Khvedchenia, Timofey

Timofey Khvedchenya (also Fedosenya , pseudonyms: Vishnevsky, Kulevsky; June 9, 1893, the village of Zaravichi, now Luninetsky district, Brest region, Belarus - 1977, Warsaw, Poland) - a Russian and Polish Belarusian military and political figure, activist of Belarusian nationalism, anti-Polish and subsequently anti-Soviet partisans, a teacher by profession.

He was born in the village of Zaravichi near Luninets. He studied at the gymnasium in Slutsk, in 1916 he graduated from six classes of the gymnasium. In 1916, he also completed a 6-month officer course. In 1917 he was demobilized from the Russian army. In December 1917 he was a lieutenant of the 1st Belarusian infantry regiment in Minsk, which was formed with the permission of the commander-in-chief of the Russian army Bolshevik N. Krylenko. However, the commander of the Western Front A. Myasnikov ordered the disbandment of the regiment and the inclusion of its soldiers in the 289th reserve regiment. When the Germans moved east, Timofei Khvedchenya was among the Belarusian military, who on February 19, 1918 raised an uprising in Minsk and temporarily took power in the city. He took part in the creation of the 1st Minsk Belarusian National Regiment. However, the Germans did not allow the formation of the Belarusian army.

After this Khvedchenya probably returned to his native places, since at the end of 1918 he served in the Pinsk-Volyn volunteer battalion . In 1919, he was already the commander of the battalion of the Red Army in Slutsk. During the Polish offensive in Belarus, Khvedashchen raised an anti-Bolshevik uprising in his battalion and joined the 1st Belarusian partisan detachment under the command of Lukas Semenik, operating in the Borisov area. Having suffered a defeat from the Red Army, the detachment was hiding in the woods. When the Polish troops approached Borisov, the detachment leadership reached an agreement with the Polish command and brought him along with the Polish 3rd Lancers regiment to the rear of the Red Army, which accelerated the stumbling of the latter from Borisov. Semenik’s detachment, in which Khvedchen served, remained at the front until November 1919. From July 1919 to the summer of 1920, Khvedchen served in the Polish Army as an employee of the II Division (intelligence and counterintelligence) under the command of the 2nd Division (later the 6th Division).

In the fall of 1920, Khvedchenya, as the commander of a group of Minsk partisan detachments, together with Vyacheslav Adamovich , the chairman of the Belarusian Political Committee, Alesyuk and others, in order to start cooperation for the liberation of Belarus, signed a telegram to the chairman of the Russian Political Committee led by Boris Savinkov and Stanislav Bulich-Bulakal , which said: “Suffering under the yoke of the Bolshevik invaders, the Belarusian people are calling for help to free themselves and realize the cherished dream of many deer on independent democratic Belarus ".

Then he recruited volunteers in Slutsk to the army of General S. Bulak-Balakhovich. He recreated his partisan detachment, which in 1920 joined the Balakhovites. Under the conditions of hostilities, the Khvedcheni detachment, according to contemporaries, differed from other units in their morality and discipline, had their own banner and even a small orchestra. The detachment of Captain Khvedcheny was annexed as a Separate Belarusian Battalion (together with a cavalry platoon totaled 700 people) to the 2nd Minsk Division under the command of Colonel Medard Mikoshi. Captain Khvedchenia took part in the military campaign of General Bulak-Balakhovich against the Red Army. As part of the group of Colonel Mikoshi, who was tasked with capturing Zhlobin, he participated in the battles of Mozyr, Petrikov, Kalinkovichi, and Domanovichi.

After the interning of the army of General Bulak-Balakhovich by the Poles in late November 1920, Khvedchenya decided to continue the resistance of the Polish army and with his detachment left for Slutsk, where he acted as commander of the Minsk department of the People’s Volunteer Army. He would have been hostilely accepted by the Socialist Revolutionary leadership of the Slutskaya Rada and therefore soon went to Vizna. At the time of the clashes with the Red Army, he became an officer of the 1st Slutsk brigade. From Moroch, the last stronghold of the rebels during the Slutsk Uprising, he retreated to David Gorodok with several other fighters. After the brigade ended the hostilities and was interned by the Poles, Khvedchenia still continue the fight. After his release from Polish captivity, he went to Luninets, where the main headquarters of the detachments of the Peasant Party "Green Oak" was located, whose armed detachments periodically staged attacks on border territories controlled by the Red Army. From the end of December 1920, Khvedchenya was one of the chieftains of the Green Oak (he used the pseudonyms Vishnevsky and Kulevsky).

The Polish command tried to organize several thousand Belarusian soldiers who were interned near Nesvizh, and create from them “working squads” that would rebuild bridges, repair roads and other works in the frontline zone, and from the most devoted Poles and who were aggressive towards Bolsheviks to form sabotage groups that would be transferred to territories controlled by the RSFSR. In February 1921, Khvedchenya became the commander of these units. However, already in the spring of 1921, the Polish command decided to disband the Belarusian troops, which carried out armed attacks on Polish troops. At the end of April 1921, the captain of Khvedchenia was arrested by the Poles and handed over for punishment to Ataman Adamovich. After being released from arrest on June 10, 1921, he secretly entered the territory of Soviet Belarus and began to organize an underground movement in the Bobruisk and Slutsk counties, organizing the arrival of some of his Zelenodubtsy comrades-in-arms in the forests of the Vorobyovy Gory, as well as managing to attract a number of deserters from the Red Army. Khvedchenya divided them into four detachments of 250 people under the command of their officers, quickly created a network of informants in the villages and organized the “fives” that distributed literature, campaigned among the peasants and soldiers of the Red Army, and engaged in reconnaissance.

It is assumed that Khvedchenya was in the territory of Soviet Belarus only until June 29, 1921, after which he returned to Polish territories and contacted the organization People’s Union “For Homeland”, created by a native of Slutsk Arseniy Pavlyukevich (whom he knew in the summer of 1921 and set his The goal was “the liberation of the Motherland from the hands of the Communists and the formation of an Independent Inseparable Belarus within its ethnographic borders.” Pavlyukevich’s headquarters created partisan detachments led by Khvedchenya. In October 1921, were commanded by the Second Division of the 2nd Army of the Polish Army near Moroch on charges of official and financial abuse, but was released from custody in Brest on December 24. In July 1923 he lived in Bialowieza, probably organizing a settlement of many Balakhovites there. Vilnius police, which was under Polish control, which at that time was verifying anti-Russian Belarusian leaders, considered him a pro-Polish Belarusian military. He soon married, on November 11, 1928 he was awarded the medal "Member of the war 1918-1921." In January 1939 he lived in Gaynovka; He asked the Ministry of Military Affairs to consider his application for the awarding of the Cross of Independence. From 1939 to 1941 he worked as a school teacher in Bialowieza.

After the German occupation, he became chairman of the branch of the Belarusian Association in Bialowieza, which totaled 84 people. He organized a Belarusian school and became its head. He was also engaged in cultural activities. In 1942, he organized the concert of the singer Zabayda-Sumitsky. Khvedchen also owned a store with written materials and newspapers, in which his eldest daughter, Tamara, traded. It was possible to buy Belarusian newspapers, the Bialystok “New Road” and the Berlin “Morning” in it. In 1944, when a large-scale offensive of Soviet troops began in Belarus, he and his family left for Poland, then still occupied by the Germans, or in Germany.

After the war he returned to Poland and became a colonel of the Polish Army, served in aviation. Daughter Tamara studied in 1947 at the Academy of Political Sciences at the Faculty of Journalism. In 1947, he was arrested by the Communist Polish authorities, but in 1954 released from prison and the rest of his life he lived in Warsaw.