Kuban area
The Kuban (obsolete and Cuba shear area ) is a North Caucasian region of Russia with a very checkered history, which is also an administrative unit of the Russian Empire corresponded. The district was named after the North Caucasian River Kuban .
Geographical expansion
The area extends from the main ridge of the Caucasus in northern direction to flow in the Kugujeja Kalmyk Steppe , the at Jeisk (Yeisk) in the Azov opens.
In the west, the Kuban district is bounded by the coastline on the Black and Azov Seas. It ran between the cities of Armavir and Stavropol through the here only flat undulating landscape and rose further south within the Circassian area again into the alpine areas of the Caucasus west of the Elbrus summit .
The North Caucasus has seen many changes in administrative boundaries and political responsibilities since the 18th century, which can be explained by the policy against the mountain peoples.
In the administrative division of the Russian Empire there was the Kuban Oblast with its capital Ekaterinodar , which was separated from the southern Black Sea governorate by the main ridge of the Greater Caucasus . In the east, the area bordered the Stavropol Governorate and the Terek Region .
Today the area is called Krasnodarski Krai . However, its borders are not completely identical to those of the Kuban area. He lacks the landscapes of Karachay-Cherkessia , Adygeja , the western part of the Stavropol region and a small raion in the Rostov region .
Early settlement and religion
The earliest human settlement in the North Caucasus took place around 200,000 years ago, according to research in the 20th century. It is assumed that it came from the Middle East. The oldest finds include hand axes from the Saratovskaya locality on the Psekup River in the Kuban region. In the western part of the region a fortified settlement with stone tools was found near Stanitsa Ilskaya, which is evidence of the culture in the Middle Paleolithic (Moustérien). For the Upper Palaeolithic , many archaeological evidence has been found in numerous localities in the Kuban area. These cultures were based on the activities of gathering and hunting. During the excavations, planes, scrapers, burins and other implements were found. Because the Caucasus Mountains were heavily frozen at that time, settlement was limited to the foothills and the northern plains.
From the epoch from 2400 to 2000 BC Many Bronze Age dolmen tombs date from the 4th century BC , mostly in groups (in individual cases up to 300 dolmens). During this time the North Caucasus developed into an important metal processing center. This technology is associated with the local Maikop culture . The people built many Kurgane and settled primarily in the foothills and on the heights of the northern plains. An upper class had already developed in their tribal cultures. Finds from this period show high skills in the processing of precious metal jewelry, gemstones and pearls. The pottery of the Maikop culture is characterized by poorly decorated pottery. Their colors are in the range of ocher and orange-red tones. In the later phase of this culture, many ceramics were made with the help of the potter's wheel. Now the objects usually have a pearl-like protuberance on their upper edge, which has become typical of the Kuban area. Other findings prove the practice of weaving techniques for the production of textile clothing.
The mountain architecture in the North Caucasus, which lasted for many centuries, remained very simple for a long time. Fixed stone buildings only became typical in the early 20th century. The residential buildings were wooden houses, there were also towers, grave vaults and pagan places of worship.
In the first millennium AD there were extensive missionary activities by Christian churches north and south of the Caucasus. Only a few testimonies have survived from the church buildings in the North Caucasus from this period. One of the most important structures that archaeological research found in the Kuban region are the remains of a cross- domed church with three apses near Nishni Archys on the upper reaches of the Zelenchuk. The building had an extension of 25.5 × 19.5 meters on its foundation walls. It is called the North Church. The church was built from hewn stones and bricks for the arches. During the excavations, remains of flat glass panes were found. There is also another church (Middle Church) in the vicinity, which is preserved by monks from the Zelenchuk Monastery and a foundation of the so-called southern church. A grave was found under the floor of this former building. a. a signet ring from the Armenian King Ashot I the Great (885-891) was added.
The proximity to Turkey brought Islamic influences to the region early on. They mingled with the pagan religious practices of regional rulers and existing Christian activities. The Turkish sultan began targeted Islamization in the western North Caucasus in 1717. He could rely on the support of the Crimean khans Devlet III. Build Giray and Kasy-Girei. In this way, the Sunni belief system was consolidated among numerous mountain peoples . The mosques in the Kuban area differ significantly from those in Dagestan and Chechnya . In the West Caucasus they often look like an ordinary residential building and the minaret is not very dominant.
Recent history
In the Kuban area, as in the neighboring areas of Ossetia , Chechnya and Dagestan , Christian and Muslim population groups were and still are . With the help of Cossacks and its own military , the tsarist empire expanded its influence in the northern sub-Caucasus at an early stage . Between 1841 and 1863 the tsarist government released land in the Kuban district for Cossacks and then for Russian settlers . They displaced the Muslim population from the Circassians across the Caucasus or induced them to emigrate to Turkey. It was not until 1871 that the area was transferred from special military control to a civilian administration. But that did not end the tensions and disadvantages for the local population.
Situation at the time of the First World War
.png)
During the First World War , White Guard troops from the government of Southern Russia, led by General Anton Ivanovich Denikin, occupied the North Caucasus. After the end of the sequence of the emerged during the turmoil October Revolution resulting civil war regional centers of power of the Bolsheviks . In Jekaterinodar the few Cossacks and volunteers were driven out by the Bolsheviks. This prompted the High Command of the Armed Forces of Southern Russia in Rostov-on-Don to plan military actions. The so-called ice campaign of the volunteer army began on February 23, 1918 under the leadership of General Lawr Georgievich Kornilov and was able to take the capital Ekaterinodar at the end of March. On March 31, Kornilov died from a grenade attack on his headquarters . General Denikin ordered the emaciated army back to Rostov and at the beginning of June 1918 ordered the second campaign (June 9-10) against Ekaterinodar. Bolshevik troops were ten times as strong there. Nevertheless, on August 3, Denikin's army won a victory. Additional military expeditions to the surrounding area continued for another five months.
Politico-military background
Denikin's volunteer army did not succeed in maintaining the trust of the population and local Cossacks over the long term. With their victorious approach, the former landowners also came back and took countless punitive actions against the rural population. There was arbitrariness, robbery and chaos. The democratic-revolutionary views of the Cossacks opposed the monarchist views among the White Guard officers. The situation in the Kuban district couldn't be more contrasting.
General Denikin moved his headquarters to Yekaterinodar and captured Mineralnye Vody on January 20, 1919 and Vladikavkaz and Grozny in the neighboring areas of the Kuban district with the assistance of General Wrangel .
Collapse of southern Russia
The end of the war had changed the political framework for southern Russia and the North Caucasus. A fight against the Germans who had penetrated into the Ukraine was no longer an option. The Entente Powers were undecided whether to continue fighting the Bolsheviks. All hopes of the democrats and Russian monarchists fell on these forces. In 1919, forces in the Denikin area tried to convert the military administration he had installed for all of southern Russia into a civilian government. This attempt failed because of Denikin's will. He was persuaded to form departments and to transfer the administrative business to an officer (General Abram Dragomirow , later General Alexander S. Lukomski ). In practice, however, the command structure of the volunteer army worked. Massive looting by the soldiers and unsuccessful attempts to reach an understanding with the commanders of the Cossack armies of the Don , Kuban and Terek have significantly worsened Denikin's reputation since 1919.
After losing large parts of southern Russia, Denikin met the most important Cossack representatives on January 16, 1920 in Yekaterinodar. There it was agreed that a democratic government would be formed under the significant influence of the Cossacks in the North Caucasus. The negotiations ended on February 5 with the appointment of Don Cossack Nikolai M. Melnikov as Prime Minister of the South Russian Parliamentary Government . This was only granted for a short time. Mounted forces of the Red Army under Semyon M. Budjonny drove out the Cossacks. Yekaterinodar had to be evacuated on March 4, 1920. The southern Russian forces gathered in the Novorossiysk port on March 25-27 . There weren't enough ships for the Cossacks to bring them to Feodosiya (Crimea). Under this devastating impression, Denikin surrendered his high command in Feodosia to his rival General Wrangel (April 4). The collapse of Wrangel's operations came in early November. Fleeing troops left the Crimea in 126 ships, including around 15,000 Kuban Cossacks who were brought to the Greek island of Lemnos and later distributed in smaller groups in Europe. In this way, the White Guard influence in the Kuban district ended.
Formerly Soviet and regional influence
The Kuban Republic was formed under Soviet influence in 1920. In the areas of the Kuban district occupied by the Bolsheviks , as in many other Russian areas, so-called "green gangs" spread. The Cheka of Jekaterinodar put it in 1921 in the Kuban district at around 50,000 people. The newly appointed Soviet Russian officials were ruthlessly killed by these irregular troops. At the end of 1921 these activities decreased and the rural population began to be politically active. This situation led to an election boycott in 1924.
After the defeat of General Denikin's army in the Russian Civil War, a state of the Muslim Caucasus population , the North Caucasian Emirate , emerged under the leadership of Imam Usun-Khadzhi (Imam Hadshi) together with the Terek Republic for a short time (1919-1920) .
literature
- Maria Anders (Hrsg.) / Heinz Göschel (Hrsg.): Lexicon of the Great October Socialist Revolution . Leipzig (Bibliographical Institute) 1976.
- Burchard Brentjes / Stepan Mnazakanjan / Nona Stepanjan: Art of the Middle Ages in Armenia . Berlin (Union Verlag) 1981.
- WI Markowin / RM Muntschajew : Art and culture in the North Caucasus . Leipzig (EA Seemann) 1988 ISBN 3-363-00361-7 .
- Meyers Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 10 Kirschbaum-Luzy . Leipzig (publisher of the Bibliographical Institute) 1877.
- Paul Miliukow : Russia's collapse. Vol. 2 , Berlin (Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt / Obelisk-Verlag) 1926.
- Christian Neef : The Caucasus, Russia's open wound . Berlin (Structure of the Taschenbuch Verlag) 1997 ISBN 3-7466-8503-6 .
- Albert Pick : World Paper Money, Vol I. , Iola USA, 1990