Burnt villages of Chernihiv Oblast: memory, which cannot be lost

4 March 2026 year in the Chernihiv regional historical museum named after. A public lecture by V. V. Tarnovsky, head of the museum branch, Olena Lysenko, "Burnt Villages of Chernihiv Oblast": reasons, mechanisms, memory".

During the Nazi occupation, our Chernihiv region experienced one of the most tragic pages of its history - the mass destruction of villages along with their inhabitants. Today, researchers are trying to return this dramatic page of the past to historical memory, relying on archival documents and eyewitness accounts of those events.

Archive documents became the source base of the lecture, materials of the Extraordinary State Commission, archival and criminal cases against collaborators from the archive support sector of the Branch State Archive of the SBU in Chernihiv region, as well as the memories of those, who managed to survive. These sources allow us to reproduce the terrible reality of punitive actions, that took place on the territory of Chernihiv Region in 1941–1943. During such operations, settlements were surrounded, people were shot, were thrown with grenades or burned alive, and their houses were looted and set on fire. Entire families — women — became victims, діти, elderly people.

In the territory of Chernihiv region, at least the destruction has been documented 63 населених пунктів, and the number of victims of punitive actions is over 16 thousands of people. The largest number of such tragedies occurs in 1943 year — the period of intensification of punitive operations of the occupying forces.

Stories of Koryukivka, Goats, Freedom of Zagreb, Klubivka and many other settlements are reminiscent: behind every number are human lives, destroyed families and destroyed destinies.

Our task today is not only to investigate these events, but also to preserve the memory of their victims, restore the names of the dead and pass on the truth about these tragedies to future generations.

The memory of burnt villages is part of history, which we have no right to forget.