Julius Kuperjanov

Julius Kuperjanov (1917)

Julius Kuperjanov (born September 29 ^{. Jul} / 11. October  1894 ^greg. In the village Ljochowa at Novorzhev , Pskov Governorate , Russian Empire ; †  2. February 1919 in Tartu , Estonia ) was an Estonian military personnel.

Life

First World War

Julius Kuperjanov attended school in Sipe, Livonia (today Kambja in Tartu County ). In 1914 he graduated from the Tartu Teachers' College. In February 1915 he was drafted into the tsarist army during the First World War . He received his military training in Novgorod and Saint Petersburg . He then fought at the front in the Carpathian Mountains . He was u. a. Commander of a reconnaissance unit. He received seven medals for his military achievements.

Fight against the occupying powers

In July 1917, Kuperjanov was seriously wounded in both legs and transferred to Moscow for care . In December 1917, shortly after the October Revolution in Russia, he returned to Estonia and was assigned to the Estonian Relief Battalion in Tartu ( Tartu Eesti tagavarapataljon ). On February 20, 1918, he commanded the soldiers in the overthrow of the Bolsheviks in Tartu.

With the German occupation of Estonia in February 1918, Kuperjanov's unit was disarmed and disbanded. The officers , including Kuperjanov, were interned by the imperial German army . On a walk to Tartu, however, Kuperjanov managed to escape.

For the next few weeks, Julius Kuperjanov hid in his father's house on the Lalli estate near Tartu and organized partisan campaigns under the umbrella of the illegal Estonian home guard organization Omakaitse . In July 1918, Kuperjanov even drafted a comprehensive mobilization plan for the Estonian underground fighters.

Estonian War of Independence

He continued his partisan activities at the end of 1918 after the collapse of the German troops in Estonia and the start of the Estonian War of Independence against Soviet Russia . At the beginning of the War of Independence, Kuperjanov organized an Estonian partisan movement of up to 1,200 men. Among other things, they held posts on the banks of Lake Peipus against the Russian units advancing from the east. However, because of their numerical inferiority, the Estonian units had to give up their positions and finally the city of Tartu when the Bolshevik troops advanced.

Despite the apparently hopeless military situation against the overpowering Soviet Russia , Kuperjanov called on his compatriots to unconditional military action. His partisan tactics behind enemy lines were daring and usually costly for the Estonian side, but also inflicted serious pinpricks on the Bolsheviks.

The "Tartu Protection Battalion" ( Tartu kaitsepataljon ) led by Kuperjanov fought together with Finnish volunteers at the beginning of 1919 in southern Estonia with increasing success against the Bolsheviks and the communist Latvian riflemen . On January 14, 1919, Kuperjanov's soldiers were able to recapture Tartu from the Reds in cooperation with armored trains of the Estonian Army ( Eesti Rahvavägi ) . In the battle of Paju on January 31, 1919, Kuperjanov was seriously wounded, as were over half of the soldiers in his unit. The 24-year-old died of his injuries three days later in Tartu.

Hero myth

Because of his bold and selfless commitment to the national cause of the young Republic of Estonia and his early death in battle, Julius Kuperjanov was declared a martyr of the Estonian War of Independence. Almost the entire social elite of southern Estonia took part in the funeral service on February 6, 1919 in the Vanemuine Concert Hall in Tartu. The commander in chief of the Estonian troops, General Johan Laidoner , ordered the renaming of Kuperjanov's partisan unit to the Kuperjanov Bataillon , which was officially done in 1928. In 1992 the association was re-established under the name of Infantry Battalion Kuperjanov ( Kuperjanovi Üksik-Jalaväepataljon ) within the Estonian armed forces .

Julius Kuperjanov was an essential part of the official hero myth of the Republic of Estonia , especially in the interwar period, and was used accordingly politically. Kuperjanov's military achievements and youthful daring have been extolled in numerous books and articles. The great human losses in their own ranks that Kuperjanov's partisan tactics brought with them remained in the background.

In 1925 the Estonian sculptor Jaan Koort created the funerary monument of Kuperjanov in the Tartu Raadi cemetery. The memorial was not removed during the Soviet occupation of Estonia for unknown reasons. It was a magnet for many Estonian opponents of the Soviet regime until the 1980s. Kuperjanov's partisan tactics also inspired numerous so-called forest brothers ( metsavennad ) who operated militarily from the Estonian forests against the Red Army and the Soviet occupation forces after the end of the Second World War .

literature

• Mati Kröönström: Kuperjanovi partisanide väeosa ja selle juhid Vabadussõjas. In: Tuna 1/2008, pp. 66-75
• Olev Teder: Kutsar. Eesti Vabadussõja documentaalne käsitlus. Jõune 2008

Web links

Commons : Julius Kuperjanov  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Julius Kuperjanov ( Kultur ja Elu magazine )
• CV (Estonian)
• Biography , Estonica (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Eesti elulood (= Eesti entsüklopeedia 14). Eesti Entsüklopeediakirjastus, Tallinn 2000, ISBN 9985-70-064-3 , p. 196.
2. ^ Tiit Kellers: A Hundred Great Estonians of the 20th Century . Estonian Encyclopaedia Publications, Tallinn 2002, ISBN 9985-70-103-8 , pp. 86f.