| Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky | |
|---|---|
Grigory Kotovsky |
|
| Born | June 24, 1881 Hînceşti, Russian Empire |
| Died | August 6, 1925 (aged 44) Chebanka Village, near Odessa, Soviet Union |
| Allegiance | Soviet Union (1918-1925) |
| Years of service | 1918 — 1925 |
| Rank | General |
| Commands held | Red Army |
| Battles/wars | Russian Civil War |
| Awards | Order of the Red Banner (3) |
Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky (Russian: Григо́рий Ива́нович Кото́вский, Romanian: Grigore Kotovski; born June 24 [O.S. June 12] 1881 in Hînceşti, now in Hînceşti district, Moldova; died August 6, 1925 in Birzula, now Kotovsk in Ukraine) was a Soviet military leader and Communist activist.
Kotovsky was born in Bessarabia, the son of a mechanical engineer. His father was of Polish ethnicity and his mother was an ethnic Russian. Kotovskt attended agricultural college and worked as an estate manager. Kotovsky had a marked stutter. In 1905 he was conscripted into the army but deserted and was sentenced to a term in a katorga.
A deserter from the Imperial Russian army, a convict in a katorga, and a fugitive sentenced to death in 1916, Kotovsky had begun resisting tsarist rule since 1902, leading two Moldovan rebellions in 1905 and 1915. During the last part of World War I, Kotovsky was sent to the Romanian front. In 1918, he sided with the Communists in Tiraspol, taking command of a revolutionary battalion and helping the Bolsheviks gain control of Ukraine. He joined the Bolshevik party in 1920. In 1924, he took an active part in the foundation of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in Transnistria, as part of the Ukrainian SSR.
He was killed near Odessa by his deputy and friend for having an affair with the latter's wife in 1925. He was then buried in a mausoleum in Birzula, which was renamed Kotovsk in 1935; in the meantime it was included in the newly created Odessa Oblast. The mausoleum was later destroyed during the Romanian occupation of Transnistria.
Two other towns in the Soviet Union were also named Kotovsk. One of them was his native Hînceşti, which regained its former name in 1990. The other one is situated in Tambov Oblast, Russia.
This article is partially translated from Russian Wikipedia