region” of the former Soviet Union, fraternal Belarus, gather in the Bryansk region. The labor collectives of the city of Bryansk and even the direct participants of the partisan and underground movement take part in the events. After all, very young boys and girls participated in the resistance to the Nazis.
In honor of the seventieth anniversary of the Great Victory in the Bryansk region, a patriotic festival “Partisan paths of Bryansk region” was established. Within the framework of the festival, sports competitions, a theatrical procession of the “Partisan Convoy” are held. On Partizan Square in Bryansk, you can see an exposition on the history of movement in the region. As part of the three-day festival, there is an evening of bard songs by the fire and amateur art concerts at the Partisan Halt with interactive events.
Guests of the festival are introduced to the memorial complexes “Khatsun” and “Partizanskaya Polyana”. The former machine gunner of one of the detachments, Fyodor Kostin, wrote the following lines: “There is a forest clearing near Bryansk, of which there are thousands in our region. But only this one is called Partizanskaya. In memory of those who died for their land. The memorial “Partisan Glade” near Bryansk was opened in the fall of 1969 after a meeting of former partisans who organized their camp here in 1941. The most beautiful forest area of the Bryansk land! From all sides, the memorial is surrounded by the same “severe Bryansk forest”. It was on this majestic memorial, immersed in bright summer greenery, that the Day of Partisans and Underground Workers was first celebrated in 2010. A visit to the Partizanskaya Polyana and its facilities is almost always included in the program of tourist groups and official delegations arriving in Bryansk.
Interesting Facts
It is estimated that Soviet partisans throughout the entire territory of our country during the Great Patriotic War destroyed more than four thousand units of enemy military equipment of heavy caliber, sixty-six thousand cars and more than a thousand German aircraft. Partisans and underground fighters captured over a million Nazis. Assistants of the Soviet troops destroyed twenty thousand meters of railways, strategically important for the enemy. More than three hundred thousand were awarded state awards and medals. About two hundred and fifty people who fought in the underground and partisan detachments are presented to the high rank of Hero of the Soviet Union.
Here is some information confirming the priority of the Bryansk region to be called a “partisan region”. During the two years of German occupation, which lasted until September 1943, one hundred and thirty-nine partisan detachments operated in the region. Resistance to the aggressor, based in impenetrable forests, was provided by sixty thousand people. Of these, twelve became Heroes of the Soviet Union.
In September 2010, the Bryansk Regional Duma adopted a law on the honorary titles of the Bryansk region “City of Partisan Glory”, “Village of Partisan Glory”, “Village of Partisan Glory”, “Settlement of Partisan Glory”. According to the document, the honorary title is awarded, as a rule, once a year to a memorable date in Our Country – the Day of Partisans and Underground Workers. To date, such titles have been awarded to twenty-seven settlements in the Bryansk region. In general, we invite all those who are interested in the history of Our Country and the partisan movement to celebrate the day of partisans and underground fighters 2023 in Our Country on numerous memorials of the Bryansk region.
In conclusion, we mention one more fact that speaks of the Bryansk region as a “partisan region”. During the war, “partisans on the contrary” also acted, fighting against the Red Army. Some of them from the Lokot Republic of collaborators Konstantin Voskoboinik and Bronislav Kaminsky acted on the territory of the Oryol and Bryansk regions. Long after the end of the war, partisans who fought on different front lines coexisted in these territories.