Zotov, Pavel Dmitrievich

He came from the noblemen of the St. Petersburg province, was born on July 6, 1824, and at the end of the course in the 1st Cadet Corps was released on August 2, 1843 to serve as an ensign in the 14th Artillery Brigade. In 1846, he entered the Military Academy ; having completed the first-rate course there, in 1850 he was transferred to the Guard General Staff Lieutenant. Appointed then as a senior adjutant for the general staff at the headquarters of the guards corps and promoted to headquarters captains , Zotov in 1853 read tactics to senior officers of the guard. In 1857 he was promoted to colonel , dismissed from the post of senior adjutant and appointed to serve in the Caucasian Army.

Upon arrival in Tiflis Zotov, by order of the commander-in-chief, was sent to Terek region to participate in the military operations supposed there. In September of the same year, a raid was launched into the Argun Gorge, and in October a special detachment was formed for operations in Malaya Chechnya. For the difference in affairs with the highlanders, Zotov was awarded the Order of St. Anne of the 2nd degree with swords and was appointed chief of staff of the troops of the Terek region . At the beginning of 1858, the actions in Chechnya took on a serious character, and our troops, with a view to firmly establishing themselves in the Argun Gorge, proceeded to lay it down, which was accompanied by heated fights with the enemy and the ruin of many villages. The result of these actions was the assertion of our troops between Tersk and the upper reaches of Argun and the expression of humility by 13 mountain societies. For participation in these actions Zotov in 1859 was promoted to major general , despite the fact that he was only two years in the rank of colonel, and in the same year he was awarded the Order of St. 3rd degree Vladimir with swords for participating in the storming of the fortified village of Vedeno , the residence of Shamil .

In 1861, Pavel Dmitrievich Zotov was appointed chief of staff of the troops of the Kuban region and was in the current Adagum detachment, with which he made an expedition to the river. Shebsh on the right bank of the Kuban . For these actions he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 1st degree with swords and then sequentially held the positions of Quartermaster General of the Caucasian Army, assistant commander of the Kuban region (1863, the same year he led the Pshekh detachment) and commander of the newly formed 40th Infantry Division .

Produced in 1864 as lieutenant general and first appointed head of the 2nd Infantry Division, enlisted in the General Staff, and then in 1869 the head of the 11th Infantry Division, Zotov was enlisted in 1871 as the General Staff, and in 1872 he was appointed head of the 28th Infantry Division. Zotov commanded this last division until his appointment in 1877 as commander of the 4th Army Corps , with whom he took part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878.

During the war with Turkey, he fell to the difficult task of commanding troops near Plevna . After the unsuccessful assault on Plevna on August 30, the command over all the forces that encircled Plevna was entrusted to Prince Karl of Romania ; Zotov, remaining with him as chief of staff, actually controlled the actions of the Russian troops. Not showing proper energy, Zotov was soon replaced by Totleben . This ended the actual combat activity of Zotov, which caused him many complaints and accusations of weakness and indecision. Nevertheless, Zotov was awarded the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky with swords and diamond signs.

At the end of the campaign, he was already appointed in the rank of infantry general a member of the Military Council and remained in that rank until the day of his death, which followed on November 19, 1879. Pavel Dmitrievich Zotov was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra .

In the last years of his service, Zotov was awarded the Order of St. Anna of the 1st degree with the imperial crown, St. Vladimir of the 2nd degree with swords and the White Eagle .

Zotov left behind notes on the war of 1877-1878. They are important, firstly, as an eyewitness account, and secondly, as the testimony of one of the most important figures of the 1877 war. Of course, it cannot be said that complete impartiality should always lead the pen of the author, a person in all respects worthy, honest, noble in the high meaning of the word. Standing in the whirlpool of events, bearing a lot of troubles, complaints and reproaches, he, quite understandably, could not help worrying about these or other failures and troubles. Strict to himself, he is sometimes strict in reviews of others. But do not forget that he wrote his notes not for the press, exclusively for himself, and therefore there can be no doubt that he wrote sincerely: there was no point in entering reviews and notes in his diary, in full justice of which he did not was deeply and completely sincerely convinced. These notes were published in the January and February issues of the magazine Russian Antiquity for 1886.

• Zotov, Pavel Dmitrievich // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.
• Zotov, Pavel Dmitrievich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.
• Olshevsky M.Ya. the Caucasus from 1841 to 1866. SPb., 2003.

• Zotov, Pavel Dmitrievich // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.