1817–1864 invasion of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire
This article is about the 19th-century Russian invasion. For the World War I military campaign, seeCaucasus Campaign. For the World War II military campaign, seeBattle of the Caucasus. For the military conflicts in the 1990s, seeWars in the Caucasus.
Russian control of theGeorgian Military Road in the center divided the Caucasian War into theRusso-Circassian War in the west and theconquest of Chechnya and Dagestan in the east. Other territories of the Caucasus (comprising contemporary easternGeorgia, southern Dagestan,Armenia andAzerbaijan) were incorporated into the Russian Empire at various times in the 19th century as a result ofRussian wars withPersia.[11] The remaining part, western Georgia, was taken by the Russians from theOttomans during the same period.
The Russian invasion encountered fierce resistance. The first period of the invasion ended coincidentally with the death of Alexander I and theDecembrist Revolt in 1825. It achieved surprisingly little success, especially compared with the then recentRussian victory over the "Grande Armée" ofNapoleon in 1812.
Between 1825 and 1833, little military activity took place in the Caucasus against the native North Caucasians aswars with Turkey (1828/1829) and withPersia (1826–1828) demanded the Empire's attention. After considerable successes in both wars, Russia resumed fighting in the Caucasus against the various rebelling native ethnic groups in the North Caucasus. This marked the beginning of what is now referred to as theCircassian genocide.Russian units again met resistance, notably led byGhazi Mollah,Hamzat Bek, andHadji Murad.Imam Shamil followed them. He led the mountaineers from 1834 until his capture byDmitry Milyutin in 1859. In 1843, Shamil launched a sweeping offensive aimed at the Russian outposts inAvaria. On 28 August 1843, 10,000 men converged from three different directions, on a Russian column inUntsukul, killing 486 men. In the next four weeks,Shamil captured every Russian outpost in Avaria except one, exacting over 2,000 casualties on the Russian defenders. He feigned an invasion north to capture a key chokepoint at the convergence of the Avar and Kazi-Kumukh rivers.[12] In 1845, Shamil's forces achieved their most dramatic success when they withstood a major Russian offensive led byPrince Vorontsov.
During theCrimean War of 1853–1856, the Russians brokered a truce with Shamil, but hostilities resumed in 1855. Warfare in the Caucasus finally ended between 1856 and 1859, when a 250,000 strong army underGeneral Baryatinsky broke the mountaineers' resistance.
The war in the Eastern part of the North Caucasus ended in 1859; the Russians captured Shamil, forced him to surrender, to swear allegiance to the Tsar, and then exiled him to Central Russia. However, the war in the Western part of the North Caucasus resumed with theCircassians (i.e. Adyghe, but the term is often used to include their Abaza kin as well) resuming the fight. A manifesto of Tsar Alexander II declared hostilities at an end on June 2 (May 21OS), 1864.
One of the most dramatic consequences was the mass forced emigration, ormuhâjirism, of predominantly Muslim mountain populations from their homeland to the territories of theOttoman Empire, and to a lesser degreePersia.[13][14][15]
According to one source, the population inKabardia decreased from 350,000, before the war, to 50,000 by 1818.[16] According to another version, in 1790 the population was 200,000 people and in 1830 30,000 people.[17] As a percentage of the total population of theNorth Caucasus, the number of the remaining Circassians was 40% (1795), 30% (1835) and 25% (1858). Similarly:Chechens 9%, 10% and 8.5%;Avars 11%, 7% and 2%;Dargins 9.5%, 7.3% and 5.8%;Lezghins 4.4%, 3.6% and 3.9%.[18]
These demographic losses were accompanied by the confiscation of lands, resettlement ofCossack andRussian military colonists, and the re-organisation of the region’s ethnic composition in ways favourable to the imperial authorities.[19][20] In the Ottoman territories, the exiled Circassians found themselves in a precarious survival situation. Many landed via Black Sea ports such asTrabzon,Samsun, andVarna, and were placed in camps or transit settlements under extremely harsh conditions of overcrowding, disease, hunger and exposure. For example, in Samsun alone, up to 110,000 refugees were gathered and more than 200 people died each day during certain phases of the transit.[21] The Ottoman state sometimes used the Circassian newcomers for strategic settlement, such as establishing them as militia along border zones in theDanubian andAnatolian provinces.[21]
Small numbers of the exiled did return, under conditional or partial circumstances. Documentation shows that in 1861-67 a few thousand individuals or families applied to return from exile to theTerek orCaucasus region, but the numbers were greatly reduced compared to the scale of the original movement.[19][22]
Бушуев 1941: "В организации борьбы за независимостьему приходилось по несколько раз принуждать одни и те же «вольные общества» Дагестана, а затем Чечни и Ингушетии, к борьбе против русского царизма."
Тезисы докладов и сообщений 1989, p. 106: "Известно, что оформление военно-теократического государства по праву называемого имаматом Шамиля, и его расцвет пришлись на 1840—1850-е гг. В этот период в состав имамата входили практически весь Нагорный Дагестан, вся Чечня (за исключением междуречья Терека и Сужни), большая часть Карабулака («вилайет Арштхой»), ряд обществ Ингушетии («вилайет Калай»), некоторые аулы цоринцев и галгаевцев."
Шамиль: Иллюстрированная энциклопедия 1997, p. 211: "Известно, что оформление военно-теократического государства по праву называемого имаматом Шамиля, и его расцвет пришлись на 1840—1850-е гг. В этот период в состав имамата входили практически весь Нагорный Дагестан, вся Чечня (за исключением междуречья Терека и Сужни), ряд обществ Ингушетии, некоторые аулы цоринцев и галгаевцев."
Дадаев 2006, p. 223: "Пятый многолюдный съезд был созван 26 сентября 1841 г. в столице Имамата Дарго, где обсуждался вопрос о мерах борьбы с русским царизмом. Это было время, когда началась блистательная эпоха Шамиля, в состав Имамата вошли земли ликвидированного Аварского ханства, множество союзов сельских общин горного и предгорного Дагестана, почти вся Чечня, Ингушетия, отдельные аулы Хевсуретии и Тушетии."
^Dowling, Timothy C., ed. (2014).Russia at War.Santa Barbara, California:ABC-CLIO. pp. 728–730.In 1801, Russia annexed the Georgian Kingdom of Kartli–Kakheti.
^Robert F Baumann and Combat Studies Institute (U.S.),Russian-Soviet Unconventional Wars in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Afghanistan (Fort Leavenworth, Kan: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, n.d.)
Krugov, Alexei; Nechitailov, Maxim (2016).Вооруженные силы иммамата горцев Северного Кавказа (1829-1859 гг.) [Armed forces of the Immamat of the Highlanders of the North Caucasus, 1829-1859]. Ратное дело (in Russian).Moscow: Русские витязи.ISBN978-5-9906037-3-8.
Бушуев, С. (1941)."К биографии Шамиля" [To the biography of Shamil].Красный архив (in Russian).2 (102). Москва: ОГИЗ; Госполитиздат:115–139.
Pokrovsky N. I. Caucasian Wars and the Imamate of Shamil / Foreword. N. N. Pokrovsky, introduction. and approx. V. G. Gadzhiev. — M.: ROSSPEN, 2000. — 511 p. —ISBN5-8243-0078-X.
Gammer, Moshe. Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan. Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1994. 247 p. —ISBN978-0714634319.
Gisetti, Anton L. (1901). "Потери в период Кавказско-горской войны 1801-1864" [Losses during the Caucasian-Mountain War of 1801-1864]. InPotto, Vasily A. (ed.).Сборник сведений о потерях Кавказских войск во время войн Кавказско-горской, персидских, турецких и в Закаспийском крае [Collection of information about the losses of the Caucasian troops during the wars with the Highlanders, Persians and Turks and in the Transcaspian region] (in Russian). Составлен по документам, хранящимся в Кавказских архивах (Compiled according to documents kept in the Caucasian Archives). Tiflis (modernTbilisi): Типография Либермана.
Uralanis, Boris (1960).Войны и народонаселение Европы: людские потери вооруженных сил Европейских стран в XVII-XX веках [Wars and the population of Europe: human losses of the armed forces of European countries in the XVII-XX centuries] (in Russian).Moscow: Социально-экономическая литература.
Vedeneev, Dmitry (2000).77 тысяч [77 thousands].Rodina (in Russian). Moscow.
Krivosheev, Grigori (2001). "Вооруженные конфликты на Северном Кавказе" [Armed conflicts in the North Caucasus].Россия и СССР в войнах 20 столетия [Russia and USSR in war of 20 century] (in Russian). Moscow: Олма-Пресс.
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