Katyn (rural locality)
| Katyn (English) Катынь (Russian) |
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| - Inhabited locality - | |
.svg) Location of Smolensk Oblast in Russia |
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 Katyn
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| Administrative status | |
| Country | Russia |
| Federal subject | Smolensk Oblast |
| Statistics | |
| Population (2002 Census) | 1,737 inhabitants[1] |
| Time zone | MSK (UTC+03:00)[2] |
| Founded | 2007[citation needed] |
| Postal code(s)[3] | 214522 |
| Dialing code(s) | +7 481[citation needed] |
| [[:commons:Category:{{#property:Commons category}}|Katyn]] on Wikimedia Commons | |
Katyn (Russian: Катынь; Polish: Katyń [ˈkatɨɲ]) is a rural locality (a selo) in Smolensky District of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located approximately 20 kilometers (12 mi) to the west of Smolensk, the administrative center of the oblast.
Contents
Geography
It is situated to the west of the city of Smolensk (about 18 km from its center) and circa 60 km from the Russian borders with Belarus. It has a station on the Berlin-Warsaw-Minsk-Moscow international railway line.
History
Before World War I, Gnezdovo with the Katyn Forest belonged to the Koźliński family. In the 19th century, Piotr Koźliński married Leokadia Lefftreu, the daughter of the director of the English railway construction company in Russia. Under the marriage articles Gniezdovo and Katyn became a co-owned by the British.[4]
Katyn massacre
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The Katyn Forest in the vicinity of the village was the site of the Katyn massacre during World War II, in which thousands of captured Polish officers and other citizens were killed. Despite claims by the Poles, the Soviet Union blamed Nazi Germany for the mass murders and attempted to hide their involvement, going as far as to ban all mention of the Katyn massacre in the USSR. Then in 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the NKVD had indeed executed the Poles and confirmed two other burial sites similar to the site at Katyn: Mednoye and Piatykhatky. A number of earlier mass graves of victims of the Soviet system have also been found there, as Katyn Forest had long been used as an execution site for Soviet citizens.[citation needed]
Katyn is the place where the communists executed their plan to eliminate entirely the educated head of Poland: politicians, professors, scientists, doctors, lawyers, etc. for their alleged Nazi activities.[5]
The 2007 Polish film Katyń, directed by Andrzej Wajda, is an interpretation of the events that lead up to the mass execution.
Polish plane crash
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On April 10, 2010 around 08.56 GMT a Polish government aircraft crashed near Katyn, on Smolensk Military Air Base. Passengers of the Polish-owned Russian Tupolev-154 airplane included Polish President Lech Kaczyński and his wife, Maria Kaczyńska; former President of Poland in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski; Sławomir Skrzypek, governor of the Polish Central Bank; Andrzej Kremer, Deputy Foreign minister; Piotr Nurowski, President of the Polish Olympic Committee; Jerzy Szmajdzinski, Deputy Speaker of the Sejm, seven army generals and many key political figures. The delegation heading to commemorate the Massacre of Katyn consisted of 96 people, including 7 members of crew. None survived.
The Polish President, Lech Kaczyński was to deliver a speech at the formal commemorations. The speech was to honour the victims, highlight the significance of the massacres in the context of postwar communist political history, as well as stress the need for Russo-Polish relations to focus on reconciliation. Although the speech was never delivered, it has been published with a narration in the original Polish[6] and a translation has also been made available in English.[7]
See also
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Правительство Российской Федерации. Федеральный закон №107-ФЗ от 3 июня 2011 г. «Об исчислении времени», в ред. Федерального закона №248-ФЗ от 21 июля 2014 г. «О внесении изменений в Федеральный закон "Об исчислении времени"». Вступил в силу по истечении шестидесяти дней после дня официального опубликования (6 августа 2011 г.). Опубликован: "Российская газета", №120, 6 июня 2011 г. (Government of the Russian Federation. Federal Law #107-FZ of June 31, 2011 On Calculating Time, as amended by the Federal Law #248-FZ of July 21, 2014 On Amending Federal Law "On Calculating Time". Effective as of after sixty days following the day of the official publication.).
- ↑ Почта России. Информационно-вычислительный центр ОАСУ РПО. (Russian Post). Поиск объектов почтовой связи (Postal Objects Search) (Russian)
- ↑ Tadeusz A. Kisielewski, Zabójcy. Widma wychodzą z cienia, Poznań 2006, p. 40.
- ↑ Decision to commence investigation into Katyn Massacre, Małgorzata Kużniar-Plota, Departmental Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation, Warsaw 30 November 2004
- ↑ (Polish) Onet.TV Platforma "Słowa które nie padły"
- ↑ View From The Right "The Speech the Polish President was to give at the Katyn Memorial" (12 April 2010)
External links
Media related to Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. at Wikimedia Commons- Officiаl site of the State memorial complex «Katyn»
- Articles containing Russian-language text
- Articles with Russian-language external links
- Articles with Polish-language external links
- Articles with unsourced statements from May 2010
- Articles containing Polish-language text
- Articles with unsourced statements from April 2011
- Use mdy dates from March 2011
- Rural localities in Smolensk Oblast
- Katyn massacre
