Kozelsk

Kozelsk stands on the Zhizdra in the wooded upper Oka country. Once a small princely capital of the Chernigov lands, it became famous for its resistance to Batu’s invasion. In 1238 its defenders held out for seven weeks before the Mongols captured and destroyed the town. The fortifications and the town were rebuilt in the centuries that followed.

The princes of Kozelsk had to navigate between the growing powers of Moscow and Lithuania. In 1402 they submitted to Moscow’s Vasily I, but Lithuania captured the town in the 1440s. Khan Ahmad devastated it in 1480 during his withdrawal after the confrontation on the Ugra. A change of allegiance by a local prince preceded the peace of 1494, in which Lithuania recognised Moscow’s possession of Kozelsk. The town remained exposed to warfare on the contested frontier. In 1610, during the Time of Troubles, Kozelsk and its surroundings were again ravaged. A survey made two decades later described the nearby Optina Hermitage with a wooden church and six cells occupied by monks. The monastery would become an important religious centre; its modest buildings after the devastation show how small communities endured in the forests around the town.