Grigory Kotovsky

Grigory Ivanovich Kotovsky (Russian: Григо́рий Ива́нович Кото́вский, Romanian: Grigore Kotovski;June 24 [O.S. June 12] 1881 – August 6, 1925) was an adventurist, Soviet military and political figure, participant of the Russian Civil War. He made a career from a Russian gangster and bank robber, to eventually becoming a Red Army general and member of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union.

Biography

Early life

Kotovsky was born in Bessarabia, the son of a mechanical engineer. (Officially Kotovsky claimed to be born in 1887.) He also had five siblings. His father was Russian of Polish ethnicity and his mother was an ethnic Russian. By father, Kotovsky was hailed from an old aristocratic Polish family from Kamyanets-Podilsky. His grandfather for connections with participants of the Polish uprising was fired from the Russian service and eventually went bankrupt. Father of Kotovsky was forced to move to Bessarabia and become a Russian burgess. Kotovksy suffered from a marked stuttering and was a left-handed. At two he lost his mother and at 16 - his father. Kotovsky was raised by his godmother Sophia Challe, a daughter of Belgian engineer and a friend of Kotovsky's father and a godfather – landowner Manuk-bey. Manuk-bey helped and completely supported Kotovsky enrollment and stay at the Cucuruzeni Agricultural College. He intended eventually to send his godson to Germany for the Higher Agricultural Courses, but his dreams were cut short due to his death in 1902.