Born on the 25th of August 1919 in the village of Pokrovka, Abdulinsk district, Orenburg region; son of a farmer's family.
Went to the 7-class secondary school, which he finished in 1936.
In 1936 he took up studies at the Abdulinsk college of education. Having passed the final exams in 1939, he was assigned to work as a school-teacher.
In 1940 he was called up into the army. He served in the Ukraine - in Shmerinka, in the 434th rifle regiment.
In 1941 P. Kotov was arrested by the state security organs and transported away to the inner KGB prison in Orenburg.
On the 28th/29th of July 1941 the military tribunal of the local military district sentenced him on section 58, paras 10 and 11, to a ten years' term in a reform labour camp.
In the course of the year 1941, as well as during the first half of 1942, he did his term in camps in the Orenburg region. Afterwards he was sent to the Komi ASSR - to the camps of Inta and Vorkuta.
Having served his term, in March 1951, Pyotr Kharitonovich was exiled to Siberia for life, i.e. he was removed from the area of residence with prohibition against returning. He was taken to the settlement of Maklakovo, district of Yenisseysk, Krasnoyarsk region.
Pyotr worked there for a wood-processing collective combine. He became acquainted with an interned girl from Poland called Anya. They fell in love and got married. In 1954 Anya gave birth to two girls: Irina and Yelena.
On the 6th of December 1957 P. Kotov was rehabilitated. And so he could now chose his place of residence himself. His wife Anya was rehabilitated, too. But now there occurred a problem: where should they go to live? It was Pyotr's wish to stay in his home country, in Russia, and Anya's - to go back to Poland, to the city of Gdansk, where her mother, sister and brother lived, as well. Their final decision was: depart for Poland.
After 17 years of deprivation of freedom they reached Poland in 1958, where Pyotr registered himself at the Warsaw University, at the faculty of Russian philology.
After having finished his studies, Pyotr is sent to the Institute of Russian philology at the Gdansk University, where he takes up the position of a main lecturer for Russian language and literature. he carries out this function until his retirement.
He began to write poems when he was still as tudent at the Abdulinsk college of education. They were first printed during his student days at the university in Warsaw. In Gdansk a few volumes of Pyotr Kotov's poems were published - in Polish (translated ny Polish poets) and even in two languages - with the texts printed side by side in Russian and Polish. Pyotr Kotov is a member of the Polish writers' union. His work finds benevolent appreciation by Polish reviewers.
In his home country Pyotr Kotov's name is hardly known to anybody. Only by the support of Victor Demidov, subeditor of the newspaper "Iskra" ("Spark", city of Inta, Republic of Komi), co-chairman of the All-Russian "Memorial" Society, a large selection of P. Kotov's poems was published in the magazine "Rossiyane" ("The Russians", No. 10, 1992), in the column "Slavic writing-book".
In Inta they intend to edit P. Kotov's works entitled "Via Adak, via Inta my way lead me to Siberia", in the serial "Booklet about my home town".
The poems of Pyotr Kotov stand out for their authenticity, the originality of feelings and the artistic expressiveness of their author. And this is how the well-known poet Anatoliy Zhigulin commented on Pyotr Kotov's poems: "Thank you very much for your letter and the book "Eternel fire". I read the book carefully and with utmost interest. Many of the verses stir the reader's heart, amny of them represent a very special documentation of the era ... Anatoliy Zhigulin". These few lines are on the wrapper of one of the volumes of poems - they characterize best the works of Pyotr Kotov.