It is not clear when the monastery was established. Its name is probably derived from the Russian word for "living together", possibly because
nuns were allowed into the cloister prior to 1504. Most of the monastery buildings were erected at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, when the monastery was being renovated as a centre of Russian staretsdom. In 1821, a hermitage for startsy was established away from the monastery. The startsy attracted crowds of devout Christians to Kozelsk. Among others, Optina Pustyn was visited by
Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Vasily Zhukovsky,
Nikolai Gogol,
Ivan Turgenev, and
Vasily Rozanov.
Leo Tolstoy also visited the monastery, although he did not approve of the staretsdom. The cloister boasted a rich library, collected with help from the
Slavophile Kireyevsky brothers, both buried within the monastery walls. The philosopher
Konstantin Leontyev lived at the monastery for four years and took the tonsure here. The local starets
Saint Amvrosy is said to have been a prototype of Father Zosima in
Dostoyevsky's novel
The Brothers Karamazov. After the
Russian Revolution, the last of the startsy were forcibly deported from the monastery, which was declared a
gulag. The last
hegumen was executed in
Tula in 1938. Later, some of the structures were demolished, while the cathedral was designated a literary museum. In 1939-1940 there was a camp for
Polish Army officers -
prisoners of war. Most of them were
murdered by
NKVD in
Katyń massacre. In 1987 with the beginning of
Perestroika, Optina Pustyn was one of the first abbeys to be returned to the
Russian Orthodox Church. In the 1990s its most notable startsy were glorified as
saints. They are commemorated together on October 10 (October 23 on the
Gregorian Calendar). In 1993 three inhabitants of the monastery were murdered on Easter night. They were
hieromonk Basil (Roslyakov), monk
Ferapont (Pushkaryov) and monk
Trophim (Tatarinov), known collectively as the Optina martyrs. == Startsy ==