November 17 – Student’s Day. On this day in 1804, Kharkov University (now V.N. Karazin KhNU) was founded. In 1921, the last battle of the Second Winter Campaign, tragic for the UPR army, took place – near Malye Minki. In 1939, the Nazis executed student protest leaders in Prague and stormed and closed local universities. In 1973, the military junta suppressed an uprising of students at the Polytechnic University in Athens. And in 1989, the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia began with a student demonstration.
Holidays and memorial dates November 17
November 17 is Student’s Day in Ukraine and International Students’ Day.
Also around the world: World Premature Baby Day and World Vasectomy Day.
November 17 in history
November 17, 1663 Hetman of Ukraine Ivan Bryukhovetsky was forced to conclude the so-called “Baturin Articles” with Muscovy. They allegedly “confirmed” the March Articles concluded by Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1654. But at the same time, the number of duties of the Cossacks was increased and their rights were narrowed. In particular, the hetman’s administration agreed to maintain the Moscow army in Ukraine at the expense of the local population and return fugitives to Muscovy. There were also a number of economic concessions: Ukrainian merchants were prohibited from selling grain on the right bank, and exporting vodka and tobacco to Muscovy, so as not to violate the state monopoly that existed there.
November 17, 1804 Kharkiv University was founded (now – KNU named after V.N. Karazin).
Photo: Viktoria Yakymenko
The initiator of the creation of the university in Kharkov was the famous educator Vasily Karazin, whose name the university bears. The creation of a university in Kharkov had a decisive influence on the development of the city and its transformation into the center of the region. Many streets in Kharkov to this day bear the names of teachers or students of Kharkov University. Among the honorary doctors of the university is the head of the Ukrainian Central Rada, Mikhail Grushevsky. Three Nobel Prize laureates studied and worked at this university – biologist Ilya Mechnikov, economist Semyon Kuznets, physicist Lev Landau. This number of Nobel laureates is not associated with any university in Ukraine. As a result of the Russian invasion, five facilities belonging to KhNU were completely destroyed, and another 17 were damaged. Nevertheless, the university continues to operate in Kharkov and has no plans to move from the city.
November 17, 1869 The Suez Canal was opened for navigation. It connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas and provides a sea route from Europe to Asia without going around Africa.
Suez Canal near Ismailia, 1860s. Photo: Frith, Francis, Library of Congress
The canal project was developed by the Austrian engineer Luigi Negrelli. And it was built by the Suez Canal Company. Construction work on the canal took almost 11 years and was accompanied by significant political fluctuations in the international arena, worker riots, construction stoppages, and so on. The length of the canal is 193.30 km, depth – 24 m, width – 205 m. The canal is the property of the Arab Republic of Egypt and is operated by the state company Suez Canal Authority. Navigation through the canal is open to all states and is regulated by the Suez Canal Convention.
November 17, 1921 A battle took place near Malye Minki, which ended with the defeat of the Volyn group of the UPR army led by Yuri Tyutyunnik. This tragedy ended the Second Winter Campaign of the UPR Army.
Photo: Facebook page “National Patriotic Education”
The greatest hopes were placed on the group of Tyutyunnik, who was the commander of the campaign. At the same time, the organizers of the campaign had no ideas of entering into an open military confrontation with the Bolsheviks – the forces were too unequal. The participants in the campaign were supposed to raise a popular uprising. The Bolsheviks took the threat seriously. Against the exhausted and poorly supplied UPR soldiers, the “Reds” pulled together their best forces, including the 9th Cavalry Division under the command of Grigory Kotovsky. The last battle of the UPR army with the Bolsheviks took place on November 17 near the village of Malye Minki. Several thousand Red Army soldiers came out against thousands of Ukrainian soldiers. The UPR soldiers fought until the last bullet. Some of them blew themselves up along with their enemies with the last grenade – just to avoid being captured. In particular, this is what the Minister of the Navy of the Ukrainian State, Mikhail Bilinsky, did.
Mikhail Bilinsky. Photo: ukrpolitforum.com
When the UPR soldiers ran out of ammunition, the Red Army soldiers simply began to cut down unarmed Ukrainians – they killed everyone: both the wounded and those who surrendered. Kotovsky personally stopped this, but not at all in order to deal with the prisoners in accordance with the laws of war. The survivors of the bloody battle on November 18 were transferred to the village of Bazar, where they were held on trial. Of the 537 people captured by Russia, only 443 survived, the rest died from wounds. And on November 21 the executions began. A total of 361 soldiers were executed. The rest were sent to Kyiv for additional interrogations. But most of them were also either tortured in prison or shot. Only the army headquarters led by Tyutyunnik, a hundred cavalry and some wounded who were on the front carts managed to escape from the battlefield in Malye Minki. In total, about 120 participants of the Volyn group of the UPR Army returned to Poland alive. They were pursued by Bolshevik “flying squads”, but they managed to cross the border.
November 17, 1939 The Nazis executed student protest leaders in Prague and stormed and closed local universities. Protests against the German occupation in Czechoslovakia began on October 28, 1939, the 21st anniversary of the proclamation of the Czechoslovak Republic. The crowd on Wenceslas Square in Prague chanted: “We want freedom,” “Long live Benes” (President of Czechoslovakia until 1938). There was no mass suppression of this action, but several clashes occurred, in one of which Jan Opletal, a medical student at the University of Prague, was seriously wounded. He died in hospital on November 11. On November 15 they said goodbye to him at the building of the Faculty of Medicine.
Farewell to Jan Opletal. Photo: enrs.eu
Several thousand students gathered there, and as the coffin was placed on the hearse, they began to sing the national anthem. Then the crowd moved towards Charles Square, and clashes with the police occurred along the way. During the events of that day, students also surrounded the car of Deputy Reich Protector Karl Frank and beat his driver.
“The Prague events became the subject of discussion the very next day at a special meeting in Berlin, which was chaired by Hitler himself. Reichsprotector von Neurath only proposed closing higher education institutions, but Frank insisted on mass repression. The Fuhrer’s position was decisive. Since this was the time of his complete triumph in resolving the “Polish question,” in the wake of ambition and a new attack of megalomania, Hitler was not going to forgive the Czechs for such “disobedience.” He stated: “March 15 was my big mistake! It’s a pity that we didn’t treat the Czechs the same as we treated the Poles. The events of October 28 and November 15 proved that the Czechs did not deserve a better fate. If they don’t calm down, you need to use guns. If there is any more demonstration, I will raze Prague to the ground.” Subsequently, a plan for the punitive and repressive operation “November 17” was developed – writes about those events, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of World History of Kamenets-Podolsk National University named after Ivan Ohienko Ivan Borovets.
During punitive operations on November 17, nine protest organizers and activists were executed. And 1,200 participants were sent to the concentration camps of Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen (35 students died there). The Nazis also closed ten Czech universities – supposedly for three years, but in fact they resumed work only after the end of World War II.
November 17, 1973 The Greek military junta suppressed an uprising of students at the Polytechnic University in Athens.
Monument to the victims of the Polytechnion, Photo: George Groutas
Polytechnic students spoke out against the abolition of student government and, in general, the attack on rights and freedoms organized in the country by the military junta led by Georgios Papadopoulos. On November 14, students at the Polytechnic University of Athens (Polytechnion) went on strike and barricaded themselves in the university building. There they seized a radio station and constantly broadcast appeals to the Greek people, calling for a fight against the dictatorship. On November 17, the government gave the order to attack the university building with tanks. Armored vehicles broke down the gates of the campus, the rebels were detained and then tried. Officials stated that no one was killed during the assault. But after the overthrow of the junta, an independent investigation was carried out, which proved that 24 people were killed during those events, including a five-year-old boy who accidentally got into a shootout.
November 17, 1989 With the dispersal of student demonstrations in Prague, the so-called “Velvet Revolution” began, which overthrew communist rule in Czechoslovakia. The event, of course, was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Nazi storming of Prague universities. About 15 thousand people joined the peaceful student action – other citizens also came out with anti-communist banners and slogans.
“Velvet Revolution” in Prague, November 25, 1989. Photo: wikipedia.org
In the end, the crowd was stopped by a cordon of special forces, a skirmish occurred, and some were beaten. But they were not the trigger for the further surge of popular anger. And the supposedly “killed student.” In fact, it was secret police agent Ludwik Zifczak who lost consciousness at the scene of the collision. He was seen lying on the street, and then he was transported to an ambulance, and then around the hospital grounds. This is where rumors of a dead student arose. Popular rumor even came up with a name for him – Martin Schmid. Gradually the information reached the media. And a local correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty put it on the air. The very next day, students announced a nationwide strike. They were joined by teachers, actors from local theaters, and representatives of the intelligentsia. On November 19, a “Civil Forum” was created, which began to represent the interests of protesters in negotiations with the authorities. By the end of November, the participants in the Velvet Revolution, without bloodshed, ensured that parliament abolished the constitutional article on the leading role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. On December 10, President Gustav Husak resigned. A coalition government of national accord was formed in the country, in which the communists and the opposition received an equal number of seats. Already on December 29, the parliament elected Alexander Dubcek (known from the events of the Prague Spring) as head. And human rights activist and head of the “Civil Forum” Vaclav Havel was elected president of the Czechoslovak Republic.
Church holiday November 17
On November 17, according to the new church calendar, the memory of St. Gregory, the miracle worker, Bishop of Neocaesarea is honored in Ukraine. He was born in Neokesarea (in the north of Asia Minor). Having received his education in Alexandria from the presbyter Origen, he went into the desert, where he fasted and prayed. Bishop Fedim, having learned about Saint Gregory, decided to install him as a bishop in Neocaesarea. When the persecution of Christians began for the Emperor Decius, Saint Gregory led his flock to a remote mountain. The pagan, who knew the location of the Christians, pointed it out to the persecutors. The warriors surrounded the mountain. The saint came out into the open, raised his hands to the sky and began to pray. The soldiers searched the entire mountain, walked past the worshipers several times and, not seeing them, returned back. They told the city that there was nowhere to hide on this mountain: there was no one there. The informer was amazed by the miracle, repented and became a Christian. After the end of the persecution, Saint Gregory returned to Neocaesarea. With his blessing, church holidays were established in honor of the martyrs who suffered for Christ. Before Gregory’s death, there were only 17 pagans left in the city – and when he took the throne, there were only 17 Christians in Neocaesarea. Gregory died around 266–270.
Folk signs
If it snows on November 17th, it will be a snowy winter.
If crows caw, it will rain.
What not to do on November 17
You can’t walk around in dirty clothes.
You can’t go on a long journey.
2023-11-17 04:00:00
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