Mitya Kozelsky (Russian: Митя Козельский, also known as Mitya Koliaba, Mitya Gugnivy, Mitya Kolebiaka; real name Dmitry Popov; 1865, Kozelsk, Kaluga Governorate, Russian Empire – 1929, Solovetsky Islands, USSR) was a Russian Fool for Christ, who enjoyed the favor and trust of Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. He suffered from epilepsy and severe damage to his musculoskeletal system, struggling to articulate speech (often appearing with an "interpreter" who helped him to clarify his words).
After being distanced from the imperial court, he became a fierce opponent of Grigory Rasputin. On 29 December 1911, he participated in an unsuccessful attempt by senior clergy to force Rasputin's departure from Saint Petersburg and end his contact with the imperial family. Following this, he was forced into hiding. He maintained close ties with the .
His reputation of a holy person is reflected in the contemporaries' memoirs, including French ambassador Maurice Paléologue, Chairman of the Council of Ministers Vladimir Kokovtsov, Chairman of the State Duma Mikhail Rodzianko, and many others. Mitya Kozelsky became a minor character in Valentin Pikul's novel the Demonic Forces, and Andrey Amalrik's documentary novel Rasputin.
Biography
Before coming to the court Dmitry Popov was born in 1865,Andrey Tereshchuk attributed Mitya Kozelsky's thirtieth birthday to 1900, so the date of his birth should be 1870.Sergei Firsov claimed that by 1900 he was about 45 years old, so the date of birth of Mitya Kozelsky he considered not 1865, but about 1855. in the town of Kozelsk in Kaluga Governorate. Former hieromonk Iliodor, who knew him closely, wrote that Popov belonged to the burgher class.The authors of the collective work of the staff of V. M. Shukshin Biysk Pedagogical State University considered him a peasant. Iliodor claimed that by 1900, Dmitry Popov was mute and completely crippled. Doctor of Philosophical Sciences Andrey Grigorenko described him at this time as "deaf, mute, half-blind, bow-legged, with a crooked spine and two stumps instead of arms". According to Grigorenko, "his brain, atrophied like his limbs, held only a small number of rudimentary ideas, which he expressed through guttural sounds, stuttering, grunting, mooing, squealing, and chaotic gestures with his stumps".Exactly this characterization of Mitya is given in the memoirs of the French ambassador Maurice Paleologue, but not in relation to the childhood and youth of the fool, but in relation to the time of his acquaintance with the emperor. Peasants from his native village gave him alms out of compassion and saw nothing divine in him.
For several years, Dmitry Popov lived at Optina Pustyn, near Kozelsk. In 1900, contemporaries believed that after a thunder storm he started to walk and speak intelligibly. However, significant health issues persisted. Recounting events from 1911, Iliodor wrote: Mitya "stamped his lame foot and gestured wildly with his healthy hand".Dr. Vadim Telitsyn, a doctor of historical sciences, claimed that during his stay at the court (i.e., after 1901), the jester had crooked legs, a hump, stumps instead of hands, poor eyesight and hearing, so he had to be "guided by the stump". In 1900, it was considered miraculous that "a cross appeared in his right hand". It was believed that Mitya Kozelsky gained the ability to exorcise demons, and his words began to be perceived as prophecy. Iliodor added that the miracles he performed were mediated by that very cross. Maurice Paloologue noted that his prophetic ecstasy appeared as alternating "agitation with intervals of stupor".
According to Viktor Obninsky, a deputy of the First State Duma from Kaluga Governorate, after the death of Amvrosy Optinsky in 1891, the Optina Pustyn status got weak. The monks needed a new veneration figure. Obninsky believed they viewed Mitya Kozelsky as Amvrosy's successor. Pilgrims visiting the monastery spread the "fame of the new blessed one" across Russia. The indistinctness of Mitya's speech and the vague interpretations of his words allowed people to attribute "all the more meaning and significance to them, the more senseless they were". Candidate of Historical Sciences Ilya Solovyov considered Mitya Kozelsky a protégé of Amvrosy himself, who welcomed cripples. Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor Vadim Telitsyn wrote that the monks of Optina Pustyn "discovered his miraculous abilities". Candidate of Historical Sciences Vladimir Novikov agreed, stating that "during one of his epileptic fits, a monk at Optina Pustyn concluded that Mitya Kolebyaka possessed a prophetic gift". Afterwards, monks began presenting Mitya to church authorities, who, according to Novikov, started to use him" for their own purposes.
From Optina Pustyn, Mitya Kozelsky embarked on a wandering journey across the Russian Empire. Memoirist and journalist Alexander Voznesensky, claimed that his frequent companion on these wanderings was Grigory Rasputin. In 1901, Mitya arrived in Kronstadt, where he was introduced to the widely known John of Kronstadt.
Initially, Mitya established a friendly relationship with John of Kronstadt, but they got a quarrel soon. The cause was that John didn't inform the tsar about Mitya's prophetic gift. Later, when Mitya got to the imperial court, he demanded that John appear before the emperor to explain himself. The emperor, in Mitya's presence, asked John: "Why didn’t you tell me at the time that the prescient Mitya had come to Kronstadt and asked you to inform me?" John could not respond and was visibly shaken. According to Iliodor, Mitya Kozelsky was the first to denounce John of Kronstadt, recounting that "between Lomonosov and Kronstadt, some people caught him, beat him for improper relations with women; they brought Ivan home unconscious, requiring two sheets for the blood".
Mitya Kozelsky among the Imperial Family
According to hieromonk Iliodor, John of Kronstadt helped Mitya Kozelsky gain an audience at the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy with theology candidate Archimandrite Theophan, the academy's inspector (Iliodor noted he personally introduced Mitya to Theophan, dating this to 1902). Theophan then introduced him to Princess Milica Nikolaevna, wife of Grand Duke Peter Nikolaevich, and later to Emperor Nicholas II. Doctor of Historical-Philological Sciences and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Mikhail Bogoslovsky viewed Mitya Kozelsky as a protégé of Bishop of Saratov and Tsaritsyn Hermogenes, contrasting him with Rasputin, a protégé of Archimandrite Theophan.
Viktor Obninsky offered a different version of Mitya's introduction to the court. He claimed that Kozelsk landowner and aide-de-camp Prince Nikolay Obolensky, Grand Duke Konstantin, who lived for years at a dacha near Optina Pustyn, and Nikolay's brother Aleksey, briefly the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod, drew the tsar's attention to him. Vadim Telitsyn added that Mitya healed Princess Abamelek-Lazareva of infertility, which caught Obolensky's interest. Initially, the fool was received in the salon of Countess Sofya Ignatieva, after which several salon members "decided to bring the holy madman to the imperial court" to aid the empress in bearing an heir. Doctor of Philosophy Douglas Smith wrote that a senior official noticed Mitya Kozelsky and brought him to court from Optina Pustyn.
Typically, Mitya Kozelsky arrived to high society with an elderly "interpreter" who deciphered his intentions for those present, as he continued to struggle with speech. Some sources identify that man as Yelpidifor Kananykin, Mitya's fellow native from Kozelsk, a burgher, and former merchant.Andrei Tereshchuk and Vadim Telitsyn in their books give the same name, but a different biography of the “interpreter”. According to them, he was a rector (or psalmist) in the village of Goevo. Another version in his book on Rasputin was expounded by Brian Moynehen. He claimed that the interpreter and interpreter at Mita was a certain prikomar Egorov, who, praying before the icon of Nicholas the Wonderworker, received the gift “to discern the divine meaning in the howls and squeals of Mita”. Vadim Telitsyn also mentioned a prayer at an image of Nicholas the Wonderworker, but attributed the event to Kananykin. During the prayer, the voice of the saint announced to Elpidifor that the foolish Mitya Kolyaba would play a great role in Russian history, and revealed the key to his “divination”. Ilya Solovyov gives the surname of the “interpreter” as Kanonikin and considers him a landlord from Kozelsk. Journalist and memoirist Lev Klyachko ironically dubbed him Mitya's impresario. Kananykin explained that, "having grasped the vanity of life, he decided to dedicate himself to the blessed one, after which… divine favor descended upon him, enabling him to understand Mitka and comprehend the hidden meaning of his words". Yelpidifor Kananykin often begged for generous donations to build a church in Optina Pustyn in honor of the blessed one. When Dmitry Trepov became palace commandant, Lev Klyachko claimed he housed Mitya and Yelpidifor in his apartments and personally escorted them to meetings with the tsar.
Viktor Obninsky described the first meeting between Mitya and the emperor this way: the fool and his interpreter were bathed and decently dressed beforehand. Upon seeing the emperor, Mitya moaned, which Yelpidifor interpreted as a desire to see the children. After the daughters appeared, "the fool shrieked wildly and showed some excitement", which Yelpidifor explained as a wish to drink tea. Mitya "was kept at the palace for a while and then sent back home". Some time later, he was "summoned again for certain actions." According to Obninsky, this was the fool's final visit to the court. This version was retold by Candidate of Historical Sciences Aleksandr Gorbovsky and writer Yulian Semyonov in their book Closed Pages of History, as well as by Doctor of Philosophical Sciences Vyacheslav Vozchikov, Candidate of Historical Sciences and rector of Biysk State Pedagogical University Konstantin Koltakov, and writer and local historian Yury Kozlov in Bonfire for the Holy Devil: A Historical-Literary Study.
Lev Klyachko described the fool's visits to the imperial family differently: Yelpidifor Kananykin, "anticipating an impending fit, led him into the tsar's chambers. There, Mitya rolled on the floor, spewing copious saliva and incoherent sounds. The tsar and tsarina watched the fits intently and listened to Kananykin translate the fool's prophecies into comprehensible language". Vadim Telitsyn wrote of numerous visits to Tsarskoye Selo and the empress's severe headaches from the fool's screams. Kananykin refused to interpret Mitya's words regarding the birth of an heir, offering evasive comments. According to the historian, the fool never achieved the influence at court held by other "predictors" and "miracle-workers".
Former hieromonk Iliodor, in his 1917 book Holy Devil: Notes on Rasputin, described Mitya's role at court: "The little blessed one gave the tsars advice, warned of revolution, military uprisings, and, sneaking in through the back door, waving his withered hand, limping slightly on his left or right leg, and casually carrying bilberries or strawberries in his pockets for the tsar's children, he prophesied". Maurice Paléologue, emphasizing Mitya's influence at the time, stated: "During the unfortunate Russo-Japanese War, Mitya Kolyaba seemed destined to play a major role. But clumsy friends entangled him in an epic quarrel between Rasputin and Bishop Hermogenes". Candidate of Historical Sciences Voldemar Balyazin claimed that the intimate use of papa and mama by the Romanovs and their close circle for the emperor and empress stemmed from Mitya Kozelsky, as these were the only two words he could pronounce clearly.