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 that largely determined the further path of development of the peoples involved in this centuries-old process. Despite the fact that it ended with the creation of a powerful interethnic union, separatist sentiments among the highlanders have repeatedly manifested themselves and entailed armed conflicts.
In the mists of time
To most fully recreate the picture of the annexation 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 Kosogs and Yases, who inhabited the foothills of the Caucasus, and reached the Kuban, where the legendary Tmutarakan principality was subsequently formed. In folklore, it has become a symbol of distant lands.
However, in subsequent centuries, overshadowed by civil strifeappanage princes, Russia lost many of its former conquests, and its borders were pushed back from the shores of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov. Further peaceful attempts to join 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 period of 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.
Start of a holy war
This fragile peace, often violated by both sides, lasted until the beginning of the 18th century, and finally collapsed after Peter I, intending to open a trade route to India for Russia, undertook in 1722-1723. trip to the Caspian lands. Having won a number of victories on the plain, he thereby provoked the indigenous inhabitants of the mountainous regions to start hostilities for fear of seizing their territories.
This stage in the history of the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia is marked by the aggravation of armed conflicts, which were the result of the beginning of a mass movement among the mountaineers-Muslims (Murids), directed against the infidels, that is, Christians. It resulted in the beginning of a full-scale "holy" war, called "gazavat". With some interruptions, it stretched for almost a century and a half.
Under the banner of Sheikh Mansour
It is noted that during the reign of Peter I, as well as during the reign of Catherine II, most reports of the annexation of the Caucasus to Russiawere in the nature of military reports, which speaks of a persistently implemented policy of colonization with the use of armed forces. Despite the fact that in 1781 the inhabitants of a number of Chechen communities voluntarily swore allegiance to Russia, after a few years they all became participants in the national liberation movement created by Sheikh Mansur. The only thing that prevented the start of a full-scale war then was the sheikh's unsuccessful attempt to unite all the mountain peoples into a single Muslim state. This task was later completed by an Islamic religious and political figure named Shamil.
Nevertheless, Mansur managed to unite many peoples of the North Caucasus in the ranks of the anti-colonial movement he created and rally them under the slogan of a common struggle for national independence. At first, the rebels had military success, but it soon became clear that, having taken up arms, they intended to use it not only against external enemies, which for them were Russian, but also against their internal oppressors - local feudal landowners.
This was the reason that the highlanders betrayed national interests and, together with government troops, took part in pacifying the rebels. After their defeat, the shaky peace was temporarily restored, and the leader of the rebels himself was captured and in 1791 ended his days in the casemate of the Shlisselburg fortress. This completed the second stage of joining the North Caucasus and adjacent territories to Russia.
GeneralYermolov against Teimiev's detachments
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 stationed in the Caucasus. With his arrival, the systematic advance of Russian units deep into the territory of Chechnya began. In response, numerous cavalry detachments were formed from among the highlanders, led by Beibulat Teimiev.
Under his command, they waged a guerrilla war for more than 15 years, inflicting incalculable 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 situation. In 1832, Teimiev was treacherously killed by one of his close associates. According to the participants of those events, the leader of the highlanders fell victim to a 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 the local tribes - was proclaimed by the above-mentioned Shamil, who formed a powerful theocratic state in the territories under his control, which managed for a long time to confront the Russian troops.
The process of colonization was significantly hampered, but subsequently the imamat created by Shamil began to actively decompose due to the prohibitively harsh laws established inside it and corruption that corroded the ruling elite. It weakened military powermountaineers and led them to the inevitable defeat in such cases. This, the third stage in the annexation 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 prisoner of Emperor Alexander II, who ruled in those years. All his relatives, once part of the elite military leadership, received generous rewards from the Russian treasury and hastily renounced their former ideals. The result 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 local self-government institutions.
During the years when Shamil and his numerous relatives prospered in Russia, many of his compatriots were expelled from their land and deported to Turkey, whose government gave its consent to this. This measure allowed the tsarist authorities to significantly reduce the local population and populate the liberated territories with settlers from other regions of the country.
Caucasian partisans
The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the next - the fourth stage of the annexation of the Caucasus to Russia. The Caucasian war, which flared up 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. Not being ableto act as a united front, as was the case during the times of Sheikh Mansur, Beibulat Teimiev or Shamil, the highlanders resorted to the tactics of the partisan movement as the only form of armed struggle available to them.
Ideology that defeated the faith of the fathers
The last, final stage of the process aimed at the entry of the mountain peoples into Russia was the events caused by the influence of representatives of the Social Democratic Party on the inhabitants of the Caucasus, who carried out extensive propaganda and educational work there. Their successes were so great that by the time of the October armed coup, the ideas of building socialism had largely ousted Islamic ideology from the consciousness of the masses. It was thanks to this that the territory of the Caucasus soon became an important part of the Soviet Union and remained so until its collapse.
