The history of the accession of the Caucasus to Russia, the origins of which should be sought in the distant past of our Motherland, is full of heroic and dramatic events, which in many respects determined the further path of development of the peoples involved in this centuries-old process. Despite the fact that it culminated in the creation of a powerful interethnic union, separatist sentiments among the highlanders have manifested themselves more than once and entailed armed conflicts.
In the depths of centuries
In order to fully recreate the picture of the accession of the Caucasus to Russia, one should start with the events that took place during the reign of Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, that is, in the second half of the 10th century. After the defeat of the Khazars, who controlled the southeastern steppes, he conquered the tribes of the slopes and yasses that inhabited the foothills of the Caucasus, and reached the Kuban, where the legendary Tmutarakan principality was later formed. In folklore, it has become a symbol of remote lands.
However, in subsequent centuries, clouded by feuds between the specific princes, Russia lost many of its previous conquests, and its borders were pushed away from the shores of the Sea of Azov. Further peaceful attempts to annex the Caucasus to Russia, which, with a high degree of conventionality, are considered to be the first stage of this long process, date back to the 15th – 17th centuries. and are characterized by a vassal-allied form of relations established between the Moscow rulers and the elders of the most numerous Caucasian tribes.
The beginning of the holy war
This fragile and often violated by both sides of the world lasted until the beginning of the XVIII century, and finally collapsed after Peter I, intending to open a trade route for Russia to India, undertook in 1722-1723. a trip to the Caspian lands. Having gained a number of victories on the plain, he thereby provoked the indigenous inhabitants of the mountains to the start of hostilities for fear of seizing their territories.
This stage in the history of the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia was marked by an exacerbation of armed conflicts that arose as a result of the beginning of a mass movement among Muslim highlanders (murids) directed against infidels, that is, Christians. It poured out at the beginning of a full-blown “holy” war, called the “Gazavat”. With some interruptions, it stretched for almost a century and a half.
Under the banners of Sheikh Mansour
It is noted that during the reign of Peter I, as well as during the reign of Catherine II, most of the reports on the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia were in the nature of military reports, which indicates a persistently pursued policy of colonization using the armed forces. Despite the fact that in 1781, residents of a number of Chechen communities voluntarily swore allegiance to Russia, a few years later they all became participants in the national liberation movement created by Sheikh Mansour. The only thing that prevented the beginning of a full-scale war was the unsuccessful attempt of the Sheikh to unite all the mountain peoples into a single Muslim state. This task was later handled by an Islamic religious and political figure named Shamil.
Nevertheless, Mansur managed to unite in the ranks of the anti-colonial movement created by him many ethnic groups of the North Caucasus and rally them under the slogan of a common struggle for national independence. At first, the rebels were accompanied by military luck, but it soon became clear that, having taken up arms, they intend to use it not only against the external enemies that the Russians were for them, but also against their internal oppressors - the local feudal lords who owned the land.
This was the reason that the mountain tops betrayed national interests and, together with government forces, took part in pacifying the rebels. After their defeat, the precarious world was temporarily restored, and the leader of the rebels seized and in 1791 ended his days in the casemate of the Shlisselburg fortress. This completed the second stage of the annexation to Russia of the North Caucasus and adjacent territories.
General Ermolov against Teymiev’s troops
The further development of events in this constantly hot spot is connected with the appointment in 1816 of General A.P. Yermolov as commander of the troops deployed in the Caucasus. With his arrival, the systematic advance of the Russian units into the territory of Chechnya began. In response to this, numerous cavalry detachments led by Beybulat Teymiev were formed from among the highlanders.
Under his command, they fought a guerrilla war for more than 15 years, inflicting untold damage on government forces. It is noted that he himself was a supporter of peaceful coexistence with Russia, and took up arms only because of the current situation. In 1832, Teymiev was treacherously killed by one of his close associates. According to participants in those events, the leader of the highlanders fell victim to the struggle for power between representatives of several warring clans.
The rise and fall of Shamil
The struggle for the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia in the 19th century received the greatest tension after the imam, the religious and political leader of local tribes, proclaimed the aforementioned Shamil, who formed a powerful theocratic state in the territories under his control, who managed to resist the Russian troops for a long time.
The process of colonization was much more difficult, but later the imamat created by Shamil began to actively decompose due to the prohibitively severe laws and corruption that corroded the power elite. This weakened the military power of the highlanders and led them to the inevitable defeat in such cases. This third stage of accession of the Caucasus to Russia ended with the capture of Shamil in 1859 and the conclusion of a peace treaty.
Forgotten ideals
The former political and spiritual leader of the mountain peoples was brought to Russia and became an honorary captive of the emperor Alexander II who ruled in those years. All his relatives, who once belonged to the elite of the military leadership, received generous retribution from the Russian treasury and hastily renounced their former ideals. The outcome of this stage of the accession of the Caucasus to Russia can be briefly described as the establishment of the dominance of the military administration and the complete elimination of the institutions of local self-government.
In the years when Shamil and his many relatives flourished in Russia, many of his compatriots were expelled from their land and deported to Turkey, whose government gave their consent. This measure allowed the tsarist authorities to significantly reduce the local population and populate the liberated territories with immigrants from other regions of the country.
Caucasian partisans
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the next - the fourth stage of the accession of the Caucasus to Russia. The Caucasian war, which broke out again in those years, was the result of the policy of the tsarist government, which built its relations with the indigenous population of the region without taking into account its national characteristics, while relying only on brute force. Unable to act as a united front, as it was during the time of Sheikh Mansur, Beybulat Teymiev or Shamil, the Highlanders resorted to the tactics of the partisan movement as the only form of armed struggle available to them.
An ideology that defeated the faith of the fathers
The last, final stage of the process aimed at the integration of the mountain peoples into Russia was the events caused by the influence on the inhabitants of the Caucasus of the representatives of the Social Democratic Party, who conducted extensive propaganda and enlightenment work there. Their successes were so great that by the time of the October armed coup the ideas of building socialism had largely supplanted Islamic ideology from the consciousness of the masses. It is precisely because of this that the territory of the Caucasus soon became an important constituent part of the Soviet Union and remained so until its collapse.