Pin made in the Ukraine. The text on the pin reads:”Kirovograd” now known as Kropyvnytskyi. Kropyvnytskyi is a city in central Ukraine on the Inhul river. It is an administrative center of the Kirovohrad Oblast. Population: 222,695 (2021).
During the Russian Civil War, the city witnessed intense fighting. On 7 May 1919, paramilitary leader, and former divisional general in the Red Army, Nikifor Grigoriev, launched an anti-Bolshevik uprising. On 8 May 1919, he issued a proclamation “To the Ukrainian People”, in which he called upon the Ukrainian people to rise against the “Communist imposters”, singling out the “Jewish commissars” and the Cheka. In only a few weeks, Grigoriev’s troops perpetrated 148 pogroms, the deadliest of which resulted in the massacre of upwards of 1,000 Jewish people in Yelisavetgrad, from 15 to 17 May 1919. In total, about 3,000 Jews died in the city.
The Soviet Red Army eventually reconquered the city in 1920. In World War II Kropyvnytskyi was occupied by Nazi Germany from 5 August 1941. It was subsequently recaptured by Soviet forces on 8 January 1944.