#13 - JRL 6597
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002
From: "Darlene L. Reddaway" <darlen@compuserve.com>
Subject: one more article -- about 19th century history
of Chechen war
History of the 19th Century Chechen Conflict from
the Russian Side
Dr. Jakov Gordin's "Caucasus: Land and Blood"
The development of modern day Chechen crisis has strong roots in Russian history as accounted by Russian scholars. A good source for a rather unbiased look at the Caucasian wars can be found in Dr. Jakov Gordin's "Kavkaz: Zemlia i krov'" ["Caucasus: Land and Blood," (SPB: Zvezda, 2000)].
According to Gordin, in the broadest of views, Russia has viewed itself since the end of the 16th century as the protector of Christian lands against attacks perpetrated by Islamic fanatics and infidels against the neighboring territories, among them Russia and Georgia. In the 19th century, Russia considered itself to have been a major force in upholding the European reign of rational law and enlightened monarchy in the face of the mediaeval tendencies of the Persia and Turkey. After all, it was Russia that inhibited these "barbaric" clans from enlisting the help of the fierce Chechens and Dagestanis in their military offenseive against Russia as the last outpost of Western life, an offensive that was by extension directed against Europe itself.
Prologue to the Caucasian Wars: 1594-1801
Russia's first two campaigns against the Caucasus took place in 1594 in 1604, on the occasion of Russia's in-name-only union with the tsardom of Georgia under Feodor Ioannovich. The Caucasian people were always a source of terror to the Georgians, and they impeded communications between the two Christian lands of Russia and Georgia. Both times the Russians took Tarki, the capital of one of most powerful Dagestani potentates, Tarkovsky. But the Russians couldn't hold out long in that stark land against its determined warriors. While retreating, they lost the better part of their army.
In the 1700s, Peter the Great dreamt of breaking through to India for trade and empire-building, and so he wanted to take troops along the Caspian Sea and into Persian lands in his so-called Persian campaign.
Gordin considers Peter's military campaign through the Caucasus to be the prologue to the Caucasian wars of the 19th century. Peter sent his General Volynsky to Astrakhan to move on the Persians. The Russians and the Caucasians exchanged attacks, and the Russians could not advance further. Then Peter sent Volynsky to negotiate an agreement with Tsar Vaktang of Georgia for permission to base troops Russia troops in Georgia. After this, the Russians enlisted the Cossacks and Kalmyks in their war on the Caucasian peoples, who unfortunately killed both perpertrators and peaceful dwellers without distinction and with great passion.
Gordin muses that if Peter had understood the psychology of mountain peoples who opposed him, and had entered into a partnership with them at this time, he might have had a chance to win them over as allies. But Peter operated from an imperial doctrine which did not allow him to condescend to a partnership with such an impoverished people.
After Peter, the Caucasus served as a base from which enemy peoples, primarily the Persians and Turks, could attack Russia's borders.
Georgia, all the while, at critical moments had turned to Russia for help against the Caucasian mountain peoples who were constantly conducting raids against their country, kidnapping their people for slave trade, and carrying away a host of material spoils.
In September 1799 the very ill Georgian Tsar George appealed to Russia take Georgia as part of its empire, for the attacks of the Caucasians on his country were bringing it to a dangeroulsy weak position. In coming to an agreement with Tsar Pavel of Russia, George included a clause that Pavel leave the Georgian tsar in place in name only. But while they lingered, both Pavel and George died. George's death left a fractured Georgian nobility, and a great threat of Georgian civil war.
In 1801, the Russian Governmental Council urged Russian Tsar Aleksander I to take Georgia as part of the empire for three reasons: 1) the impending Georgian civil war; 2) the acquisition of good land; 3) to save Christian lands and protect Russian borders against the "predatory Caucasian peoples... and against the Turks and the Persians" Aleksander agreed after long wavering, not sure if he could successfully measure up to the challenge. When he finally sent his generals to expedite matters in Georgia, his approach had become sterner. He now ordered the Georgian nobility extradited and rescinded on the agreement to leave the Georgian tsar in place. He zealous generals also killed the late Georgian tsar's wife for resisting resettlement.
Gordin believes the awkward and violent treatment of the Georgian nobility and the broken agreement about the continuance of the Georgian tsardom was a clear sign to the Caucasian peoples that Russian treaties would not be honored and that those succumbing to Russian rule would be treated with derision and cruelty.
After Georgia was included in the Empire, the loyalty of Caucasian territories had to be assured since they were among the only means of communication with Georgia. The Chechens and the Dagestanians were especially fierce in their opposition to this idea. As Gordin writes: "Rejection of their practice of raids, which was for them an economic, religious, and military-behavioral imperative, meant self-destruction, and in the spiritual sense, first of all."
The Pychology of Russian-Chechen Relations Gels Caucasian Wars: 1801-1859
For Gordin, the whole psychology of the Caucasian war and imperial policy is embraced in the first three significant generals to serve their after the inclusion of Georgia into the Russian empire. These attitudes and approaches to the Caucasus, and specifically to Chechnya, can also be seen in modern day Russian approaches to the Chechen crisis.
The first of these generals was Ivan Gudonovich, who wrote Catherine the Great the following report about the Caucasian mountain peoples: "Their way of life is lacking in all order to this day... They regard large vices and even murder as the smallest of acts, and use them as the basis from which to launch an internal war of revenge and robbery."
Gudovich had no intention of integrating these people into the Russian empire, he made no attempt to understand that the Caucasian mountain people, and in particular the Chechens, had their own system of internal governance based on the taip system. He callously disregarded their world view, and sought to destroy the one system that might have served as a common talking point: their common views on domestic order, even if enforced in very different ways.
In his "About the False Prophet Mansur,"the 19th century Caucasian expert Peter Butkov, in contradistinction to Godunovich, described the Chechens as indeed having a strong sense of order and justice -- but only as regards their internal affaris. With regard to foreigners, the Chechens regularly presented themselves as a barbaric, destabilizing force.
Butkov wrote: "When a murder has been commited, the family of the deceased avenges itself on the perpetrator in the same measure (either on the murder or one of his relatives). In all civil matters, the plaintive and the accused choose mutually approved mediators from their tribe or from other tribes. And when the decision does not please them, then they go to the Kadi (chief judge) of their own or another village for 'shariat,' that is, for spiritual judgment, which is based in the Koran and the traditions of Mohammed. If it happens that the shariat cannot reconcile them, then they settle the matter among themselves by force.
"Chechens don't permit stealing and robbery within the framework of their societal system. When a thief is caught, he is taken to the temple of that village, where the Kadi and the tribal elders punish the guilty by relieving him of his own possessions and holdings, and then they exile him from the tribe forever. But to the extent that domestic kidnappings are despised and rare among them, these same acts, when turned against their non-ally neighbors and Russian borderlands, are considered an honor." ["Rossiia i kavkaz: skvoz' dva stoletiia" [SPB: Zvezda, 2001): 9-10].
The second influential general who served in the Caucasian wars tried to approach the mountain peoples from their point of view. Correctly perceiving that the mountain peoples only understood shows of force as a means of deciding disagreements between tribes and clans, General Pavel Tsitsianov, who served under Alexander I, decided to apply this same non-European method from their own world view to subjugate them.
Tsitsianov used all possible means to humiliate the Caucasian peoples and to take full control over them, without thinking it necessary to make any attempt to teach them European standards of behavior or integrate them into the civilization of the Empire. However, Tsitsianov was working under the misapprehension that there was one kind of tribal system in the Caucasian mountains, when there were in fact at least two main types: the khan system and the free-roaming mountain-dweller taips, like the Chechens.
The khan system was hierarchical and responded rather well at first to the type of hierarchical humiliation that Tsitsianov proceded to inflict on them. But Tsitsianov's approach of subordinating and requiring respect from those weaker than himself did not work well on the Chechens and other free-roaming mountain peoples who regarded all form of subordination to hierarchical structures as psychological and spiritual death. They took Tsitsianov's offenses as ever deepening and passionate reasons to redouble their attacks on the Russians. And the Chechens' renewed zeal infected the khan culture with a destabilizing hope.
Tsitsianov later came to understand his error and came to think that it would be better to acculturate the khans and freely-roaming mountain people to European civilization in its Russian embodiment. Once they came to experience the benefits of European ways, its stable and abundant life, he was sure that the Caucasian society as a whole would of itself adapt European standards. Not fully understanding their way of life, and the error of his approach, he went to a negotiation with a Caucasian leader, unarmed, sure of his presence as a sufficient threat, and was knifed to death during the meeting.
The third general, who was by no means as significant as Godunovich or Tsitsianov, and who was but an intermediary figure serving Alexander I, was General Rtishchev. Rtishchev served after Tsitsianov's death, and, unlike his predecessors, thought that the Caucasian mountain peoples would soon become loyal subjects to the tsar if only they were treated with respect and were showered generously with gifts. The attacks on Russian borders and the kidnappings for slave trade were just as frequent as under Tsitsianov.
As the war wore on, the next general, Ermolov, and those following him, applied variations on all three of the above described methods to the region -- none of which were completely adequate, and all of which left the Chechen and other Caucasian peoples in great offense. In all the fighting, the Chechens proved to be the most fierce, formidable, and predatory of all the mountain peoples.
From 1826-1830, the Russians were more concerned with winning the Persian and Turkish wars than they were with the Causcasian war. But when they had won the former two, they returned to the Caucasian war with more passion and intent. Fortresses were constantly built and outposts won over. To ensure that the mountain dwellers, and especially the Chechens, did not succeed in carrying out more attacks and kidnappings, the Russian forces were on continual alert. And in 1859, after the famous Chechen imami Shamil was captured, the Caucasus was subdued and included in the Russian empire.
During the course of all their struggle with the Chechens, the Russians had learned that it was imperative to leave some vestiges of Chechen life in force, or face constant and bitter casualties. And so, until this day, Chechen traditions and customs have been given some leeway first under Soviet and then Russian federal law.
In view of the incompatibility of the Chechen and Russian world views, and their inevitable and continuing clash in terms of geopolitical necessity, Gordin concludes: "To lay blame on the "predator" mountain dwellers or on the Russian generals,... would be as fruitless as cursing Caesar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Tammerlaine, and others who shook the world and created empires. This is just as fruitless as lamenting the inescapable imperfection of human nature."
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