ADYGHES ENLIGHTENERS ’VIEWS ABOUT POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE PEOPLES OF THE NORTH-WESTERN CAUCASUS AT THE END OF THE 18TH - THE FIRST HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURIES

This article is devoted to the study of the political structure of the peoples of the North-West Caucasus at the end of the XVIII - the first half of the XІX centuries. in the coverage of representatives of the Adyghe intelligentsia. The author systematizes the views of the Adygeyan enlighteners Sultan Khan-Girey and Sultan Adyl-Girey, reveals the role and importance of national leaders in the process of centralization of Circassia, studies the evolution of the political system of the Abadzekhs, Shapsugs and Natukhai in the direction of the estate-representative monarchy.

The paper is dedicated to the analysis of the political system of the North-Western Caucasus peoples at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries as it was depicted by the representatives of the Adyghe intelligentsia. The points of view of Adyghe enlighteners, such as S. Khan-Ghyrey and Sultan Adyl-Ghyrey are systematized. The role and signifi cance of national leaders in the process of Circassia’s centralization is exposed. The evolution of political system of the Abadzekhs, the Shapsugs and the Natukhais towards social estate-representative monarchy is studied.

Keywords:
socio-economic development, tools of labor, economy, social system, peoples of the North-West Caucasus, political structure, Circassians, educators, national leaders, centralization, estate-representative monarchy, division of labor, trade, sub-ethnic groups, way of life.

Key Words:
Social and economic development; instruments of labor; economy; social order; peoples of the North-Western Caucasus; political system; the Adyghes; enlighteners; national leaders; centralization; social estate-representative monarchy; differentiation of labor; trade; subethnic groups; lifestyle.

The Adyg educators paid close attention to the study of the issues of the socio-economic development of the peoples of the North-West Caucasus: Adygs, Abazins and Ubykhs. At the same time, taking into account the closeness and sometimes the identity of the social system of these peoples, they mainly described the occupations and political development of the most numerous people of them - the Circassians. As far back as 1836, S. Khan-Girey wrote about the similarity of the customs and customs of the Circassians and Abazins as follows: “The Abadzins here of the named tribes are hardworking, diligently engaged in cattle breeding and, generally speaking, have completely gotten used to the Circassians: the clothes and way of life are exactly the same like a Circassian; customs and even mores they accepted Circassian rather than retained their own, and the Circassian language became common with them everywhere. " A.G. Keshev also noted the closeness of customs and mores of the Circassians and Abazins. Speaking about the 19th century, a well-known specialist in the Adygeyan enlightenment R. Kh. Khashkhozheva emphasizes: “By that time, the merger of

zin with the Circassians - in their way of life, customs, culture - was so close that their ethnic distinction seemed meaningless to someone like Keshev. " Most of the Ubykhs also knew the Adyg language and their culture and way of life did not differ significantly from the culture and way of life of the Adygs. As the Circassian educators rightly write, Circassians occupied a vast territory in the North Caucasus. Khan-Girey noted: “The Circassian lands ... extend in length for too 600 versts, starting from the mouth of the Kuban up this river, and then along the Kuma, Malka and Terek to the borders of Malaya Kabarda, which stretched before the very confluence of the Sunzha River with the Terek River ... The width is different and consists of the above-mentioned rivers at noon along the valleys and along the slopes of the mountains in different curvatures, having a distance of 20 to 100 versts, thus making up a long narrow strip, which, starting from the eastern corner formed by the confluence of the Sunzha with the Terek, then expands, then again hesitates, following westward down the Kuban to the shores of the Black Sea. Circassian lands border to the north with the land of the Black Sea Cossacks and the Caucasus region; to the west with the Black Sea; to the east with the lands occupied by the Aksaevsky Kumyks, the Bragun village and the Chechens; to the south with the lands of the Cysts, Ossetians, Balkars and Abkhazians, an indefinite line. " In the Northwestern Caucasus, the Adygs inhabited the lands from the coast of the Black Sea in the west to the river. Urup in the east. The opinion of S. Khan-Giray is confirmed by other sources as well. On the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, they occupied territories from the mouth of the river. Kuban to r. Shakhe, behind which the Ubykhs lived, in the south.
According to the enlighteners, the Western Adygs were divided into tribes (more precisely, sub-ethnic groups), the most significant of which were in the first half of the 19th century. there were Natukhais, Shapsugs, Abadzekhs, Bzhedugs, Khatukais, Temirgoevs, Jaegerukhais, Ademians, Mamkhegs, Beslenevites and fugitive Kabardians. At the same time, as S. Adil-Girey correctly wrote, "all these peoples, without any doubt, are of the same origin and belong to the most ancient inhabitants of the Caucasus."
The opinions of educators on the issue of the number of Circassians at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries are contradictory. Khan-Girey believed that the number of Adygs, Abazins and Nogays at that time was slightly more than 250 thousand people. These data are incorrect, too underestimated. Another educator, Sultan Adyl-Girey, wrote that the Adygs, Abazins, Nogays and Karachais numbered up to 430 thousand people together. Other sources of the 19th century also contain extremely contradictory information about the number of Adygs. The Russian officer G.V. Novitsky in 1830 estimated the population of Western Circassia at 1 million 82 thousand 200 people, and FF Tornau - at 500 thousand people. The German traveler K. Koch cited the figure of 575 thousand 500 people, also counting the Kabardians, and T. Lapinsky, who lived in Circassia for about three years, numbered more than one and a half million people. If Novitsky, for example, determined the number of Natukhais at 240 thousand people, then Vrevsky argued that there were 60 thousand, and according to the chieftain of the Black Sea Cossack army G. I. Phillipson, there were only 20 thousand male souls, etc. etc.
The figures given by modern researchers are also contradictory. The authors of the historical and ethnographic essay "Adyga" believe that the number of Adygs was "according to an approximate estimate of up to 1 million people." In "Sketches of the history of Adygea" it is noted that at the end of the 50s. XIX century. the number of Circassians was equal to 505 thousand 90 people and “these data are closer to reality than

information collected by Novitsky ". To determine the total population of the Circassians in the first half of the XIX century. V.K.Gardanov cites the figure of 500 thousand as the maximum. In a review of VK Gardanov's monograph, another well-known researcher, T. Kh. Kumykov, on the contrary, claims that “... the figure of 500-600 thousand is at least closer to the actual size of the population of Circassia in the first half of the 19th century than the one proposed by K. Garadnov's figure is 500 thousand as a maximum. " Researcher from the University of Illinois (USA) N. Luxenburg defines the number of Adygs at 700 thousand people. MV Pokrovsky believed that their number by the middle of the XIX century. was about 700 - 750 thousand people.
In our opinion, the number of Adygs in the first half of the 19th century. amounted to a figure from 1 million to 1.5 million people.
Analyzing the economic development of the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus, the educators drew attention to the important role of agriculture in the national economy. According to S. Khan-Girey, “three kinds of wheat, rye or rye, barley and three kinds of millet are the most important breads, of which millet is a product as necessary in Circassia as wheat and rye in other countries.” the enlightener, Sh. B. Nogmov, emphasized: “Since ancient times, Adyge has been engaged in arable farming and sowed millet, barley, spelled, corn and garden vegetables: onions, garlic, radishes, beets, etc .; in our language there are the names of all breads, excluding Sarachin millet. The owner could not have at his disposal the compressed and harvested bread before the established motive was accomplished. After it was completed, a dinner was prepared from the new bread, to which the closest relatives were called ”.
S. Khan-Girey wrote in 1836: “The inhabitants of the plains plow the land with a plow, made like the Ukrainian one, into which usually four pairs of oxen are harnessed, which are controlled by three people. The sown grains are harrowed with a harrow ... The inhabitants of gorges and mountains, which do not have free valleys for arable farming, have a different kind of plow, namely a small one harnessed to one pair of oxen. "
Adygs' wheat was usually mowed with sickles or scythes and threshed with a board with a load placed on it, harnessing bulls or horses to this thresher, as is done in Georgia and Shirvan. At the same time, the Adyghe tools of labor "by the simplicity of the device, by their ease and especially by the quality of the work performed," were, in the opinion of an authoritative specialist, "the best and most expedient tools, most applicable under local conditions."
The main farming systems that existed among the Circassians were undercutting, transfer-fallow, as well as crop rotation. They also applied fertilization, irrigation, and arranged terraced fields. According to S. Khan-Girey, of the mountain Adygs, Natukhai were the most engaged in arable farming. Along with arable farming, the Circassians were also engaged in gardening. Concerning this branch of agriculture, the educator of the XIX century. Khan-Girey noted that every decent owner had a vegetable garden near the house. They cultivated onions, pumpkins, beans, beets, cabbage, garlic, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, watermelons and melons, parsley and red peppers. In addition, there is information about the cultivation of tobacco.
Sericulture developed on the Black Sea coast. The cultivation of forests played an important role. The Adygs treated them with care, widely practiced tree planting. Timber was the most important item of the Circassian export.
Gardening flourished on the Black Sea coast of Circassia. Enlighteners drew attention to the abundance of fruit trees in the area.

The Adygs cultivated apple, pear, quince, plum, peach, cherry, fig, persimmon, grapes. There were pears and apple trees of early ripening varieties. The Adygs possessed the art of grafting trees, the gardens were surrounded by everyone's attention, care and were treated well everywhere.
A large place in the national economy among the Circassians in the first half of the 19th century. occupied cattle breeding. Enlighteners report that the Circassians bred horses, cattle and small ruminants and buffaloes. Contemporaries drew attention to the large number of livestock, which in Circassia was the measure of the wealth of individual families. Cattle breeding provided the Circassians with food, traction and materials for making clothes and shoes. Khan-Girey wrote about this: “In general, cattle are necessary in the life of the Circassian, both for meat and milk, as well as for work; also from leather ... villagers make shoes, and riders make horse harness ... ".
The Circassians had a cattle breeding system. In spring and autumn, cattle were fed on the plains in pastures, in summer they were driven into the mountains, and in winter they were kept in special camps. Stocks of hay were prepared for feeding livestock. Small ruminants were mainly raised: sheep were the leading industry. S. Khan-Girey wrote about the sheep: “This kind animal is extremely useful for the Circassian: from sheep's skin he makes a fur coat, his only protection from the cold, and cloth is woven from the wave. Lamb meat is preferred to the meat of all other animals; it is even in some way, as it were, revered between them, so to speak, for a particularly noble food. " The Adygs devoted a lot of time and care to livestock breeding and developed rational methods of raising it. Horse breeding played a significant role in the economy of the Circassians. They bred local horse breeds: sholokh, bachkan and others. According to the observation of G.I. Phillipson, who served in the 30s - 40s. XIX century. in the ranks of the Russian troops in the Caucasus, the mountaineers had "famous horse farms: Sholok, Tram, Yeseni, Loo, Bechkan." Each factory branded horses with its own brand, and for using a fake brand, the perpetrators were severely punished.
The Adygs treated horses with love and took care of them carefully. “The Circassian, whatever rank he may be,” pointed out Khan-Girey, “he himself would rather agree to be hungry than his horse would allow it.” Until the age of five, horses were never used; they grazed in herds and saddled them only after reaching the required height and age. The white horse of the Tram plant had a resounding fame. Horses in Circassia were then used only for riding. By the middle of the 19th century, as a result of the deployment of the Caucasian War, there was a decline in horse breeding in the Northwestern Caucasus.
The most important, after agriculture and cattle breeding, the occupation of the Circassians was beekeeping. Its development was favored by the presence of a large number of melliferous plants. The outstanding Adyghe educator S. Khan-Girey emphasized: “In all the tribes of Circassia, they are more or less engaged in beekeeping. In other places, they have very significant beekeepers, which bring the owners extremely much benefit: in addition to being used in domestic life, they sell honey and wax with greater profit. For home use, honey is the main delicacy. Candles and oilcloths are made of wax. " Speaking about the economic development of the Circassians, another educator, BB Shardanov, wrote: “Luxurious orchards were green along the shores of the Black Sea, Kuban, Terek, Argun and other rivers; in the abundant fields of the North Caucasus, innumerable herds of cattle and herds of horses grazed, in all auls the inhabitants were engaged in beekeeping;
44

During this period the Circassian people were distinguished by their industriousness, which is why the neighboring tribes called them only Adige-Lejako, that is, the hardworking Circassian. "
Hunting also played a certain role in the economy of the Circassians and other peoples of Circassia. They hunted bears, wolves, deer, foxes, hares and other animals. The export of furs occupied a large place in foreign trade. Fishing was of lesser importance, which at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. paid little attention.
According to the works of the Adyghe enlighteners, among the highlanders of the North-West Caucasus, domestic crafts and crafts were developed. Domestic crafts were aimed at making items mainly for the domestic needs of the family. Adyghe educator S. Siyukhov noted that “the Circassians were engaged in crafts: blacksmith, carpentry, saddlery; the art of finishing gold and silver was considered a very noble occupation. The Circassians mined iron, prepared gunpowder, cooked soap, made cloth, cloaks, leather. " Craftsmen worked to order, professional specialization developed. Enlighteners pointed to the high skill of the Adyghe jewelers, whose products were willingly bought outside the country. Khan-Girey wrote: “Silver items are surprising in terms of durability and cleanliness of finishing. The mob and gilding, guided with the greatest skill on them, are excellent in the full sense of the word, and, most important of all, this mob and gilding almost never go away. " This statement echoes the words of the Pole T. Lapinsky about the Adygeyan craftsmen: "Gold and silver jewelry, which arouses admiration for a European weapon lover, are made with great patience and diligence using meager tools." The Adyghe gunsmiths also won great fame for themselves. The production of gunpowder developed. Trade was one of the constituent parts of the economic organism of the mountain society. At the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. due to the domination of the natural economy, the internal trade of the peoples of the Northwestern Caucasus received little development. The social division of labor was very weak. The highlanders did not have their own monetary system. There were no regularly operating markets and fairs in Circassia.
Foreign trade, in contrast to domestic, was highly developed. The highlanders supported in the first half of the 19th century. quite lively trade relations with the Ottoman Empire and Russia, as well as with the countries of Europe and the Middle East. S. Khan-Girey devoted a number of pages of his major work "Notes on Circassia" to the study of the foreign trade of the Circassians and other peoples of the North-West Caucasus. According to him, skins and furs, honey, wax, oil and slaves were exported to other countries. The latter were brought to Anapa and Sudzhuk-Kale for sale to the Turks. The words of Khan-Girey are confirmed by other sources of the 19th century.
“The ports of Anatolia from Batum to Sinop,” noted in one of the documents of the Russian Caucasian administration, “have had trade relations with the eastern shores of the Black Sea for a long time. This trade, as the most profitable, turned all the capital of the Anatolian merchants. " In the first quarter of the XIX century. Turkish trade with the highlanders of the Caucasus reached significant development.
From the Novorossiysk Bay alone, according to S. Pushkarev, up to 120 large ships sailed annually during the Ottoman rule, carrying local products to Turkey. The export of slaves occupied a large place in this trade.

Eyewitness accounts recreate scenes of the slave trade, show the process of selling women to merchants on the Caucasian coast. Russian officer FF Tornau witnessed the sale of a slave to the Turks. According to his story, the buyers first examined the woman being sold and, having determined by lot who would buy her, they began to bargain with the highlanders - the owners of the "live goods". Between buyers and sellers, an intermediary was constantly running around, "persuading one and the other side to agree to the proposed terms." Having paid for two horses and two packs of paper, the Turks acquired the desired "product". According to N. Kamenev, the mother said goodbye to the sold daughter, “holding her hands and shaking her head three times in different directions, which the daughter also did; then heads lowered on opposite shoulders and streams of tears flowed ... ". Adult girls were examined by buyers in compliance with the strictest rules of delicacy, while girls under 9 were examined unceremoniously by the merchant, “he took hands, legs, turned them over, guessing the value of the child during its development ...”. When buying slaves, there were witnesses and the mullahs drew up a bill of sale - "defter" for a fee. In Tuapse, the Frenchman A. Fonville visited one of the huts on the Black Sea coast, where slaves bought by the Ottomans were usually kept awaiting a ship that would take them to the sultan's domain. He described the stay of the slaves in these shacks as follows: “The interior of the huts was very original, the slaves sat on their haunches in them, around the lights, and when the visitor approached them, they hurriedly got up, bowed, and, looking down at the ground, remained motionless, pending a speech to them. "
It is very difficult to determine the total number of slaves annually exported from the northeastern coast of the Black Sea to the Ottoman Empire during the first half of the 19th century. Data of this kind have not been systematically recorded by anyone. SM Bronevsky believed that from the Black Sea coast were taken out annually from two to three thousand slaves. The Russian diplomatic representative in the Ottoman Empire, A.P. Butenev, believed that the figure for the annual export of slaves from Circassia was four thousand people.
Such an informed author as L. Ya. Lulie, who lived among the Circassians for a long time, wrote that, on average, during the era of Ottoman rule, from 40 to 50 ships from Turkey arrived in Anapa annually, and each ship carried up to 40 slaves. Hence, it can be calculated that from Anapa, which was the main center of foreign trade of Western Circassia, annually exported from 1 thousand 600 to 2 thousand slaves and slaves. Adding to this the number of slaves exported through other points of the Adyghe coast, we can very approximately take the figure of the annual export of slaves at three thousand people. Subsequently, the amount of exported "live goods" decreased, because this process was significantly influenced by the struggle of Russia against the slave trade in the North-West Caucasus. The number of slaves taken out also varied depending on the rise or fall in demand for slaves in Turkey and on fluctuations in the economic and political environment.
The social composition of the exported slaves was varied. The bulk of them were unouts and pshitli. There were also cases when representatives of the free estates of mountain society fell into captivity. In feudal Circassia, few could consider themselves completely safe from a sudden attack and capture. The prices of slaves were determined depending on the purposes for which they were intended, as well as on gender, age, beauty, harmony, abilities, physical

strength and health.
As for the import into Circassia, S. Khan-Girey wrote that the highlanders acquired salt, gunpowder, lead, various fabrics and cloths, dishes and utensils from foreigners. He also showed the importance for the peoples of the Northwest Caucasus of the development of their trade and economic ties with Russia.
Most of the Circassian enlighteners believed that among the Circassians and other peoples of the North-West Caucasus at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. feudal relations prevailed. Izmail Atazhukin quite definitely wrote about feudalism among the Circassians. A.-G. Keshev: “… it would be… extremely erroneous to define the level of their [Circassians'] political and social development by the yardstick of a primitive, infant society. During the period of their fall, the Circassians occupied almost the same position as the peoples of Western Europe experienced in the era of fedalism in terms of the social structure and the spirit that drives their whole life. "
Unlike Izmail Atazhukin and A.-G. Kesheva, another educator, S. Adyl-Girey, noted in 1860: “At present, the Circassian tribes represent the lowest stage of social development. They have preserved the structure of primitive human societies, breaking up, like the first, into separate families. " However, the documentary material at our disposal allows us to state with all certainty that at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. among the Circassians, Abazins and Ubykhs, feudal relations prevailed. At the same time, in their social order, certain features of clan relations were preserved in a surviving form. The originality of the Adyghe feudalism was manifested in the fact that in Western Circassia in the first half of the 19th century. two types of feudal societies took shape. In this regard, the enlighteners noted that, according to the nature of their socio-political system, the Adyghe sub-ethnic groups were divided into two large subdivisions - "aristocratic" and "democratic". The "aristocratic" were the Besleneevites, Temirgoevites, Bzhedugs, Khatukais, Makhoshevites, Jaegerukhais, Ademievs, Zhaneyevs and Kabardians. The "democratic" group consisted of Abadzekhs, Shapsugs and Natukhai. The difference between these subdivisions of the Adyg sub-ethnic groups in the political sphere was that the “aristocratic” sub-ethnoses retained princely rule, while the Abadzekhs, Shapsugs and Natukhai were overthrown by the feudal aristocracy as a result of the democratic coup of the late 18th century. A classical description of two large groups of Adyghe sub-ethnoses was given by the Adyghe educator of the first half of the 19th century. S. Khan-Girey. He designated "aristocratic" sub-ethnic groups with the term "tribes dependent on the power of princes", and called "democratic" ones as "tribes with popular rule." In the Adyghe society, feudal ownership of land prevailed, which, however, was not legally fixed. The "aristocratic" sub-ethnic groups had princely and noble ownership of land. The "democratic" Adyghe sub-ethnic groups did not have princely ownership of land, but noble land tenure remained. Both groups of subethnos retained communal land tenure, the proportion of which was gradually decreasing.
A very peculiar phenomenon was that among the Abadzekhs, Shapsugs and Natukhai, small-peasant ownership of land was intensively developing. In general, the development of private land ownership has achieved great success precisely among the "democratic" sub-ethnic groups. L. Ya. Lulier emphasized: “Impossible

to determine on what basis the division of lands, subjected to fragmentation into small areas, was carried out. The right of ownership is determined, or better to say, strengthened for the owners, undoubtedly, and the transfer of inheritance from clan to clan is indisputable. " The Adyg educator S. Siyukhov attributed the Ubykhs and Abazins to the "democratic" tribes.
The works of the enlighteners, along with the materials of the customary law of the highlanders, are a valuable source for the study of the rights and duties of the classes and estates of the West Caucasian feudal society.
At the highest rung of the feudal ladder, among the Adyghe "aristocratic" sub-ethnic groups, there were princes (pshi). They enjoyed various political and economic privileges, and held a particularly honorable position in society. Sh. B. Nogmov wrote: “The title of prince was considered so sacred for the Circassians that every subject was considered obliged to sacrifice not only property, but also life to protect the owner. Since ancient times, the princes were called patrons and protectors of the people, each of them had more or less dependent on him subjects. " In the code of adats of the Trans-Kuban Circassians, compiled in 1845 by A. Kucherov, it is written: “The prince enjoys complete freedom and is not dependent on anyone. The inhabitants of the auls, who are under his patronage, recognize ... his power over themselves and he enjoys special and excellent respect, not only of the common people, but of all the lower nobles and clergy; he is revered by the owner of the auls and lands belonging to them, patronized by him, he is obliged to protect and protect them ... ".
Pshi among the Circassians could under no circumstances be deprived of his princely dignity. The equality of marriage was strictly observed, and the princely title could only be obtained by birth. Pshi married only among themselves. At popular meetings, the princes were assigned the first places, their opinion was first of all taken into account. The princes had the right to a court of equals and, as the norms of customary law state, "the acts and actions of princes, contrary to the accepted rules of the hostel, are examined only by princes and paramount nobles ...". On the campaign, the prince was accompanied by his vassals - nobles who made up the prince's squad.
The political power of the princes was largely ensured by their exclusive economic rights and privileges. Pshas were possessed by serfs who were mercilessly exploited. The princes could attract free peasants - tfokotls - to work on their farm. The labor of the latter was used for plowing, harvesting, mowing hay and preparing firewood. According to popular customs, the wheat had the right to the best plots of land for arable farming and haymaking. They could also take cattle, weapons and whatever they liked from the tfokotls of the subordinate auls. Often, princes and nobles engaged in raids. No wonder the educator A.-G. Keshev in his famous work "On the Hill" pointed out that the peasants "have an irresistible aversion to the class of idle, occupied only by horses and weapons of the nobles."
The will of the princes was the law for the subject population. “The title of the prince was so sacred in the minds of the highlanders,” T. Khadzhimukov wrote with some exaggeration, “that each of them was morally obliged to protect his owner, sacrificing not only his property, but also his life itself”. The princes exacted various fines from the population under their control, which served as an additional source of their enrichment. Pshi collected duties from merchants for the right

trade in their domains.
Along with the princes, the ruling class of feudal lords included sultans (hanuko) and noblemen (worki). Moreover, the latter were subdivided into a number of degrees. The nobles of the first degree were called tlekotlesh and dezhenugo. Like princes, they were considered sovereign feudal lords. Tlekotlesh owned his own village. In his subordination were the lower nobles. Among the "aristocratic" sub-ethnic groups, the Tlekotlesh and Dezhenugo considered the prince their overlord, went to war with him, were the "great vassals" of the prince.
Secondary nobles (pshi-works and beslen-warks) and third-class nobles (warkie-shoutlugs) also served their overlord. If the majority of the nobles served the prince, then a significant part of the Shautlugus Works obeyed the Tlekotles and Dezhenugos. From their suzerain, the nobles received certain property (the so-called work-tyn). In terms of their position, the nobles of the third degree were close to the Pshekeu estate, who often acted as the prince's bodyguards. This class was replenished at the expense of the peasants released at will. The Shapsugs and Abadzeks did not have princes. In the "democratic" sub-ethnic groups, there were three degrees of nobility: Tlekotleshi, Workishhi and Workishoutlugus. At the same time, the political rights of the Shapsug, Abadzekh and Natukhai nobles were severely curtailed as a result of the democratic coup of the late 18th - early 19th centuries.
The peasantry was represented, according to the works of the enlighteners, by free direct producers (tfokotls), freedmen (azats), serfs (pshitli and ogi). The Tfokotls were legally free persons. However, among the "aristocratic" sub-ethnic groups, the personal freedom of the tfokotls was combined with their economic and political subordination to the feudal lords. According to adats, for three days a year, and sometimes more, the sovereign feudal lord could attract tfokotl to work on his farm. The “simple free people,” as this category of peasants is called in the sources, bore other obligations: in the event of the division of property, as many oxen were given to the feudal lord as the number of Tfokotl families formed again; when the daughter was given in marriage, the tfokotl paid the owner a couple of oxen, and at the end of the harvest - 8 measures of millet. From what has been said, it follows that when using the labor of the tfokotl, there were labor and product rent. The right to transfer from one owner to another was limited. Among the "democratic" sub-ethnic groups, as S. Khan-Girey wrote, most of the tfokotls were independent householders, independent of the nobility. Another educator, S. Siyukhov, also noted that the tfokotl estate “was the core of the Circassian people and its most productive element. It supported the economy and all the welfare of the region, as on the main laboring mass of the people. The position of the third estate was not the same for all tribes. A free people used, at their discretion, land, forests and other works in their places of residence, as well as freedom on an equal basis with the nobility and the clergy. So it was among the tribes that did not have princes. "
Freedmen, the Azats, were close to the tfokotls in terms of their legal status. They were released by the will of the owner, by ransom, or by proof that they were illegally enslaved. Azats often joined the ranks of the Muslim clergy.
The most exploited category of serf peasantry was in

Circassia pshitli. Being personally dependent, they performed work for the feudal lord in the field and in the master's house. The owners disposed of the time and labor of the pshitl at their own discretion. Serfs received a smaller part of their harvest. At the same time, pshitl had certain, albeit limited, property and personal rights. He could have a family, run his own household, own property. For various offenses, the pshitl could be sold by the master. So, the exploitation of pshitli was carried out in the form of labor and product rent. The article of the enlightener S. Adyl-Girey "On the relationship of peasants to the owners of the Circassians" provides a list of the peasants' duties in relation to the feudal lords. Ogi were another category of serfs. They had more complete personal and property rights than pshitli. “All the property of the oga,” writes NF Dubrovin, “was his inalienable property; even in the case when, for negligence or a crime, he turned to pshitl, he was not deprived of the right to property, and the owner had no right to interfere or dispose of his property. " Unlike the pshitls, the ogs lived in separate courtyards outside the master's estate, having their own household. The exploitation of the ogues was based on food rent, they also had a labor service. At the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. among the western Circassians, slavery remained as a feature of the Circassian feudal society. It was essentially domestic in nature.
Domestic slaves were the Unauts, the lowest category of the population among the Circassians. In the sources, they are usually called mediocre or mediocre, because the norms of adat did not apply to them. Unouts had neither personal nor property rights, the law did not protect them. All free inhabitants could own slaves. Despite the fact that the labor of the Unouts was not the basis of production, it played a significant role in the economy of the Adyghe feudal lords. Slaves were mainly engaged in household chores. At the same time, they were also used to participate in field work and caring for livestock.
In addition to the general characteristics of the social structure among the peoples of the Northwestern Caucasus, the Adyghe educators analyzed the characteristics of social relations in individual sub-ethnic groups. Thus, T. Khadzhimukov characterized the social structure of the Bzhedug society, and S. Khan-Girey gave a vivid picture of social development among the Shapsugs and Bzhedugs. So, according to the works of the Adyghe enlighteners, among the peoples of the North-West Caucasus at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. agriculture and cattle breeding were quite developed. Domestic trade was poorly distributed, but foreign trade became widespread. The social system was characterized by the dominance of feudal relations.

NOTES:

1. Khan-Girey S. Notes about Circassia. Nalchik, 1978.S. 219.
2. Khashkhozheva R. Kh. On the issue of ethnicity of Adil-Girey Keshev // Khashkhozheva R. Kh. Selected articles. Nalchik, 2004.S. 76.
3. Lavrov LI Ethnographic sketch of the Ubykhs // Scientific notes of the Adyghe research institute of language, literature and history. Maykop, 1968.T. 8, p. 6, 24.
4. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. S. 47 - 48.
5. Blamberg IF Historical, topographic, statistical, ethnographic and military description of the Caucasus // Adygs, Balkars and Karachais in the news of European authors XIII - XIX centuries. Nalchik, 1974.S. 355; Lapinski Th. Die Bergvölker des Kaukasus und ihr Freiheitskampt gegen die Russen. Hamburg, 1863. Bd. 1. S. 37; Felitsyn E. D. Circassians - Adyge and

West Caucasian highlanders. Ekaterinodar, 1884, p. 1.
6. SACC (State Architect of the Krasnodar Territory). F. 260. Op. 1 D. 37. L. 30; Wagner M. Der Kaukasus und das Land der Kosaken in den jahren 1843 bis 1846 Dresden-Leipzig 1848 Bd. 1.S. 3 - 4.
7. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. S. 149 - 150; Adyl-Girey. Circassians // Selected works of the Adyghe educators. Nalchik, 1980.S. 63.
8. Adyl-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 49.
9. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. S. 85 - 86.
10. Adyl-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 66.
11. Novitsky G. V. Topographic description of the northern slope of the Caucasian ridge from the fortress of Anapa to the source of the Kuban River: a note by staff captain Novitsky, compiled on September 15, 1830; Felitsyn E.D. Decree. op. P. 13; Tornau FF Memoirs of a Caucasian officer. M., 1864. Part 1: 1835. P. 116.
12. Koch K. Reise durch Russland nach dem kaukasischen Jsthmus in der jaren 1836, 1837 und 1838. Stuttgart-Thbingen, 1842. Bd. 1. S. 336; Lapinsky T. Highlanders of the Caucasus and their liberation struggle against the Russians / per. V.K. Gardanov. Nalchik, 1995.S. 17.
13. RGVIA (Russian State Military Historical Archive). F. VUA. D. 19 256. L. 6-rev; Note of the chief chieftain of the Black Sea army, general-m. Phillipson, on the land of Natukhai, dated October 4, 1856 // Acts collected by the Caucasian Archaeographic Commission / ed. A.P. Berger: in 12 volumes. Tiflis, 1866 - 1904. Vol. 12, p. 700.
14. Outlev M., Zevakin E., Khoretlev A. Adygi: ist.-ethnogr. feature article. Maikop, 1957, p. 15.
15. Essays on the history of Adygea. Maykop, 1957.T. 1.S. 154.
16. Gardanov VK Social system of the Adyghe peoples. M., 1967.S. 43.
17. Kumykov T. Kh. Social system of the Adyghe peoples in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. // Scientists app. Kabard.-Balk. state un-that. Ser .: Historical and Philological. - Nalchik, 1971. - Issue. 43 - S. 31 - 32.
18. Lxenburg N. England und die Ursprünge der Tscherkessenkreige // Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas. - 1965. - Bd. 13. - S. 184.
19. Pokrovsky MV Adyghe tribes at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries. // Cauc. ethnographic Sat. - M., 1958. - Issue. 2. - P. 23.
20. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 59.
21. Nogmov Sh. B. History of the Adyhei people, compiled according to the legends of the Kabardians. Nalchik, 1994.S. 71.22.Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. S. 256 - 257.
23. Serebryakov I. Agricultural conditions of the North-West Caucasus // Zap. Kavk. islands sels. households. - Tiflis, 1867. - No. 1 - 2. - P.12.
24. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 257.
25. Ibid. P. 258.
26. Ibid. P. 61.
27. Ibid. P. 258.
28 Ibid. P. 259.
29. Phillipson GI Memories. M., 1885.S. 103.
30. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 263.
31. Ibid. P. 263.
32. Shardanov BB Forgotten people // Figures of the Adyghe culture of the pre-October period: fav. works. Nalchik, 1991.S. 69.
33. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 264.
34. Siyukhov S. Circassians - Adyge. (Historical and everyday sketch) // Figures of the Adyg culture of the pre-October period. P. 261.
35. Khan-Girey. Decree. op. P. 266.
36. Lapinski Th. Die Bergkölker des Kaukasus und ihr Freiheitskampf gegen die Russen. Hamburg, 1863. B. 1. S. 52.
37. Khan-Girey. Decree. op. P. 268.
38. GAKK. F. 260. Op. 1.D. 10.L. 1.
39. Pushkarev S. Review of trade in Novorossiysk // Caucasus. - 1849. - No. 9.
40. Tornau F. F. Memoirs of a Caucasian officer in 1835, 36, 37 and 38 years. M., 1864. Part 2.P. 49.
41. Kamenev N. Psekups basin // Kuban. military statements. - 1867. - No. 28.
42. Ibid.

43. Fonville A. The last year of the war of Circassia for independence: 1863 - 1864: from the notes of a foreign participant. Krasnodar, 1927.S. 27 - 28.
44. Bronevsky S. The latest geographical and historical news about the Caucasus. M., 1823. Part 1.S. 315.
45. A. P. Butenev's note to the chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet and ports M. P. Lazarev dated July 9, 1837 // Arch. Prince Vorontsov. M., 1893. Book. 39.S. 287.
46. ​​L. Ya. On trade with the mountain tribes of the Caucasus on the northeastern coast of the Black Sea // Zakavk. vestn. - 1848. - No. 14; Wagner M. Op. Cit. Bd. 1. S. 28; AVPRI (Arch. Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire). F. SPb. "Main archive II-4", 1838 D. 6. Sheet 36.
47. Peysonel M. Study of trade on the Circassian-Abkhazian coast of the Black Sea in 1750 - 1762. Krasnodar, 1927.S. 13.
48. Khan-Girey. Decree. op. P. 268.
49. Nagoev MB The question of the social structure of feudalism in the works of the Adyghe public figures of the first half of the XIX century. // Development of feudal relations among the peoples of the North Caucasus. Makhachkala, 1988.S. 96.
50. Keshev A.-G. The nature of the Adyghe songs // Selected works of the Adyghe enlighteners. Nalchik, 1980.S. 127.
51. Adyl-Girey. Decree. op. P. 54.
52. Siyukhov S. Favorites. Nalchik, 1997.S. 320.
53. Khan-Girey. Decree. op. S. 85 - 86.
54. Lyulie L. Ya. Circassia: historical-ethnogr. Art. Krasnodar, 1927.S. 23.
55. Siyukhov S. Decree. op. P. 320.
56. Nogmov Sh. B. History of the Adyhean people ... P. 74.
57. Leontovich F.I. and Vost. Caucasus. - Odessa, 1882. - Issue. 1. - P. 120.
58. There. the same. P. 126.
59. Keshev A.-G. On the Hill // Steps to Dawn. Adyg writers - educators of the XIX century: fav. works. Krasnodar, 1986.S. 224.
60. Peoples of the Western Caucasus: according to unpublished notes of the natural bzheduga of Prince Khadzhimukov // Figures of the Adyg culture of the pre-October period: fav. works. Nalchik, 1991.S. 45 - 46.
61. Khan-Girey S. Prince of Pshskaya Ahodyagoko // Steps to dawn. P. 175.
62. Khan-Girey S. Decree. op. P. 119.
63. Selected works of Khan-Girey. Nalchik, 1974.S. 305.
64. Khan Girey. Notes about Circassia. - S. 123.
65. Siyukhov S. Circassians - Adyge. P. 239.
66. Khan-Girey S. Notes about Circassia. P. 125.
67. Adyl-Girey S. On the relationship of the peasants to the owners of the Circassians: an extract from the notes // Selected works of the Adyghe enlighteners. Nalchik, 1980.S. 34 - 37.
68. Dubrovin N. Circassians (Adyge). Krasnodar, 1927.S. 130.
69. Peoples of the Western Caucasus. P. 45 - 47; Khan-Girey S. Beslyny Abbot // Khan-Girey S. Circassian legends. Nalchik, 1989.S. 199 - 200; Khan-Girey S. Prince Pshskoy Ahodyagoko // Ibid. S. 258 - 261.

(Material taken from the site: http://www.npgi.ru)

TOPIC 3. The Kuban region in the 16th - 18th centuries.

LECTURE 3.

1. Social-class composition of the Adyghe society, types of economic activities and crafts. Trade. Features of feudal relations (land) among the Circassians.

2. Nogays in the northern Kuban region. Features of their economic and political structure.

LECTURE 4.

3. The struggle of the western Circassians against the Turkish - Crimean aggression. Appeal for patronage to Russia. The spread of Islam among the Western Circassians and Kabardians.

4. The first Russians in the Kuban in modern times were the Nekrasovites.

LECTURE 3.

1. Social-class composition of the Adyghe society, types of economic activities and crafts. Trade. Features of feudal relations (land) among the Circassians. Nogays in the northern Kuban region. Features of their economic and political structure.

The most numerous peoples of the northwestern Caucasus in the 16-17 centuries were the Adygs or Circassians. Among the Adyghe tribes, the Zhaneevites are known who lived in the lower reaches of the Kuban River. Shegaks lived near Anapa, at the foot of the beshkuy mountains. Among other coastal Adyghe groups, Adams are known. The large ethnic group of the western Adygs included the Khatukais, who lived along the Abin, Il and Aburgan rivers. In the mountainous areas of the North-Western Caucasus there were lands of numerous Natukhais, Shapsugs, Abadzekhs, who were considered "free Circassians", and in the future "democratic tribes", because. unlike the previous ones, they were ruled not by princes, but by elected elders.

The settlement of Armenian settlers in the North Caucasus, who received the name "Circassian-Gais" in the Kuban, dates back to the 16th century. Their main occupation was trade.

By the middle of the 16th century, among the Circassians who lived in the foothills of the left-bank Kuban, the process of decomposition of patriarchal-clan relations was coming to an end. Within ethnic groups, elders and nobles stood out, property and social inequality increased. And by the second half of the 18th century, the estate-class structure characteristic of feudal society took shape among the Western Adygs and Nogays.

At the top of the emerging feudal social hierarchical ladder, the Circassians were pshi- the princes who were the owners of the land and the population living on it. Pshi, as a member of a rural community, disposed of not only a pile of ancestral land, but also formally communal land, distributing it to his vassals: to smaller categories of nobles and peasants. Among them are nobles, vassals, servos (dependent peasants) and slaves. The nobles enjoyed great honor, among others, and spent most of their time on horseback. They included trade and simple productive labor among non-"noble" affairs. It was believed that the privileged part of the Adyghe society was supposed to rule the people, protect them and practice hunting and military affairs. On the other hand, folk customs obliged the feudalizing nobility to be generous and give gifts to their subjects. In practice, such generosity reached the point of excess, as soon as the subjects asked them for something, they immediately took off their clothes and offered them as a gift, accepting in return the carapace or shirt of the petitioner. For this reason, the nobles were often dressed worse than their subjects. True, they never gave the accessories of their military equipment (weapons and horses), as well as boots. They were their prestige. For this reason, the princely and noble elite of the Circassians were often ready to give up all their property for a good horse, more precious, which they had nothing.

All the inhabitants of Zakubania built their houses from the simplest materials: wood and straw, and it would be a great shame for a noble person to build a house or a castle with strong walls, as this shows a cowardly and cowardly person, unable to protect himself and protect himself. This custom explains the absence of solidly built dwellings among the Circassians, and even less fortresses.

The closest vassals of the Adyghe princes - pshi were smoldering which means "strong lineage" or "born of the mighty". Having received land and power, they distributed parcels of land between workami - nobles, who were somewhat lower in the hierarchical ladder, and community members - tfokotli, receiving from them labor and rent in kind. As vassals of the prince, they also rendered him military services, since they were obliged, at the first request of the suzerain, to "mount a horse" and follow him.

In the conditions of feudal strife, the decay of the community under the influence of the process of feudalization, it became more and more difficult to preserve personal freedom. Some of the tfokotls (free communes) fell into the dependence of the feudal lords and foremen. The feudal nobility widely used the form of "patronage" to enslave the direct producers. Because of the debts to the feudal lords, the tfokotls fell into bondage to them. Οʜᴎ carried labor and subsistence duties in favor of princes and nobles. Some of the tfokotls turned out to be subordinate to the feudal lords on "onerous" conditions, which brought these "free farmers" closer to the serf peasantry.

Another category of peasants were serfs-pshitli. Οʜᴎ were in land and personal dependence on the feudal owners. Their customary labor-in-kind rents were quite substantial. Pshitley was inherited and could be sold, but with whole families. At the same time, the mountain serfs had certain property, limited personal and family rights, and ran their own household. The lowest category of the dependent population was the unawat slave. Οʜᴎ had no personal, property or family rights. Their labor belonged to the owners. At the same time, slavery did not play a significant role in the Adyghe society and was of a patriarchal nature. Slave labor was used mainly in the household.

After death, the noble towered over mere mortals, this was expressed in the fact that they made him an earthen embankment (mound) and the more important the deceased was, the more subjects and friends he had, the higher and more this hill was poured.

The main feature of feudal relations among the Circassians was feudal ownership of land. At the same time, she acted in a specific form: it was not personal, but family. The land was the indivisible property of feudal kinship groups; it was not formalized in the form of written legal documents, but was fixed adatami. The feudal family owned peasants who settled on its land and bore feudal duties for its use.

The community determined the originality of the forms of land relations. It was based on private ownership of estates and household plots. Communal ownership of pastures, hayfields, and forests was also preserved. The feudal lords remained members of the community and participated in the redistribution of communal lands and holdings. Occupying the “place of the elder in the family” in the community and relying on adats, they received the best and largest allotments of land.

The peculiarities of mountain feudalism include the presence of such patriarchal clan survivals as kunakism (twinning), atalism, mutual assistance, and blood feud. Atalism is a custom according to which a child was transferred to another family after birth. He returned to his family as an adult. This custom tied families together, and children grew up unspoiled.

According to mountain customs, in the event of external danger, the entire male population had to stand up to defend their fatherland, while those who evaded this sacred duty, were fined or even expelled from the borders of their possession. Among the Circassians, each warrior was obliged to have one thoroughbred horse, a shield, a bow with arrows, a sword, and spears. Of course, the weapons and equipment of the soldiers depended on their wealth.

The feudalized Adyghe elite, whose main occupation was horse-riding, gave their children a special upbringing with a military bias. While the princes fought, attacked neighbors in order to acquire slaves and wealth, the bulk of the Adyghe population - peasants - worked, developing and improving agriculture, cattle breeding and domestic crafts of Adyghe grew millet, barley, corn, wheat.

Trees were planted along the edges of the fields to protect the crops from the wind and to retain moisture. The fields were thoroughly cleared of weeds. The main tool for cultivating the land was the hoe. For plowing the land, they gradually began to use plows, into which oxen were harnessed. A significant place in the economic activities of the Circassians was occupied by gardening and gardening; they grew onions, peppers, garlic, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc. Fruits constituted a significant part of the local population's diet and were exported to the foreign market. The lands of the Circassians were planted with cherries and other fruit trees. In addition to wild varieties of fruit trees, cultivars were bred that required certain techniques and cultivation skills. The Zakubans made wide use of the transfer system of agriculture. The same plot was planted twice, changing location every year. But after a certain time they returned to the same area. The territory of the Left Bank Kuban, inhabited by the western Adygs, was a fertile plain and foothill, suitable for agriculture. Climatic conditions also contributed to this.

Cattle breeding played an even greater role in the foothills of the Kuban, where there were excellent pastures. The Circassians had a peculiar cult of domestic animals, in whose honor they even organized holidays.

Beekeeping, hunting and fishing were widely developed. Everything extremely important for the family was produced with the help of home crafts. Women weaved cloth, sewed clothes and shoes, while men did carpentry and dye skins. The Circassians achieved great perfection in such industries as weapons and jewelry, the highlanders richly decorated weapons and horse harness, using silver and gold for their decoration.

Domestic trade was poorly developed due to the natural economy, it was in the nature of a simple exchange of goods. The Circassians did not have a merchant class and there was no monetary system. Surplus agricultural and handicraft products went to the external market. One of the lucrative commodities in foreign trade were slaves. The Adyghe feudal lords sold prisoners captured during feudal strife and raids to Turkish merchants. Circassian slaves were valued dearly for their strength, intelligence, beauty. The slave trade undermined the economy, as young and able-bodied Circassians were sold into slavery. The economy was natural, and domestic trade was poorly developed. At the same time, the trade of the Circassians with Russia, Crimea, Turkey intensified from Russia, the Circassians received salt, fabrics, and metal products. From Crimea - spices, luxury goods. Overseas wines, tobacco, eastern western goods came from Turkey. The main items exported to Russia were hides, skins, honey, timber, bacon.

Mainly slaves were exported to Turkey and Crimea. The largest points of commodity exchange were Taman and Anapa. At the same time, the intensification of aggressive tendencies in these countries often complicated trade relations. They practically did not work out among the Circassians and with their closest neighbors, the Nogais. The domination of a subsistence cattle-breeding economy of both types did not contribute to a wide exchange of goods between the Kuban and Zakuban regions.

2. Nogays in the northern Kuban region. Features of their economic and political structure.

Turkic-Mongol tribes lived on the Right Bank Kuban Nogais who led mainly a nomadic lifestyle and were engaged in cattle breeding.

Their murzas (mirzes) - large feudal lords, heads of individual hordes and clans - owned several thousand heads of cattle. On the whole, the feudal elite, small in number (four percent of the population), owned about two-thirds of the entire nomadic herd. The unequal distribution of the main wealth - livestock - was the basis of the estate-class structure of society.

Nominally at the head of the entire Nogai horde was khan together with the heir Nuradin and the military leader. In fact, by this time the horde had already disintegrated into smaller formations, weakly connected both with each other and with the supreme ruler. At the head of these uluses were Murza who have achieved the hereditary transfer of their ownership rights. They recognized Khan not as an absolute ruler, but only as an “elder brother”. In their subordination, the Murzas had bridles and beys, serfs and slaves.

The ulus feudal elite was subject only to the courts of the feudal aristocracy, exempted from paying taxes and, of course, from corporal punishment. The steppe aristocracy (sultans, murzas, etc.) was in charge of all the affairs of the Nogai, from determining places for nomads and ending with the resolution of intra-family disputes. Hordes were divided into generations, generations into auls, auls - into kazans (families).

A significant stratum of the Nogai nobility consisted of the Muslim clergy - akhuns, qadis, etc. Οʜᴎ dealt with court cases, carried out the necessary religious rituals at weddings, funerals, etc., receiving an appropriate reward for this.

The lower strata of the Nogai society included free peasants-cattle breeders, who made up for the shortcomings of their own economy with latrine trades in the Don settlements.

The next group was chagars- serfs, who were both economically and personally dependent on the top of the Nogai feudal lords.

At the lowest level of the Nogai society were located slaves, in which they turned prisoners of war, and also acquired through purchase or exchange for livestock. They were called yasyrs. Slaves were the full property of the feudal lords and did not have any rights; however, the Yasyrs were a small class, and their labor did not play a noticeable role in cattle breeding.

The Nogays professed the Muslim religion. Their clergy belonged to the privileged strata of society, had significant herds of cattle and serfs received considerable funds from the fulfillment of various religious requirements. For example, for the performance of wedding and funeral rites, the Nogai donated to the priests a quarter of the funds allocated for these "events". In the event of the division of property, one fortieth part of it went in favor of the Qadis, priests who carried out legal proceedings on the basis of Sharia.

The basis for the exploitation of the dependent population was the rent of products. Each Murza had the right to receive from one wagon an annual rent in the amount of two bulls, ten rams, ten circles of dried milk and twelve kilograms of flour and butter. There was also a semi-patriarchal labor rent in the form of the obligation of ordinary pastoralists to maintain the cattle of the feudal lords.

A feature of nomadic feudalism among the Nogais was the preservation of the community. At the same time, the right to regulate migrations and dispose of pastures and wells was already concentrated in the hands of the feudal lords.

The low level of socio-economic relations retarded the development of a single socio-political organization. Neither the Trans-Kuban Circassians nor the Nogais developed a single state. The naturalness of the economy, the absence of cities and sufficiently developed economic ties, the preservation of patriarchal vestiges - all these were the main reasons for the feudal fragmentation in the territory of the Northwestern Caucasus.

LECTURE 4.

3. The struggle of the western Circassians against the Turkish - Crimean aggression. Appeal for patronage to Russia. The spread of Islam among the Western Circassians and Kabardians.

In the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the political situation in the Northwestern Caucasus changed significantly: after the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, in 1453 and the conquest of the Genoese colonies of southern Crimea in 1475, the Ottoman Empire, annexing the Crimean Khanate, came close to the lands of the Circassians. The Turks inflicted the first blows on the mountaineers in 1475 and 1479. In 1501, a joint campaign of the Crimeans and the Ottomans took place against the highlanders of the North-Western Caucasus.

In 1516 - 1519. there is a new surge of foreign policy activity of the Ottoman Empire in the Kuban region, as a result of which the Turkish fortress Temryuk was built at the mouth of the Kuban River. Eight thousand Tatars took part in the hostilities and construction works.

Judging by fragmentary sources, the hostilities in the Northwestern Caucasus were fierce. Despite the desperate resistance of the Circassians, their princes were forced to admit their dependence on the Crimean khans. This dependence was expressed in the extreme importance of sending gifts to the Tatar khans, slaves and participating in raids on Russian lands. This was the case, for example, in 1521 when the Crimean khans reached Moscow itself and laid siege to it. At the same time, the Circassians have repeatedly opposed the Crimean diktat. In the mid-16th century, the Crimean Khan was forced to send his troops more than once to suppress the Adyghe revolts. At this time, the great Moscow sovereign Ivan the Terrible firmly established himself on the banks of the Volga, conquering the Kazan Khanate. Against the Crimean Tatars on the southern borders of Russia, Ivan the Terrible strengthened the razich line in the form of numerous defensive structures, begun by his father Vasily III. The new border held back the Crimean khans, who were used to enriching themselves through predatory raids.

The influence of the Crimean Khanate and Turkey was still reflected in the strengthening and spread of Islam among the peoples of the North Caucasus - the Western Circassians and Kabardians. During the Middle Ages, the leading religion of the North-West Caucasus, including the Circassians, was Christianity, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ enjoyed the rights of an officially recognized cult͵ existing, however, along with numerous popular beliefs. Christian priests shogeny (she udzhen) are mentioned in many Adyghe legends. As a result of the fall of Byzantium, the Italian colonies on the Black Sea and the Georgian kingdom of the Bogratids, as a result of the expansive policy of the Turkish feudal lords and the vassal of Turkey - the Crimean Khanate, and also due to the lack of writing among the Circassians, therefore, the impossibility of translating liturgical books, Christianity among the Circassians fell into complete decline and disappeared, surviving only as numerous remnants of popular beliefs. It is well known that Sunni Islam began to penetrate into Adygea only from the 14th century. Although in the North Caucasus, in particular, in Karachay-Cherkessia, there are traces of a rather early penetration of Islam here (Arabic inscriptions on gravestones from Lower Arkhyz of the 11-12th centuries, the remains of a 13th century Muslim mausoleum near the station Ust-Dzhegutinskaya), these monuments Even in the 16th century, Christianity continued to be the leading religion among the Adygs. Mainly Islam began to take hold here in the 18th century. But already from the 16th century, representatives of the higher clergy were sent and approved by the Turkish Sultan. With the help of Islam, Turkey tried to consolidate its dominant position in the North Caucasus. The clergy adapted Islam to an exploitative ideology, for which the feudal lords constantly showed the greatest respect for him and helped him in the spiritual enslavement of the masses.

The increased authority of the Russian state directed the gaze of the Circassians to the Moscow rulers. In 1552, the Adyghe embassy was sent to Ivan the Terrible, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ turned to him with a request that he take the Adygs under his protection and protect them from the Crimean Khan. To clarify the situation, the Russian boyar Andrei Schepot'ev was sent to the Kuban. In 1555 he returned to Moscow accompanied by a representative delegation of a detachment of the Adyghe peoples. On behalf of "the whole land of the Circassian" they asked the Russian sovereign to accept the Circassians as their citizenship. Ivan IV generously rewarded the Circassian envoys and promised them military assistance against the Crimea. In 1555-1556, Ivan the Terrible three times sent his troops against the Crimeans to prevent their campaigns on the Kuban. During the struggle of Ivan IV with the Astrakhan Khanate, an ally of the Crimea, the Circassians helped the Russian tsar and successfully attacked the Turkish fortresses Temryuk and Taman. Despite the military assistance of the Crimean Khan and Turkey, in 1556 Astrakhan surrendered without a fight to the Russian archers and Cossacks.

Impressed by the successes of Muscovy, the Western Adygs and Kabardians sent a new embassy to the Russian capital in 1557 with a request for citizenship.

The Russian government granted the request, while promising to preserve the independence of the local princes in all matters of domestic policy. Some Circassian princes even adopted the Orthodox faith. This did not mean at all that the Adyghe princes and foremen were guided by Moscow. Mutual feuds and aggressive neighbors, like the Crimean Khanate, forced some of them to enlist the patronage of the Russian Tsar. The Moscow authorities, in turn, were looking for allies in the struggle against the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire.

The Lebanese War, which began in 1558, diverted the attention of Ivan IV from the North Caucasus, and the Ottoman-Crimean claims to the region were renewed.

This forced certain circles of the Circassian nobility to again turn to the Russian tsar for help with a request to send a Russian voivode to the Circassians "for the state", ᴛ.ᴇ. on the board, and was not even against converting his people to the Orthodox faith. Ivan IV in 1560, responding to a request for help and wishing to strengthen his political positions in the North Caucasus, sent one of his best generals, Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky, with his army and Christian preachers to the Circassians. At the beginning of 1561, having united with the Adygean soldiers, Vishnevetsky made a successful campaign against the Crimean Turkish troops in the Azov region.

Meanwhile, the Livonian War continued. The Livonian Order was defeated, but the Russian state had no less formidable opponents: Poland, Lithuania and Sweden. For a while, this overshadowed the problems associated with the Northwest Caucasus.

Sensing a change in the political situation in 1562, the feudal lords of the northwestern Circassians unexpectedly broke off ties with Moscow.

It is likely that they saw in the struggle of Ivan the Terrible with the remnants of the old system of appanages within the country, the danger of losing their appanage rights.

At the same time, they opposed the aspiration of the senior Kabardian prince Temryuk Idar with the help of Russia to unite all the Circassians. In this situation, the Ottoman Porta͵, using the princely strife, managed to gain a foothold in some areas of the Black Sea coast of the North Caucasus.

At the same time, the Western Adyg feudal lords in the Port and the Crimean Khanate did not meet the aspirations of the broad masses of the Northwestern Caucasus. In this connection, despite repeated attempts, the Crimean Khan did not manage to penetrate deep into the Adygean territory and subordinate its population to his power.

Moreover, the Western Circassians provided all possible assistance to Russia, as if keeping her faithful.

In 1561 Ivan the Terrible married the daughter of Temryuk Idarov Kuchenyi (Goshany) in Moscow, she was baptized and became the Russian Tsarina Maria.

The marriage of Ivan IV to the Kabardian princess was of great political importance, it further strengthened and expanded the ties of Russia and strengthened the position of Kabarda.

At the same time, neither the Sultan nor the Crimean Khan wanted to put up with this. They managed to organize a protest against Temryuk and his supporters in Kabarda. Concerned about this, Temryuk turned to Moscow for help. The Russian government sent troops to Kabarda in 1562-1563, led by voivode Pleshcheyev, and in 1565-1566, with voivods Dashkov and Rzhevsky. At the same time, the sultan and khan continued their raids in subsequent years.

In the spring of 1570, the Crimean Khan Devlet-Girey attacked Temryuk. In the battle at Akhups (left tributary of the Kuban) Temryuk was mortally wounded, his two sons were taken prisoner by the Crimeans. In addition, Russia was forced to demolish the fortress on the Terek.

All this had a heavy impact on the position of Kabarda, and yet, no matter how hard external and internal enemies tried to tear Kabarda away from Russia, they did not succeed. In the spring of 1578, the Kabardian embassy arrived in Moscow, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ confirmed the citizenship of the Kabardians to Russia.

The Polish-Swedish intervention of the early 17th century worsened Russia's international position. The Iranian shahs began a struggle for the seizure of Dagestan, and the aggressive aspirations of the Ottoman Port and its vassal, the Crimean Khanate, intensified in the North-Western Caucasus. The Kuban Adyghe peoples, who occupied a vast territory from Taman to the Laba basin, came under the influence of the Crimean Khanate and Ports. From here, the Crimean khans made campaigns against Kabarda and other peoples of the Central Ciscaucasia, hoping to seize this area as well. In Kabarda at this time, numerous emissaries of the Sultan and Khan were conducting subversive anti-Russian activities. The pro-sultan-minded group of Kabardian feudal lords acted in agreement with them. Οʜᴎ counted with the help of the Porta to restore their rule over the princes who adhered to traditional friendly relations with Russia.

But, despite this, mainly Russian-Kabardian relations and the relationship of the Western Adygs with Russia at the end of the 16th-17th centuries developed towards deepening and expansion. The number of Kabardians leaving for Russia for permanent residence increased significantly, many of whom later became prominent military and state leaders of Russia.

4. The first Russians in the Kuban in modern times were the Nekrasovites.

In the middle of the 17th century, a religious and social movement arose in Russia, which went down in history under the name of “schism” or “Old Belief”. The reason for its manifestation was the church-ritual reform, which Patriarch Nikon began in 1653 with the aim of strengthening the church organization. Relying on the support of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Nikon began to unify the Moscow theological system on the basis of Greek models: he corrected Russian liturgical books according to contemporary Greek and changed some rituals (two fingers were replaced by three fingers; during church services, "Hallelujah" was not pronounced twice, but three times, etc.

Although the reform affected only the external, ritual side of religion, Nikon's desire to centralize the church and strengthen the power of the patriarch was clearly manifested in it. Dissatisfaction was also caused by violent measures with the help of which the reformer introduced new books and rituals into life.

Various strata of Russian society came out to defend the "old faith". The masses of the people, defending the "old faith", thereby expressed their protest against the feudal oppression, covered and sanctified by the church. One of the forms of protest of the peasants was their flight to the southern outskirts of the state, in particular to the Don, or even outside the country to the Kuban.

In 1688, Tsar Peter I ordered the Don military chieftain Denisov to destroy the refuge of the schismatics on the Don, and to execute them. At the same time, the schismatics, having learned about the sovereign's intentions, decided to seek salvation outside the country: in the steppes of the Kuban and Kuma. Pyotr Murzenko and Lev Manatsky were at the head of the Kuban schismatics.

In 1692, another party of schismatics left the territory of the Don Cossacks for the Kuban, and took the patronage of the Crimean Khan. She was settled between the rivers Kuban and Laba. The resettled people received the name “Kuban Cossacks” after the name of the main river of their new places of residence. With the permission of the khan, they built a stone town for themselves on the elevated bank of the Laba River, which later (after the Nekrasovites moved to the Kuban) received the name of the Nekrasov town.

In September 1708, one of the outstanding leaders of the Bulavinsky uprising, the ataman of the village of Esaulovskaya of the Don Cossack army, Ignat Nekrasov, fearing the reprisals of government troops against the rebels, left with his families to the Kuban (according to various sources, from three to eight thousand people). Here, having united with the Kuban Cossack army, the fugitives organized a kind of republic, which for seventy years was continuously replenished with Cossacks from other places and peasants who fled from serfdom. The "Ignat - Cossacks" (as the Turks called them) arrived at their new place of residence not as humiliated petitioners, but as an army with a banner and seven cannons. The Crimean Khan Kaplan-Girey, hoping to use the Nekrasovites in the future as a combat, well-trained armed force, allowed them to settle in the lower reaches of the Kuban, between Kopyl and Temryuk, freeing them from taxes and granting internal autonomy. Having united with the Kuban Cossacks Savely Pakhomov, the new inhabitants of the Kuban region erected on the hills, thirty miles from the sea, the towns of Golubinsky, Bludilovsky and Chiryansky. The approaches to them were covered by floodplains and swamps. In addition to natural protection, the Nekrasovites fortified their towns with earthen ramparts and cannons.

In the new place, the Nekrasovites built boats and small ships, fishing, which is traditional for their way of life. At the same time, one of their favorite occupations was hunting and horse breeding. During the hostilities of the Crimea with the Russians, Kabardians and other peoples, the Nekrasovites were obliged to supply at least five hundred horsemen.

The life of the Nekrasovites in the Kuban is reflected in the sources mainly by its external military manifestations. Their relationship with the Russian government consisted of an alternation of daring Cossack raids and retaliatory punitive expeditions. Some campaigns were attended by up to three thousand Nekrasovites. The government of Peter I took measures: by decree of the military collegium, the death penalty was introduced for not reporting Nekrasov's agents. In November 1722, special letters were sent to the Don about sending their own spies to the Kuban under the guise of merchants and "On precautions against the arrival of the Cossacks and Nekrasovites."

In 1728, the Kalmyks are fighting fierce battles with the Nekrasovites in the Kuban. The subsequent skirmishes dragged on for another ten years. Since the end of the 1730s, the activity of the Nekrasovites has been decreasing. Around 1737, Ignat Nekrasov died. Around 1740, the first division takes place: 1600 families go by sea to Dobrudja, where initially two townships were founded on the Danube estuaries: Sarykei and Dunavtsi. Another part of the Nekrasovites moved to Asia Minor, near Lake Manyas.

In a foreign country, the Nekrasovites retained the forms of government and life that existed in their Kuban. Οʜᴎ lived according to the so-called "Testaments of Ignat", their first chieftain. This document reflects the provision of common common law, the norms of which were grouped into 170 articles. The People's Assembly - Kruᴦ was endowed with absolute power in the society of the Nekrasovites. It elected atamans annually, endowed with executive functions. The circle controlled the actions of the chieftains, could replace them ahead of schedule and call them to account.

The covenants prohibited the exploitation of other people's labor for personal gain. Those engaged in this or that trade were obliged to give a third of their earnings to the military treasury, which was spent on the church, the maintenance of the school, weapons, benefits to the needy (the weak, the elderly, widows, orphans). The "Behests of Ignat" prohibited the establishment of family ties with the Turks, in whose territory they lived after their resettlement from the Kuban.

In the early 19th century, a small group of Old Believers returned to Russia

After the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, part of the already rather Turkified Russians, together with the Anatolian Greeks, crossed into the Russian borders and settled in the mountains on the eastern shores of the Black Sea in the Dakhovsky gorge, in the village of Vysokoe (near Adler). In the fall of 1962, 215 families (999 people) of the Nekrasovites left Turkey and settled in the Stavropol Territory. The memory of the Motherland and her call turned out to be very strong among the descendants of the Nekrasov Cossacks, primarily because far from Russia, in an environment alien to them, they did not dissolve, preserving their culture, customs and native Russian language.

Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, in the 16-18 centuries Kuban attracted the attention of Russia, Turkey and the Crimean Khanate. The struggle for priority among the peoples of the North Caucasus went on with varying success. The feudal elite in these conditions had to maneuver, relying on certain foreign policy forces and accepting the intercession of the strongest states, depending on the moment. At the same time, Russia did not force its citizenship on the peoples of the Kuban region, which could not be said about Turkey and its vassals, the Crimean khans. It was in the fight against the aggressive Crimea that the Adygs were forced to turn to Russia for patronage.

Used Books.

1. Essays on the history of the Kuban from ancient times to 1920 ᴦ. / Ed. Ratushnyak V.N. .- Krasnodar., 1996.

2. Shcherbina F.A. History of the Kuban Kzach Army: In 2 volumes (reprinted reproduction). Ekaterinodar, 1910-1913. Krasnodar, 1992.

3. Kutsenko I.Ya. Kuban Cossacks. Krasnodar, 1993.

4. Tarabanov V.A. Religion of the medieval Circassians. - On Sat. : The latest research on the history of the Kuban.-Krasnodar, 1992.

Additional literature.

1. Bardadym V.P. Military valor of the Kuban people. Krasnodar, 1999.

2. History of the Kuban in dates. Ed. Town Hall. Krasnodar, 1996.

3. Kuban Cossack army. 1696-1896. Under. Ed. Felitsyna E. D. Krasnodar, 1996.

4. Karamzin N.M. History of the Russian State (any edition).

5. P. P. Korolenko Bicentennial of the Kuban Cossack Host. 1696-1896 (Historical sketch). Ekaterinodar, 1896. Reprint edition, 1991.

6. The past and the present of the Kuban in the course of national history / under. Ed. Ratushnyak V.N. . Krasnodar, 1994.

7. Smirnov I.V. Nekrasovites. // Questions of history. - 1986. - No. 8.

Basic concepts: Atalism, Pshi, Tlekotleshi, Worki, Tfokotli, Chagara, Murza, Bey, Uzden, Adat, Yasyr, Mullah, Effendi, Old Believers, Ataman, Islam, military circle.

State and public figures: Ivan the Terrible, Andrey Schepotiev, Dmitry Vishnevetsky, Temryuk Idarov, Maria Temryukovna, Devlet-Gerey, Nikon, Lev Manatsky, Ignat Nekrasov.

Topics of abstracts, reports, messages.

1. The culture and life of the Circassians in the 16-18 centuries.

2. The emergence and development of feudal relations among the peoples of the North Caucasus.

3. Kuban in the 16-17 centuries in the politics of neighboring powers.

4. Church schism in Russia and the beginning of the development of the Kuban by Russian settlers. Nekrasovites.

5 . The spread of Islam among the Western Circassians and Kabardians.

Control questions:

1. Give a comparative description of the social structures of the Nogai and Adyghe societies.

2. What was the ethnic map of the Northwest Caucasus in the 16-17 centuries?

3. What were the features of the social and political structure of the indigenous people of the region?

4. What military customs existed among the highlanders of the Northwestern Caucasus?

5. Why was the recognition of Russian citizenship by the Circassians not strong and often violated?

6. How did the relations of the peoples of the North-West Caucasus develop with the Ottoman Empire and Russia?

7. What are the reasons for the Old Believer movement in Russia and the appearance of schismatics in the Kuban.

8. Why did the Nekrasov Cossacks choose the Kuban as their place of settlement?

9. Can Ignat's Testaments be a document reflecting the democratic structure of the Nekrasovites?

10. What are the main stages of the return of Old Believers and Nekrasovites to their homeland?

The western part of the Caucasian ridge with an adjoining strip of foothills descending to the Kuban lowland, in the 18th century. was occupied by the Adyghe peoples. By the time of the advancement of the state border of Russia to the river. In the Kuban, they went a long way of historical development. On the pages of Russian chronicles, Circassians are first mentioned under the name of Kasogs when describing the events of 965. However, more or less clear information about them refers only to the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries.

Separate Adyghe peoples settled beyond the river. Kuban as follows. The lands of the Natukhai were located along the Main Caucasian ridge and along the Black Sea coast in a general direction from northwest to southeast. In their shape, they resembled a large triangle, the base of which rested against the river. Kuban, and the peak overlooked the Black Sea coast, south of Gelendzhik. In this triangle, in addition to the main Natukhai population, from the Tsemesskaya Bay to the river. Pshads lived Shapsugs, called in official correspondence "Shapsug Natukhai", and in the vicinity of Anapa there was a small tribe of Heigaks. (By the beginning of the 19th century, they settled in the Natukhai auls.)

To the east of the Natukhai lived Shapsugs, divided into large and small (the so-called Bolshoi Shapsug and Maly Shapsug). Bolshoi Shapsug was located to the north of the Main Caucasian ridge, between the Adagum and Afipsom rivers, and Malyi - to the south of it and went out to the Black Sea. From the east, it was bounded by the river. Shakhe, behind which the Ubykhs lived, and from the west of the river. Dzhubga, separating him from the Natukhai. The Shapsug territory was much larger than the Natukhai territory, but it had many inaccessible and sparsely populated mountain areas.

To the east of Bolshoy Shapsug, in the depths of the Caucasus Mountains and on their northern slope, there was the region of the most numerous Adyghe people - the Abadzekhs. From the north, it was separated from the river. Kuban is the land of Bzhedukhs, from the east its border was the r. Belaya, and from the south it rested against the Main Caucasian ridge, behind which lay the possessions of the Shapsugs and Ubykhs. Thus, the Abadzekhs occupied a significant part of the territory of the Western Caucasus, from the basin of the river. Afips to the river basin. Labs. The valleys of the Vunduk, Kurdzhips, Pshachi, Pshish, and Psekups rivers were most densely populated by them. There were settlements of the main Abadzekh societies (Tuba, Temdashi, Daurkhabl, Dzhengetkhabl, Gatyukohabl, Nezhukohabl and Tfishebs). In the official correspondence of the Russian military authorities, the Abadzekhs were usually divided into mountainous, or distant, and plain, or near.

Between the northern border of the Abadzekh territory and the river. Bzhedukhs were located in Kuban, subdivided into Khamysheis, Chercheneevs (Kerkeneevs) and Geneevs (Zhaneevs). According to folk legends, the Khamysheis lived at first on the river. Belaya among the Abadzekhs, but then they were forced out by them to the upper reaches of the river. Psekups, where their fellow tribesmen lived - the Chercheneevites. Then both of them, under pressure from the Abadzekhs, moved even closer to the river. Kuban: the Khamysheis settled between the Supe and Psekups rivers, and the Chercheneevites settled between the Psekups and Pshish rivers. Most of the Zheneyevites soon merged with the Khamysheis and Cherchenevites, and some moved to the Karakubansky Island, within the Black Sea coastline.

Continuous intertribal struggle led to the fact that by the 30s of the XIX century. the number of bzhedukhs has significantly decreased. According to the available archival data, only 1,200 of the Khamysheev's "simple households, who paid tribute" to the Khamyshes princes, went to the Abadzekhs and Shapsugs. “4 princes were killed at different times, 40 nobles, more than 1000 ordinary people”, and over “900 souls of men and women with their belongings” were taken prisoner.

To the east of the Chercheneevites, between the Pshish and Belaya rivers, the Khatukaevites lived. Farther east, between the lower reaches of the Belaya and Laba rivers, there was an area occupied by the Temirgoevites, or "chemguy". Somewhat farther in the direction to the southeast lived their neighbors - Jaegerukhais, Makhoshevites and Mamkhegs (Mamkhegs), who were considered to be related to the Temirgoevites and were often mentioned in Russian official correspondence under the general name "Chemguy" or "Kemgoy". In the XIX century. Temirgoevites, Jaegerukhais and Makhoshevtsy united under the rule of Temirgoev princes from the Bolotokov family. The Beslenei were a significant Adyghe people in the Western Caucasus. Their possessions bordered in the north-west with the territory of the Makhoshevites, in the south-east they reached the river. Laba and its tributary r. Khodz, and in the east - to the river. Urup. Among the Besleneis also lived the so-called fugitive Kabardians and a small number of Nogai.

Thus, the strip of land occupied by the Adyghe peoples stretched from the Black Sea coast in the west to the river. Urup in the east. The region of Kabarda and the territory of the Abaza adjoined it.

Numerous sources, descriptions and news give the most contradictory information about the number of individual Adyghe peoples and the entire indigenous population of the Western Caucasus as a whole. K.F. Steel, for example, determined the total number of Temirgoevites and Jaegerukhaevites as only 8 thousand people, and G.V. Novitsky claimed that there were 80 thousand Temirgoevites alone. The number of Abadzekhs, according to K.F. Steel, reached 40-50 thousand people, and G.V. Novitsky numbered 260 thousand. The total number of Shapsugs K.F. Steel was defined as 160 thousand souls of both sexes, and Novitsky - at 300 thousand; M.I. Venyukov believed that there were only 90 thousand of them, etc.

The information reported by the Adyghe princes and nobles about the size of the population under their control was even more contradictory. Comparing the available data, one can only approximately establish the total size of the Adyghe population of the Western Caucasus. By the middle of the XIX century. it was approximately 700-750 thousand people.

Pokrovsky M.V.
"From the history of the Circassians at the end of the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century", Krasnodar, 1989

From the history of the Circassians at the end of the XVIII - the first half of the XIX century: Socio-economic essays.

- Krasnodar, 1989.

From the editorial board

Introduction

First essay. Socio-economic situation of the Circassians at the end of the 18th - first sexes. XIX century

Territory

Social system

Tfokotli and the formation of a new feudal stratum

Unouts, pshitli and ogi

The second sketch. Settlement of the Black Sea Cossack army in the Kuban

Third essay. Trade relations of the Circassians with the Russian population of the Kuban region and the economic penetration of Russia into the Western Caucasus

Russian-Adyghe trade relations

Russian-Adyghe trade and its regulation by tsarism

The fourth sketch. The policy of tsarism in relation to the Adyghe feudal nobility

Adyghe nobility and tsarism at the end of the 18th century

Military support of the Adyghe nobles and princes by the Russian government

The question of the estate privileges of the Adyghe nobility.

Fifth sketch. The attitude of the Russian administration to the Adyghe slaves, serfs and their owners

The flight of the Circassian slaves and serfs to Russia and the reasons for this phenomenon

Reception of fugitive Adyghe slaves and serfs by the Russian authorities as a means of influencing their owners.

Unrest of the Adygs-Cossacks of the Black Sea army in 1844 - 1846

Sixth sketch. Muridism in the Western Caucasus.

The spread of muridism in the Western Caucasus.

Organization of management of the subordinates of Magomed-Amin of the Adyghe peoples.

The growth of the movement of the Adyghe population against the power of Magomed-Amin

Essay seventh. Western Caucasus during the Crimean War.

Organization of the defense of the Western Caucasus by the beginning of the Crimean War

Unsuccessful attempts to rouse the Circassians to fight against Russia

Military operations in the Western Caucasus during the Crimean War

Essay eighth. Events in the Western Caucasus after the end of the Crimean War (1856-1864).

Bibliographic list

From the editorial board

The author of these essays is the Krasnodar scientist Mikhail Vladimirovich Pokrovsky (1897-1959), Doctor of Historical Sciences, has passed an interesting but difficult path from a graduate of a local pedagogical institute, then a history teacher to the head of the department of USSR history at his native university. For over twenty years he has devoted himself to developing the issues that are covered in this book. From month to month, from year to year, studying thousands of plump files (storage units) of a century ago in the archives, he carefully restored facts, checked and rechecked them, analyzed the connections between them ... For him, the Adyghe peoples in the 18th - 19th centuries. first of all, the creators of an original, controversial and interesting story. That is why the researcher's efforts focused on penetrating into a bygone era. His work, like any serious historical work, is valuable not only for the abundance of informative factual material.

For the modern reader, the author's very enthusiasm for the chosen topic, the desire to deeply and objectively understand the most complex political and socio-economic ups and downs with sincere respect for the history of each nation - all this, undoubtedly, can serve as an example of the upbringing of historicism in thinking, the deficit of which has become, unfortunately, acute felt lately.

In this regard, a characteristic feature of the scientific method deserves attention. Possessing a mass of contradictory facts, he was not captured by tendentiousness and was able to see the general laws of historical progress behind the numerous and varied details of life.

As a result of a long search, he came to a number of well-grounded conclusions, among them the conclusion about the mutual penetration of the cultures of two neighboring peoples - the Russians and the Circassians, who, despite the long-standing unstable situation in the region, plowed the land nearby, mowed hay, and fished - has a special meaning. .. All this gave rise to the possibility of socio-political communication between the lower ranks of the Cossack army and the peasant mass of the Adyghe population. It is no coincidence that the participants in the Cossack revolt in 1797 told their superiors that if their demands were not met, they would kill the officers, and they themselves would “go to the Circassians”. On the other hand, the hopes of getting rid of the plight of a slave, a serf, the freedom-loving aspirations of the Circassian peasants who were under the threat of enslavement were associated with the transition to Russia, as evidenced by the streams of refugee mountaineers.

This situation led to the fact that by the beginning of the 50s of the XIX century. both military tension and the muridist movement in the Western Caucasus began to weaken and, it would seem, should stop. But that did not happen.

shows the forces that complicated the situation in the Caucasus: the intervention of Sultan Turkey and its European allies, the official course of Russian tsarism, the ambiguous policy of the local noble-princely and elders' elite, the efforts of the inspirers of Muridism ...

Of all the issues covered in the essays offered to the reader, the most important were those related to the social and economic development of the Adyghe peoples. The author emphasizes the need to study this range of problems in order to come to a correct understanding of the most important political events that took place in the Western Caucasus in the first half of the 19th century.

Deep penetration into the factual material made it possible to draw a well-grounded conclusion: the peculiarities of the emergence and formation of feudalism among the Circassians is one of the most peculiar phenomena in the history of the Caucasus. Feudalism here took shape on the basis of the decomposition of traditional communal relations, although slavery existed as an economic structure. The feudalizing nobility sought to extend their ownership rights to communal lands, but they failed to legalize this seizure. The social elite managed to actually appropriate part of the land, but the legal rights to the land were retained by the community (psukho). The latter had the features of a land (rural) community.

Considering in detail what was the real significance of various tribal remnants and feudal relations in the social life of the Circassians, the scientist notes that the pace of feudalization, the very process of development of feudalism among different Circassian peoples is not the same. They depended on geographic conditions, the degree of stability of the community and its institutions, on the alignment of social forces and a number of other points.

A significant place in the essays is occupied by the history of the antifeudal struggle among the Circassians. The author characterizes in detail the position and relationships of individual categories of the population, shows a high degree of property differentiation and the acuteness of social contradictions that resulted in armed clashes between tefokotls and the nobility.

Referring to the events of the Crimean War period, he examines the activities of various political adventurers sent both from London and from Constantinople to the Caucasus on specific facts, reveals the consequences of such provocations / The historian also does not ignore such a difficult issue as the resettlement of a part of the highlanders to Turkey, although the author does not claim full coverage.

It should be noted that the eight essays prepared are by no means an attempt to present the entire multifaceted history of the Circassians. Some issues, for example, the material and spiritual culture of the Circassians at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries, are set out rather briefly, others are just a background of events or remained outside the framework of the narrative.

This edition is posthumous. Therefore, for the complete preservation of the author's manuscript, great care has been shown. In necessary cases, reductions in repetitions and overloads of actual material were made, terms and names were clarified. However, for the most part, personal names and place names are given in the spelling in which they are given by the author, who obviously followed the text of the sources. As for the fundamental generalizations and conclusions, they not only were not omitted, but also were not subjected to any corrections. Therefore, the originality of the author's text is fully preserved.

A distinctive feature of the writing style is a very successful introduction to the fabric of the narrative of materials from sources, always with links to the borrowing address.

In this case, we consider ourselves entitled to reduce the number of links, especially to those sources that have already been mentioned earlier, but the citations are left. The presence of a bibliographic list justifies the advisability of such an approach. At the same time, it seems necessary to leave exactly those editions of the works that the author used, in particular the 1st edition of the Works of K. Marx and F. Engels. completed in 1958

There is no doubt that over the past 25-30 years, Soviet Caucasian studies have made significant progress. This is convincingly evidenced by the publication of the monographs "The social structure of the Adyghe peoples (18th - first half of the 19th centuries)" (M., 1967), "The socio-economic and political situation of the Circassians in the 19th century." (Maykop, 1986), publication of the series "History of the peoples of the North Caucasus" (M., 1988), etc.

We hope that these essays will not only help the general reader to better know the history of the Adyghe peoples, but will also become a definite contribution to Soviet Caucasian studies.

The editors express their gratitude, who carefully preserved and provided for publication the manuscript of his father.

INTRODUCTION

Fraternal friendship between all the peoples of the Soviet Union is one of the foundations of the might of the Soviet state and social system.

Hence, it is clear how responsible and important is the task of deep study and truthful coverage of a number of problems of the historical development of the peoples of our country. These problems include the socio-economic history of the Adyghe peoples in the 18th - 19th centuries.

The Caucasus, with its natural resources and favorable geographical position on the border between Europe and Asia, was at the end of the

XVIII and XIX centuries arena of struggle between Russia, Turkey and England. The Caucasian question was part of the Eastern question, which was then one of the pressing problems of international politics. This explains, in particular, the desire of European diplomacy to involve the Circassians in the military conflicts that took place in the 20-50s of the XIX century. in the Near and Middle East.

The noted role of the Caucasus in international relations explains the heightened interest of various social circles of Russia and Western European countries in the tribes and peoples inhabiting it, which caused a constant flow of observers, travelers, journalists, everyday writers, novelists, overt and secret agents of powers interested in the Caucasus, as well as the emergence of an extensive literature that has accumulated a large amount of factual material and left many valuable observations.

A truly scientific theoretical analysis and generalization of the collected concrete historical and ethnographic material relating to the Adyghe peoples remained unresolved in bourgeois science. And this primarily concerns the question of the nature of social relations.

A deep study of them is not only of general scientific historical interest, but, which is especially important, allows one to approach a correct understanding of many of the most important political events that took place in the Western Caucasus in the 19th century. This alone sufficiently speaks of the necessity and urgency of further scientific development of issues related to the social structure of the Circassians.

Unfortunately, written sources have not come down to us from the Circassians themselves due to their lack of writing, and the study of their social structure, difficult in itself due to the originality of their social development, is further complicated by this circumstance. The common law of the Circassians was preserved only in the oral tradition and was subjected to later literary processing as materials under common law.

Due to this, the researcher, in addition to using the notes of travelers and observers (Russian and foreign), notes and stories of contemporaries (Circassians in the Russian service or Russian officers - participants in the Caucasian War), etc., mainly have to turn to a deep study of numerous archival materials that alone can shed light on the state of this issue.

Since the formation of the Old Line and the settlement of the Black Sea Cossack Army in the Kuban, a number of materials and documents have appeared that make it possible to present with sufficient clarity the ethnic map of the northwestern part of the Caucasus, as well as many aspects of social life. These materials include:

1. Extensive military-administrative correspondence containing information about individual peoples, their social structure, economy and the social struggle that took place among them.

2. Military topographic and ethnographic descriptions of the Western Caucasus.

Official reports and reports, memoranda and responses, orders and relationships contain a large amount of data concerning the most diverse aspects of the life of the Circassians.

This work was written on the basis of documents stored in the State Archives of the Krasnodar Territory (SACC), the Central State Historical Archives of the USSR (TsGIA USSR) and some others.

This study highlights issues related to the characteristics of the level of development of the productive forces and the social structure of the population of the Western Caucasus, as well as the course of Russia's economic penetration here since the resettlement of the Black Sea Cossack army to the Kuban; the policy of Russia and Turkey in relation to various social categories of the Adyh peoples, the military-political events that immediately preceded the conquest of the Caucasus by tsarism and which paint a complex picture of the social and political contradictions that unfolded among the Adygs at the last stage of the struggle for the Caucasus between Russia and the Western European powers and Turkey.

It is necessary to resolutely abandon an insufficiently clear and formal approach that ignores the social stratification of the Circassians and obscures the acuteness of social contradictions associated with the feudalization of the Circassian society. These contradictions created a state of continuous armed clashes between individual social groups of the Adyghe society, intertwined with general events in the region. In the ongoing struggle, individual social groups took completely different political positions in relation to the emerging international situation, and the European powers and Turkey, who fought for the Caucasus, sought to influence them in their interests.

This circumstance was expressed not only in the fact that the nobility and the elders' nobility were persistently drawn into the mainstream of their policy in the Caucasus, but also in the fact that the free peasant (tfokotl) was also the object of intense diplomatic attention and influence of the government circles of Turkey, England and tsarist Russia ...

The struggle between them "for the tfokotl" ran like a red thread through a number of decades of the Caucasian War and sometimes took on a bizarre pattern of events that reached the proclamation of independence of tfokotls from feudal encroachments by princes and nobles. Moreover, even the non-free population of the North-West Caucasus, slaves and serfs (unouts and pshitli), was also drawn into the orbit of European politics and was used in a complex political game. In particular, tsarism, along with the methods of open military-colonial expansion, widely applied demagoguery to these social groups of the population, not stopping before the emancipation of runaway slaves and serfs and the erection of some of them "into Cossack dignity" in order to exert political influence on them. owners.

On the basis of archival materials and foreign printed sources, it is possible to trace how certain social groups of the population were exposed to by foreign governments.

The study of materials related to the economic and cultural ties of the Russian population of the Northwestern Caucasus with the Adygs made it possible to establish that, despite the military-colonial regime of tsarism with all its negative aspects, there has been here since the end of the 18th century. a lively trade exchange began to develop, far beyond the officially recognized "exchange trade".

The commercial relations of the Circassians with the Russian population seriously impeded the strengthening of Turkey's positions and became the subject of a competitive struggle, in which an English trading company based in Trebizond also took part. The British ruling circles perfectly understood the danger of Russia's economic penetration into the Caucasus and could not reconcile with it, for this meant recognizing its claims to the Caucasus.

In the complex interweaving of the military-political events that were playing out in the Western Caucasus, with the moments of the internal social struggle that took place among the Circassians, one can clearly see the desire of the bulk of the indigenous population to get closer to the Russian people, breaking through all the obstacles of the colonial policy of tsarism, the intrigues of Turkey and the European powers. This phenomenon was based on the general civilizing influence of Russia "for the Black and Caspian Seas" noted by F. Engels, despite the colonial nature of the policy of the Russian autocracy in the Caucasus.

Polemising with English reviewers who pounced on Haxthausen's book "Transcaucasia, Sketches of Peoples and Tribes Between the Black and Caspian Seas", the author of which thought about the positive influence of Russia on the peoples of the Caucasus, wrote in No. 7 of Sovremennik for 1854: "The author of the famous travel, having briefly got to know Russia, fell in love with her, and his "Transcaucasia" is imbued with sympathy for Russia and for the Russian domination of the Caucasus. English reviewers, of course, call this, if not bias, then prejudice. Indeed, Baron Haxthausen is so prejudiced that he thinks that by "maintaining civil order in the Transcaucasian regions and civilizing them, the Russians are paving the way for civilization to the adjacent Asian countries." As long as we can be judges in our own business, it seems to us that this truth is quite simple; if memory does not deceive us, neither the British nor the French even thought to doubt it before the war began. "

Constantly communicating with the Russian population, the Circassians, in turn (influenced his life. This was expressed in the borrowing of the Circassian costume (Circassian, burka, beshmeta, papakha, leggings), as well as items of cavalry equipment and horse harness. the life of the stanitsa population of Chernomoria and were used by them in a muddy road as the main mode of transport.

The creation of the so-called Black Sea horse breed, which became widely known in Russian and foreign markets (during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, all Prussian artillery was served by horses of this breed), was associated with the crossing of the Adyghe horse with horses brought by the Cossacks from Zaporozhye.

Message on r. The Kuban was produced almost exclusively on boats made by Adyghe craftsmen who lived in the Kuban Shapsug and Bzhedukh auls. These craftsmen made not only small boats used for crossing rivers and for fishing, but also made larger vessels that lifted several hundred poods of cargo and sailed along the entire middle and lower reaches of the river. Kuban.

The high level of Adyghe gardening influenced the development of orchards in the Black Sea region, where varieties of Adyghe apple trees, cherries and pears were widely cultivated. Adygs willingly brought seedlings of fruit trees to Russian bazaars and fairs, selling them at a cheap price.

In the field of beekeeping, the Cossacks, and then "nonresident industrialists" also almost entirely followed the techniques used by the Adygs in caring for bees, and in the 50s of the XIX century. large apiaries supplying honey to Rostov and Stavropol were served exclusively by the labor of hired Circassians.

The rapprochement of the Adyghe population with the Russian found its expression in a number of other aspects noted in this work.

How great was the desire of the masses to end the war with Russia and establish peaceful relations, can be judged by the fact that neither during the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, nor during the Crimean War of 1853-1856. foreign diplomacy did not manage to raise them to fight against Russia.

Particularly interesting are the events that unfolded in the Western Caucasus during the Crimean War. At a critical moment in the struggle, the coalition hostile to Russia put into play all the means at its disposal to attract the Circassians to its side. She managed to enlist the support of a part of the pro-Turkish-minded elite, but the popular masses resolutely refused her this support. Even the assault on Novorossiysk by the allied squadron, undertaken at the end of February 1855 in order to bring the allied squadron from the state of political passivity to the tfokotl, did not achieve the desired results, and the official documents of the London Admiralty reflect the deep disappointment of the British command about this (9, 100-102). Relatively little space is given in the work to questions of purely military history, since there is a sufficient number of works that cover in detail the external side of the Caucasian war. Therefore, without setting ourselves such a task, we focused our attention in this area only on those events that provide some new data on the aggressive plans of foreign powers in the Caucasus.

First essay.

Socio-economic situation of the Circassians at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th century

Territory

The western part of the Caucasian ridge with an adjoining strip of foothills descending to the Kuban lowland, in the 18th century. was occupied by the Adyghe peoples. By the time of the advancement of the state border of Russia to the river. In the Kuban, they went a long way of historical development. On the pages of Russian chronicles, Circassians are first mentioned under the name of Kasogs when describing the events of 965. However, more or less clear information about them refers only to the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries.

Separate Adyghe peoples settled beyond the river. Kuban as follows. The lands of the Natukhai were located along the Main Caucasian ridge and along the Black Sea coast in a general direction from northwest to southeast. In their shape, they resembled a large triangle, the base of which rested against the river. Kuban, and the peak overlooked the Black Sea coast, south of Gelendzhik. In this triangle, in addition to the main Nakhukhai population, from the Tsemesskaya Bay to the river. Pshads lived Shapsugs, called in official correspondence "Shapsug Natukhai", and in the vicinity of Anapa there was a small tribe of Heigaks. (By the beginning of the 19th century, they settled in the Natukhaisk auls.)

// The terms: Adyghe (Adyghe) peoples, Adygs, highlanders, Circassians are used in this work as synonyms. The term tribes, found in archival and literary sources, as applied to the period under consideration, corresponds to the descriptive concept of peoples and to the scientific one - subethnic groups of the Adyghe people (Abadzekhs, Besleneis, Bzhedukhs, Khatukaevs, Shapsugs, etc.).

To the east of the Natukhaidev, Shapsugs lived, divided into large and small (the so-called Bolshoi Shapsug and Maly Shapsug. Bolshoi Shapsug was located north of the Main Caucasian ridge, between the rivers Adagum and Afips, and Small - to the south of it and went to the Black From the east it was bounded by the Shakhe River, beyond which the Ubykhs lived, and from the west by the Dzhubga River, which separated it from the Natukhai people.The Shapsug territory was much larger than the Natukhai one, but it had many inaccessible and sparsely populated mountain areas.

To the east of Bolshoy Shapsug, in the depths of the Caucasus Mountains and on their northern slope, there was the region of the most numerous Adyghe people - the Abadzekhs. From the north, it was separated from the river. Kuban is the land of Bzhedukhs, from the east its border was the r. Belaya, and from the South it rested against the Main Caucasian ridge, behind which lay the possessions of the Shapsugs and Ubykhs. Thus, the Abadzekhs occupied a significant part of the territory of the Western Caucasus, from the basin of the river. Afips to the Laba basin. The most densely populated by them were the valleys of the rivers_Vunduk Kurdzhips, Pshachi, Pshish, Psekups. There were settlements of the main Abadzekh societies (Tuba, Temdashi, Daurkhabl, Dzhengetkhabl, Gatyukohabl, Nezhukohabl and Tfishebs). In the official correspondence of the Russian military authorities, the Abadzekhs were usually divided into mountainous, or distant, and plain, or near.

Between the northern border of the Abadzekh territory and the river. Bzhedukhs were located in Kuban, subdivided into Khamysheis, Chercheneevs (Kerkeneevs) and Zheneevs (Zhaneevs). According to folk legends, the Khamysheis lived at first on the river. Belaya among the Abadzekhs, but then they were forced out by them to the upper reaches of the river. Psekups, where their fellow tribesmen lived - the Chercheneevites. Then both of them, under pressure from the Abadzekhs, moved even closer to the river. Kuban: the Khamysheis settled between the Suls and Psekups rivers, and the Chercheneevites settled between the Psekups and Pshish rivers. Most of the Zheneyevites soon merged with the Khamysheis and Cherchenevites, and some moved to the Karakubansky Island, within the Black Sea coastline.

Continuous intertribal struggle led to the fact that by the 30s of the XIX century. the number of bzhedukhs has significantly decreased. According to the available archival data, only 1,200 of the Khamysheev's "simple households, who paid tribute" to the Khamysheev princes, went to the Abadzekhs and Shapsugs. “4 princes were killed at different times, 40 nobles, more than 1000 ordinary people”, and over “900 souls of men and women with their belongings” were taken prisoner.

To the east of the Chercheneevites, between the Pshish and Belaya rivers, the Khatukaevites lived. Farther east, between the lower reaches of the Belaya and Laba rivers, there was an area occupied by the Temirgoevites or "Chemguy". Somewhat further in the direction to the southeast lived their neighbors - the Egerukhais, Makhoshevites and Mamkhegs (Mamkhegs), who were considered to be related to the Temirgoevites and were often mentioned in Russian official correspondence under the general name "Chemguy" or "Kemgoy". In the XIX century. Temirgoevites, Jaegerukhais and Makhoshevtsy united under the rule of Temirgoev princes from the Bolotokov family. The Beslenei were a significant Adyghe people in the Western Caucasus. Their possessions bordered in the north-west with the territory of the Makhoshevites, in the south-east they reached the river. Laba and its tributary r. Khodz, and in the east - to the river. Urup. Among the Besleneis also lived the so-called fugitive Kabardians and a small number of Nogai.

Thus, the strip of land occupied by the Adyghe peoples stretched from the Black Sea coast in the west to the river. Urup in the east. The region of Kabarda and the territory of the Abaza adjoined it.

Numerous sources, descriptions and news give the most contradictory information about the number of individual Adyghe peoples and the entire indigenous population of the Western Caucasus as a whole. , for example, determined the total number of Temirgoevites and Jaegerukhais to be only 8 thousand people, and asserted that the Temirgoevites alone were 80 thousand. The number of Abadzekhs, by, reached 40-50 thousand people, and there were 260 thousand of them. The total number of Shapsugs was estimated at 160 thousand souls of both sexes, and Novitsky - at 300 thousand; he believed that there were only 90 thousand of them, etc.

The information reported by the Adyghe princes and nobles about the size of the population under their control was even more contradictory. Comparing the available data, one can only approximately establish the total size of the Adyghe population of the Western Caucasus. By the middle of the XIX century. it was approximately 700-750 thousand people

Classes

The natural and geographical conditions of the Western Caucasus are very diverse. In the past, this had a significant impact on the economic activity of the local population and determined its specificity in certain areas.

In the low-lying Kuban zone, which is distinguished by its fertile soils, settled agriculture developed very early. The author of this work has repeatedly managed to find in the cultural layer of ancient Meoto-Sarmatian settlements and in burial grounds dating back to the 4th century. BC e. - II-III centuries. n. e., charred grains of wheat, millet and other cultivated plants. Stone hand millstones, iron sickles and other agricultural tools were also found here. There is every reason to assert that the distant ancestors of the Circassians already in the 1st millennium BC. e. agriculture was quite widely developed, and its further progressive development was observed in the Middle Ages.

This idea is especially clearly illustrated by the finds made in the summer of 1941 during the construction of the Shapsugsky reservoir on the left bank of the river. Afips, near the city of Krasnodar. During the construction of the dam of the reservoir, an ancient burial ground with ground and burial mounds of the 13th-15th centuries was uncovered. and the territory of the adjacent settlement dating back to the same time. Among other items were found iron sickles and plowshares for plows, stone millstones, ketmen for uprooting shrubs and other tools testifying to developed arable farming. In addition, a number of things were found here, indicating that the local population was engaged in cattle breeding and crafts (bones of domestic animals, shears for shearing sheep, blacksmith's hammers, tongs, etc.).

The same finds were found during excavations of other medieval settlements in the Kuban region.

Without dwelling on a number of literary sources, we point out that the existence of developed agriculture among the Circassians is confirmed for a later time by Russian official documents. Of them. especially interesting:

1) the order of A. Golovaty dated 01.01.01, ordering the head of the Taman detachment, Savva Bely, to organize the purchase of cereal seeds from the highlanders for the settlers of the Black Sea Cossack army; 2) the report of the ataman of the Black Sea Cossack army of Kotlyarevsky to Emperor Paul I, in which it was reported that due to the acute shortage of bread in the newly founded army, it was necessary to order to supply "the Cossacks who are on the border guard with bread exchanged for salt from the Trans-Kubans."

Considering all that has been said, one should resolutely abandon the rather widespread view that agriculture among the Circassians in the 17th-18th centuries. allegedly had an extremely primitive character. , describing the economic life of the Circassians at the beginning of the 19th century, he wrote: “Agriculture is divided into three main branches: agriculture, stud farms and cattle breeding, including cattle and sheep. The Circassians plow the land with plows like the Ukrainian ones, into which they harness several pairs of bulls. Millet is sown more than any kind of bread, then Turkish wheat (corn), spring wheat, spelled and barley. They reap bread with ordinary sickles; they thresh bread with balbs, that is, they trample and grind the ears by means of horses or bulls tied to a board, on which they pile burdens, just like in Georgia and Shirvan. The grated straw, together with the chaff and part of the grains, are fed to the horses, and the clean bread is hidden in the pits. Vegetables are sown in the gardens: carrots, beets, cabbage, onions, pumpkins, watermelons, and besides that, everyone in the garden has a ridge of tobacco. " There can be no doubt that the described level of development of agriculture was achieved on the basis of the old local agricultural culture.

The role of agriculture in the life of the Circassians was reflected in their pagan pantheon. Khan-Girey reported that in the 40s of the XIX century. the image, personifying the deity of agriculture, You will behold, in the form of a boxwood log with seven branches extending from it, was in every family and was kept in a grain barn. After the harvest, on the so-called so-called night of contemplation, which coincided with the Christian holiday of Christmas, the image of the Sovereign was transferred from the barn to the house. After sticking wax candles to boughs and hanging pies and pieces of cheese to it, they put it on pillows and performed prayers.

It is quite natural, of course, that the mountainous strip of the Western Caucasus was less convenient for arable farming than the Kuban lowland. So. cattle breeding, horticulture and gardening played a much greater role here than arable farming. The inhabitants of the mountains in exchange for bread gave the inhabitants of the plains cattle and handicrafts. The significance of this exchange for the Ubykhs was especially important.

Cattle breeding of the Circassians also had a fairly developed character, contrary to the opinion widespread in the historical literature about its extreme backwardness. Many authors have argued that due to this backwardness, livestock was grazed even in winter. In reality. in winter, it descended from mountain pastures into forests or reed thickets of the Kuban plain, which represented an excellent refuge from bad weather and winds. Here, the animals were fed with hay stored in advance. How much of it was prepared for the winter for this purpose can be judged by the fact that during the winter expedition of 1847 to the lands of the Abadzekhs, General Kovalevsky managed to burn more than a million poods of hay there.

The widespread development of cattle breeding was facilitated by the abundance of meadows. Huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and herds of horses grazed on rich hayfields and pastures.

Indirectly, one can get an idea of ​​the size of cattle breeding and its nature according to the data of M. Peysonel, who reported that the mountaineers annually slaughtered up to 500 thousand rams and sold up to 200 thousand cloaks. Export information at the end of the 18th century. show that a significant place in the foreign trade of the Circassians was occupied by leather, unwashed wool, skins, and various wool products.

The traits and vestiges of the clan system were especially pronounced among the pastoralists. For example, in the fall, some families drove into the sacred grove one of their cows, intended as a sacrifice to the god Achin, by tying pieces of bread and cheese to its horns. The local residents accompanied the sacrificial animal, which was called the self-extinguishing Achin's cow, and then slaughtered it. Akhin - the patron saint of cattle herds - clearly belonged to the old pagan religion with its cult of communal sacred places, groves and trees, with general prayers and sacrifices. It is characteristic that at the place where the animal was stabbed, the skin was not removed from it, and where it was removed, meat was not cooked; where it was cooked, they did not eat it, but did all this, alternately moving from one place to another. It is possible that these features of the sacrificial ritual showed the features of the ancient nomadic life of herders. Subsequently, they acquired the character of a religious ceremony, accompanied by the singing of special prayer songs.

However, it should be noted that Art. the period of time we are considering (the end of the 18th century - the first half of the 19th century), property differentiation among cattle breeders sharply increases. A large number of cattle were concentrated in their hands by princes, nobles, foremen and many well-to-do community members - tfokotls. The labor of slaves and serfs was quite widely used during haymaking and the preparation of fodder for livestock. Since the end of the 18th century. the peasants began to show strong dissatisfaction with the seizure of the best pastures by local feudal lords.

By the end of the 18th century. horse farms that belonged to princes and rich elders acquired great importance. According to reports, many of them supplied horses to various Adyghe peoples and even, oddly enough, regiments of Russian regular cavalry. Each plant had a special brand with which it branded its horses. For forging it, the perpetrators were severely punished. To improve the horse population, the owners of the factories bought Arab stallions in Turkey. The Terrgoy horses were especially famous, which were sold not only in the Caucasus, but also exported to the inner regions of Russia.

Farming and cattle breeding were not the only economic occupations of the Circassians. Poultry farming, as well as fruit growing and viticulture, was greatly developed among them. The abundance of orchards, especially in the seaside part, has always attracted the attention of foreign travelers and observers, for example, Belle, Dubois de Montpere, Spencer, and others.

Our information about the economic and social structure of the peoples of the North Caucasus in the 18th - early 19th centuries. much more complete and reliable than in the previous period of their history. This is primarily due to the strengthening of political, economic and cultural ties with Russia, as a result of which numerous and varied news about the Caucasus and the peoples inhabiting it appear in Russian literature and especially in various documents of that time.

As in the previous period, the main occupation of the population was agriculture, which usually combined agriculture and animal husbandry, but with a different ratio of these industries depending on local conditions. Field cultivation and horticulture reached the greatest development in Dagestan, especially in its flat part, among a number of Adyghe tribes living along the Black Sea coast and along the lower course of the Kuban, as well as in Chechnya (Ichkeria). Cattle breeding, in particular horse breeding, played a leading role in the economy of the Kabardians, Abazins, and Nogais, who had at their disposal extensive pastures along the Kuban and Terek. Among the Balkars, Karachais, Ossetians and other peoples who lived in the mountains of the Central Caucasus, due to a lack of land, field cultivation was poorly developed, there was not enough of their own bread and small cattle prevailed.

The same situation was observed in a number of places of support of Dagestan. In general, cattle breeding among the highlanders of the North Caucasus was the most important branch of the economy, and even in areas with a relatively developed agriculture, livestock and livestock products were the main wealth of the inhabitants.

The farming technique was generally very primitive, and cattle breeding was extensive in nature, based, as in ancient times, on pasture and seasonal migrations of cattle from winter pastures to summer pastures and vice versa. Such ancient occupations of the population as hunting and beekeeping continued to play a significant role.

The economic backwardness of the peoples of the North Caucasus was also expressed in the weak development of their manufacturing industry. The overwhelming part of the products of agriculture and cattle breeding up to the 19th century. processed in the very farm where they were mined. True, in addition to domestic crafts, the peoples of the North Caucasus have long known the craft, some branches of which had by this time reached great perfection among the peoples of Dagestan, the Adyghe, the Kabardians, but economic development in the North Caucasus did not go beyond these simplest and most primitive forms of industry until then. until this region was finally annexed to Russia.

Dominance in the North Caucasus up to the beginning of the 19th century. domestic industry, which is a necessary part of the subsistence economy, in itself testified to the low level of social division of labor, which is the main basis for the development of exchange and trade. In the sources of the XVIII - early XIX century. it is indicated * that the Caucasian highlanders at that time were dominated by natural economy, trade within the tribes and between the tribes was predominantly of an exchange nature, their own monetary system did not exist. For the majority of the highlanders, the general equivalent was cattle, less often canvas 2 cotton cloth, salt, metal pots and other especially needed and valuable goods. Foreign trade, which since the XVIII century. played in the life of the mountaineers more and more r "ol, also had a mainly exchange character.

The weak development of the manufacturing industry and trade led, in particular, to the almost complete absence of cities among the local population. An exception to a certain extent was Dagestan, in the Caspian part of which ancient Derbent and urban-type settlements, Tarki and Enderi, which played an important role, continued to exist, and in the mountains there was such a peculiar craft center as Kubachi. In the Northwestern Caucasus, only a few trade and craft settlements on the Taman Peninsula and the lower Kuban (Taman, Temryuk, Konyl) acquired the importance of local cities.

With routine technology and the dominance of subsistence farming, changes in the economy of the local population took place extremely slowly. For many centuries, the same branches of the economy remained the main occupation of the population, making little progress in their internal development. Economic isolation and isolation from the outside world, which, to a certain extent, was the result of not only natural conditions, but also the unfavorable foreign policy situation, which was expressed primarily in the aggression and domination of backward eastern despots (Sultan Turkey with its vassal - the Crimean Khanate and Iran) gave the economy of the Caucasus Highlanders have some features of stagnation.

The relatively low level of economic development also determined the relative backwardness of social relations among the peoples of the North Caucasus on the eve of their final entry into Russia. In the XVIII - early XIX century. feudal relations were dominant, entangled in a dense network of patriarchal clan survivals. Preservation among the Caucasian highlanders up to the 19th century. many orders and customs of the tribal system (blood feud, levirate, atalism, twinning, etc.) is an important indication of the extremely slow process of socio-economic development for all six centuries after the Mongol invasion.

Despite the fact that the decomposition of the primitive communal system began among the tribes of the North Caucasus back in the Bronze Age, and on the eve of the Mongol invasion, feudal fragmentation already reigned among most of them, subsequent development proceeded so slowly that it did not allow feudal relations to mature enough and free themselves from the patriarchal shell.

The primitiveness and insufficient development of feudalism in the North Caucasus was also evidenced by the preservation here until the 19th century. slavery and the slave trade. The main source of slavery was the capture of people in captivity. Slaves were not only used in the household, but were also one of the most valuable commodities. The mountain nobility "often undertook raids on neighboring tribes and Russian settlements in order to capture prisoners, who were then turned into slaves. And in this regard, it is necessary to note the negative impact on the socio-economic development of the highlanders on the one hand of Iran, on the other, of the Crimean Khanate and Sultan Turkey. , who especially encouraged slavery and the slave trade in the Caucasus.Along the entire Black Sea coast of the Caucasus, which was in the hands of Turkey, there was a brisk trade in slaves - captive inhabitants of the Caucasus, whom the mountain nobility sold to Turkish merchants.

However, it would be wrong to exaggerate the role of the mountaineers who survived in the 18th and early 19th centuries. pre-feudal relations - patriarchal-clan structure. For it was not this that already determined the essence of the social relations that had developed among the peoples of the North Caucasus by that time. Mountain society has long been split into two antagonistic classes - the patriarchal-feudal nobility and the peasantry, which was in varying degrees of personal dependence and was subjected to various forms of feudal exploitation, covered by patriarchal customs and traditions.

The presence of two main classes of feudal society is clearly traced in (numerous Adyghe tribes, Kabardians, Karachais, Balkars, Abazins, Nogays, Ossetians (especially the Digorsky and Kurtatinsky gorges), as well as in most of the peoples of Dagestan, which were part of such typical feudal formations as shamkhalstvo Tarkovskoe, utsmiystvo Kaitagskoe, khanates of Derbent, Avar, Kazikumukhskoe, Kyurinskoe, Mekhtulinskoe, Maysomstvo Tabasaran and other smaller feudal possessions. even made some progress on this path, going from the stage characterized by the dominance of labor rent to the stage characterized by the dominance of a more progressive form of feudal rent — rent by products.

An analysis of the adats of the Caucasian highlanders, in which the customary law fixed peasant duties in favor of the feudal lords, shows that the most common form of rent by the beginning of the 19th century. all the peoples of the North Caucasus had a grocery rent, which managed to partially supplant the labor rent, but was not itself replaced by money rent anywhere. Dominance in the North Caucasus in the 18th - early 19th centuries product rent, on the one hand, indicates that feudalism has already reached a certain stage of development here, and on the other hand, it explains to us the main reason for the stagnation that characterizes the socio-economic system of the Caucasian mountaineers on the eve of their final annexation to Russia. As K. Marx showed, "rent by products presupposes a higher (in comparison with the previous labor rent - VG) cultural level of the direct producer, therefore, a higher stage of development of his labor and society in general ..." 17. But at the same time, rent in products, “... thanks to the necessary combination of agriculture and domestic industry, thanks to the fact that with it the peasant family acquires an almost completely self-sufficient character due to its independence from the market, from changes in production and from the historical movement that stands outside its part of society, in short, due to the nature of the natural economy in general, this form is most suitable for serving as the basis for stagnant conditions of society, as we observe, for example, in Asia ”18.

The presence of the highlanders of the North Caucasus in the XVIII-early XIX centuries. labor and food rent is the most obvious proof of the existence of feudal forms of exploitation and feudal ownership of land, which constitutes the basis of the feudal mode of production. Although in the sources of the XVIII - early XIX century. and, in particular, in the adats of the highlanders, it is undoubtedly said about the presence of various types of feudal rent, which is the economic realization of feudal ownership of land, but this property itself did not receive a clear legal form in customary law and sources of that time. This was one of the reasons that the tsarist officials, and behind the tsimi and many researchers of the land relations of the Caucasian highlanders, came to the wrong conclusion that the local population allegedly had no land property in the North Caucasus before the arrival of the Russians in general, feudal property in particular. Unable to deny that the peoples of the North Caucasus had peasant duties in favor of the feudal lords in the form of corvee and quitrent (i.e. labor and food rent), they explained their existence only by the personal dependence of the peasants on the owners.

Without denying that non-economic coercion played a certain role even under the conditions of mountain feudalism, we, however, in no way can reduce only to it the essence of feudal relations among the peoples of the North Caucasus. On the contrary, it should be emphasized that in the North Caucasus in the 18th - early 19th centuries, as in other countries, feudal dependence and exploitation of the peasants were a consequence of the emergence of feudal ownership of land.

No matter how disguised feudal ownership of land was disguised among the Caucasian highlanders (it is quite possible to trace its existence. To begin with, among the Kabardians, whose feudal system was typical for many peoples of the North Caucasus, the main landowners, according to adat, "were Russian sources of the 18th and early 19th centuries, including in official documents, were usually referred to as “owners.” Among the Adyghe tribes that had princes - Bzhedugs, Temirgoevites, Besleneevites, etc. - the princes also received adat special rights to land, allocating the best places for arable land, hayfields and pastures.The same rights (assigned to themselves the primary war (noble) surnames from the Abadzekhs, Shapsugs and Natukhai, who in the 18th and early 19th centuries constituted a group of Adyghe tribes that did not have princes ...

According to the materials of customary law, the khans and beks of Dagestan, who were also often named in Russian official documents of the 18th-19th centuries, appear before us as large landowners. "Owners" -

Feudal ownership of land appeared among the Caucasian mountaineers, as well as feudal relations in general, so to speak, not in their pure form, but under the guise of a patriarchal shell. In this regard, it should be noted that, according to the customary law of the mountaineers, the formal owners of the land were not individual feudal lords, but the feudal "surname" or "clan" 19. Thus, the entire territory of Kabarda was divided in the 18th - early 19th centuries. between six "surnames" (four in Big Kabarda and two in Malaya Kabarda), which originated from a common ancestor. Among the Karachais, the monopoly of land ownership was secured by customary law for the "surname" of the Krymshamkhalovs, to which all Karachais paid a land tax. Among the Kumyks, he occupied exactly the same position in the 18th and early 19th centuries. The "clan" of the Tarkov shamkhals, to which most of the Kumyk beks belonged.

The clan of the Utsmians of the Kaitag, Nutsals (khans) of the Avars, the khans of the Kazikumukh (Lak) and other feudal rulers of Dagestan were (vm "naturally with the beks descended from it) the main owner of the land within this political entity.

The preservation of communal land ownership under the rule of the feudal lords could no longer seriously prevent the mountain nobility from plundering the people's land. Feudal lords, appropriating the best land plots for themselves, did not refuse at the same time to use the communal land. In many districts of Dagestan and in Adygea, the local nobility preferred not to leave the community completely and demanded a special share for themselves in the course of land redistribution. So, for example, from the Adyghe, the princes received one third, and sometimes more, of all the pasture and arable lands of a given community during redistribution. At the same time, the Adyghe princes assumed the right to distribute land plots during redistribution, which they usually did in the presence of village elders. Thus, the communal order here largely covered up the presence of a class of privileged landowners of the feudal type.

Since there was little arable land in the mountains and some of them belonged to individual small owners on the basis of labor employment rights, the mountain nobility tried to appropriate mainly communal pastures for themselves. The appropriation of pasture lands was facilitated by the fact that they were to a greater extent, as it were, nobody's; the boundaries of communal pastures were not as precisely defined as the boundaries of arable land. At the same time, pasture lands did not require such preliminary processing and special supervision as arable plots, which were often created in the mountains as a result of high labor costs (clearing stones, forests, bushes, and sometimes artificial soil application on rocky mountains) and needed in constant care. The important economic importance of pasture lands was determined by the fact that in many mountainous regions the main branch of the economy was cattle breeding. Therefore, the one who in the mountains was the owner of the best pastures, in fact, concentrated in his hands the main wealth of the highlanders - cattle and thus acquired power over his fellow tribesmen.

Historical documents and folk legends indicate that the period of the XVIII - early XIX century. characterized in the North Caucasus by a particularly intensive plundering of communal lands and enslavement of previously free community members. However, it should be emphasized that the process of feudal plunder of communal lands, with all its intensity, did not lead in the North Caucasus to the complete elimination of communal orders and the final enslavement of direct producers. In almost all mountain societies up to the beginning of the 19th century. a significant stratum of unrestrained communal peasants has survived. They accounted for a particularly large percentage of the so-called "democratic" Adyghe tribes (Abadzekhs, Shapsugs, Natukhai) in the Western Caucasus and in the "free societies" of Dagestan in the Eastern Caucasus. At the same time, these formally free communal peasants, under the general rule of feudalism in the North Caucasus, were to a certain extent feudally dependent people. So, the Adyghe tfokotls, often referred to in Russian sources as "a simple free people" and who are, in their social position, communal peasants, according to the adats recorded in the 40s of the XIX century, recognized "to some extent" the power of princes and nobles over themselves , paid them "kalym for an exchange at exchange yards ... forests and their other products" and performed a number of other duties 20. The same, essentially semi-free peasants were in their mass and the Dagestan bridle. Their position in "free" societies was distinguished by a comparatively greater freedom than in the feudal possessions of Dagestan. But the bridles of the "free" societies were in varying degrees of dependence on the local nobility and neighboring hai.

In connection with the decomposition of the communal system and the development of 1 feudalism among the tfokotls of Adygea and the Uzdens of Dagestan in the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. there was a process of social stratification. The upper, wealthy part of them turned into feudal lords, who entered into a competitive struggle with the old nobility. This will be discussed in more detail below, when characterizing the struggle of the mountaineers against the colonial policy of tsarism that unfolded in the North Caucasus.

The idea that the tfokotls of Adygea, the bridles of Dagestan, and similar social groups in other mountainous regions of the Caucasus were completely free direct producers, was created largely because their feudal exploitation and dependence were covered to an even greater extent than the exploitation of other categories of mountain peasantry. remnants of pre-feudal relations. Using, in particular, the "custom of clan and communal mutual assistance," the mountain knowledge attracted the peasants-communes "by invitation" or "free will" to perform various kinds of work on their farm.

The dominance of feudal relations in the North Caucasus is vividly reflected in the fact that many orders and institutions of the tribal system had already completely transformed in the 18th - early 19th centuries, changed their former social essence and were adapted by the ruling class to serve its interests.

Such a transformation has undergone, for example, the custom of blood feud, which is widespread among all the highlanders of the Caucasus. The principle of equal retribution, "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," prevailing in the tribal system, was converted by the mountain nobility under the conditions of feudalism into its opposite, which can be roughly formulated as follows: "for an eye - two eyes, for a tooth - the whole jaw." The payment for the blood of a member of the ruling class in all mountain societies was many times higher than the price of the blood of an ordinary mountaineer. Among the Kabardians, the price of the blood of a member of the princely family was so high and included such rare and valuable items (for example, expensive and rare weapons, chain mail, etc.) that it was almost impossible to pay for the blood of the murdered prince. V. As a result, the Kabardian customary law established a strict rule - if the murderer of the prince did not belong to the princely estate, then he, along with the entire surname, was issued for the stream and plunder to the relatives of the murdered prince, who usually turned all members of such a surname into slaves and sold them outside Kabarda. Therefore, not only a simple Kabardian, but even a paramount wark (a noble nobleman) never dared to raise his hand against the Kabardian prince. The Karachais, Balkars, Ossetians and other highlanders of the North Caucasus, subject to the Kabardian princes, did not dare to do this either. Relying on such an order of blood revenge, the Kabardian princes could rob and oppress the people under their control with impunity.

A similar change has undergone another custom of the pink system - "bailing", which consisted in the unauthorized taking of livestock or other property by the victim from his offender in order to force him to give due satisfaction. In the conditions of family life, this measure was someone's special privilege; she contributed to the speedy and just settlement of the conflicts that had arisen, forcing the offender to seek reconciliation with the person who suffered from him, who, after satisfying his claim, returned the property taken as a bounty. its most important; a means of subjugating the masses. Any disagreeable act or disobedience was a pretext for the mountain nobility to bail, and, as a rule, the secured property (still mainly livestock) was not returned to the owner, for it was now considered not as a pledge, but as a fine for the alleged offense inflicted.

The ancient custom of raising children outside the parental family, known in the Caucasus as atalism, underwent extremely curious changes under the conditions of feudalism. The roots of this custom go deep into the tribal system, when it was widespread. In the feudal period, the custom of giving children up for upbringing to another family * was preserved in the North Caucasus only among the ruling class. Here atalism took on a twofold form. On the one hand, it became a kind of development and strengthening of ties within the feudal class, on the other hand, this custom turned into one of the additional duties of the peasants.

Among the Adyghe and Kabardians, for example, the princes gave their children to be raised by their vassals - the paramount Works, who, in turn, gave their children to be raised by the Works, who were their vassals. At the same time, the feudal lords often gave their children up for education to other peoples, establishing beneficial ties for them with the social elite of these peoples. So, the Kabardian princes gave their sons to be raised by the Balkar, Karachai, Abaza and Ossetian feudal lords, who were dependent on them. At the same time, the Kabardian and Adyghe princes, during the period of dependence on the Crimean khans, willingly took the khan's sons to their upbringing. Thus, the custom of atalism contributed to the strengthening of ties between the vassal and the suzerain, which in the North Caucasus until the 19th century. were not strong enough, so kag; in the conditions of the feudal fragmentation reigning here, a vassal could always leave his overlord and go into the service of another.

But if the transfer of children to upbringing within the feudal class was equally beneficial to both the vassal and the overlord and led to the establishment of family ties between their families, then the situation was completely different when the children of the feudal lords were transferred to a peasant family for upbringing. In this case, the upbringing of other people's children from a voluntary act turned to a certain extent into a duty, which the peasants bore in favor of their owners.

In a heavy duty for the mountain peasantry, the duty turned into a feudal period and the custom of hospitality for which the Caucasus has long been famous. Those who came to visit the feudal lord, together with their servants and horses, actually received the full support of the peasants who depended on this owner. If we consider that the idle mountain feudal lords spent a significant part of their time on trips, visiting each other for a long time, it becomes clear how burdensome the hospitality of their masters was for the peasants.

The custom of kunachism, which was widespread in the Caucasus, according to which two persons belonging to different clans and even tribes, pledged to provide each other with all kinds of assistance and protection, was in a certain way connected with the custom of hospitality in ancient times. Until the mountain society was divided into classes, the Kunaks were people of equal social status and their relationship was built on the basis of genuine mutual assistance. But with the development of feudal relations, the situation changed dramatically. - Kunachism was now often no longer a union of two equal persons, but the patronage of an influential member of society to a weaker one. Representatives of the mountain nobility, providing protection to someone, accepting him as a "kunaki", at the same time received the right to collect fines from persons who offended the kunak. At the same time, the kunak himself turned into a person dependent on the patron * into his client. Thus, under the conditions of feudalism, the Caucasian kunakism turned into a peculiar form of patronage, which was widely used by the mountain nobility in their own interests.

It would be possible to further continue the consideration of the question of the transformation of patriarchal-clan institutions in the conditions of the feudal system that existed among the majority of Caucasian highlanders on the eve of their final annexation to Russia in the 18th - early 19th centuries, but the materials cited are enough to judge how deeply the process of feudalization penetrated into mountain life.

Transforming patriarchal institutions and customs in its own way, mountain feudalism made them, as we see, one of the forms of its development, which gave feudal relations in the North Caucasus that specificity that gives us reason to characterize them as feudal-patriarchal.

It was the patriarchal shell that covered the development of feudal relations among the Caucasian mountaineers that misled many researchers of their social system, including such outstanding ones as M.M. Kovalevsky and F.I. Leontovich, who believed that in the 19th century. patriarchal-clan relations still formed the basis of the social life of the mountaineers.