Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 16 (9): 1280-1284, 2013 ISSN 1990-9233 © IDOSI Publications, 2013 DOI: 10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2013.16.09.12061

The “Circassian Issue” and the Wars of Memory in the Northern Modern Political Practice

Victor Pavlovich Ermakov, Yuri Yurievich Klychnikov and Ludmila Ivanovna Milyaeva

Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, Pyatigorsk,

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the specific features of the Russian policy in the North-West Caucasus in the XIX century. The expansion of the imperial regime in the region evoked a by no means unequivocal response of the autochthonous population. Part of this population rose in arms against the new regime. The article analyses the internal and external factors that caused the intensification of the confrontation in the region. It shows the objective and subjective difficulties that hindered the integration of the Circassian communities into the multinational power, tells about the role of Shamil’s emissaries and Great Britain in their attempts to weaken the . The article explains the reasons for the politicization of the events of the past in modern practice. This is seen by the authors as an element of political blackmail and the desire of the part of the local elite to gain additional preferences from the federal government. Besides, the “Circassian issue” is actively used by Russia’s geopolitical rivals to weaken its influence in the region.

Key words: The “Circassian issue” Empire Fortresses Makhadghirs Myth formation Elite

INTRODUCTION burning with desire to meet any of their reciprocal commitments to Russia. The attempts of the forcible, Under the “Circassian issue” one habitually imposed from the outside, modernization of the traditional understands the process of the integration of the Adygh mountaineer communities resulted in the consolidation of tribes of the North-West Caucasus into the Russian their opposition to the alien authorities. Such a result is multinational state. This process is controversially seen as quite normal and historically conditioned. discussed both in home and foreign historiography. Being gradually drawn into the orbit of the Russian In the centuries-old history of the Russian-Northern civilization, the Caucasian peoples were inevitably to Caucasus relations one can easily find examples of the undergo the sensitive break-up of the habitual values, irreconcilable, as it appeared to the contemporaries and adapt to the requirements inherent in any state system participants in the events, confrontation. But at the same and namely the need to pay taxes, carry obligations, time history gave examples of the constructive, partner, abide by common legislation, etc. All this could not but friendly unity. The alternating rises and falls of the mutual provoke strong counteraction from their side. So it seems interest in the broad historical retrospection enables us to to be a popular misconception to try to see the cause of come to the conclusion about the gradually mounting and the long-standing confrontation in the evil intent or never ending integration process that was part of the short-sightedness of the imperial authorities. The force continental Eurasian stabilization which for the last component in the Russian policy in the Caucasus was centuries has been and is still being secured to a objectively inevitable. considerable extent by the multinational Russia. Having come right up to the Caucasus area, Main Body: A lot of energy was wasted in the Russia directly clashed with and experienced the conflict confrontation with the Trans-Kuban tribes that made potential this region had been traditionally known for. regular breakthroughs towards the interior of the Russian While taking full advantage, first of all of the safety from territory. The struggle with them was hampered by the the outside threat secured by the Russian Empire, fact that prior to the Andrianopol Peace Treaty of 1829 the the Northern Caucasus mountaineers were by no means Trans-Kuban tribes were considered the subjects of the

Corresponding Author: Ermakov, Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, Kalinina street, 9, 357500, Pyatigorsk, Russia.

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Turkish Sultan and received regular help from him [1]. the anti-Russian resistance incapable of opposing the But even after the North-West Caucasus had formally growing effectiveness of the military, political, economic become part of the Russian Empire, the tension of the and cultural expansion of the empire [7]. struggle did not abate. Having untied its hands in the North-East, In order to put a stop to any contacts of the Black the Russian command concentrated its attention on the Sea tribes with other foreign states, first of all Turkey, suppression of the Trans-Kuban territory. By 1856 the the key importer of slaves from the Caucasus which Russian army on the whole had consolidated its hold on naturally contributed to the raid practice and the key the river Laba. The Russian administration also resorted supplier of gun powder and weapons to the local peoples to the efforts of the diplomacy and succeeded for some [2], Russia had to build on the Black Sea western coast a period of time in neutralizing the influential Abadzeki tribe. whole series of fortresses that were together with The mountaineers being on the pre-state stage of the Navy to cover the southern border of the state. their development and having failed to overstep the tribal But, as the practice showed, to build the fortifications was alienation lacked the due unity which facilitated the much easier than to hold them. The mountaineers were activities of the imperial authorities. In 1861-1862 the incessantly disturbing them by their attacks. An attempt Sochi Majlis was convened where an attempt was made to to destroy the contraband trade root and branch failed set up the Circassian state system. One can agree with the though its cale was diminished. conclusion, that the “proclamation of the Sochi Majlis From the 30-s of the XIXth century Russia’s main was declarative and provocative in essence and did not foreign-policy rival in the Caucasus was England [3]. correspond to the level of the political development of the Having failed to cope with the “Russian threat” by the mountaineers. The Adyghs only became the builders, English-incited armed forces of Turkey and Persia, exponents and custodians of the statehood when they the English began to make active use of their own secret had been integrated into the orderly imperial structure of service in the struggle against the Russian authorities in Russia – a supra-ethnic sovereign formation taking full the region [4]. Britain’s interest in the Caucasus was responsibility for the small peoples unfamiliar with any explained by its expansionism aspirations in the East and state structures” [8]. was concealed behind the statements about the need to After N.I. Yevdokimov in September 1860 was protect India whose sovereignty the Russian Empire was appointed the army commander of the Kuban region, the ostensibly encroaching upon. plan of the conquest of the West Caucasus was finalized The English tried their hardest to give the and approved by Prince A.I. Baryatinsky. international status to the “Circassian issue”. Even the But before the cannons began to speak, the Russian concessions made by Russia in respect of the Black Sea command once again attempted to come to an agreement Straits at the London Conferences of 1840 and 1841 did with the “non-peaceful” mountaineers and resolve the not lead to the revision by the British government circles matter peacefully. This time the Emperor himself appealed of their views on the Caucasian problem. The English only to them and in Autumn 1861 he received the deputation began to act in a more crafty way by organizing and from the Adyghs. But alas, this chance was missed, too. exploiting the Russophobic-minded local Polish In 1862 it became evident that the war in the nationalists [5]. North-West Caucasus reached its turning point. Notable influence on the North-West Caucasus tribes The were put before a difficult choice-either was exercised by Shamil’s emissaries. In order to prevent to submit and relocate into the territories controlled by the the invasions of the “predators”, the Russian Command Russian troops or to move to Turkey where, in its turn made wide use of preventive attacks. In 1852 as many of them considered, the Sultan would provide the general N.I. Yevdokimov took firm action against the co-religionists with “an earthly paradise” [9]. “non-peaceful” mountaineer auls on the rivers Hodzya In its turn the Ottoman Porte craving to turn the and Gubs. The practice of the relocation of the natives of the Caucasus into the obedient tool against the mountaineers nearer the Russian military fortifications Christian peoples of the Sultan’s Empire launched an justified itself and was widely used. Nor did the Russian active large-scale propaganda campaign to urge the administration shun the talks with the most influential mountaineers to relocate. At that moment Turkey was mountaineer families [6]. But neither of the sides populated by quite a lot of natives of the Caucasus succeeded in achieving a major breakthrough. In the long who never lost the family ties with their tribesmen. run it would inevitably lead to the collapse of The British diplomacy was not kept in the background

1281 Middle-East J. Sci. Res., 16 (9): 1280-1284, 2013 either. The total combination of the facts resulted in the Compare the fate of those who left for Turkey. exodus of the indigenous population from their native Out of 220 thousand Circassians who had settled in land in the 60-s-90-s of the XIXth century [10]. Anatolia, from November 18, 1863 to September 1864, The Russian administration took all due measures to around 100 thousand people died of starvation and help the settlers. It was expected that the wish to leave the diseases in the quarantine camps and 10 thousand people Caucasus would be expressed by a small, troublesome were sold into slavery. The Mahhadjis were repeatedly part of the population. But the practice showed that shifted from one location to another, which also resulted the relocation had assumed unpredictable massive in their death [12]. proportion. In this connection the Caucasian The subsequent fate of the Adyghs who had stayed administration began to resort to various economic, in Russia was connected with the sorrows and joys of administrative and propaganda steps in order to hold up their life shared with the country. In the XXth century, this flow [11]. the Caucasians thanks to the Soviet power got the chance So the government course at the end of the to set up their own national and territorial structures. aimed to encourage part of the By the time of the breakup of the USSR all the mountaineers to relocate was not the main cause of their Adygh autonomies had been granted the status of the mass “Mahadjism”. Union Republic. And in this capacity they were The completion of the military operations in the integrated into the Russian Federation. Having obtained North-West Caucasus gave the Russian administration political independence these republics reserved the right the opportunity to organize the relocation of to the generous financing from the Centre which actually the Adygh tribes in three uyezds: Ekaterinodar, Maikop, payed this status [15]. Batalpashinsk. Thanks to this initiative the intensity of At the same time it appears that the current policy pursued by the federal centre in respect of its southern the communications among the tribes increased and this, provinces is exhausting its potential. It is believed that in its turn, resulted in the gradual elimination of the tribal “the act of the transference of the power responsibilities isolation. from the centre to the regional Caucasian elites has been It is worth noting that the Russian authorities trying interpreted by the population of the republics as to retain the forms of the social set-up the mountaineers weakness” [16] rather than the step towards the had been accustomed to, published on the 4th of June 1865 democratization of their life. “The Regulations on the administrative control over the In the conditions of the Northern Caucasus the mountaineers of Kuban Region”, which specified the right attempt to set up the state system on the ethnic basis is to hear in the district verbal courts of law the arising taking the forms of the discrimination by the “title” nation arguments proceeding from the norms of the common law against all other ethnoses. Of special interest is the fact – the adat. that the measures to increase the population of the “title Under the impact of the bourgeois reforms the nations” are being carried out at the expense of the federal transformation of the mentality of the local population budget. In this way, for example, they conducted the was gaining momentum. There was a decline in the social adaptation of the Circassian settlers from Kosovo number of robberies and “among the native population a who had arrived in Adygheya from the war-torn more practical and mercantile spirit is prevalent, Yugoslavia. But the result of this action initiated by the everyone is anxious to use the legal profits to improve local authorities proved to be a failure as “many of the their everyday life rather than profit from compatriots who had arrived, went back. At the misappropriation” [13]. same time the representatives of other nationalities, Russian reading and writing was actively spread Russians in the first place, had to leave under pressure” among the mountaineers and the national intelligentsia [17]. The reason for which “the land of the ancestors” was formed. In 1878 Hadjibeck Anchokh compiled the appeared for them less attractive than their Balkan Adygh alphabet on the basis of the script. homeland requires a special study [18]. The number of the mountaineers who had preferred Of special attention is the passion of a part of the to stay in the land of their ancestors and who had lived ethnic intelligentsia for the issues of their historical and in Kuban district from 1893 to 1915 grew from 94040 cultural heritage. However, “the self-assertion process is thousand to 135606 thousand people, i.e. a 44,20 percent taking place not through the realization of their own increase [14]. potential but through the manifestation of their own

1282 Middle-East J. Sci. Res., 16 (9): 1280-1284, 2013 ethnic group. But if today’s achievements of the people’s the Extraordinary Congress of the Circassian People in culture are not brilliant-the economic stagnation and the November 2008 and at the Conference held in Georgia in low standard of living of a considerable part of the November 2010, etc. [22]. It is not only the ambitions of a population is proof of this, so the exploitation of the part of the regional elite, but also the geopolitical interests archetypal complex of “masculinity” can serve as the only of Russia’s rivals never missing a chance to destabilize compensation [19]. the situation on the southern border of their competitor, As for the enthusiasm about the “presentable that are behind the demarche. history” considered by some of the modern scholars as less important and disproportionately costly [20], REFERENCES its benefit in the present situation is considerably bigger than it may seem at first sight. By mobilizing 1. Kipkeeva, Z., 2006. Peoples of the North-West the ethnos around the idea of the “glorious past” and and Central Caucasus: migrations and settling “offences” inflicted by the “hostile neighboroughs”, (the 60-s of the XVIIIth-the 60-s of the XIXth c.). one can successfully blackmail the federal authorities by : Izdatelstvo Ippolitova, pp: 194-213. the prospect of the proliferation of the conflict and as a 2. Vinogradov, V. and Yu. Klychnikov, 2001. result gain ever more new preferences. On contraband and “prisoner trade” in the Caucasus in the XIXth c. Problems of the Northern Caucasus CONCLUSION history, 1(6): 45-50; Tsybulnikova, A., 2005. The Kuban Cossachs in the late XVIIIth-mid On the eve of the Olympic Games in Sochi the XIXth c., ed. Vitaly Vinogradov. Armavir: OJSC historical peace-keeping process around the Circassian “Armavirskoe poligrafpredpriyatie”, pp: 17-27. problems has been intensified. Among the topics most 3. Degoev, V., 2009. The Caucasus and the frequently exaggerated is the issue of the genocide that Great Powers 1829-1864. Policy, war, diplomacy. ostensibly took place in the XIXth century. On closer Moscow: Rubezhi XXI veka, pp: 560. inspection it turns out that all the facts do not correspond 4. Baddely, J., 2007. The Conquest of the Caucasus by to reality and are written most likely “on the subject” of the Russians. 1720-1850, trans. L.A. Kalashnikova. the events. Russia’s top authorities (the Emperor himself!) Moscow: CJSC Tsentrpoligraf, pp: 252. appealed to the Adyghs to stop the armed resistance and 5. Klychnikov, Yu., 2002. Russian policy in the Northern relocate into the plains, to the places already populated Caucasus (1827-1840). Pyatigorsk: PGLU, pp: 101-127, by the neighboring Russian settlers who demonstrated 429-489. in practice the advantages of the life on the plain. 6. Esadze, S., 2004. The Conquest of the West The lasting war could have been the only alternative. Caucasus and the End of the Caucasian War: On the site of the future Olympic Games no bloody battles The historical essay of the Caucasian-mountaineer were ever fought and the famous Red Glade is called so war in the Trans-Kuban territory and the Black Sea after the fern growing in abundance there which in the coastline. Moscow: Izdatelstvo Gosudarstvennoi dark takes on a reddish colour. Speaking about the publichnoi istoricheskoi biblioteki Rossii, pp: 340-342. misfortunes and death on the road of a part of the 7. Bliev, M. and V. Degoev, 1994. The Caucasian War. so-called Mukhadjis one has to bear in mind that Moscow: “Roset”, pp: 490-512, 553-555. this was not through the evil intent of the Russian 8. Matveev, O., 2000. “People’s will replaced the administration but through the fact that the exodus of the positive law” (once again on the Sochi Majlis-early Adygh population provoked by their leaders assumed 60-s XIX c.). The voice of the past. Kuban historical large-scale proportion. It proved impossible to provide the journal, 1-2: 20. settlers with all they needed, though the state allocated 9. Skibitskaya, I., 2007. The building of the border lines considerable funds for this program [21]. and the advancement of the military regiment to the At present “the Circassian issue” is being actively Trans-Kuban territory in 1860-1862 (historical and exploited as the element of the political pressure to bear geographical aspect of the concluding stage of the upon the Russian Federation. One can cite as an example Caucasian War). Historical and geographical the schemes to set up the Great Circassia put forward at collection, 1: 409-429.

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