Russian general-winner of the forgotten war of 1812
Hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, General Pyotr Stepanovich Kotlyarevsky.
PART 1, PART 2, PART 3, PART 4, PART 5, PART 6, PART 7, PART 8, PART 9, PART 10, PART 11, PART 12
Seeing the title, the reader will gasp: how can one talk about the war with Napoleon in 1812, as if it were a forgotten war?! “After all, there were combat fights, Yes, they say, some more! No wonder the whole of Russia remembers the day of Borodin! But we are not against the war with the French. In the same year, in the same months, Russia was at war in the south with the head of the Persian and Turkish armies. And the victorious hero of that war was General Pyotr Stepanovich Kotlyarevsky (1782 – 1852).
WEATHER INTERFERED IN HIS FATE
Rod Peter Kotlyarevsky in the Kharkov province, in the remote village of Olkhovatka, curled up with the family of a priest. And also, at the behest of his father, he had to become a priest. But by some fatal coincidence, in the winter of 1792, General Ivan Lazarev was passing through those places from Kyiv to the Caucasus. The same conqueror of the Caucasus. According to other historical data, Lazarev was a lieutenant colonel that year. But Valentin Pikul, in his story “Warrior, Meteor of Observation”, speaks of him as a general. And so, according to Pikul, the general got into such a snowstorm and lost his way that, together with his adjutant, they began to say goodbye to life, finding themselves freezing in the field. Suddenly they heard the bell ringing and the horses settled.
So Lazarev turned out to be a priest in the house and met the nimble 10-year-old boy Peter. The experienced Lazarev immediately sensed his army man in the boy and offered to give the priest to serve under his protectorate. So the next year, already 11-year-old Peter was caught as a soldier in the Caucasus in an infantry battalion under the command of Ivan Lazarev. If historians do not have confusion in dates, then, of course, it is very difficult to imagine an 11-year-old infantry soldier for us. In 1795, Kotlyarevsky already participated in the siege of the fortress of Derbent. In 1799 he received an officer’s rank and was sent to the Jaeger regiment. And the chasseur regiments, I must say, were the elite of the army. It’s like the current special forces.
DARK MATTER
On April 18, 1803, Kotlyarevsky’s trustee, General Ivan Lazarev, was killed with a dagger by the Georgian queen Mariam. Killed in her bedchamber. This story has several options. And readers can choose from the Internet any to their taste. But the historian Vladimir Medinsky admits the matter is dark. And we agree with him.
Pyotr Kotlyarevsky by that time was already a fairly fired combat officer. His tension is the command company of the Jaeger regiment. The times in the south of the empire are very disturbing due to the aggression of the light Persian (Iranian) troops. Due to the Turkish outbreak. As early as the end of the 18th century, the Georgians, now and then suffering bloody invasions from the Persian and Turkish hordes, asked Russia to take them under its protection. In 1799, King of Kartli-Kakheti George of the 12th processing was received by Emperor Paul I already with the receipt of his land and submitted to the Russian Empire. The Russian ambassador to the Georgian lands (there was no such thing as a Georgian state then) wrote to a special emperor: “The sincere desire of both himself and all classes of the Georgian people, accessible to Russia.” Thus, in 1800, Georgia became part of the Russian Empire.
In response to this, the Turkish authorities began to act, but especially Persia, they became furious and are preparing for war with Russia with the help of British advisers and military specialists. And our war with Iran for Georgia, like other Caucasian lands, lasted from 1804 to 1813. In those battles, Pyotr Stepanovich Kotlyarevsky showed himself to be a valiant and very competent commander, desperately taking on the fortress with a small number of his jaeger “special forces”, opposing the collective assembly. Descriptions of fantastic feats fit volumes. We remember the last and, probably, the most important battles of our glorious general.
HE LOWERED THE ENEMY’S LOSSES
In the early autumn of 1812, the Persians discovered with joy what Napoleon had discovered in Moscow. And this spurred our southern opponents to the most active actions. Kotlyarevsky was instructed by his superiors to seek peace on the southern front. However, he did not obey, realizing well that such a position was disastrous for him. On October 19, 1812, he led his special forces of 2,221 men in the Persian army of 30,000 to attack. “The Russians themselves climb on the knife!” – said the commander of the Persians Abbas-Mirza with a smirk to the English adviser. About 9 thousand people were killed, 537 people surrendered. The survivors fled, leaving the game with provisions and artillery. Russian losses were 28 killed and 99 wounded. Then Kotlyarevsky wrote in St. Petersburg that the Persians lost one and a half exciting people in the battle. Surprised highly qualified specialists, why did he underestimate the numbers so much? “They won’t believe it anyway,” Pyotr Stepanovich uses.
Opening ceremony of the monument to General Kotlyarevsky in Feodosia, 2020
A photo: en.wikipedia.org
LAST STAND
One of the main Persian outposts in the Caucasus maintains the stability of Lankaran in Azerbaijan. In the early and dark morning of January 1, 1813, General Kotlyarevsky testifies to his resistance to attack and himself calls the soldier into battle. He himself, already wounded in the leg, climbs onto the fortress walls. Two bullets opened up in the head and in the face. By dawn, the Russians captured the fortress, losing almost all the officers in the process. General Kotlyarevsky among the corpses. His opening on uniform. The face turned into a terrible mess. “Our father passed away,” said one of the soldiers. “I died, but I heard everything, I know that we defeated the Persians” – General.
The regimental doctor miraculously turned out to be a general. Removed 40 bone fragments of the skull and shattered cheekbone. Saved one eye.
For this feat, General Kotlyarevsky received the Order of St. George II degree. And the Shah of Persia, having lost such a significant fortress, many people and benefits, was forced to start world needs with Russia. October 24, 1813 was the Treaty of Gulistan peace. The Persians recognized Eastern Georgia, the northern lands of the territory of Azerbaijan, as well as Megrelia, Imeretia, Guria and Abkhazia of the environment. However, these and all other great feats of General Kotlyarevsky went into oblivion against the background of the appearance with Napoleon.
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Readers can learn even more interesting details about the life and service of General Pyotr Stepanovich Kotlyarevsky from the interesting and instructive lectures of Vladimir Medinsky. You can follow this link.