Caucasus War (1817–1864)

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Caucasus War
The Capture of Shamil, painting by Franz Roubaud, 1886. In the front left, with his cap removed, the Russian viceroy Baryatinsky.
The Capture of Shamil , painting by Franz Roubaud , 1886. In the front left, with his cap removed, the Russian viceroy Baryatinsky .
date 1817 - 1864
place North Caucasus
output Imam Shamil surrendered. Russian annexation of the North Caucasus, ethnic cleansing of some areas by Circassians
consequences Today's areas of Chechnya, Dagestan and the West Caucasus annexed by Russia
Parties to the conflict

Flag of Russia.svg Flag of the Russian Empire (black-yellow-white) .svg Russian Empire and allied Caucasian principalities and tribal associations

Thirdimamateflag.svg Imamat Caucasus , Circassian , Abkhazian and other Caucasian principalities and tribal associations; Svaneti

The Caucasus War is the summary of the military actions of the Russian Empire between 1817 and 1864 with the aim of gaining complete control over the North Caucasus . The autochthonous ethnic groups such as the Circassians and Chechens resisted .

Causes and beginning of the war

Catherine II d. Size
The Georgian Military Road seen from the south. Colored photo postcard between 1890 and 1900. Coming from the North Caucasian Vladikavkaz, it runs through the Dariel Gorge east and south around the foot of the Kazbek (mountain in the center of the background) and over the Cross Pass (front background) into the Georgian foothills (foreground) to Tbilisi .

The Russian Empire, proclaimed by Peter the Great in 1721, sought access to the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in order to establish economic and political sea connections. Catherine II the Great had large parts of the Ukraine and parts of the central North Caucasus conquered in the Russo-Turkish War 1768–74 . In the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, the formal independence of the Crimean Khanate , which was previously dependent on the Ottoman Empire , was decided, which in 1783 became a Russian client state and was dissolved by Russia in 1792. In Küçük Kaynarca Russia was also recognized as the protective power of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, i.e. the Romanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks and Georgians, later also the Armenians and the like. a. Russia used this status in the next decades to expand around the Black Sea at the expense of the Ottoman Empire . The declared aim of this expansion was the conquest of the "Straits", the Dardanelles and the Bosporus with the city of Constantinople (the old capital of Orthodox Christianity) in order to connect Russian Black Sea ports with the Mediterranean. The warring Ottoman Empire initially kept the straits closed to Russian ships. With Catherine II the attempt at an imperial expansion of Russia to the southwest, to Transcaucasia and the Balkans began.

Mansur Ushurma

Originally, Russia did not want to conquer the inaccessible North Caucasus, which did not belong to the Ottoman Empire, but only to dominate a paved connecting road into Transcaucasian Georgia , the Georgian Military Road which Russia had developed . Therefore, in 1774 the two principalities of the Kabardines , the " Great Kabarda " and " Little Kabarda ", which border this street , were declared a protectorate (dependent protective state) and dissolved in 1825. The territory of these principalities also included the settlement area of ​​the North Ossetians (about today's North Ossetia-Alania ), the Ingush and the Balkars . The more flat northern Chechnya was also annexed by Russia. There, however, Russia met more resolute resistance from the preacher of the mystical direction of Islam, Sufism , Sheikh Mansur Ushurma , who drove the Russian army out of northern Chechnya again in 1785–91. With four campaigns outside Chechnya, however, it failed. He died in Russian custody in Shlisselburg in 1794 .

From around 1763, Russia tried to isolate the North Caucasus. For this purpose, between the Caspian and the Black Sea founded a line of fortified bases, including 1818 Gros Well krepost (German: Fear area's Keep ), today Grozny , or Vladikavkaz and many others - the so-called "Caucasus Wall" (also called " Caucasus line " called). In addition, Cossacks were settled as defensive farmers in the foothills of the North Caucasus, which intensified the hostilities, however, because some of the mountain inhabitants (Russian "gorzy", "mountain") were cut off from the traditional winter pastures in the lowlands.

Alexei Yermolov

Little by little the clashes grew into a war. Alexei P. Yermolow , the governor general (viceroy) of the Russian Transcaucasian provinces, then sought complete control of the Caucasus. The majority of the mostly Muslim mountain people offered fierce resistance to Russian expansion. After the Russian annexation of Kabardei in 1825, the Adygen or Circassians on the Black Sea coast and in the east the Chechens and numerous peoples of Dagestan became the main opponents of Russian expansion. At times the military actions against the hill tribes overlapped with the Russo-Persian War 1826-28 , the Russo-Turkish War 1828-29 and the Crimean War 1853-56.

Army unit under General Prince Argutinski crosses the Caucasus . Painting by Franz Roubaud 1892.

The majority of authors consider the beginning of the war to be in 1817, when Russian troops under Yermolov conquered northern Chechnya and founded the Grozny fortress. Because campaigns against Dagestani principalities and Circassian princes had been waged before, a minority of the authors set the beginning of the war as early as 1800–1802, with the beginning of the military activities of the Georgian general in the Russian service, Prince Pavle Tsizishvili , who had the Georgian military road expanded and undertook major campaigns against the Caucasian mountain people; few also with the peace of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774 or with the beginning of the wars against the Caucasus line in 1763. North Caucasian princes willing to cooperate (like Georgian and Azerbaijani princes before) were assured of integration into the Russian nobility . The great distances that had to be covered to bring in troops and supplies, as well as difficult geographical and climatic conditions, resulted in a great deal of effort for the Russian side. In addition, very foreign cultures faced each other as opponents. The war was being waged in increasingly ruthless and cruel ways on both sides.

Ivan Paskevich

Initially, three expedition armies were formed under Prince Rajewski , Prince Golowin and Count Grabbe .

French map of some Caucasian possessions of Russia 1824 (outlined in yellow): North Caucasian foreland, Georgia and western Georgian empires, in between the Black Sea coast, the area of ​​the Georgian Military Road and eastern Dagestan.

From 1818 to 1830, the Russian army under Yermolov and his successor as viceroy and field marshal, Count Paskevich , captured eastern Dagestan, thereby conquering a second connecting road to Transcaucasia, which ran along the coast of the Caspian Sea via Temir-Chan-Shura and Derbent leads to Baku and was also secured by numerous fortifications, the "Caspian Line" ("Caspian Wall"). The majority of the local Muslim principalities submitted to Russian suzerainty. A few offered military resistance in alliance with Persia.

In the Russo-Turkish War 1828-29, Russia also conquered the port cities previously held by the Ottomans on the North Caucasian Black Sea coast from Anapa via Tuapse to Gagra and also built a belt of fortifications here, the “Black Sea Wall” (“Black Sea Line”). These fortresses were frequently attacked and besieged by local Circassians in the following decades, with the Circassians being able to conquer some and thus establish a sea connection to the Ottoman Empire. During the Crimean War, Russia evacuated all fortresses along the Black Sea line in 1854. After the destruction of the Ottoman navy in the naval battle of Sinope in 1853 and later the Russian Black Sea Fleet during the siege of Sevastopol , the main fighting shifted to the Crimea .

The murids

Origin of the Murid Movement

Russian storm on the Dagestani town ( Aul ) Himry, painting by Franz Roubaud 1891. Ghazi Muhammad died in this battle in 1832 and Shamil escaped seriously wounded.

From the mid-1820s, the conflict led to religious and political radicalization. In the politically divided North Caucasus, the Sufi communities of the Naqschbandiyya , which were already widespread in the region , and later also the Qadiriyya, organized themselves . Politically and militarily, they formed the so-called murids . They referred to the resistance as ghazawat (arab:غزوة= (Islamic) "war campaign"). At the beginning, the Naqschbandi preacher "Mullah Muhammad", a Lesgier from the village of Jarag, demanded military resistance in Derbent in 1825 against Russia and the Dagestani princes, some of whom were allies with him. A movement spread very quickly across Dagestan, Chechnya and other parts of the North Caucasus. When the Russian administration recognized their character as well as the political mass movement, it was already too late and from 1827/28 the Murids switched to armed struggle. The fighting was also known as the Murid War.

Ghazi Muhammad (center) and Shamil (right). On the left, Jemaleddin, the teacher of the two, a student of Mohammed al-Jaraghi.

The Sufi orders differ from other Muslims in addition to their mystical interpretation of Islam through their ecstatic rituals ( dhikr ), which today's stricter Islam rejects. In spite of this distinction, the two Sufi orders mentioned are known for the fact that they are generally not indifferent or even negative towards Islamic laws, in contrast to many other Sufi currents. There were also strictly Islamic elements in the politics of the murids (see below).

Mikhail Vorontsov
Grigol Orbeliani

The first leader ( imam ) of the Murids was Ghazi Muhammad , who fell in 1832 in the Russian surprise attack on the Dagestani town of Himry. Second Imam of the Naqshbandi murids was Hamzat Bek , in 1834 the Avar princely family of the murder of most members vendetta of Hadji Murat fell victim. Imam Shamil then took over the leadership of the murids. Ghazi Muhammad and Shamil had completed training at Islamic universities ( madrasa ) and an apprenticeship with Naqshbandiyya teachers , through which they were regarded by the northern Caucasians as a religious authority . Sufi imams were the only personalities who were able to form supra-regional movements in the complex, sometimes divided network of numerous North Caucasian principalities, tribal societies and language groups.

Assault on the Avar village of Ahulgo in 1839, which was defended by the entire population, including women, children and the elderly, who largely perished in the process. Painting by Franz Roubaud . Ahulgo was not settled again after that and developed into a symbol of the Avar and Russian war memory, there is a memorial there today.

The conflict intensified in the early 1840s, and Russia lost more soldiers every year. The Murids have received support from the Ottoman Empire since the Crimean War. Shamil managed to capture several Russian fortresses. In 1845 a Russian expedition against the headquarters of the Murids in Dargo under the Transcaucasian Governor General Prince Voronzow ended in defeat. A unit of 18,000 Russian soldiers occupied the previously evacuated site without a fight, but lost 3 generals, 195 officers and 3,538 soldiers during the retreat due to death and wounding. International newspapers therefore increasingly reported on the war.

Nikolai Evdokimov

After that, the new Russian military leadership under the Transcaucasian viceroy Prince Baryatinsky changed its strategy. Shamil was now systematically encircled by a conquest place by place under Field Marshal Evdokimov and the generals Baron Wrangel , Prince Orbeliani (besides his military career also a patriotic Georgian poet) and Baron Wrewski. Vrewski, later Orbeliani, defended the Russian-held parts of Dagestan and attacked the Murids from the east and south-east, initially Orbeliani, later Baryatinsky and Evdokimow from the military road in the west and north. Baryatinski's and Evdokimov's strategy also included the “fight against nature”, which included large-scale clearing of the forests in order to deprive the enemy of retreats, and the upgrading of previous mountain roads to roads with bridges on which larger military units with artillery could move .

Shamil responded with alternating, regionally massive attacks and temporarily repulsed the Russian army. As early as 1843, from Chechnya, he recaptured most of the areas of the largest Dagestani people, the Avars , to which he and his two predecessors belonged. He then conquered parts of southern Dagestan in 1845, later attacked the Russian fortress of Vladikavkaz to the west, etc. In doing so, the Murids benefited from their good knowledge of the terrain in the extremely rugged Caucasus.

The Imamat Caucasus

Imam Shamil (painting before 1871)

From around the 1840s, Shamil built his own state, an imamate , with its own government with its own standing army, tax and financial administration ( bayt al-māl , strictly separated from the private assets of the imams), governors ( naib ) and postal services, which gave him but also cost sympathy among the population. Corruption was severely punished in the Imamate.

The state ideology of this state is characterized in research by nine elements:

  • Sufism: Important elements of social life were the teachings of the Naqschbandi Sufis. The murids were divided into "Tariqa-Murids" who celebrated the Naqschbandi rituals and "Naib-Murids" who were only fighters.
  • Puritanism: Rigorous Discipline for Murids.
  • Ghazawat: war against Russia.
  • Deepening of faith (“Little Jihad”): Fighting against traditional pre-Islamic religious rituals and ideas. Shamil particularly fought against three Caucasian traditions, which he regarded as un-Islamic: alcohol and tobacco consumption and the large proportion of traditional dances that deal with the romantic attraction between men and women.
  • Equality: old prerogatives of princely families as well as serfdom and slavery were abolished.
  • Imamate: Shamil's absolute religious and secular leadership.
  • Islamic Orthodoxy : Orientation towards the rules of the Koran and the Sunna .
  • Salafiya: imitation of the conditions during the lifetime of Muhammad . Salafist ways of life for the renewal of the power of early Islam were in the course of Islamic history a distinguishing feature of strictly Islamic currents, but were only increasingly practiced in the 19th century.
  • Fight for the Shari'a and against traditional legal traditions ( Adat ).

The last three elements in particular characterize muridism as a partially strict Islamic trend, which also cost Shamil many followers, such as B. the Haji Murat, who changes sides several times. Sharia is hardly widespread in the North Caucasus to this day. The focus on Imam Shamil also resulted in the Murid movement quickly disappearing as a political movement after Shamil's capture.

In the international and Russian research of the last few years, this image of the imamate has been put into perspective and occasionally refuted. Although the Naqschbandi students (Murids) and teachers were a conspicuous, large population group in the Imamat, they did not constitute a hierarchically leading class of society and were "never a driving force". There was only one other Naqschbandi teacher among the provincial governors, who at times exceeded ten, and many were not even practicing Naqschbandi students. Decisive for their selection were their proximity to the imam, their military skills or the support they had brought with them (in the case of defected aristocrats) or charismatically acquired supporters. The second Imam Hamsat Bek was not a Naqschbandi either. Even on the Adat, in Dagestan since the 17th century with some Sharia elements, which Shamil repeatedly condemned rhetorically in his writings, he resorted relatively pragmatically in everyday life, as well as on two legal codices ( niẓām ) he had decided on questions which the Sharia did not adequately regulate. Since the Sharia is not available in compact form, Shamil carried out his own reassessment instead of assessing older judgments , which Sunni Islam actually does not allow. Both practices earned him criticism from Dagestani scholars of Islam during the reign , which is why attempts were subsequently made to prove that he was making a legitimate decision based on the Shafi legal tradition .

Alexander Baryatinsky
Caucasus 1856. Outlined in bold: state borders. Somewhat thicker brown bordered: still independent areas, of which Cherkessia in the north-west, the small Svaneti to the south-east and the Murid region in the north-east (labeled as part of "Chechna" and - incorrectly - of "Lesgistan"). Narrow brown: borders of the Russian governorates. Above the middle, in the east, one finds the principalities of Shamchalat of the Kumyks, the Chanat of the Kasi-Kumück (Laken), Tabasseran and Kurinian (Lesgian) dominions . Fortresses and fortress cities are marked in a star shape.

During the Crimean War of 1853–56, Shamil overestimated his options. Armed with Turkish cannons, he abandoned guerrilla tactics and tried to take on the enemy in open field battle. At times, Russia had to deploy 200,000 regular soldiers and Cossack and Caucasian militiamen in the Caucasus . The Russian army, led by General Evdokimov, was clearly superior in the open battle. After a series of defeats, the resistance of the Murids in the east of the North Caucasus finally ended in 1859 with the capture of Imam Shamil (picture above). Marshal Baryatinski's troops, which were in many ways superior, had stormed his last hometown, Gunib, in Dagestan, which was only defended by a few hundred loyal followers .

Shamil went into an honorable exile in Kaluga and died in 1871 on a pilgrimage in Medina . In the second half of the 19th century, the European and Russian public often compared him to the Algerian Naqschbandi imam and rebel leader Abd el-Kader , also because both had been in correspondence since 1865.

The proportion of murids in the Northeast Caucasian population is estimated differently. Not all locals took part in the uprising, some remained neutral due to tribal feuds or as loyal supporters of still existing principalities or stood on the Russian side. The anti-princely policies of the murids made the princes almost automatically opponents of the murids with a few exceptions. In the core area of ​​Shamil's Imamat, the settlement area of ​​the Chechens and Dagestani Avars, the following of muridism is estimated to be at least 60% of the male population, in the east of the mountainous region of Dagestan it was much lower. Principalities still existed here under Russian protection, to which the majority of the local population of the Kumyks , Laken , Tabassarans and a minority of the Lesgians felt connected. The anti-Russian principality of Dargins not already exist anymore, only the fugitive ruler of the small remote Sultanate Elisu the tsakhur people made since 1844 with the Murids resistance. After a dispute between Shamil and Sultan Daniel Bek, he switched back to the Russian side shortly before 1859. In the high mountains of southern Dagestan there were village communities and community alliances of several villages that were temporarily or completely uninvolved in the resistance.

The list of the linguistic nationalities is used here for geographical orientation. In contrast to the present, for the North Caucasians in the 19th century it was hardly linguistic but rather tribal, clan or principality that was decisive.

War in the Northwest Caucasus

Circassia and Abkhazia

The predominantly Christian Ossetians (only their Muslim minority of around 15%) and the predominantly Muslim Kabardians , who have good relations with Russia, were not mostly involved in the anti-Russian resistance in the North Caucasus . At that time, the majority of the Ingush remained passive . These three peoples in the vicinity of the " Georgian Military Road " divided the area of ​​the rebels into a north-east Caucasian and a north-west Caucasian area.

The political situation in the Northwest Caucasus was different from that in the Northeast. Only the Karachay and Balkar people participated in the Murid uprising , but only a minority of the Circassians under the Murid governor Muhammad Amin (in North Caucasian languages ​​"Mahomet Amin", Russian transcription "Magomet Amin"). The struggle against Russia was waged here by a majority of the Circassian princes, who were partially coordinated by the Abkhazian prince and general Saffar Bey, who was supported by the Ottoman Empire, as the “leader of all Circassians”. The majority of the Abkhazians also joined this non-Murid resistance . Muhammad Amin and Saffar Bey were in rivalry and briefly fought battles in 1856 and 1858. The strict Islamic politics of the Murids found few supporters in Circassia and Abkhazia. Saffar Bey was not an absolute leader like Shamil, practically every Circassian tribe had their own military leaders.

Advising Northwest Caucasian princes. The princes facing the viewer are historically real leaders of the Caucasus War. Engraving by Grigori Gagarin 1847.

The Circassian society traditionally consists of twelve ancient tribes who used different dialects and had differences in tradition. One of them, the Ubychen , used its own language according to today's linguistic classification . Some of the tribes had a complex four-class society with the princes ( pschi ) at the top, others, more in the high mountains, lived in pure clan society without social stratification . Because the Circassian tradition ( Adyge Chabze ) forbade the princes to amass and display possessions and wealth, Circassian princes were traditionally more of a collective class of nobility, but they were only allowed to marry one another, and rarely formed monarchical states. The two principalities of the East Circassian Kabardines , which had already fallen to Russia, and the very old Abkhazia were the exception. The Circassian society also included the small group of Abasins , who had immigrated from Abkhazia since the 15th century and whose language is more closely related to the Abkhazian language , which lived in the 13th- 15th centuries . The Turkic people of the Karachay and a north-west Caucasian faction of the Nogai (" Kuban-Nogai ") formed in the 19th century . These three groups did not belong to the twelve Circassian tribes, but were allied with or dependent on them.

Circassian surprise attack on a Russian Black Sea fortress on March 22, 1840. Painting by Aleksandr Koslow.
Grigori Filipson
Grand Duke Michael
Russian West Caucasus Medal 1859–64

The war in the Northwest Caucasus was initially under the command of General Filipson , from 1859–64 Marshal Evdokimov, who has since been elevated to the rank of count , took over. Baryatinsky and his successor as governor-general of the Transcaucasian provinces, Grand Duke Michael Nikolayevich Romanov , the younger brother of Emperor Alexander II Filipson, conquered the Circassian territories from the Taman Peninsula to the hilly and mountainous country south of the Kuban by 1859 .

The Circassians, at that time by far the largest North Caucasian people (estimates: 600,000 people and more; today the largest North Caucasian Chechen people in the 1897 census, around 202,000 people), had significantly more fighters (up to 100,000) than the Murids (approx. 20–30,000, including some Russian defectors). Here, a larger proportion of the population took part in the fighting against the Russian army than in the east, whereas the Murids were militarily more disciplined. Therefore, after 1859, ninety-one army units were relocated from the Northeast Caucasian to the Northwest Caucasian theater of war. Even during the war in the Northwest Caucasus, campaigns had to be carried out place by place and valley by valley. It was not until May / June 1864 that the last high mountain regions were conquered by the Russian army.

This war became increasingly bitter and cruel. In 1859-61, the third last Circassian tribe, the Abadsechen, was conquered in the Caucasus, and the conquered places were often destroyed. The reasons for this behavior are controversial. In any case, at the meeting in the summer of 1861 with the leaders of the Circassian tribes of the Abadsechen, Schapsugen and Ubychen, who were still at war, Emperor Alexander II angrily accused the Abadsechen of having submitted and then defected again, which caused severe setbacks for the Russian army bestowed. Perhaps there was a radicalization of warfare, perhaps also the Circassian tactic of reclaiming their conquered hometowns from the wilderness was to be thwarted by making them uninhabitable. After the plan of resettling the Circassians had been established (see next chapter), the army began in early 1862 to burn down and demolish all the villages that were still to be conquered, without exception. At that time the villages in the hinterland of the Black Sea coast were affected by this, in which part of the Circassian tribe of the Schapsugen ("Klein-Schapsugien"), the Ubyches and some abasins lived. Survivors of the conquest who could not accept the resettlement fled to the mountains and forests. According to eyewitness reports, some of them froze to death in the harsh winter of 1863/64. It was not until 1877-80 that the Russian government allowed the establishment of some Shapsugian villages between Tuapse and Sochi , which still exist today. For a time (1923-45) there was a Schapsugian National Circle .

Kirantuch Bersek

The last still to be subjected to strain of the Circassians were from the end of 1862, the Ubychen and some Western Abaza (or Sad-Abkhaz / Sad-abazins / Sadsen) around today's Sochi and surrounding areas, under the command of their last elected prince Kirantuch Bersek were . The fighting was most tragic at the end of the war in May / June 1864, when the inhabitants of the villages in four river valleys fully armed themselves - men, women, children and the elderly - with the intention not to surrender but to fight to the death which made the Russian victory a massacre.

Svaneti

The fighting of the Caucasus War also included the Russian conquest of the Georgian mountain region of Svaneti in 1857-59 by Baryatinsky, which was partly ruled by the Gelowani and Dadeschkeliani dynasties , and partly also an independent tribal area. Its inhabitants, the war, Christian since the 6th century Svans (with strong pre-Christian traditions), one of the Georgian language very different language to speak, also rendered strong resistance, which is why they were granted internal autonomy. After their abolition, there was another uprising in 1875–76.

Consequences of war

War victims

It is estimated that around 130,000 Russian soldiers died in the Caucasus Wars by the mid-1860s, around three quarters of them from disease. No more precise information can be given about the losses of the Caucasians.

Deportations

Mountain residents leave the Aul. Painting by Pyotr Gruzinski 1871

The Caucasus War ended with the displacement of several hundred thousand people into the Ottoman Empire, who settled on the territory of what is now Turkey , Syria , Jordan , Israel , Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. The broad resistance in the Northwest Caucasus and the closer alliance with the Ottoman Empire made the Russian generals and the Caucasian military administration doubt that they could safely administer the region. Therefore, Major General Baron Loris-Melikow was sent to Constantinople in 1860 to negotiate a contract with the Ottoman authorities on the conditions for accepting refugees. At the end of the year the plan, which the military leadership called " очищение " ( otschishchenje = cleaning), grew . The Muslim tradition of fleeing non-Muslim areas should be strengthened. In the summer of 1861, Emperor Alexander II told a Circassian delegation in Jekaterinodar that the Circassians should emigrate to the Ottoman Empire after the war, or that they would resettle in the Circassian hill country south of the Kuban , which was unsuitable for guerrilla warfare. This announcement, combined with the experiences of war events and regional expulsions, led to a mass exodus of Circassians and other Northwest Caucasians to the Ottoman Empire. The plan had been decided at a conference of the highest commanders of the war (Baryatinsky, Evdokimov, Filipson, Orbeliani, etc.) in Vladikavkaz in October 1860, at which Filipson was the only one against. The original idea came in 1860 from the Chief of Staff of the Caucasus Army, Count Milyutin , who was Minister of War in 1864. While emigration was partly voluntary in the initial phase of 1858-60 / 62, as some authors emphasize - although this was often more of an escape under the violent experiences of the war - it was stopped from 1860 and finally with the widespread destruction of villages in 1862 BC. a. to an organized forced deportation in the west.

Dmitri Milyutin

There are extremely varying estimates in the literature on the number of emigrants, between over 500,000 and 1.5 million and more people, the latter being very high. The Abkhazian historian Dzidzarija calculated a number of 470,703 refugees from Western Caucasus alone in 1863-64, which does not include all Caucasian refugees. The Russian historian Volkova calculated 610,000 West Caucasian refugees in 1858-64. In the 19th century, the geographer Adolf Bergé and the ethnographer Vsevolod Miller calculated that there were 400,000 refugees for the latter period . The military high command of the Russian army in the Caucasus registered 418,000 refugees in 1861–64 (that is, more since 1858). These figures did not include around 30,000 refugees from the Nogai (1858–60), 10,000 emigrated Kabardines (the minority involved in the uprising, 1861–64) and several thousand Chechen, Avar and other large Dagestani and Central Caucasian families. These researches and estimates, even if some are too low, make the total number of Caucasian refugees 1858-64 likely of about 500,000 to 700,000 people. Higher refugee numbers, which are often mentioned in less well-researched Soviet, Turkish and Western literature - usually up to a million or even up to two million - are probably either exaggerated, based on erroneous calculations or include further emigrations after other uprisings in the Caucasus in the 19th century. Century.

Circassians (green) and Abkhazians and Abazines (red) in the western Caucasus and Turkey.

The proportion of emigrants in the total population was very different. In the Northwest Caucasus, among the Circassians and Abasins, it was over 80%, including all Ubyches, among the Karachayers and Balkars it was still over 50%, among the East Cherkess Kabardians, the Chechens and Avars, where no mass emigration took place, over 10% , with other Dagestani and Central Caucasian peoples even below. Of over 70,000 Abkhazians, over 20,000 emigrated, and after another major Abkhaz uprising in 1877/78 another 30,000. Most of the Circassians who stayed behind were resettled in the Kuban area , as announced (at least 90,000 people). Abandoned areas were mostly Russians and Ukrainians, on the coast also Armenians, Georgians, Greeks and the like. a. assigned .

Victims of the deportations

Tens of thousands of people died during the arduous escape on foot and across the sea and in reception camps in the Ottoman Empire, which is why Circassian associations today often refer to the events of 1864 as genocide. The main causes were famine and the following epidemics (typhus) among the refugees, there are fewer reports of deaths from accidents and attacks. Some refugees also sank in a sea storm in the Black Sea. Exactly how many people died is estimated very differently, often rather speculatively. There were tens of thousands to maybe 100,000 dead, or a little more.

If you consider the death of so many people in one ethnic group to be genocide, it was one. According to the later definition of genocide , the intention of complete or partial annihilation must also be demonstrable. There are different opinions on this in the literature. Richmond, who sums up the state of the discussion, points out that the village demolitions from 1862 onwards were more likely to be aimed at expulsion. The Russian military also gave 10 rubles to each emigrant family, but did not foresee the rise in food prices in the refugees' transit area and the subsequent fall in prices when they sold their property. Proponents of genocide such as Shenfield, Henze, Kreiten or, most recently, Richmond emphasize that some military officials wrote about the alleged need to destroy part of the Circassians, including Milyutin in a memorandum in 1863, while others protested against it. The parliament of Georgia passed a resolution in June 2001 in which the expulsion is unanimously recognized as genocide. According to some researchers, the Russian and Ottoman authorities did not want the mass extinction or tacitly tolerated it, which they proudly presented to some international observers as a resettlement ordered by a resettlement commission. The Russian military authorities, after u. a. through reports from the member of the resettlement commission Drosdow and the geographer Adolf Bergé learned that already in the West Caucasus the death in the refugee trains began to provide the refugees with food and to build some reconstructed villages in Anatolia. These measures came late after a long wrangling over competencies by the Russian authorities, which Gordin particularly emphasizes, and were ordered by Grand Duke Michael as viceroy of the Caucasian military administration after War Minister Milyutin held back. The discussion is not over. Some historians and orientalists report that research into the Caucasus War and these deportations in Russia must already avoid political restrictions.

Even the administration of the already weakened Ottoman Empire was often overwhelmed with supply and settlement, especially since further refugee flows, including even larger ones from the Crimea and the Balkans, had to be managed in the previous and following decades . Some of the Caucasian refugees formed a social and, due to conflicts over land, a security problem in the Ottoman Empire for a few decades. Today, however, they are well integrated. In the Ottoman Empire, the Caucasians were often referred to as muhajir (refugees) or "Circassians".

aftermath

Aftermath on Russia

Battle of the Valerik River by Mikhail Lermontov in 1840, who took part in both battles of that name on July 11 and October 30, 1840.

The long war in the Caucasus left a striking mark on Russian literature of the 19th century, the best known are the works of Lermontov and Tolstoy . Both authors were eyewitnesses to the Caucasus War as officers. Lermontov wrote romantic-heroic poems about the Caucasus War and the Caucasus, which are very well known in Russia. In his last short prose, The Caucasian , he ironically describes the cultural rapprochement between Russian soldiers and officials and the locals. Tolstoy wrote more nuanced from the start. In the novella The Cossacks , the war forms the setting for the plot in a Cossack village on the Chechen border. The posthumously published novella Hajji Murat , which includes the last years of this famous war hero , shows more clearly Tolstoy's anti-war stance and a sympathy for the tragic hero, who at the end of his life was persecuted by the Russian army and the Murids because of his uncompromising attitude . Haji Murat and Shamil are now considered national heroes by the Avars in Dagestan and the Chechens. Even Pushkin's narrative poem The Prisoner of the Caucasus and parts of his travel diary The trip to Arzrum during the campaign in 1829 have the Caucasus war and the Caucasus to the content. The time of the war was also the beginning of a more thorough scientific exploration of the North Caucasus, often still financed by the Russian military. For example, the engineer officer was Peter von Uslar with its in-depth exploration of the Abkhazian and Chechen language and the five largest Caucasian languages of Dagestan to one of the fathers of the Russian Caucasus studies .

Sufism and National Movements in the North Caucasus

As a result of the Murid movement, Sufism is still widespread in the North Caucasus, especially in the Northeast Caucasus, around 60% of the population in Dagestan and Ingushetia, and even more in Chechnya. They have existed in the region to a lesser extent since the 12th century. After Shamil's capture, Qādirīya Sufism initially thrust into the religious vacuum, which soon found a leadership figure in the Kumyken Kunta Haji Kishiev, who came from northern Chechnya . Although Kunta Hajji called for peace in the Caucasus, local unrest emanated from some of his supporters because the Russian military administration observed this new movement with suspicion and in some cases acted against it. After Kunta's arrest, there was a major uprising in 1863–64, especially by Ingush. During the Russo-Turkish War 1877–78 and the Russian Revolution 1905–07 , uprisings from Sufi circles followed again.

Nadschmuddin Gozinski. Photo up to 1920. Between 1920 and 1925, a Soviet official labeled it “33 Гацинский Нажмуд (ин) разыскивает. (Ся)” (German: “33 Gatzinskij Naschmud (in) gesuch. (T)”). Central Government Archives of Dagestan.
Denikin in 1919 in Rostov-on-Don , where the campaign to southern Russia and the northern Caucasus began at the beginning of the year.

After the political upheavals of the February Revolution in 1917 , the Imamat Caucasus was re-established in the Russian Civil War . The supra-religious Autonomous Union of Mountain Peoples (capital: Vladikavkas), to which Christian Ossetians and Abkhazians even had Kuban Cossacks , was eliminated in March 1918 by the Red Army under "Sergo" Ordzhonikidze . The north-east Caucasian successor to the Autonomous Mountain Peoples Union, the Republic of Ter-Dagestan (in the Terek region with Chechnya and in Dagestan, capital: Temir-Chan-Shura ) declared itself independent in May 1918, but became part of the White South Russian Volunteer Army in January-March 1919 smashed under Denikin . Denikin's rule ended with a Dagestan uprising in September 1919 under the Avar Naqshbandi Imam (and former Prime Minister of the Republic of Ter-Dagestan ) Nadschmuddin Gozinski (= Nadschm ad-Din from Ḥotzo), who was the Imamate of the Caucasus (capital: Temir-Chan-Shura ), which was conquered again in 1920 by the Red Army under Ordzhonikidze. Nadschmuddin then offered resistance in the Dagestani mountains and was captured in 1925 and sentenced and executed in Rostov-on-Don in October . Usun Hajji , a friend of his , who proclaimed himself “Emir” of the Caucasus, fought a guerrilla war with the Red Army until the end of the 1920s.

During the Soviet era, regional Sufism was depoliticized and partially modernized in response to social change. Many local groups now also accept women. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union , they did not give rise to any major political movements. Rather, nationalist movements emerged which, in Chechnya alone, led to the declaration of independence and the First Chechen War in 1994–96. A part of the independence movement then oriented itself under the influence of international jihadists under the leadership of Shamil Basayev and Ibn al-Khattab Islamist and also fought against Sufism. As early as the short Dagestan War they initiated in 1999, it became apparent that this also meant that they had lost the sympathy of the majority of the population. After the Second Chechen War 1999–2009, the Islamists went underground. An Islamist underground also exists in the autonomous neighboring republics of Dagestan and Ingushetia. Their support consists of only a minority of radicalized young people, who make up an estimated 3–10% of the total population. In Kabardino-Balkaria there are only very small underground groups, but none in Karachay-Cherkessia and Adygeja . Nationalist independence movements in the North Caucasus have largely lost their adherents since the second half of the 1990s due to increasing conflicts between the Caucasian peoples.

Caucasian diaspora and Circassian national movement

Circassians in the Middle East between 1880 and 1900. The person in the front center is probably an Ottoman official, according to clothing and medals. Photo from the US Library of Congress.
Jordan-Circassian bodyguard of Abdullah II at the 2007 state reception. Image of the press service of the Russian government.

Since the end of the Caucasus War, there has been a Caucasian diaspora in the Middle East , which is often referred to as "Circassian". Serious estimates assume a total of 1 to 2.5 million Circassians in Turkey , around 40–60,000 Circassian / Caucasian people in Syria, around 60,000 in Jordan, 3–5,000 in Israel, a few hundred in Egypt and a few tens of thousands in Iraq and other countries. More recently, they are often organized in Circassian and other Caucasian welfare and cultural associations. They maintain the Caucasian traditions, dances and customs and also run social institutions and hospitals, and are increasingly networking with associations in western countries and in Russia itself. Politically, they often demand international recognition of the events at the end of the Caucasus War. The day to commemorate the expulsion is May 21st, on which the war was officially declared over in 1864 (old Julian calendar , according to today's Gregorian calendar it was June 2nd, 1864). Political return efforts and national unification efforts can hardly be observed. There were, however, some nationalist conflicts, for example with Karachay people in Karachay-Cherkessia in 1999 and in Adygea from 2001–05 and with a minority of the diaspora associations. In the course of the successful integration at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, the use of the old mother tongue increasingly declined. It is estimated that there are only 100-300,000 Circassian native speakers in Turkey today and tens of thousands of native speakers of other Caucasian languages. The ubychic language is now extinct. Schools with Caucasian languages ​​of instruction only exist in Jordan and Israel. In Jordan there are also three parliamentary seats reserved for Caucasians, two for Circassians and one for Chechens. Your attitude towards religion is different. A minority has strengthened ties to Islam as a collective identity vis-à-vis the less strict majority population in the area. The majority are religiously and politically more liberal and opponents of Islamic fundamentalism, for which they are known in the Middle East (as are the inhabitants of Crimean Tatar and Bosniak origin).

literature

  • Abdurrakhman Avtorkhanov, Marie Bennigsen Broxup (Ed.): The North Caucasus Barrier: the Russian advance towards the Muslim world. London 1992.
  • John Frederick Baddeley: The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. London 1999 (reprint), edition 1908 (ends in 1859). online in the Internet Archive
  • Wolfdieter Bihl : The Caucasus Policy of the Central Powers. 2 volumes; Part 1: Your basis in Orient politics and its actions 1914-1917 , Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Graz 1975, ISBN 3-205-08564-7 (also habilitation thesis at the University of Vienna ) and Part 2: The time of the tried Caucasian statehood 1917-1918 , Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 1992, ISBN 978-3-205-05517-4 .
  • Владимир Владимирович Дегоев: Большая игра на Кавказе: история и современность. Moscow 2003.
  • Michael Clodfelter: Warfare and Armed Conflicts. A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500-2000. London 2002 (Article: Murid Wars 1830-59 )
  • Moshe Gammer : Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan. London 2003.
  • Яков Аркадьевич Гордин: Кавказ: земля и кровь. Россия в Кавказской войне XIX века. СПб. 2000.
  • Karl Grobe-Hagel : Chechnya. Neuer ISP Verlag, Cologne 2001, ISBN 978-3-929008-19-7 .
  • Austin Jersild: Orientalism and Empire. North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier 1845-1917. London 2003.
  • Andreas Kappeler , Gerhard Simon, Georg Brunner (eds.): The Muslims in the Soviet Union and in Yugoslavia. Markus, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-87511-040-4 .
  • Michael Kemper: Rule, Law and Islam in Daghestan. From the khanates and municipal alliances to the jihād state. Wiesbaden 2005.
  • Charles King: The ghost of freedom: a history of the Caucasus. Oxford 2008.
  • Paul Lies: Spread and radicalization of Islamic fundamentalism in Dagestan. Lit, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8258-1136-5 (also master's thesis at the University of Mannheim ).
  • Rudolf A. Mark : The peoples of the former Soviet Union. The nationalities of the CIS, Georgia and the Baltic States. A lexicon. 2nd Edition. VS, Cologne 2002, ISBN 978-3-531-12075-1 .
  • Jeronim Perović : The North Caucasus under Russian rule , Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3412224820
  • Василий Александрович Потто: Кавказская война в отдельных очерках, эпизодах, легендах и биографиях . 5 volumes. Tiflis 1899 (new edition: Moscow 2006, covers only the period 1817–29).
  • Manfred Quiring: The Forgotten Genocide. Sochi and the Circassian tragedy. With a foreword by Cem Özdemir, Links Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-86153-733-5 ( preview on Google Books ).
  • Walter Richmond: The Northwest Caucasus. Past, present, future. New York 2008.
  • Emanuel Sarkisyanz : History of the oriental peoples of Russia until 1917. Munich 1961.
  • Stephen D. Shenfield: The Circassians. A Forgotten Genocide? In: Mark Levene and Penny Roberts: The massacre in history. Oxford, New York 1999. pp. 149-162. Extract online
  • Clemens P. Sidorko: Jihad in the Caucasus. Anti-colonial resistance of the Dagestans and Chechens against the Tsarist Empire (18th century to 1859) . Reichert, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-89500-571-8 (also dissertation at the University of Zurich 2006).

References and comments

  1. ↑ Brief mention in Grobe-Hagel: Tschetschenien , Köln 2001, p. 43 and p. 53
  2. ↑ Baddeley, p. 49.
  3. ↑ This periodization undertakes e.g. B. Iakov A. Gordin: Kavkaz: zemlja i krov '... pp. 56–60, previously in the 19th century the general and military writer Rostislaw Andrejewitsch Fadejew : Шестьдесят лет Кавказской войны (= sixty years of the Caucasus War , 1860), Tbilisi .
  4. ↑ cf. Kappeler, Simon, Brunner, pp. 52-53
  5. ^ Fritz Straube, Wilhelm Zeil: History of Russia 1789-1861: Feudalism in crisis. Berlin (East) 1978, p. 200.
  6. ↑ See Clodfelter, p. 241.
  7. ↑ Baddeley p. 437ff. In the rain-poor areas of Dagestan and Chechnya, this strategy resulted in severe soil erosion, and in more western areas nature recovered.
  8. ↑ See e.g. B. Sidorko, pp. 287ff.
  9. ↑ after Kappeler, Simon, Brunner, pp. 213-234
  10. ↑ The usual Islamic term for this and for one's own struggle against the violation of Islamic commandments and Islamic ethics is actually called “Great Jihad” and may have been confused in the literature mentioned above or elsewhere before.
  11. ↑ Sidorko, pp. 311-316.
  12. ↑ See e.g. B. Sidorko and Kemper
  13. ↑ Sidorko, p. 404.
  14. ↑ Sidorko, pp. 287-288. He compares it to the Ottoman kânûn
  15. ↑ Sidorko, p. 287.
  16. ↑ While many researchers found this defense of the friend of the religious scholar Murtaḍā-ʿAlī al-ʿUrādī plausible, Kemper researched the written alliances of the communities ( ittifāq ) and Shamils and his arbitral awards and judgments in which he made a relatively large proportion of Adat and Idschtihad found, including in individual cases the tacit tolerance of slaves and hostage-taking ( iškil ), which were previously believed to be forbidden in the Imamate. (Kemper, p. 317–404) (In contrast to more western regions of the North Caucasus - including Chechnya - Dagestan had a very old and for its size unusually broad religious, profane and legal tradition of writing, which, as a further specialty of the area, was predominantly in Arabic was written.)
  17. ↑ Clodfelter, p. 241.
  18. ↑ cf. Jersild p. 18 below
  19. ↑ The linguistic-national identity was established - especially in the Islamic culture - often only with the Soviet policy of Korenisazija , which was connected with the creation of national written languages ​​and literacy. National identity did not establish itself in the remote North Caucasus until the 1960s, but it led to many nationalist disputes after the breakup phase of the Soviet Union. Compare with Gerhard Simon: Nationalism and Nationality Policy in the Soviet Union. Baden-Baden 1986. pp. 65-77 and pp. 145-152
  20. ↑ On the spread of the Murids and the Circassian-Abkhaz uprising in the northwest, a few words can be found in the information on the prehistory in Robert Conquest: Stalin's Genocide. Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Caucasians. Vienna 1984, p. 21; However, this work is unreliable with many figures due to ideological objectives and gives excessive figures that are no longer represented in literature today.
  21. ↑ See e.g. B. Summary of the war in kavkaz-uzel , penultimate and last chapter.
  22. ↑ See e.g. B. Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay: Cooptation of the Elites of Kabarda and Daghestan in the sixteenth century. In: Abdurrahman Avtorkhanov, Marie Bennigsen Broxup u. a. (Ed.): The North Caucasus Barrier: the Russian advance towards the Muslim world. London 1992, online, pp. 25–26 (Kabardiner) and pp. 27–28 (Western Circassians and Abasins)
  23. ^ Rudolf A. Mark, entry "Circassians"
  24. ↑ Most estimates are between 400 and 800,000 people. Higher levels, which are also often mentioned in the literature - one million, 1.1 million or even 2 million - are within the numerical conditions at that time, e.g. B. approx. 200,000 Chechens (today 1.1 million), over 1 million Georgians (today 5 million) rather implausible.
  25. ↑ first table, second column
  26. ↑ Kappeler; Simon; Brunner, p. 231.
  27. ↑ Jersild, p. 23.
  28. ↑ Cf. Richmond, pp. 78–81, the question of cause is answered differently in Russian literature.
  29. ↑ See, inter alia, Shenfield in: Levene; Roberts pp. 149-162. Here especially pp. 152–153.
  30. ↑ cf. Richmond pp. 78-81, Jewdokimow z. B. wrote in his memoir: “I wrote to Count Sumarokov why he thinks that he tells us in every report about the frozen bodies on the streets? Didn't the Grand Duke (Michael) and I know that? But can anyone undo the disaster? ”Quoted in Shenfield, p. 157, such indifference to civilians was not the rule at the time, but it was also not uncommon.
  31. ↑ While the Abkhazian and Abasinian dialects form a mutually understandable dialect continuum , the Sadsian dialects stand a little apart and are less understandable. Sadsian was spoken in the past in what is now the border region between Abkhazia and Russia and is now only used in Turkey. See also this language map of the West Caucasus around 1860 (Sadsish there light green, 3b ...) . The Achzipsou around Kbaada spoke z. B. Sads-Abkhazian, while the Djigit in today's central area of ​​Sochi spoke ubychic.
  32. ↑ Richmond, pp. 78–81, Shenfield, pp. 152–153 (also citing the Russian eyewitnesses Gen. Babitsch and the Circassian historians Schauket and Tracho), four Ubychic and Sads-Abkhazian sub-tribes of the Pßchu, Achzipsou, Aibgo and Dschigit effectively wiped out. Despite all the tragedy of this massacre, there are different opinions in research as to whether it was also an intentional genocide. Shenfield et al. Researchers see it that way, Richmond et al. Point out that under these circumstances it could hardly have ended otherwise. The international and academic discussion is not over.
  33. ↑ Boris Z. Urlanis: Balance of the wars. The human losses in Europe from the 17th century to the present. Berlin (East) 1965, pp. 320/328
  34. ↑ General Schwarzow formulated that a new war would come “with the first shot on the Black Sea, or as a result of a senseless letter from the Sultan or with the appearance of the first self-declared pasha ”. See Jersild, p. 23.
  35. ^ Richmond, p. 78.
  36. ↑ In the early days, Islamic clergymen from the Ottoman Empire and Azerbaijan (sic!) Were also appointed to preach that Dār al-Harb must be abandoned. On the character of the deportations, cf. z. B. Irma Kreiten: A Colonial Experiment in cleansing: The Russian conquest of Western Caucasus 1856–65 . in: Journal of Genocide Research. 11: 2 (2009), pp. 213-241. Here especially pp. 219–222
  37. ↑ Information from Jersild pp. 25-26
  38. ↑ a b c Jersild, p. 26.
  39. ↑ A more complete linguistic overview of all three language families of the Caucasian languages in Turkey is provided by this map on the Lingvarium page of Moscow's Lomonosov University . In addition to the Northwest Caucasian languages , the Northeast Caucasian and South Caucasian languages ​​are also shown here. With the exception of the language areas in the extreme northeast around Artvin and Rize, they are all the result of waves of flight from the late 18th to early 20th centuries. In addition, there are immigrant languages ​​belonging to other language families from the Caucasus, which are not shown, such as the Iranian language Ossetian or the Turkic languages Nogai , Karachay-Balkar , Kumyk and Azerbaijani .
  40. ↑ Jersild pp. 24-25.
  41. ↑ Shenfield pp. 154-157.
  42. ^ Circassian Resistance to Russia in: Avtorkhanov; Bennigsen Broxup pp. 62-111.
  43. ↑ Irma Kreiten: A Colonial Experiment in cleansing: the Russian conquest of Western Caucasus 1856-65 . in: Journal of Genocide Research. 11: 2 (2009), pp. 213-241.
  44. ^ Walter Richmond: The Circassian Genocide. New Brunswick 2013. especially pp. 54-97
  45. ↑ Miljutin wrote: "... if the mountain dwellers cannot be civilized, they must be destroyed." (Kreiten p. 217). According to Kreiten, such statements have also been received from Baryatinsky, while others, such as Sumarokow-Elston or Filipson, protested against them. Filipson was replaced in 1860 by General Karzow, from whom such statements have also been received.
  46. ↑ http://www.parliament.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=63&info_id=31806
  47. ↑ Cf. u. a. Jersild pp. 24-25.
  48. ↑ Cf. Gordin, p. 239 ff., So there may have been different ideas in the General Staff.
  49. ↑ News from March 15, 2020 at Kawkaski Usel
  50. ↑ cf. P. Read online excerpt p. 35
  51. ↑ cf. Paul Lies, p. 36.
  52. ↑ On these developments cf. including Wolfdieter Bihl, Vol. II, pp. 277-279.
  53. ↑ A prominent example of the Chechens switching to Russia for this reason is the Mufti and later Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov
  54. ↑ Estimates for Dagestan 1999: cf. Paul Lies, p. 35.
  55. ↑ a b cf. including the essay about Circassians in Turkey by Ayhan Kaya from Istanbul Bilgi University Chapter 5: "Circassian Population in Turkey" ( Memento from April 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  56. ↑ Information from ethnologue on the Adygeic language

Web links

Commons : Caucasus War 1817–1864  - Collection of images, videos and audio files