[1][2] Mykola Shchors was born in the village of Snovsk of Gorodnya uyezd (Chernigov Governorate) into a family of kulaks.

About six months after the death of his wife, Mykola's father remarried, this time to Maria Konstantinovna Podbelo.

Shchors graduated from the school in 1914 and, upon receiving the rank of a junior physician assistant, was transferred to the Vilna Military District.

In September 1914, when the Russian Empire entered World War I, Shchors went to the front lines as part of the 3rd Light Artillery Division near Vilnius, where he served as a medical assistant and was wounded in battle.

Upon recovery in 1916, Shchors enrolled in the accelerated four-month program at Vilnius Military School, which had been evacuated to Poltava in 1915.

Sometime after his return to Ukraine, he became acquainted with the chairman of a local Cheka Fruma Rostova (real name Khaikina), whom he married in the fall of 1918.

In March–April 1918 he commanded a joint detachment of Novozybkovsky district that fought against the Ukrainian and German armies as a part of the 1st Insurgent Division.

Then he decisively defended the main forces of the Ukrainian People's Republic near Sarny - Rivne - Brody - Proskuriv.

Shchors attempted to hold the line near Sarny - Novohrad-Volynsky - Shepetivka, but was forced to retreat east by the more numerous, better trained, and better equipped Poles.

Under his command the division defended the Korostensky railroad junction, allowing the evacuation of Kyiv and the escape of the southern group of the 12th Army from encirclement.

[2] Following 1935 in the Soviet Union many streets, avenues, parks, collective farms and villages were renamed to include Shchors name in their name.

In 1939 Aleksandr Dovzhenko made a film titled Shchors,[2] which was awarded the State Prize of the Soviet Union in 1941.

[2] When personally awarding Dovzhenko the Order of Lenin in February 1935 Stalin told him "give us a Ukrainian Chapayev.

[2] In Kyiv a 7-ton[7] monument to Shchors that was erected in 1954, the year of the 300th anniversary of the Pereiaslav Agreement, was dismantled on 9 December 2023.