Oleg Koshevoy

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A portrait of Oleg Koshevoy.

Oleg Vasilyevich Koshevoy (Ukrainian: Олег Васильoвич Кошoвий, translit. Oleh Vasyl’ovych Koshovyi; Russian: Олег Васильевич Кошевой) (June 8, 1926 - February 9, 1943) was a Ukrainian partisan and one of the founders of the clandestine organization Young Guard, which fought the Nazi forces in Krasnodon during World War II (the "Great Patriotic War") between 1941 and 1945.

Born in Pryluky, a city in the Chernihiv Oblast (province) of present-day north-central Ukraine (at the time a part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic), Oleg Koshevoy's family moved south to Rzhyshchiv and Poltava before settling in Krasnodon (at the eastern border of Ukraine) in 1940, where he attended secondary school. In July of 1942, Krasnodon was occupied by the German army. Under the leadership of the party underground, Koshevoy organized an anti-fascist Komsomol (Communist Youth) organization called the Young Guard (Russian: Молодая гвардия, translit. Molodaya gvardiya), becoming its commissar. In January of 1943, the Germans exposed the organization. Oleg Koshevoy tried to cross the front line, but was soon apprehended. He was tortured and then executed on February 9, 1943.

On September 13 of 1943, Oleg Koshevoy was awarded the title of the Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously. Many mines, sovkhozes, schools, and Young Pioneer groups in the Soviet Union were later named after him.