The story of Nikolai Sirotinin first became public in the distant 1958. Then the unknown librarian of the village of Sokolnichi V. Melnik described the story of the confrontation of an artillery soldier with an enemy tank battalion. Nikolai Sirotinin, whose feat remains a striking example of the personal heroism of the Soviet soldier, became the protagonist of this story.
Nikolay Sirotinin: data on the fighter
On March 7, 1921, a son was born in the family of Vladimir Kuzmich Sirotinin and Elena Korneevna Sirotinina, they named him Nikolai. The boy’s father worked as a locomotive engineer, his mother was engaged in farming and raising children, there were three more besides Kolya in the family. There was a family in the city of Oryol. After graduation, it is known that Nikolai worked at the Tekmash factory. In 1940, he was drafted to the front. He served as an ordinary fighter of the Red Army near Polotsk.
Nikolay Sirotinin: feat
In June 1940, the Belarusian city of Krichev tried to occupy the 4th Panzer Division, which was in the group of troops of Heinz Guderian, one of the prominent German military leaders. Parts of the 13th Soviet Army were forced to retreat. To cover the column’s withdrawal, artillery support was needed. Two guns remained at the gun — the battery commander and twenty-year-old, puny little boy Nikolay Vladimirovich Sirotinin. The gun was hidden on a collective farm field in high rye. The Russian deployment was good, the gun was on a hill, but the enemy did not see them. The artillerymen had an overview of the road and the bridge across the Dobrost River.
July 17, 1941 a column of German tanks left for the highway. The battery commander coordinated gunfire. With the first shot, Sergeant Sirotinin knocked out the first tank on the bridge, the second landed in an armored personnel carrier that closed the convoy. So the young fighter managed to create a cork. The enemy, in turn, decided that he was dealing with a whole battery of guns and at least a dozen soldiers.
At this time, the lieutenant-spotter was wounded and retreated to the rest of the units. Nikolai was supposed to follow the example of his commander, but Sirotinin saw that he still had 60 shells, he remained to restrain the onslaught of the enemy.
There was a traffic jam on the bridge, two tanks tried to push the wrecked car, but the same fate awaited them. As a result, the hero Sirotinin knocked out 11 tanks, 6 armored personnel carriers, 57 infantry men.
Only after two hours did the enemy command determine where Nikolay’s gun was located. By this time, he had three shells left. At the end of the battle, the gunner fired from a carbine, but was not given alive, although the German commander proposed such an option.
Nikolai Sirotinin, whose feat entered the history of World War II, was buried as a hero in the village of Sokolnichi by the German military. Enemies for a long time could not believe that they were opposed by only one Russian.
The story was restored thanks to the notes of General Friedrich Handlef, commander of the 4th Panzer Division. And the villagers of the village of Sokolnichi heard a three-volley salvo being fired into the sky.
Fiction or real story?
Nikolai Sirotinin, whose feat became an example of courage and valor on the fronts of World War II, when the enemy was strong, and the Russian soldier had only a gun, became known throughout the country. This story was published by the local historian from Krichev M.F. Melnikov in the magazine "Twinkle" in 1958. Modern researchers have decided to track the reliability of the battle of Sokolnichi and found that indeed such a defensive operation was carried out and the Soviet troops really managed to detain the enemy on the outskirts of the city.
Also known today is the fact that this feat of the Soviet soldier Nikolai Sirotinin was reprinted two years later in Literature. In this article, the story is overgrown with facts, and there are much more wrecked vehicles.
In 1987, in the book “Our Land Was Walking the Road of Centuries”, the same local historian published the story “The Word of the Great Soldier” in which he embellished the legend.
Was there Nikolai?
Among the researchers of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet period, such inconsistency of facts for some reason was not in doubt. Modern historians have come to a more detailed study of this issue. They found out that in fact there was such a soldier Nikolay Vladimirovich Sirotinin, but he only served in another division, which had never been in these parts.
But be that as it may, the battle near the village of Sokolnichi took place. This is a historically reliable fact, documented.
As for the feat that Sirotinin performed, there is no documentary evidence, except for the notes of the local historian. The grave of the Russian hero soldier is not there either. According to eyewitnesses, she was moved to another place, and the remains of Nicholas were reburied in a mass grave. The legendary warrior did not receive the title of Hero of the Soviet Union due to the absence of photographs from the relatives of the deceased. He was posthumously awarded only the Order of the Second World War II.
One of the researchers of our time "unearthed" the real story of the battle on the Warsaw highway, which took place in those days on the outskirts of the city of Krichev. The troops of the Red Army began to hastily retreat across the river Sozh. The 2nd infantry battalion under the command of Nikolai Andreyevich Kim, a Korean by nationality, was supposed to cover the soldiers. From the first day of the war he joined the ranks of the Red Army, went this way to the end and remained alive. It was his soldiers who completed the task assigned to them, detained the enemy and made it possible for the Russian soldiers to redeploy without significant losses.
"Nikolai Sirotinin. One warrior in the field. Feat of the 41st year"
In 2013, a forty-minute film about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War was shot by one of the patriotic channels (in particular, the author tried to perpetuate the lone gunner Nikolai Sirotinin). As documentary evidence, archival evidence of residents of the village of Sokolnichi was provided. The picture was very instructive, emotional and motivating. The author tried to show that Nikolai Sirotnin accomplished his feat not because he was fearless, but because of a sense of duty and love for his homeland.
The role of lone heroes in World War II
During the Great Patriotic War, there were people whose personal example made it possible to raise the morale of the Russian warrior, who in the first disastrous years of defeat on the entire front line was very weak. It was thanks to such heroes, albeit legendary, that fascist Germany was rebuffed. Nikolai Sirotinin is a collective image of a Russian soldier, a hero who alone can stop the division and defeat the enemy with his bare hands.
Such legends are important for the education of modern youth, but do not forget about real people who have accomplished a real feat. At the cost of their lives, they defeated the enemy, enabled us, future generations, to live in peacetime and breathe deeply.