Skudelnitsy - so in ancient times they called mass graves in Russia. The reasons for their appearance were different: plagues, fires, but most often they arose after large-scale battles.
Fraternal burials of Peter the Great
Peter I, a day after the victorious Battle of Poltava, ordered to dig two mass graves for officers and soldiers of the Russian army who died for their faith, the tsar and the Fatherland. It happened in 1709, on June 28. After serving the memorial service, the participants of the mourning ceremony buried the dead soldiers with military honors, there were 1,345 of them. The losses of the Swedes were much more significant - 11 thousand. The cross (according to legend) personally installed by Peter the Great stood until 1828, crowning both mass graves. The text on it read: “Pious warriors, married with blood for piety, years from the incarnation of God the Word 1709, June 27th.” Then in 1909 a beautiful memorial was built. This is how the modern tradition of burying soldiers who died for Russia was founded.
Twentieth century mass graves
The armies of all countries that took part in military conflicts faced the same problem. After majorbattles, the winner had to bury the dead soldiers: both his own and the enemy. Losses sometimes reached many thousands, and it was often not possible for each soldier to dig his own grave, because the troops had new campaigns ahead. Whether they went on the offensive or made a different maneuver - there was not enough time. In most cases, mass graves were dug. So it was during the Russian-Turkish wars, and later - in the First World War. But most of all mass graves appeared during the Great Patriotic War. Soldiers died at the front and died in rear hospitals. Thousands of inhabitants of besieged Leningrad died away, and city cemeteries became their resting place. Most of the people lay down on Piskarevsky, where, according to approximate data, mass graves took half a million inhabitants of the city. No one kept accurate calculations, it was not before that. The victims of massacres perpetrated by the invaders were buried in the same way. In many towns and villages, tens of thousands of people were burned, hanged, and shot. After liberation, mass graves were opened, identification was made, but in most cases the dead were buried again in mass graves.
Eternal memory
There are mournful hills in all the cities that the war has swept like a fiery wheel, and in many places where it did not reach, but where hospitals worked. People bring flowers to them, and poets compose poems. Olga Berggolts wrote: “We cannot list their noble names here…”. Vladimir Vysotsky sang: “They don’t put crosses on mass graves…”. So it was. And the names remained unknownand the burial service of the dead began quite recently. As paradoxical as it sounds, the inhabitants of the “eternal government apartments” with monuments are still lucky. Many of the dead lie in obscure ravines and under nameless skyscrapers with numbers that say nothing to modern man. They walk and ride on them, and no one even knows that there was once in 1942 or 1943 a trench in which a private or sergeant of the Red Army, whose name is unknown, took his last battle. But this is someone’s grandfather or great-grandfather…
