CAUCASUS CONFEDERATION An agreement on the establishment of the Confederation of the Peoples of the Caucasus was signed in Brussels on July 14, 1934 by representatives of the national emigrant centers of Azerbaijan, the North Caucasus and Georgia. It proclaimed the following principles: Confederation

In 1817-1827, General Aleksey Petrovich Yermolov (1777-1861) was the commander of the Separate Caucasian Corps and the chief administrator in Georgia. Yermolov's activities as commander-in-chief were active and quite successful. In 1817, the construction of the Sunzha line of cordons (along the Sunzha River) began. In 1818, the fortresses of Groznaya (modern Grozny) and Nalchik were built on the Sunzha line. Chechen campaigns (1819-1821) with the aim of destroying the Sunzha line were repulsed, Russian troops began to advance into the mountainous regions of Chechnya. In 1827, Yermolov was dismissed for his patronage of the Decembrists. Field Marshal Ivan Fedorovich Paskevich (1782-1856) was appointed to the post of commander-in-chief, who switched to the tactics of raids and campaigns, which could not always give lasting results. Later, in 1844, the commander-in-chief and viceroy, Prince M.S. Vorontsov (1782-1856), was forced to return to the cordon system. In 1834-1859, the liberation struggle of the Caucasian highlanders, which took place under the flag of the ghazavat, was led by Shamil (1797 - 1871), who created the Muslim-theocratic state - the imamat. Shamil was born in the village of Gimrakh around 1797, and according to other sources, around 1799, from the Avar bridle Dengau Mohammed. Gifted with brilliant natural abilities, he listened to the best teachers of grammar, logic and rhetoric in Dagestan Arabic and soon became regarded as an outstanding scientist. The sermons of Kazi-mullah (or rather, Gazi-Mohammed), the first preacher of ghazavat - a holy war against the Russians, captivated Shamil, who became first his student, and then his friend and ardent supporter. The followers of the new doctrine, which sought the salvation of the soul and cleansing from sins through a holy war for the faith against the Russians, were called murids. When the people were sufficiently fanatized and excited by the descriptions of paradise, with its houris, and the promise of complete independence from any authorities other than Allah and his Sharia (the spiritual law set forth in the Koran), Kazi-mullah managed to to carry along Koisuba, Gumbet, Andia and other small communities along the Avar and Andi Kois, most of the Shamkhalate of Tarkovsky, Kumyks and Avaria, except for its capital Khunzakh, where the Avar khans visited. Expecting that his power would only be strong in Dagestan when he finally took possession of Avaria, the center of Dagestan, and its capital Khunzakh, Kazi-mulla gathered 6,000 people and on February 4, 1830 went with them against the khansha Pahu-Bike. On February 12, 1830, he moved to storm Khunzakh, with one half of the militia commanded by Gamzat-bek, his future successor-imam, and the other by Shamil, the future 3rd imam of Dagestan.

The assault was unsuccessful; Shamil, together with Kazi-mullah, returned to Nimry. Accompanying his teacher on his campaigns, in 1832 Shamil was besieged by the Russians, under the command of Baron Rosen, in Gimry. Shamil managed, although terribly wounded, to break through and escape, while Kazi-mulla died, all pierced by bayonets. The death of the latter, the wounds received by Shamil during the siege of Gimr, and the dominance of Gamzat-bek, who declared himself the successor of Kazi-mullah and imam - all this kept Shamil in the background until the death of Gamzat-bek (September 7 or 19, 1834), the main of which he was an employee, gathering troops, obtaining material resources and commanding expeditions against the Russians and the enemies of the Imam. Upon learning of the death of Gamzat-bek, Shamil gathered a party of the most desperate murids, rushed with them to New Gotsatl, seized the wealth plundered by Gamzat and ordered the surviving youngest son of Paru-Bike, the only heir to the Avar Khanate, to be killed. With this murder, Shamil finally removed the last obstacle to the spread of the power of the imam, since the khans of Avaria were interested in the fact that there was no single strong power in Dagestan and therefore acted in alliance with the Russians against Kazi-mullah and Gamzat-bek. For 25 years, Shamil ruled over the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya, successfully fighting against the huge forces of Russia. Less religious than Kazi-mullah, less hasty and reckless than Gamzat-bek, Shamil possessed military talent, great organizational skills, endurance, perseverance, the ability to choose the time to strike and helpers to fulfill his plans. Distinguished by a firm and unbending will, he knew how to inspire the highlanders, knew how to excite them to self-sacrifice and to obedience to his authority, which was especially difficult and unusual for them.

Exceeding his predecessors in intelligence, he, like them, did not consider the means to achieve his goals. Fear for the future forced the Avars to get closer to the Russians: the Avarian foreman Khalil-bek appeared in Temir-Khan-Shura and asked Colonel Kluki von Klugenau to appoint a legitimate ruler to Avaria so that it would not fall into the hands of the murids. Klugenau moved towards Gotzatl. Shamil, having arranged blockages on the left bank of the Avar Koisu, intended to act on the Russian flank and rear, but Klugenau managed to cross the river, and Shamil had to retreat into Dagestan, where at that time there were hostile clashes between contenders for power. Shamil's position in these early years was very difficult: a series of defeats suffered by the highlanders shook their desire for ghazavat and their faith in the triumph of Islam over the infidels; one by one, the Free Societies submitted and handed over hostages; fearing ruin by the Russians, the mountain auls were reluctant to host the murids. Throughout 1835, Shamil worked in secret, gaining adherents, fanaticizing the crowd and pushing back rivals or putting up with them. The Russians let him get stronger, because they looked at him as an insignificant adventurer. Shamil spread a rumor that he was only working on restoring the purity of the Muslim law between the recalcitrant societies of Dagestan and expressed his readiness to submit to the Russian government with all the Koisu-Bulins if special maintenance was assigned to him. Putting the Russians to sleep in this way, who at that time were especially busy building fortifications along the Black Sea coast in order to cut off the Circassians from communicating with the Turks, Shamil, with the assistance of Tashav-hadji, tried to raise the Chechens and assure them that most of the mountainous Dagestan had already adopted sharia ( Arabic sharia literally - the proper way) and obeyed the imam. In April 1836, Shamil, with a party of 2,000 people, exhorted and threatened the Koisa Bulins and other neighboring societies to accept his teachings and recognize him as an imam. The commander of the Caucasian Corps, Baron Rosen, wishing to undermine the growing influence of Shamil, in July 1836 sent Major General Reut to occupy Untsukul and, if possible, Ashilta, Shamil's residence. Having occupied Irganai, Major General Reut was met with statements of obedience from Untsukul, whose foremen explained that they accepted Sharia only yielding to the power of Shamil. After that, Reut did not go to Untsukul and returned to Temir-Khan-Shura, and Shamil began to spread the rumor everywhere that the Russians were afraid to go deep into the mountains; then, taking advantage of their inaction, he continued to subjugate the Avar villages to his power. In order to gain greater influence among the population of Avaria, Shamil married the widow of the former imam Gamzat-bek and at the end of this year achieved that all free Dagestan societies from Chechnya to Avaria, as well as a significant part of the Avars and societies lying south of Avaria, recognized him power.

At the beginning of 1837, the corps commander instructed Major General Feza to undertake several expeditions to different parts of Chechnya, which was carried out with success, but made an insignificant impression on the highlanders. Shamil's continuous attacks on the Avar villages forced the governor of the Avar Khanate, Akhmet Khan Mekhtulinsky, to offer the Russians to occupy the capital of the Khunzakh Khanate. On May 28, 1837, General Feze entered Khunzakh and then moved to the village of Ashilte, near which, on the impregnable cliff of Akhulga, there was the family and all the property of the imam. Shamil himself, with a large party, was in the village of Talitle and tried to divert the attention of the troops from Ashilta, attacking from different sides. A detachment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Buchkiev was put up against him. Shamil tried to break through this barrier and on the night of June 7-8 attacked Buchkiev's detachment, but after a heated battle he was forced to retreat. On June 9, Ashilta was taken by storm and burned after a desperate battle with 2,000 selected murid fanatics, who defended every saklya, every street, and then rushed at our troops six times to recapture Ashilta, but in vain. On June 12, Akhulgo was also taken by storm. On July 5, General Feze moved troops to attack Tilitla; all the horrors of the Ashiltipo pogrom were repeated, when some did not ask, while others did not give mercy. Shamil saw that the case was lost, and sent a truce with an expression of humility. General Feze was deceived and entered into negotiations, after which Shamil and his comrades handed over three amanats (hostages), including Shamil's nephew, and swore allegiance to the Russian emperor. Having missed the chance to capture Shamil, General Feze dragged out the war for 22 years, and by making peace with him, as with an equal side, he raised his importance in the eyes of all of Dagestan and Chechnya. Shamil's position, however, was very difficult: on the one hand, the highlanders were shocked by the appearance of the Russians in the very heart of the most inaccessible part of Dagestan, and on the other hand, the pogrom carried out by the Russians, the death of many brave murids and the loss of property undermined their strength and for some time killed their energy. Soon the circumstances changed. Unrest in the Kuban region and in southern Dagestan diverted most of the government troops to the south, as a result of which Shamil could recover from the blows inflicted on him and again attract some free societies to his side, acting on them either by persuasion or by force (the end of 1838 and the beginning 1839). Near Akhulgo, destroyed by the Avar expedition, he built New Akhulgo, where he moved his residence from Chirkat. In view of the possibility of uniting all the highlanders of Dagestan under the rule of Shamil, the Russians during the winter of 1838-39 prepared troops, convoys and supplies for an expedition deep into Dagestan. It was necessary to restore free communications along all our routes of communication, which were now threatened by Shamil to such an extent that to cover our transports between Temir-Khan-Shura, Khunzakh and Vnepnaya, it was necessary to appoint strong columns from all types of weapons. The so-called Chechen detachment of Adjutant General Grabbe was appointed to act against Shamil. Shamil, for his part, in February 1839 gathered an armed mass of 5,000 people in Chirkat, strongly fortified the village of Arguani on the way from Salatavia to Akhulgo, destroyed the descent from the steep mountain Souk-Bulakh, and to divert attention on May 4 attacked the obedient Russia the village of Irganai and took its inhabitants to the mountains. At the same time, Tashav-hadji, who was devoted to Shamil, captured the village of Miskit on the Aksai River and built a fortification near it in the tract of Akhmet-Tala, from which he could at any moment attack the Sunzha line or the Kumyk plane, and then hit the rear when the troops go deep into the mountains when moving to Akhulgo. Adjutant General Grabbe understood this plan and, with a sudden attack, took and burned down the fortification near Miskit, destroyed and burned a number of auls in Chechnya, stormed Sayasani, the stronghold of Tashav-hadzhi, and on May 15 returned to Vnezpnaya. On May 21, he again spoke from there.

Near the village of Burtunaya, Shamil took up a flank position on impregnable heights, but the enveloping movement of the Russians forced him to leave for Chirkat, while his militia dispersed in different directions. Developing a road along puzzling steepness, Grabbe climbed the Souk-Bulakh pass and on May 30 approached Arguani, where Shamil sat down with 16 thousand people to delay the movement of the Russians. After a desperate hand-to-hand fight for 12 hours, in which the mountaineers and Russians suffered huge losses (the mountaineers have up to 2 thousand people, we have 641 people), he left the village (June 1) and fled to New Akhulgo, where he locked himself with the most devoted to him murids. Having occupied Chirkat (June 5), General Grabbe approached Akhulgo on June 12. The blockade of Akhulgo continued for ten weeks; Shamil freely communicated with the surrounding communities, again occupied Chirkat and stood on our messages, harassing us from two sides; reinforcements flocked to him from everywhere; the Russians were gradually surrounded by a ring of mountain rubble. Help from the Samur detachment of General Golovin brought them out of this difficulty and allowed them to close the ring of batteries near New Akhulgo. Anticipating the fall of his stronghold, Shamil tried to enter into negotiations with General Grabbe, demanding a free pass from Akhulgo, but was refused. On August 17, an attack occurred, during which Shamil again tried to enter into negotiations, but without success: on August 21, the attack resumed and after a 2-day battle, both Akhulgo were taken, and most of the defenders died. Shamil himself managed to escape, was wounded on the way and disappeared through Salatau to Chechnya, where he settled in the Argun Gorge. The impression of this pogrom was very strong; many societies sent chieftains and expressed their obedience; former associates of Shamil, including Tashav-Hajj, conceived to usurp the imam's power and recruit adherents, but they made a mistake in their calculations: Shamil was reborn from the ashes of a phoenix and already in 1840 again began the fight against the Russians in Chechnya, taking advantage of the discontent of the mountaineers against our bailiffs and against attempts to take away their weapons. General Grabbe considered Shamil a harmless fugitive and did not care about his pursuit, which he took advantage of, gradually returning the lost influence. Shamil strengthened the dissatisfaction of the Chechens with a deftly spread rumor that the Russians intended to convert the highlanders into peasants and enlist them in military service; the highlanders were worried and remembered Shamil, opposing the justice and wisdom of his decisions to the activities of the Russian bailiffs.

The Chechens offered him to lead the uprising; he agreed to this only after repeated requests, taking an oath from them and hostages from the best families. By his order, the whole of Little Chechnya and the Sunzha auls began to arm themselves. Shamil constantly disturbed the Russian troops with raids of large and small parties, which were transferred from place to place with such speed, avoiding open battle with the Russian troops, that the latter were completely exhausted chasing them, and the imam, taking advantage of this, attacked the obedient Russians who were left without protection society, subjected them to his power and resettled in the mountains. By the end of May, Shamil gathered a significant militia. Little Chechnya is all empty; its population abandoned their homes, rich lands and hid in dense forests beyond the Sunzha and in the Black Mountains. General Galafeev moved (July 6, 1840) to Little Chechnya, had several hot clashes, by the way, on July 11 on the Valerika River (Lermontov participated in this battle, describing it in a wonderful poem), but despite huge losses, especially when Valerika, the Chechens did not back down from Shamil and willingly joined his militia, which he now sent to northern Dagestan. Having won over the Gumbetians, Andians and Salatavians to his side and holding in his hands the exits to the rich Shamkhal plain, Shamil gathered a militia of 10-12 thousand people from Cherkey against 700 people of the Russian army. Having stumbled upon Major General Kluki von Klugenau, Shamil's 9,000-strong militia, after stubborn battles on the 10th and 11th mules, abandoned further movement, returned to Cherkey, and then part of Shamil was disbanded to go home: he was waiting for a wider movement in Dagestan. Evading the battle, he gathered the militia and worried the highlanders with rumors that the Russians would take the mounted highlanders and send them to serve in Warsaw. On September 14, General Kluki von Klugenau managed to challenge Shamil to fight near Gimry: he was beaten on the head and fled, Avaria and Koysubu were saved from looting and devastation. Despite this defeat, Shamil's power was not shaken in Chechnya; all the tribes between the Sunzha and the Avar Koisu obeyed him, vowing not to enter into any relations with the Russians; Hadji Murad (1852), who had betrayed Russia, went over to his side (November 1840) and agitated Avaria. Shamil settled in the village of Dargo (in Ichkeria, at the headwaters of the Aksai River) and took a number of offensive actions. The equestrian party of the naib Akhverdy-Magoma appeared on September 29, 1840 near Mozdok and took several people captive, including the family of the Armenian merchant Ulukhanov, whose daughter, Anna, became Shamil's beloved wife, under the name Shuanet.

By the end of 1840, Shamil was so strong that the commander of the Caucasian Corps, General Golovin, found it necessary to enter into relations with him, challenging him to reconcile with the Russians. This further raised the importance of the imam among the highlanders. Throughout the winter of 1840 - 1841, gangs of Circassians and Chechens broke through Sulak and penetrated even to Tarki, stealing cattle and robbing under the Termit-Khan-Shura itself, the communication of which with the line became possible only with a strong convoy. Shamil ruined the villages that tried to oppose his power, took his wives and children with him to the mountains and forced the Chechens to marry their daughters to the Lezgins, and vice versa, in order to link these tribes with each other. It was especially important for Shamil to acquire such collaborators as Hadji Murad, who attracted Avaria to him, Kibit-Magom in southern Dagestan, a fanatic, brave and capable self-taught engineer, very influential among the highlanders, and Dzhemaya-ed-Din, an outstanding preacher. By April 1841, Shamil commanded almost all the tribes of mountainous Dagestan, except for the Koysubu. Knowing how important the occupation of Cherkey was for the Russians, he fortified all the roads there with blockages and defended them himself with extreme stubbornness, but after the Russians bypassed them from both flanks, he retreated deep into Dagestan. On May 15, Cherkey surrendered to General Fese. Seeing that the Russians were engaged in the construction of fortifications and left him alone, Shamil decided to take possession of Andalal, with impregnable Gunib, where he expected to arrange his residence if the Russians ousted him from Dargo. Andalal was also important because its inhabitants made gunpowder. In September 1841, the Andalal people entered into relations with the imam; only a few small auls remained in government hands. At the beginning of winter, Shamil flooded Dagestan with his gangs and cut off communication with the conquered societies and with the Russian fortifications. General Kluki von Klugenau asked the corps commander to send reinforcements, but the latter, hoping that Shamil would stop his activities in the winter, postponed this matter until spring. Meanwhile, Shamil was not at all inactive, but was intensively preparing for the next year's campaign, not giving our exhausted troops a moment's rest. Shamil's fame reached the Ossetians and Circassians, who had high hopes for him. On February 20, 1842, General Fese took Gergebil by storm. Chokh occupied March 2 without a fight and arrived in Khunzakh on March 7. At the end of May 1842, Shamil invaded Kazikumukh with 15 thousand militiamen, but, defeated on June 2 at Kulyuli by Prince Argutinsky-Dolgoruky, he quickly cleared the Kazikumukh Khanate, probably because he received news of the movement of a large detachment of General Grabbe to Dargo. Having traveled only 22 versts in 3 days (May 30 and 31 and June 1) and having lost about 1800 people who were out of action, General Grabbe returned back without doing anything. This failure unusually raised the spirits of the highlanders. On our side, a number of fortifications along the Sunzha, which made it difficult for the Chechens to attack the villages on the left bank of this river, were supplemented by a fortification at Seral-Yurt (1842), and the construction of a fortification on the Asse River marked the beginning of the advanced Chechen line.

Shamil used the whole spring and summer of 1843 to organize his army; when the highlanders removed the bread, he went on the offensive. August 27, 1843, having made a transition of 70 miles, Shamil suddenly appeared in front of the Untsukul fortification, with 10 thousand people; lieutenant colonel Veselitsky went to help the fortification, with 500 people, but, surrounded by the enemy, he died with the whole detachment; On August 31, Untsukul was taken, destroyed to the ground, many of its inhabitants were executed; from the Russian garrison, the surviving 2 officers and 58 soldiers were taken prisoner. Then Shamil turned against Avaria, where, in Khunzakh, General Kluki von Klugenau sat down. As soon as Shamil entered the Accident, one village after another began to surrender to him; despite the desperate defense of our garrisons, he managed to take the fortification of Belakhany (September 3), the Maksokh tower (September 5), the fortification of Tsatany (September 6 - 8), Akhalchi and Gotsatl; seeing this, Avaria was separated from Russia and the inhabitants of Khunzakh were kept from betrayal only by the presence of troops. Such successes were possible only because the Russian forces were scattered over a large area in small detachments, which were placed in small and poorly constructed fortifications. Shamil was in no hurry to attack Khunzakh, fearing that one failure would ruin what he had gained with victories. Throughout this campaign, Shamil showed the talent of an outstanding commander. Leading crowds of highlanders, still unfamiliar with discipline, self-willed and easily discouraged at the slightest setback, he managed in a short time to subdue them to his will and inspire readiness to go on the most difficult enterprises. After an unsuccessful attack on the fortified village of Andreevka, Shamil turned his attention to Gergebil, which was poorly fortified, but meanwhile was of great importance, protecting access from northern Dagestan to southern, and to the Burunduk-kale tower, occupied by only a few soldiers, while she defended plane crash message. On October 28, 1843, crowds of mountaineers, up to 10 thousand in number, surrounded Gergebil, the garrison of which was 306 people of the Tiflis regiment, under the command of Major Shaganov; after a desperate defense, the fortress was taken, the garrison almost all died, only a few were captured (November 8). The fall of Gergebil was a signal for the uprising of the Koisu-Bulinsky auls on the right bank of the Avar Koisu, as a result of which the Russian troops cleared Avaria. Temir-Khan-Shura was now completely isolated; not daring to attack her, Shamil decided to starve her to death and attacked the Nizovoe fortification, where there was a warehouse of food supplies. Despite the desperate attacks of 6000 highlanders, the garrison withstood all their attacks and was released by General Freigat, who burned supplies, riveted cannons and withdrew the garrison to Kazi-Yurt (November 17, 1843). The hostile mood of the population forced the Russians to clear the Miatly blockhouse, then Khunzakh, whose garrison, under the command of Passek, moved to Zirani, where he was besieged by the highlanders. General Gurko moved to help Passek and on December 17 rescued him from the siege.

By the end of 1843, Shamil was the full master of Dagestan and Chechnya; we had to start the work of their conquest from the very beginning. Having taken up the organization of the lands subject to him, Shamil divided Chechnya into 8 naibs and then into thousands, five hundred, hundreds and tens. The duties of the naibs were to order the invasion of small parties into our borders and to monitor all movements of the Russian troops. Significant reinforcements received by the Russians in 1844 gave them the opportunity to take and ravage Cherkey and push Shamil out of the impregnable position at Burtunai (June 1844). On August 22, the construction of the Vozdvizhensky fortification, the future center of the Chechen line, began on the Argun River; the highlanders tried in vain to prevent the construction of the fortress, lost heart and ceased to show themselves. Daniel-bek, the Sultan of Elisu, went over to the side of Shamil at that time, but General Schwartz occupied the Elisu Sultanate, and the betrayal of the Sultan did not bring Shamil the benefit he had hoped for. Shamil's power was still very strong in Dagestan, especially in the south and along the left bank of the Sulak and the Avar Koisu. He understood that his main support was the lower class of the people, and therefore he tried by all means to tie him to himself: for this purpose, he established the position of murtazeks, from poor and homeless people, who, having received power and importance from him, were a blind tool in his hands and strictly observed the execution of his instructions. In February 1845, Shamil occupied the trading village of Chokh and forced the neighboring villages into obedience.

Emperor Nicholas I ordered the new governor, Count Vorontsov, to take Shamil's residence, Dargo, although all authoritative Caucasian military generals rebelled against this, as against a useless expedition. The expedition, undertaken on May 31, 1845, occupied Dargo, abandoned and burned by Shamil, and returned on July 20, having lost 3631 people without the slightest benefit. Shamil surrounded the Russian troops during this expedition with such a mass of his troops that they had to conquer every inch of the way at the cost of blood; all the roads were spoiled, dug up and blocked by dozens of blockages and fences; all the villages had to be taken by storm or they got destroyed and burned. The Russians learned from the Dargin expedition the belief that the path to dominion in Dagestan went through Chechnya and that it was necessary to act not by raids, but by cutting roads in the forests, founding fortresses and populating the occupied places with Russian settlers. This was started in the same 1845. In order to divert the attention of the government from the events in Dagestan, Shamil disturbed the Russians at various points along the Lezgin line; but the development and strengthening of the Military Akhtyn road here also gradually limited the field of his actions, bringing the Samur detachment closer to the Lezgin one. Having in mind to recapture the Dargin district, Shamil moved his capital to Vedeno, in Ichkeria. In October 1846, having taken a strong position near the village of Kuteshi, Shamil intended to lure the Russian troops, under the command of Prince Bebutov, into this narrow gorge, surround them here, cut them off from all communications with other detachments and defeat or starve them to death. Russian troops unexpectedly, on the night of October 15, attacked Shamil and, despite stubborn and desperate defense, smashed him on his head: he fled, leaving a lot of badges, one cannon and 21 charging boxes. With the onset of the spring of 1847, the Russians besieged Gergebil, but, defended by desperate murids, skillfully fortified, he fought back, supported in time by Shamil (June 1 - 8, 1847). The outbreak of cholera in the mountains forced both sides to suspend hostilities. On July 25, Prince Vorontsov laid siege to the village of Salty, which was heavily fortified and equipped with a large garrison; Shamil sent his best naibs (Hadji Murad, Kibit-Magoma and Daniel-bek) to the rescue of the besieged, but they were defeated by an unexpected attack by Russian troops and fled with a huge loss (August 7). Shamil tried many times to help the Salts, but had no success; On September 14, the fortress was taken by the Russians. The construction of fortified headquarters in Chiro-Yurt, Ishkarty and Deshlagora, which guarded the plain between the Sulak River, the Caspian Sea and Derbent, and the construction of fortifications at Khojal-Makhi and Tsudahar, which laid the foundation for the line along the Kazikumykh-Koys, the Russians greatly hampered Shamil’s movements, making it difficult him a breakthrough to the plain and locking up the main passages to central Dagestan. To this was added the displeasure of the people, who, starving, grumbled that, as a result of constant war, it was impossible to sow the fields and prepare food for their families for the winter; Naibs quarreled among themselves, accused each other and reached denunciations. In January 1848, Shamil gathered naibs, chief elders and clerics in Vedeno and announced to them that, not seeing help from the people in his enterprises and zeal in military operations against the Russians, he resigned the title of imam. The assembly declared that it would not allow this, because there was no man in the mountains more worthy to bear the title of imam; the people are not only ready to submit to Shamil's demands, but are obligated to obedience to his son, to whom, after the death of his father, the title of imam should pass.

On July 16, 1848, Gergebil was taken by the Russians. Shamil, for his part, attacked the fortification of Akhta, defended by only 400 people under the command of Colonel Rot, and the murids, inspired by the personal presence of the imam, were at least 12 thousand. The garrison defended heroically and was saved by the arrival of Prince Argutinsky, who defeated Shamil's crowd at the village of Meskindzhi on the banks of the Samur River. The Lezgin line was raised to the southern spurs of the Caucasus, which the Russians took away from the highlanders pastures and forced many of them to submit or move to our borders. From the side of Chechnya, we began to push back the societies that were recalcitrant to us, cutting deep into the mountains with the advanced Chechen line, which so far consisted only of the fortifications of Vozdvizhensky and Achtoevsky, with a gap between them of 42 versts. At the end of 1847 and the beginning of 1848, in the middle of Little Chechnya, a fortification was erected on the banks of the Urus-Martan River between the above-mentioned fortifications, 15 versts from Vozdvizhensky and 27 versts from Achtoevsky. By this we took away from the Chechens a rich plain, the breadbasket of the country. The population was discouraged; some submitted to us and moved closer to our fortifications, others went further into the depths of the mountains. From the side of the Kumyk plane, the Russians cordoned off Dagestan with two parallel lines of fortifications. The winter of 1858-49 passed quietly. In April 1849, Hadji Murad launched an unsuccessful attack on Temir-Khan-Shura. In June, Russian troops approached Chokh and, finding it perfectly fortified, led the siege according to all the rules of engineering; but, seeing the enormous forces gathered by Shamil to repel the attack, Prince Argutinsky-Dolgorukov lifted the siege. In the winter of 1849 - 1850, a huge clearing was cut from the Vozdvizhensky fortification to the Shalinskaya glade, the main granary of Greater Chechnya and partly of Nagorno-Dagestan; to provide another way there, a road was cut through from the Kura fortification through the Kachkalykovsky ridge to the descent into the Michika valley. Little Chechnya was covered by us during four summer expeditions. The Chechens were driven to despair, they were indignant at Shamil, did not hide their desire to free themselves from his power, and in 1850, among several thousand, they moved to our borders. The attempts of Shamil and his naibs to penetrate our borders were not successful: they ended in the retreat of the highlanders or even their complete defeat (the cases of Major General Sleptsov near Tsoki-Yurt and Datykh, Colonel Maidel and Baklanov on the Michika River and in the land of the Aukhavians, Colonel Kishinsky on Kuteshinsky heights, etc.). In 1851, the policy of ousting the recalcitrant highlanders from the plains and valleys continued, the ring of fortifications narrowed, and the number of fortified points increased. The expedition of Major General Kozlovsky to Greater Chechnya turned this area, up to the Bassa River, into a treeless plain. In January and February 1852, Prince Baryatinsky made a number of desperate expeditions into the depths of Chechnya before Shamil's eyes. Shamil pulled all his forces to Greater Chechnya, where on the banks of the Gonsaul and Michika rivers he entered into a hot and stubborn battle with Prince Baryatinsky and Colonel Baklanov, but, despite the huge superiority in strength, was defeated several times. In 1852, Shamil, in order to warm up the zeal of the Chechens and dazzle them with a brilliant feat, decided to punish the peaceful Chechens who lived near Groznaya for their departure to the Russians; but his plans were open, he was engulfed from all sides, and out of 2,000 people of his militia, many fell near Grozna, while others drowned in Sunzha (September 17, 1852). Shamil's actions in Dagestan over the years consisted in sending out parties that attacked our troops and mountaineers who were submissive to us, but did not have much success. The hopelessness of the struggle was reflected in numerous migrations to our borders and even the betrayal of the naibs, including Hadji Murad.

A big blow for Shamil in 1853 was the seizure by the Russians of the valley of the rivers Michika and its tributary Gonsoli, in which a very numerous and devoted Chechen population lived, feeding not only themselves, but also Dagestan with their bread. He gathered for the defense of this corner about 8 thousand cavalry and about 12 thousand infantry; all the mountains were fortified with innumerable blockages, skillfully arranged and folded, all possible descents and ascents were spoiled to the point of complete unfitness for movement; but the swift actions of Prince Baryatinsky and General Baklanov led to the complete defeat of Shamil. It calmed down until our break with Turkey made all the Muslims of the Caucasus start up. Shamil spread a rumor that the Russians would leave the Caucasus and then he, the imam, remaining a complete master, would severely punish those who now did not go over to his side. On August 10, 1853, he set out from Vedeno, gathered a militia of 15 thousand people on the way, and on August 25 occupied the village of Old Zagatala, but, defeated by Prince Orbeliani, who had only about 2 thousand troops, went into the mountains. Despite this failure, the population of the Caucasus, electrified by the mullahs, was ready to rise against the Russians; but for some reason the imam delayed the whole winter and spring, and only at the end of June 1854 did he descend to Kakhetia. Repulsed from the village of Shildy, he captured the family of General Chavchavadze in Tsinondala and left, robbing several villages. On October 3, 1854, he again appeared in front of the village of Istisu, but the desperate defense of the inhabitants of the village and the tiny garrison of the redoubt delayed him until Baron Nikolai arrived from the Kura fortification; Shamil's troops were utterly defeated and fled to the nearest forests. During 1855 and 1856, Shamil was not very active, and Russia did not have the opportunity to do anything decisive, as it was busy with the Eastern (Crimean) war. With the appointment of Prince A. I. Baryatinsky as commander-in-chief (1856), the Russians began to vigorously move forward, again with the help of clearings and the construction of fortifications. In December 1856, a huge clearing cut through Greater Chechnya in a new location; the Chechens stopped listening to the naibs and moved closer to us.

In March 1857, the Shali fortification was erected on the Basse River, which advanced almost to the foot of the Black Mountains, the last refuge of the recalcitrant Chechens, and opened the shortest route to Dagestan. General Evdokimov penetrated the Argen valley, cut down the forests here, burned the villages, built defensive towers and the Argun fortification and brought the clearing to the top of the Dargin-Duk, from which it was not far from the residence of Shamil, Veden. Many villages submitted to the Russians. In order to keep at least part of Chechnya in his obedience, Shamil cordoned off the villages that remained loyal to him with his Dagestan paths and drove the inhabitants further into the mountains; but the Chechens had already lost faith in him and were only looking for an opportunity to get rid of his yoke. In July 1858, General Evdokimov took the village of Shatoi and occupied the entire Shatoev plain; another detachment entered Dagestan from the Lezgin line. Shamil was cut off from Kakheti; the Russians stood on the tops of the mountains, from where they could at any moment descend to Dagestan along the Avar Kois. The Chechens, weighed down by Shamil's despotism, asked for help from the Russians, drove out the Murids and overthrew the authorities set by Shamil. The fall of Shatoi so impressed Shamil that he, having a mass of troops under arms, hastily withdrew to Vedeno. The agony of Shamil's power began at the end of 1858. Having allowed the Russians to establish themselves without hindrance on the Chanty-Argun, he concentrated large forces along another source of the Argun, the Sharo-Argun, and demanded that the Chechens and Dagestanis be completely armed. His son Kazi-Magoma occupied the gorge of the Bassy River, but was ousted from there in November 1858. Aul Tauzen, heavily fortified, was bypassed by us from the flanks.

Russian troops did not go, as before, through dense forests, where Shamil was the complete master, but slowly moved forward, cutting down forests, building roads, erecting fortifications. To protect Veden, Shamil pulled together about 6-7 thousand people. Russian troops approached Veden on February 8, climbing mountains and descending from them through liquid and sticky mud, making 1/2 a verst an hour, with terrible efforts. Beloved naib Shamil Talgik came over to our side; the inhabitants of the nearest villages refused obedience to the imam, so he entrusted the protection of Veden to the Tavlins, and took the Chechens away from the Russians, into the depths of Ichkeria, from where he issued an order for the inhabitants of Greater Chechnya to move to the mountains. The Chechens did not comply with this order and came to our camp with complaints about Shamil, with expressions of humility and with a request for protection. General Evdokimov fulfilled their desire and sent a detachment of Count Nostitz to the Khulhulau River to protect those moving within our borders. To divert enemy forces from Veden, the commander of the Caspian part of Dagestan, Baron Wrangel, began military operations against Ichkeria, where Shamil was now sitting. Approaching a number of trenches to Veden, General Evdokimov on April 1, 1859 took it by storm and destroyed it to the ground. A number of societies fell away from Shamil and went over to our side. Shamil, however, still did not lose hope and, having appeared in Ichichal, gathered a new militia. Our main detachment freely marched forward, bypassing the enemy fortifications and positions, which, as a result, were left by the enemy without a fight; the villages encountered on the way submitted to us without a fight, too; the inhabitants were ordered to be treated peacefully everywhere, which all the highlanders soon learned about and even more willingly began to fall away from Shamil, who retired to Andalalo and fortified himself on Mount Gunib. On July 22, a detachment of Baron Wrangel appeared on the banks of the Avar Koisu, after which the Avars and other tribes expressed their obedience to the Russians. On July 28, a deputation from Kibit-Magoma came to Baron Wrangel, announcing that he had detained Shamil's father-in-law and teacher, Jemal-ed-Din, and one of the main preachers of Muridism, Aslan. On August 2, Daniel-bek surrendered his residence Irib and the village of Dusrek to Baron Wrangel, and on August 7 he himself appeared to Prince Baryatinsky, was forgiven and returned to his former possessions, where he set about establishing calm and order among the societies that had submitted to the Russians.

A conciliatory mood seized Dagestan to such an extent that in mid-August the commander-in-chief traveled unhindered through the whole of Avaria, accompanied by some Avars and Koisubulins, as far as Gunib. Our troops surrounded Gunib from all sides; Shamil locked himself there with a small detachment (400 people, including the inhabitants of the village). Baron Wrangel, on behalf of the commander-in-chief, suggested that Shamil submit to the Sovereign, who would allow him free travel to Mecca, with the obligation to choose her as his permanent residence; Shamil rejected this offer. On August 25, the Apsheronians climbed the steep slopes of Gunib, slew the Murids desperately defending the rubble and approached the aul itself (8 versts from the place where they climbed the mountain), where other troops had gathered by that time. Shamil was threatened with an immediate assault; he decided to surrender and was taken to the commander-in-chief, who received him kindly and sent him, along with his family, to Russia.

After being received in St. Petersburg by the emperor, Kaluga was assigned to him for residence, where he stayed until 1870, with a short stay at the end of this time in Kyiv; in 1870 he was allowed to live in Mecca, where he died in March 1871. Having united all the societies and tribes of Chechnya and Dagestan under his rule, Shamil was not only an imam, the spiritual head of his followers, but also a political ruler. Based on the teachings of Islam about the salvation of the soul by war with the infidels, trying to unite the disparate peoples of the Eastern Caucasus on the basis of Mohammedanism, Shamil wanted to subordinate them to the clergy, as a generally recognized authority in the affairs of heaven and earth. To achieve this goal, he sought to abolish all authorities, orders and institutions based on age-old customs, on adat; the basis of the life of the highlanders, both private and public, he considered Sharia, that is, that part of the Koran that contains civil and criminal decisions. As a result, power was to pass into the hands of the clergy; the court passed from the hands of elected secular judges to the hands of qadis, interpreters of sharia. Having bound by Islam, as with cement, all the wild and free societies of Dagestan, Shamil gave control into the hands of the spiritual and with their help established a single and unlimited power in these once free countries, and in order to make it easier for them to endure his yoke, he pointed out two great goals, which mountaineers, obeying him, can achieve: the salvation of the soul and the preservation of independence from the Russians. The time of Shamil was called by the highlanders the time of Sharia, his fall - the fall of Sharia, since immediately after that, ancient institutions, ancient elected authorities and the decision of affairs according to custom, i.e. according to adat, revived everywhere. The entire country subordinate to Shamil was divided into districts, each of which was under the control of the naib, who had military-administrative power. For the court in each district there was a mufti who appointed qadis. The naibs were forbidden to solve Sharia affairs under the jurisdiction of the mufti or qadis. At first, every four naibs were subject to a mudir, but Shamil was forced to abandon this establishment in the last decade of his rule, due to constant strife between the mudirs and naibs. The assistants of the naibs were the murids, who, as experienced in courage and devotion to the holy war (ghazavat), were assigned to perform more important tasks.

The number of murids was indefinite, but 120 of them, under the command of a yuzbashi (centurion), constituted the honorary guard of Shamil, were always with him and accompanied him on all trips. Officials were obliged to unquestioning obedience to the imam; for disobedience and misdeeds, they were reprimanded, demoted, arrested and punished with whips, from which the mudirs and naibs were spared. Military service was required to carry all able to bear arms; they were divided into tens and hundreds, which were under the command of the tenth and sot, subordinate in turn to the naibs. In the last decade of his activity, Shamil led regiments of 1000 people, divided into 2 five-hundred, 10 hundred and 100 detachments of 10 people, with respective commanders. Some villages, in the form of atonement, were exempted from military service, to supply sulfur, saltpeter, salt, etc. Shamil's largest army did not exceed 60 thousand people. From 1842 to 1843, Shamil started artillery, partly from cannons abandoned by us or taken from us, partly from those prepared at his own factory in Vedeno, where about 50 guns were cast, of which no more than a quarter turned out to be suitable. Gunpowder was made in Untsukul, Ganiba and Vedeno. The highlanders' teachers in artillery, engineering and combat were often runaway soldiers, whom Shamil caressed and gave gifts. Shamil's state treasury was made up of random and permanent incomes: the first were delivered by robbery, the second consisted of zekat - the collection of a tenth of the income from bread, sheep and money established by Sharia, and kharaj - tax from mountain pastures and from some villages that paid the same tribute to the khans. The exact figure of the imam's income is unknown.

"From Ancient Rus' to the Russian Empire". Shishkin Sergey Petrovich, Ufa.

The Caucasian war in the history of Russia is called the military actions of 1817-1864, connected with the annexation of Chechnya, Mountainous Dagestan and the North-Western Caucasus to Russia.

Simultaneously with Russia, Turkey and Iran tried to get into this region, encouraged by England, France and other Western powers. After signing the manifesto on the annexation of Kartli and Kakheti (1800-1801), Russia became involved in collecting lands in the Caucasus. There was a consistent unification of Georgia (1801 - 1810) of Azerbaijan (1803 - 1813), but their territories turned out to be separated from Russia by the lands of Chechnya, mountainous Dagestan and the Northwestern Caucasus, inhabited by militant mountain peoples who raided the Caucasian fortified lines interfered with ties with Transcaucasia. Therefore, by the beginning of the 19th century, the annexation of these territories became one of the most important tasks for Russia.

Historiography Caucasian War

With all the variety of literature written about the Caucasian war, several historiographic trends can be distinguished, coming directly from the positions of the participants in the Caucasian war and from the position of the "international community". It was within the framework of these schools that assessments and traditions were formed that influence not only the development of historical science, but also the development of the current political situation. First, we can talk about the Russian imperial tradition, represented in the works of pre-revolutionary Russian and some modern historians. In these works, we often talk about "pacification of the Caucasus", about "colonization" according to Klyuchevsky, in the Russian sense of the development of territories, the emphasis is on the "predation" of the highlanders, the religiously militant nature of their movement, the civilizing and reconciling role of Russia is emphasized, even taking into account mistakes and kinks. Secondly, the tradition of supporters of the mountaineer movement is quite well represented and has recently been developing again. Here the antinomy "conquest-resistance" (in Western works - "conquest-resistance") lies at the basis. In Soviet times (with the exception of the interval of the late 40s - mid-50s, when the hypertrophied imperial tradition dominated), "tsarism" was declared the conqueror, and "resistance" received the Marxist term "national liberation movement." At present, some supporters of this tradition are transferring the term "genocide" (mountain peoples) to the policy of the Russian Empire in the 20th century or interpreting the concept of "colonization" in the Soviet spirit - as a violent seizure of economically profitable territories. There is also a geopolitical tradition for which the struggle for dominance in the North Caucasus is only part of a more global process, allegedly inherent in Russia's desire to expand and "enslave" the annexed territories. In Britain of the 19th century (fearing Russia's approach to the "pearl of the British crown" India) and the USA of the 20th century (worried about the approach of the USSR / Russia to the Persian Gulf and the oil regions of the Middle East), the highlanders (just like, say, Afghanistan) were " natural barrier" on the way of the Russian Empire to the south. The key terminology of these works is "Russian colonial expansion" and the "North Caucasian shield" or "barrier" that opposes them. Each of these three traditions is so well established and overgrown with literature that any discussions between representatives of different trends result in an exchange of worked out concepts and collections of facts and do not lead to any progress in this area of ​​historical science. Rather, we can talk about the "Caucasian war of historiography", sometimes reaching personal hostility. During the last five years, for example, there has never been a serious meeting and scientific discussion between supporters of the "mountain" and "imperial" traditions. Modern political problems of the North Caucasus cannot but excite historians of the Caucasus, but they are too strongly reflected in the literature that we habitually continue to consider scientific. Historians cannot agree on a date for the start of the Caucasian War, just as politicians cannot agree on a date for its end. The very name "Caucasian War" is so broad that it allows making shocking statements about its supposedly 400-year or 150-year history. It is even surprising that the starting point from the campaigns of Svyatoslav against the Yases and Kasogs in the 10th century or from the Russian naval raids on Derbent in the 9th century (1) has not yet been adopted for service. However, even if we discard all these apparently ideological attempts at "periodization", the number of opinions is very large. That is why many historians are now saying that in fact there were several Caucasian wars. They were in different years, in different regions of the North Caucasus: in Chechnya, Dagestan, Kabarda, Adygea, etc. (2). It is difficult to call them Russian-Caucasian, since the highlanders participated from both sides. However, the traditional point of view for the period from 1817 (the beginning of an active aggressive policy in the North Caucasus sent there by General A.P. Yermolov) to 1864 (the capitulation of the mountain tribes of the North-Western Caucasus) retains its right to exist hostilities that engulfed most of the North Caucasus. It was then that the question of the actual, and not just the formal entry of the North Caucasus into the Russian Empire was decided. Perhaps, for a better mutual understanding, it is worth talking about this period as the Great Caucasian War.

Currently, there are 4 periods in the Caucasian War.

1 period: 1817 -1829–Yermolovsky associated with the activities of General Yermolov in the Caucasus.

2. period 1829-1840–trans-Kuban after the accession of the Black Sea coast to Russia, following the results of the Adrianople peace treaty, unrest among the Trans-Kuban Circassians intensifies. The main arena of action is the Trans-Kuban region.

3rd period: 1840-1853-Muridiz The ideology of muridism becomes the unifying force of the highlanders.

4th period: 1854–1859–European intervention during the Crimean War, increased foreign intervention.

5th period: 1859 - 1864:final.

Features of the Caucasian War.

The combination under the auspices of one war of different political actions and clashes, a combination of different goals. So the peasants of the North Caucasus opposed the strengthening of exploitation, the mountain nobility for the preservation of their former position and rights, the Muslim clergy opposed the strengthening of the position of Orthodoxy in the Caucasus.

No official start date for the war.

Lack of a unified theater of operations.

The absence of a peace treaty at the end of the war.

Controversial issues in the history of the Caucasian war.

Terminology.

Caucasian war is an extremely complex, multifaceted and contradictory phenomenon. The term itself is used in historical science in different ways, there are various options for determining the chronological framework of the war and its nature .

The term "Caucasian War" is used in historical science in different ways.

In the broad sense of the word, it includes all conflicts in the region of the 18th-19th centuries. with the participation of Russia. In a narrow sense, it is used in historical literature and journalism to refer to events in the North Caucasus related to the establishment of the Russian administration in the region by military suppression of the resistance of the mountain peoples.

The term was introduced in pre-revolutionary historiography, and in the Soviet period it was either quoted or completely rejected by many researchers who believed that it creates the appearance of an external war and does not fully reflect the essence of the phenomenon. Until the end of the 80s, the term “people's liberation struggle” of the highlanders of the North Caucasus seemed more adequate, but recently the concept of “Caucasian war” has been returned to scientific circulation and is widely used.

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal state budget educational

institution of higher professional education

Ufa State Oil

Technical University"

Branch of FGBOU VPO UGNTU in Salavat

"Caucasian War 1817-1864"

Russian history

Executor

student gr. BTPzs-11-21P. S. Ivanov

Supervisor

Art. teacher S. N. Didenko

Salavat 2011.

1. Historiographical overview

Terminological dictionary

Caucasian War 1817 - 1864

1 Causes of war

2 Course of hostilities

4 Results and consequences of the war

1.Historiographic overview

Territorial expansion has always played an important role in the historical development of Russia. The accession of the Caucasus in this case occupies an important place in the formation of the Russian multinational state.

The assertion of Russian power in the North Caucasus region was accompanied by a long military confrontation with the local population, which went down in history as the Caucasian War of 1817-1864.

According to the chronological principle, all domestic historiography about the Caucasian War of 1817-1864 can be divided into three periods: pre-Soviet, Soviet and modern.

In the pre-Soviet period, the history of the Caucasian War of 1817-1864 was, as a rule, dealt with by military historians who participated in the hostilities in the Caucasus. Among them, N.F. Dubrovina, A.L. Zisserman, V.A. Potto, D.I. Romanovsky, R.A. Fadeeva, S.S. Esadze. They sought to reveal the causes and factors of the outbreak of the war in the Caucasus, to identify the key points in this historical process. Also put into circulation various archival materials, highlighted the factual side of the issue.

The determining factor of a certain internal unity of pre-revolutionary Russian historiography is the so-called "imperial tradition". This tradition is based on the assertion that geopolitical necessity brought Russia to the Caucasus, and increased attention to the civilizing mission of the empire in this region. The war itself was seen as Russia's struggle against Islamism and Muslim fanaticism that had established itself in the Caucasus. Accordingly, there was a certain justification for the conquest of the Caucasus, the historical significance of this process was recognized.

At the same time, pre-revolutionary researchers raised in their works the problem of assessing this historical event by contemporaries. They focused on the views of statesmen and representatives of the military command in the Caucasus. So, the historian V.A. Potto examined in sufficient detail the activities of General A.P. Yermolov, showed his position on the issue of joining the North Caucasus. However, V.A. Potto, recognizing the merits of A.P. Yermolov in the Caucasus, did not show the consequences of his harsh actions against the local population and exaggerated the incompetence of his successors, in particular I.F. Paskevich, on the issue of conquering the Caucasus.

Among the works of pre-revolutionary researchers, the work of A.L. Zisserman "Field Marshal Prince Alexander Ivanovich Baryatinsky", which still remains the only full-fledged biography dedicated to one of the most prominent military leaders in the Caucasus. The historian paid attention to the evaluation of the final period of the Caucasian War (second half of 1850 - early 1860s) by the state and military figures of Russia, publishing their correspondence on Caucasian affairs as appendices in his monograph.

Of the works affecting the assessment of the Caucasian War by contemporaries, one can note the work of N.K. Schilder "Emperor Nicholas I, his life and reign". In his book, he published the diary of A.Kh. Benckendorff, which records the memoirs of Emperor Nicholas I about a trip to the Caucasus in 1837. Here, Nicholas I was given an assessment of Russia's actions during the war with the highlanders, which to a certain extent reveals his position on the issue of joining the North Caucasus.

In the works of historians of the pre-Soviet period, attempts were made to show the points of view of contemporaries on the methods of conquering the Caucasus. For example, in the work of D.I. Romanovsky, notes by Admiral N.S. were published as applications. Mordvinov and General A.A. Velyaminov about ways to conquer the Caucasus. But it is worth noting that pre-revolutionary historians did not devote special studies to the views of the participants in the events on the methods of integrating the Caucasus into the nationwide structure of the Russian Empire. The priority task was to show directly the history of the Caucasian war. The same historians who turned to the assessment of this historical event by contemporaries mainly concerned the views of state and military figures of the Russian Empire, and only at a certain time stage of the war.

The formation of the Soviet historiography of the Caucasian War was greatly influenced by the statements about it by the revolutionary democrats, for whom the conquest of the Caucasus was not so much a scientific as a political, ideological and moral problem. The role and authority of N.G. Chernyshevsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov, A.I. Herzen in the Russian social movement was not allowed to ignore their position. In this case, it is worth noting the work of V.G. Gadzhieva and A.M. Pickman, devoted to the consideration of A.I. Herzen, N.A. Dobrolyubova, N.G. Chernyshevsky. The advantage of this work is that the authors managed to single out their assessments of the Caucasian war from the works of representatives of the democratic direction of the socio-political thought of Russia. A certain drawback of the work is the desire to show the condemnation of the policy of tsarism in the Caucasus by the revolutionary democrats, hence a certain ideological stretch. If, A.I. Herzen really condemned the war in the Caucasus, then N.A. Dobrolyubov considered it expedient to annex the North Caucasus and advocated its integration into the nationwide structure of the Russian Empire. But it can be noted that the work of V.G. Gadzhieva and A.M. Pickman is still of scientific interest in considering the problem of assessing the Caucasian War of 1817-1864 by representatives of revolutionary democratic thought, as it remains the only study of its kind in Russian historiography.

Soviet historiography also published works devoted to the views of representatives of Russian literature on the war between Russia and the highlanders M.Yu. Lermontov, L.H. Tolstoy. In these works, there was mainly an attempt to show that Russian writers condemned the war and sympathized with the highlanders of the Caucasus, who were waging an unequal struggle against tsarism. So, for example, V.G. Hajiyev only mentioned that P. Pestel could not understand the relationship between Russia and the mountain peoples, which explains his extremely harsh judgments about the highlanders of the Caucasus.

A gap in Soviet historiography was that the problem of annexing the Caucasus by state and military figures of the Russian Empire was practically not considered, with the exception of a few personalities - A.P. Ermolova, N.N. Raevsky, D.A. Milyutin. In Soviet writings on the Caucasian War, it was only indicated that the position of the government was subordinated to the desire for conquest. At the same time, the analysis of the views of statesmen was not carried out. True, in some works it was noted that among the Caucasian administration there were thoughts for the peaceful conquest of the Caucasus. For example, in the work of V.K. Gardanov, the statement of Prince M.S. Vorontsov about the need to establish peaceful and trade relations with the highlanders. But as already noted, Soviet historiography does not provide a sufficiently complete analysis of the views of state and military leaders on the problem of the Caucasian war.

Despite the foregoing, until the early 1980s, the study of the Caucasian War of 1817-1864 was in a state of deep crisis. The dogmatic approach to the interpretation of historical sources predetermined the further development of this issue: the process of the region's entry into the Russian Empire turned out to be one of the least studied historical phenomena. As already noted, ideological restrictions had an effect primarily, and foreign researchers, of course, did not have sufficient access to the necessary sources.

The Caucasian war turned out to be so complicated and unyielding for official historiography that for half a century of research even a factual history of this phenomenon has not appeared, where the most important military events, the most influential figures, and so on, would be presented in chronological order. Historians, having fallen under the ideological control of the party, were forced to develop the concept of the Caucasian War in relation to the class approach.

The adoption of a class-party approach to the study of history for the Caucasian War turned into a shuffling of "anti-colonial" and "anti-feudal" accents in the 1930s-1970s. The militant atheism of the 1920s and 1930s had a noticeable influence on the historiography of the Caucasian War: historians had to look for an assessment of the liberation movement of the highlanders under the leadership of Shamil, in which the “anti-feudal” and “anti-colonial” components obscured the “reactionary-religious” one. The result was the thesis about the reactionary nature of Muridism, softened by an indication of its role in mobilizing the masses to fight the oppressors.

The term "tsarist autocracy" was introduced into scientific circulation, which united all those who were associated with the colonial policy of tsarist Russia. As a result, “depersonalization of the Caucasian war” was characteristic. This trend continued until the second half of the 1950s. After the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 and the debunking of Stalin's personality cult, Soviet historians were called upon to get rid of the dogmatism of the Stalin era. At the last scientific sessions of Soviet historians-Caucasians in 1956 in Makhachkala and Moscow, the concept of the Caucasian War as a movement of the highlanders of the North Caucasus against the colonial policy of tsarism and the oppression of local feudal lords was finally accepted in Soviet historiography.8 At the same time, the class approach, of course, remained decisive in consideration historical events.

The process of “incorporating” Shamil and the resistance of the highlanders into the overall picture of the liberation movement in Russia turned out to be very difficult. In the 1930s, Imam Shamil - a fighter against the colonial policy of tsarism - was included in the list of people's heroes of the liberation movement along with S. Razin, E. Pugachev, S. Yulaev. After the Great Patriotic War, such a status of Shamil looked strange against the background of the deportation of Chechens, Ingush and Karachays, and he was gradually reduced to historical figures of the “second category”.

When, in the early 1950s, a solemn procession of the thesis about the “progressive significance” of the annexation of national outskirts began through the pages of scientific literature, Shamil was transferred to the category of enemies of both his own and the Russian peoples. The conditions of the Cold War contributed to the transformation of the imam into a religious fanatic, a British, Iranian and Turkish mercenary. It came to the appearance of the thesis about the undercover nature of the Caucasian war (according to some authors, it began due to the intrigues of the "agents" of world and, above all, British imperialism, as well as under the influence of supporters of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism).

In 1956-1957. in the course of scientific discussions about the nature of the Caucasian war, two groups of historians stood out quite clearly. The first included those who considered the activities of Imam Shamil progressive, and the war itself anti-colonial, an integral part of the struggle against the autocracy. The second group was formed by scientists who called Shamil's movement a reactionary phenomenon. The discussions themselves turned out to be unproductive, characteristic of the era of the “Khrushchev thaw”, when it was already possible to raise questions, but it was not yet possible to offer answers. A well-known compromise was reached on the basis of Lenin's thesis of "two Russias" - one represented by tsarism and oppressors of all kinds, and the other, represented by advanced, progressive figures in science, culture and the liberation movement. The first was a source of oppression and enslavement of non-Russian peoples, the second brought them enlightenment, economic and cultural upsurge.

One of the clearest illustrations of the situation in the field of studying the Caucasian war that existed in the Soviet period is the fate of the monograph by N.I. Pokrovsky "Caucasian Wars and Shamil's Imamat". This book, written in the highest professional level and has not lost its significance so far, has lain successively in three publishing houses from 1934 to 1950, and was published only in 2000. The publication seemed to the employees of publishing houses a dangerous business - ideological attitudes changed dramatically, and participation in a publication that contained "erroneous views" could end tragically. Despite the real danger of repression and the need to carry out work in the appropriate methodological and ideological direction, the author was able to demonstrate the complexity of such a historical phenomenon as the Caucasian War. He considered the campaigns of the late 16th - early 17th centuries to be the starting point. and, recognizing the great importance of the military-strategic factor in the development of events, spoke cautiously about the economic component of Russian expansion. N.I. Pokrovsky did not avoid mentioning the raids of the highlanders, the cruelty shown by both sides, and even ventured to show that a number of actions by the highlanders cannot be unequivocally defined as anti-colonial or anti-feudal. An extremely difficult task was to analyze the struggle between supporters of Sharia - a code of Islamic law - and adats - codes of local customary law, since a purely scientific text could be interpreted as propaganda of religious prejudices or survivals.

In the mid-1980s, the liberation of historians from ideological restrictions seemed to create the conditions for a serious, balanced, academic approach to the problem. However, due to the aggravation of the situation in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia, the history of the inclusion of these regions into the Russian Empire has taken on a painfully relevant character. A superficial interpretation of the thesis about the significance of historical lessons is transformed into attempts to use the results of research in political struggle. At the same time, the parties go for an openly biased interpretation of the evidence and for an arbitrary selection of the latter. Incorrect "transfers" of ideological, religious and political constructions from the past to the present and vice versa are allowed. For example, both from the formational point of view and from the standpoint of Eurocentrism, the Caucasian peoples were at a lower stage of social development, and this was an important justification for their conquest in the 19th century. However, in modern literature there are absurd accusations by historians of "justifying colonialism" if they adequately explained the actions of the tsarist government. There has been a dangerous tendency to hush up tragic episodes and all sorts of "sensitive" topics. One of these topics is the raiding component of the life of many ethnic groups that inhabited the Caucasus, the other is the cruelty of both sides in the conduct of the war.

In general, there is a dangerous growth of "nationally colored" approaches to the study of the history of the Caucasian war, the revival of non-scientific methods, the translation of scientific polemics into a moral and ethical channel, followed by an unconstructive "search for the guilty."

The history of the Caucasian War was greatly deformed during the Soviet period, since the study of this phenomenon within the framework of the formational doctrine was unproductive. In 1983 M.M. Bliev published an article in the journal "History of the USSR", which was the first attempt to break out of the framework of the "anti-colonial-anti-feudal concept." It came out in a situation where ideological restrictions were still unshakable, and the delicacy of the topic required maximum caution in wording and emphasized correctness in relation to those whose point of view the author disputed. First of all, M.M. Bliev expressed his disagreement with the thesis that prevailed in Russian historical literature that the Caucasian War had a national liberation, anti-colonial character. He focused on the powerful military expansion of the mountaineers of the North Caucasus in relation to their neighbors, on the fact that the capture of prisoners and booty, the extortion of tribute became commonplace in relations between the mountain tribes and the inhabitants of the plains. The researcher expressed doubts about the validity of the traditional chronological framework of the war, putting forward the thesis about the intersection of two expansionist lines - the imperial Russian and the raiding mountain.

Since the beginning of the 1990s, a new stage in Russian historiography can be noted in the consideration of the problems of the Caucasian War of 1817-1864. The modern period is marked by the pluralism of scientific positions, the absence of ideological pressure. In this regard, historians got the opportunity to write more objective scientific works on the history of the annexation of the North Caucasus, to conduct an independent historical analysis. Most modern domestic researchers seek to find " golden mean”and, moving away from ideological and political emotions, to engage in purely scientific research on Caucasian issues. If frankly opportunistic writings are ignored, then the range of recent studies on this problem will turn out to be quite small. It consists of monographs by N.I. Pokrovsky, M.M. Blieva, V.V. Degoeva, N.S. Kinyapina, Ya.A. Gordin. In addition, at present, a whole group of young scientists is successfully working on this topic, as evidenced by the materials of conferences, round tables etc.

Article by V.V. Degoev “The Problem of the Caucasian War of the 19th Century: Historiographical Results” became a kind of summing up the results of the study of the Caucasian War by the beginning of the 21st century. The author clearly identified the main flaw in most previous studies on the history of the Caucasus in the 19th century: "theoretical schemes for moral assessments prevailed over the system of evidence." A significant part of the article is a demonstration of how domestic historians, who were in the grip of official methodology, who experienced constant fear that with the next change in the "course" they would be under the gun of frantic and not at all scientific criticism, entailing tragic consequences for them, tried to construct something acceptable from the point of view of "the only true teaching" and from the point of view of professionalism. The thesis about the refusal to recognize the anti-colonial and anti-feudal element in the Caucasian War as dominant looks very productive. The historian's theses about the influence of geopolitical and natural-climatic factors on the development of events look important and very productive (the fate of all mountain tribes was a constant war with each other, since geographical conditions, the peculiarities of the development of ethnic groups prevented their unification into a powerful proto-state.

From the east and west they were cut off from the rest of the world by the sea, in the south and north there were hostile ecosystems (steppe and arid highlands), as well as powerful states (Russia, Turkey, Persia), which turned the Caucasus into a zone of their rivalry).

In 2001, a collection of articles by V.V. Degoev "The Great Game in the Caucasus: History and Modernity", in three sections ("History", "Historiography", "Historical and political journalism") the results of many years of scientific research and reflections of this scientist are presented. The article “Stepchildren of Glory: a man with a gun in the everyday life of the Caucasian War” is devoted to the everyday life of the long-term confrontation between the highlanders and the Russian army. This work is especially valuable because it is perhaps the first attempt in Russian historiography to analyze the life of a "colonial" type of war. The popular style of presenting the material did not deprive another book by V.V. Degoev "Imam Shamil: prophet, ruler, warrior".

A notable phenomenon in the historiography of the Caucasian War in recent years was the publication of the book by Ya.A. Gordin "The Caucasus, Earth and Blood", which shows how a certain imperial complex of ideas was realized in practice, how these imperial ideas were transformed in accordance with the situation and external "challenges".

Summing up the analysis scientific papers on this topic, in general, we can say that domestic historiography is represented by a small number of works on this issue, and ideology has had a strong influence on the study of the issue.

tsarist war imam shamil

2.Terminological dictionary

Dubrovin Nikolai Fedorovich (1837 - 1904) - academician, military historian.

Zisserman Arnold Lvovich (1824 - 1897) - colonel, participant in the Caucasian War, military historian and writer.

Potto Vasily Alexandrovich (1836<#"justify">3.Caucasian War 1817 - 1864

3.1 Causes of the war

"The Caucasian War of 1817 - 1864. - military actions related to the annexation of Chechnya, Mountainous Dagestan and the North-Western Caucasus by tsarist Russia.

The Caucasian war is a collective concept. This armed conflict is devoid of internal unity, and for its productive study, it is advisable to divide the Caucasian War into a number of rather isolated parts, separated from the general flow of events according to the principle of the most important component of this particular episode (group of episodes) of hostilities.

The resistance of free societies, the military activity of the local elite and the activities of Imam Shamil in Dagestan are three different "wars". Thus, this historical phenomenon is devoid of internal unity and acquired its modern outlines solely due to territorial localization.

An unbiased analysis of the chronicle of hostilities in this region allows us to consider the Persian campaign of Peter the Great in 1722-1723 as the beginning of the conquest of the Caucasus, and its end was the suppression of the uprising in Chechnya and Dagestan in 1877. Earlier military enterprises of Russia in the 16th - early 18th centuries. can be attributed to the prehistory of events.

The main goal of the Russian Empire was not just to establish itself in this region, but to subordinate the peoples of the Caucasus to its influence.

The direct impetus that provoked the war was the manifesto of Alexander I on the annexation of Kartli and Kakhetia to Russia (1800-1801). The reaction of the states adjacent to Georgia (Persia and Turkey) was not long in coming - a long-term war. Thus, in the XIX century. in the Caucasus, the political interests of several countries converged: Persia, Turkey, Russia and England.

Therefore, the speedy conquest of the Caucasus was considered an urgent task of the Russian Empire, but it turned into problems for more than one Russian emperor.

3.2. The course of hostilities

To cover the course of the war, it would be advisable to single out several stages:

· Yermolovsky period (1816-1827),

· Beginning of ghazawat (1827-1835),

· Formation and functioning of the imamate (1835-1859) Shamil,

· The end of the war: the conquest of Circassia (1859-1864).

As already noted, after the transition to Russian citizenship of Georgia (1801 - 1810) and Azerbaijan (1803 - 1813), the annexation of the lands that separated Transcaucasia from Russia, and the establishment of control over the main communications, was considered by the Russian government as the most important military-political task . However, the mountaineers did not agree with this state of affairs. The main opponents of the Russian troops in the west were the Adygs of the Black Sea coast and the Kuban region, and in the east - the highlanders, who united in the military-theocratic Islamic state Imamat of Chechnya and Dagestan, which was headed by Shamil. At the first stage, the Caucasian War coincided with the wars of Russia against Persia and Turkey, in connection with which Russia was forced to conduct military operations against the highlanders with limited forces.

The reason for the war was the appearance in the Caucasus of General Alexei Petrovich Yermolov. In 1816 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Russian troops in Georgia and on the Caucasian line. Yermolov, a European-educated man, a hero of the Patriotic War, did a great deal of preparatory work in 1816-1817 and in 1818 proposed to Alexander I to complete the program of his policy in the Caucasus. Yermolov set the task of changing the Caucasus, putting an end to the raiding system in the Caucasus, with what is called "predation". He convinced Alexander I of the need to pacify the mountaineers solely by force of arms. Soon, the general moved from separate punitive expeditions to a systematic advance deep into Chechnya and Mountainous Dagestan by surrounding the mountainous regions with a continuous ring of fortifications, cutting clearings in difficult forests, laying roads and destroying "recalcitrant" villages.

His activities on the Caucasian line in 1817 - 1818. the general began from Chechnya, moving the left flank of the Caucasian line from the Terek to the river. Sunzha, where he strengthened the Nazranovsky redoubt and laid the fortification of Barrier Stan in its middle course (October 1817) and the Groznaya fortress in the lower reaches (1818). This measure stopped the uprisings of the Chechens who lived between the Sunzha and the Terek. In Dagestan, the highlanders who threatened Shamkhal Tarkovsky, captured by Russia, were pacified; to keep them in obedience, the Vnepnaya fortress was built (1819). An attempt to attack her, undertaken by the Avar Khan, ended in complete failure.

In Chechnya, Russian detachments exterminated auls, forcing the Chechens to go further and further from the Sunzha into the depths of the mountains or move to a flat (plain) under the supervision of Russian garrisons; a clearing was cut through the dense forest to the village of Germenchuk, which served as one of the main defensive points of the Chechen army.

In 1820, the Black Sea Cossack army (up to 40 thousand people) was assigned to the Separate Georgian Corps, renamed the Separate Caucasian Corps and also reinforced. In 1821, the Burnaya fortress was built, and the crowds of the Avar Khan Akhmet, who tried to interfere with Russian work, were defeated. The possessions of the Dagestan rulers, who joined forces against the Russian troops on the Sunzha line and suffered a series of defeats in 1819-1821, were either transferred to Russian vassals with subordination to Russian commandants, or became dependent on Russia, or liquidated. On the right flank of the line, the Trans-Kuban Circassians, with the help of the Turks, began to disturb the borders more than before; but their army, which in October 1821 invaded the land of the Black Sea troops, was defeated.

In 1822, in order to completely pacify the Kabardians, a number of fortifications were built at the foot of the Black Mountains, from Vladikavkaz to the upper reaches of the Kuban. In 1823 - 1824 the actions of the Russian command were directed against the Trans-Kuban highlanders, who did not stop their raids. A number of punitive expeditions were carried out against them.

In Dagestan in the 1820s. A new Islamic trend began to spread - Muridism (one of the trends in Sufism). Yermolov, having visited Cuba in 1824, ordered Aslankhan of Kazikumukh to stop the unrest initiated by the followers of the new teaching. But he was distracted by other things and could not follow the execution of this order, as a result of which the main preachers of Muridism, Mulla-Mohammed, and then Kazi-Mulla, continued to inflame the minds of the highlanders in Dagestan and Chechnya and proclaim the proximity of ghazavat, that is, a holy war against the infidels . The movement of the highlanders under the banner of Muridism was the impetus for the expansion of the Caucasian war, although some mountain peoples (Kumyks, Ossetians, Ingush, Kabardians, etc.) did not join this movement.

In 1825, there was a general uprising in Chechnya, during which the highlanders managed to take over the post of Amiradzhiyurt (July 8) and tried to take the Gerzel fortification, rescued by a detachment of Lieutenant General D.T. Lisanevich (July 15). The next day, Lisanevich and General Grekov, who was with him, were killed by Chechens. The uprising was put down in 1826.

From the very beginning of 1825, the coasts of the Kuban began again to be subjected to raids by large parties of the Shapsugs and Abadzekhs; the Kabardians were also agitated. In 1826, a number of expeditions were made to Chechnya, with cutting down clearings in dense forests, laying new roads and restoring order in auls free from Russian troops. This was the end of Yermolov's activity, recalled by Nicholas I from the Caucasus in 1827 and dismissed for his connection with the Decembrists.

Period 1827-1835 associated with the beginning of the so-called ghazavat - the sacred struggle against the infidels. The new Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Corps, Adjutant General I.F. Paskevich, abandoned the systematic advance with the consolidation of the occupied territories and returned mainly to the tactics of individual punitive expeditions, especially since at first he was mainly occupied with wars with Persia and Turkey. The successes he won in these wars contributed to the maintenance of outward calm in the country; but Muridism spread more and more, and Kazi-Mulla, proclaimed imam in December 1828 and the first to call for ghazavat, sought to unite the previously disparate tribes of the Eastern Caucasus into one mass hostile to Russia. Only the Avar Khanate refused to recognize his authority, and Kazi-Mulla's attempt (in 1830) to seize Khunzakh ended in defeat. After that, the influence of Kazi-Mulla was greatly shaken, and the arrival of new troops sent to the Caucasus after the conclusion of peace with Turkey forced him to flee from his residence, the Dagestan village of Gimry, to the Belokan Lezgins.

In 1828, in connection with the construction of the Military Sukhumi road, the Karachaev region was annexed. In 1830, another defensive line was created - Lezginskaya. In April 1831, Count Paskevich-Erivansky was recalled to command the army in Poland; in his place were temporarily appointed commanders of the troops: in Transcaucasia - General N.P. Pankratiev, on the Caucasian line - General A.A. Velyaminov.

Kazi-Mulla transferred his activities to the Shamkhal possessions, where, having chosen the inaccessible tract of Chumkesent (not far from Temir-Khan-Shura), he began to call all the mountaineers to fight against the infidels. His attempts to take the fortresses Stormy and Sudden failed; but the movement of General G.A. was not crowned with success either. Emanuel in the Aukh forests. The last failure, greatly exaggerated by the mountain messengers, multiplied the number of adherents of Kazi-Mulla, especially in central Dagestan, so that in 1831 Kazi-Mulla took and plundered Tarki and Kizlyar and attempted, but unsuccessfully, with the support of the rebel Tabasarans (one of the mountain peoples Dagestan) to capture Derbent. Significant territories (Chechnya and most of Dagestan) were under the authority of the imam. However, from the end of 1831 the uprising began to wane. Detachments of Kazi-Mulla were pushed back to the Mountainous Dagestan. Attacked on December 1, 1831 by Colonel M.P. Miklashevsky, he was forced to leave Chumkesent and went to Gimry. Appointed in September 1831, the commander of the Caucasian Corps, Baron Rosen, on October 17, 1832, took Gimry; Kazi-Mulla died during the battle.

The second imam was proclaimed Gamzat-bek, who, thanks to military victories, rallied around him almost all the peoples of Mountainous Dagestan, including part of the Avars. In 1834, he invaded Avaria, treacherously took possession of Khunzakh, exterminated almost the entire khan's family, which adhered to a pro-Russian orientation, and was already thinking about conquering all of Dagestan, but died at the hands of an assassin. Shortly after his death and the proclamation of Shamil as the third imam, on October 18, 1834, the main stronghold of the Murids, the village of Gotsatl, was taken and ravaged by a detachment of Colonel Kluka von Klugenau. Shamil's troops retreated from Avaria.

On the Black Sea coast, where the highlanders had many convenient points for communication with the Turks and trading in slaves (the Black Sea coastline did not exist then), foreign agents, especially the British, distributed anti-Russian appeals between the local tribes and delivered military supplies. This forced Baron Rosen to instruct General A.A. Velyaminov (in the summer of 1834) a new expedition to the Trans-Kuban region, to set up a cordon line to Gelendzhik. It ended with the erection of the fortifications of Abinsk and Nikolaevsky.

So, the third imam was the Avar Shamil, originally from the village. Gimry. It was he who managed to create an imamat - a united mountain state on the territory of Dagestan and Chechnya, which lasted until 1859.

The main functions of the imamate were the defense of the territory, ideology, law enforcement, economic development, and the solution of fiscal and social problems. Shamil managed to unite the multi-ethnic region and form a coherent centralized system of government. The head of state - the great imam, "the father of the country and drafts" - was a spiritual, military and secular leader, had great authority and a decisive vote. All life in the mountainous state was built on the basis of Sharia - the laws of Islam. Year after year, Shamil replaced the unwritten law of custom with laws based on Sharia. Among his most important acts was the abolition of serfdom. The Imamate had effective armed forces, which included cavalry and foot militia. Each branch of the military had its own division.

The new commander-in-chief, Prince A.I. Baryatinsky, turned his main attention to Chechnya, the conquest of which he entrusted to the head of the left wing of the line, General N.I. Evdokimov - an old and experienced Caucasian; but in other parts of the Caucasus, the troops did not remain inactive. In 1856 and 1857 Russian troops achieved the following results: the Adagum valley was occupied on the right wing of the line and the Maykop fortification was built. On the left wing, the so-called "Russian road", from Vladikavkaz, parallel to the Black Mountains, to the fortification of Kurinsky on the Kumyk plane, is completely completed and strengthened by newly built fortifications; wide clearings were cut in all directions; the mass of the hostile population of Chechnya has been brought to the point of having to submit and move to open places, under state supervision; the Auch district is occupied and a fortification has been erected in its center. Salatavia is completely occupied in Dagestan. Several new Cossack villages were built along Laba, Urup and Sunzha. The troops are everywhere close to the front lines; the rear is secured; huge expanses of the best lands are cut off from the hostile population and, thus, a significant share of the resources for the struggle is wrested from the hands of Shamil.

On the Lezgin line, as a result of deforestation, predatory raids were replaced by petty theft. On the Black Sea coast, the second occupation of Gagra marked the beginning of securing Abkhazia from incursions by Circassian tribes and from hostile propaganda. The actions of 1858 in Chechnya began with the occupation of the gorge of the Argun River, which was considered impregnable, where N.I. Evdokimov ordered the construction of a strong fortification, called Argunsky. Climbing up the river, he reached, at the end of July, the auls of the Shatoevsky society; in the upper reaches of the Argun he laid a new fortification - Evdokimovskoe. Shamil tried to divert attention by sabotage to Nazran, but was defeated by a detachment of General I.K. Mishchenko and barely managed to escape to the still unoccupied part of the Argun Gorge. Convinced that his power there was finally undermined, he retired to Veden - his new residence. On March 17, 1859, the bombardment of this fortified village began, and on April 1 it was taken by storm.

Shamil fled for the Andean Koisu; the whole of Ichkeria declared obedience to us. After the capture of Veden, three detachments went concentrically into the valley of the Andean Koisu: Chechen, Dagestan and Lezgin. Shamil, who temporarily settled in the village of Karata, fortified Mount Kilitl, and covered the right bank of the Andean Koisu, against Konkhidatl, with solid stone blockages, entrusting their defense to his son Kazi-Magome. With any energetic resistance of the latter, forcing the crossing in this place would cost huge sacrifices; but he was forced to leave his strong position, as a result of the troops of the Dagestan detachment entering his flank, who made a remarkably courageous crossing through the Andiyskoe Koisa near the Sagritlo tract. Shamil, seeing the danger threatening from everywhere, fled to his last refuge on Mount Gunib, having only 332 people with him. the most fanatical murids from all over Dagestan. On August 25, Gunib was taken by storm, and Shamil himself was captured by Prince A.I. Baryatinsky.

Conquest of Circassia (1859-1864). The capture of Gunib and the capture of Shamil could be considered the last act of the war in the Eastern Caucasus; but there still remained the western part of the region, inhabited by warlike and hostile tribes to Russia. It was decided to conduct actions in the Trans-Kuban Territory in accordance with what was learned in last years system. The native tribes had to submit and move to the places indicated by them on the plane; otherwise, they were driven further into the barren mountains, and the lands they left behind were settled by Cossack villages; finally, after pushing the natives from the mountains to the seashore, it remained for them either to move to the plane, under our closest supervision, or to move to Turkey, in which it was supposed to provide them with possible assistance. In order to implement this plan as soon as possible, I.A. Baryatinsky decided, at the beginning of 1860, to reinforce the troops of the right wing with very large reinforcements; but the uprising that broke out in the newly pacified Chechnya and partly in Dagestan forced this to be temporarily abandoned. Actions against the small gangs there, led by stubborn fanatics, dragged on until the end of 1861, when all attempts at revolt were finally crushed. Then only it was possible to start decisive operations on the right wing, the leadership of which was entrusted to the conqueror of Chechnya, N.I. Evdokimov. His troops were divided into 2 detachments: one, Adagum, operated in the land of the Shapsugs, the other - from the side of Laba and Belaya; a special detachment was sent for operations in the lower reaches of the river. Pshish. Cossack villages were set up in the Natukhai district in autumn and winter. The troops operating from the side of the Laba completed the construction of the villages between the Laba and the Bela and cut through the entire foothill space between these rivers with clearings, which forced the local societies to partly move to the plane, partly to go beyond the Main Range Pass.

At the end of February 1862, Evdokimov's detachment moved to the river. Pshekh, to which, despite the stubborn resistance of the Abadzekhs, a clearing was cut and a convenient road was laid. All the townsfolk who lived between the Khodz and Belaya rivers were ordered to immediately move to the Kuban or Laba, and within 20 days (from March 8 to March 29) up to 90 auls were resettled. At the end of April, N.I. Evdokimov, having crossed the Black Mountains, descended into the Dakhovskaya Valley along the road, which the highlanders considered inaccessible to us, and set up a new Cossack village there, closing the Belorechenskaya line. Our movement deep into the Trans-Kuban region was met everywhere by the desperate resistance of the Abadzekhs, reinforced by the Ubykhs and other tribes; but nowhere could the enemy's attempts be crowned with serious success. The result of the summer and autumn actions of 1862 on the part of Belaya was the firm establishment of the Russian troops in the area bounded from the west by the rivers Pshish, Pshekha and Kurdzhips.

At the beginning of 1863, only the mountain communities on the northern slope of the Main Range, from Adagum to Belaya, and the tribes of the seaside Shapsugs, Ubykhs, and others, who lived in a narrow space between the seashore, the southern slope, remained the only opponents of Russian rule throughout the Caucasus region. Main Range, Aderby Valley and Abkhazia. The final conquest of the country fell to the lot of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, who was appointed governor of the Caucasus. In 1863, the actions of the troops of the Kuban region. should have consisted in the spread of Russian colonization of the region simultaneously from two sides, relying on the Belorechensk and Adagum lines. These actions were so successful that they put the highlanders of the northwestern Caucasus in a hopeless situation. Already from the middle of the summer of 1863, many of them began to move to Turkey or to the southern slope of the ridge; most of them submitted, so that by the end of the summer the number of immigrants settled on the plane, along the Kuban and Laba, reached 30 thousand people. In early October, the Abadzekh foremen came to Evdokimov and signed an agreement according to which all their fellow tribesmen who wished to accept Russian citizenship were obliged to begin moving to the places indicated by them no later than February 1, 1864; the rest were given 2 1/2 months to move to Turkey.

The conquest of the northern slope of the ridge was completed. It remained to go to the south-western slope, in order, going down to the sea, to clear the coastal strip and prepare it for settlement. On October 10, our troops climbed to the very pass and in the same month occupied the gorge of the river. Pshada and the mouth of the river. Dzhubga. The beginning of 1864 was marked by unrest in Chechnya, excited by the followers of the new Muslim sect Zikr; but these disturbances were soon subdued. In the western Caucasus, the remnants of the highlanders of the northern slope continued to move to Turkey or the Kuban plane; from the end of February, operations began on the southern slope, which ended in May with the conquest of the Abkhazian tribe of Akhchipsou, in the upper reaches of the river. Mzymty. The masses of the native inhabitants were driven back to the seashore and the arriving Turkish ships were taken to Turkey. On May 21, 1864, in the camp of the united Russian columns, in the presence of the Grand Duke Commander-in-Chief, a thanksgiving service was served on the occasion of the end of a long-term struggle that cost Russia innumerable victims.

4 Results and consequences of the war

The process of integration of the North Caucasus was a unique event of its kind. It reflected both traditional schemes that corresponded to the national policy of the empire in the annexed lands, and its own specifics, determined by the relationship between the Russian authorities and the local population and the policy of the Russian state in the process of asserting its influence in the Caucasus region.

The geopolitical position of the Caucasus determined its importance in expanding Russia's spheres of influence in Asia. Most of the assessments of contemporaries - participants in military operations in the Caucasus and representatives of Russian society - show that they understood the meaning of Russia's struggle for the Caucasus.

In general, contemporaries' understanding of the problem of asserting Russian power in the Caucasus shows that they sought to find the most best options to end hostilities in the region. Most representatives of the government and Russian society were united by the understanding that the integration of the Caucasus and local peoples into the common socio-economic and cultural space of the Russian Empire required a certain amount of time.

The outcome of the Caucasian war was the conquest of the North Caucasus by Russia and the achievement of the following goals:

· strengthening of the geopolitical position;

· strengthening influence on the states of the Near and Middle East through North Caucasus as a military-strategic foothold;

· the acquisition of new markets for raw materials and sales on the outskirts of the country, which was the goal of the colonial policy of the Russian Empire.

The Caucasian war had huge geopolitical consequences. Reliable communications were established between Russia and its Transcaucasian lands due to the fact that the barrier separating them, which was territories not controlled by Russia, disappeared. After the end of the war, the situation in the region became much more stable. Raids, rebellions began to happen less often, largely because the indigenous population in the occupied territories became much smaller. The slave trade on the Black Sea, which had previously been supported by Turkey, completely stopped. For the indigenous peoples of the region, a special system of government adapted to their political traditions was established - the military-people's system. The population was given the opportunity to decide their internal affairs according to folk customs (adat) and Sharia.

However, Russia provided itself with problems for a long time by including "restless", freedom-loving peoples in its composition - echoes of this are heard to this day. The events and consequences of this war are still painfully perceived in the historical memory of many peoples of the region, they significantly affect interethnic relations.

List of used literature

1.500 greatest people of Russia / ed. L. Orlova. - Minsk, 2008.

.World War History: An Encyclopedia. - M., 2008.

.Degoev V.V. The Problem of the Caucasian War of the 19th Century: Historiographic Results // Collection of the Russian Historical Society, vol. 2. - 2000.

.Zuev M.N. Russian history. Textbook for high schools. M., 2008.

.Isaev I.A. History of the Fatherland: A textbook for applicants to universities. M., 2007.

.History of Russia XIX - early XX centuries: Textbook for universities / Ed. V.A. Fedorova. M., 2002.

.History of Russia: Textbook for universities / Ed. M.N. Zueva, A.A. Chernobaev. M., 2003.

.Sakharov A.N., Buganov V.I. History of Russia from ancient times to the end of the 19th century. - M., 2000.

.Semenov L.S. Russia and International Relations in the Middle East in the 20s XIX years V. - L., 1983.

.Universal school encyclopedia. T.1. A - L / chapters. Ed. E. Khlebalina, lead. Ed. D. Volodikhin. - M., 2003.

.Encyclopedia for children. T. 5, part 2. History of Russia. From palace coups to the era of the Great Reforms. - M., 1997.

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