[1] Yuriy Tyutyunnyk was born on 20 April 1891, to a peasant family, former serfs Yosyp and Maryna, in the village of Budyshche, near Kyiv.

Tyutyunnyk successfully took entrance tests to the 1st Kyiv gymnasium, but soon he was sent to the Caucasus where he finished a military school in Gori (today in Georgia).

With the coming of the February Revolution, Tyutyunnyk's military acumen caught the attention of Alexander Kerensky, who was in Crimea at the time.

After the fall of Kyiv to Bolshevik forces in 1918, Tyutyunnyk transformed the unit to a kish-size of 20 thousand and engaged in battles throughout central Ukraine.

By the end of the summer, his forces were faced against the Southern group of Iona Yakir and later in the fall dealing against the White movement General Yakov Slashchov.

From 6 December 1919 to 5 May 1920 he took part in the First Winter Campaign[1] under the command of Mykhailo Pavlenko, leading the Kyiv Rifle Division with which he fought against the Bolsheviks to the fall of 1920.

[2] The Soviet government invited him to work cooperatively, and he agreed, lecturing at the School of Red Commanders [uk] in Kharkiv.

On 3 December 1929, he was found guilty of anti-Soviet agitation for collaborating with the Ukrainian Military Organization and sentenced to death.

Through playing himself in various movie films, Tyutyunnyk created an image of himself as a dashing revolutionary in popular Soviet Ukrainian culture.

This image was captured in verse by the Ukrainian writer Ivan Bahrianny and set to music by Hryhory Kytasty.