War in the Caucasus

So the personal element certainly inspired that fiery poem. But so too did the political and military events that sparked it. If this story about Russian imperial expansion seems current and very new, it is also past and very old and spans four-and-a-half centuries.

With the extinction of that khanate, Ukrainian Cossacks, formerly quite independently minded, but now very much in Russian service, were resettled first along the Black Sea, and then along the Kuban River, and Russian-speak­ing Don Cossacks were settled along the Terek River north of the Caucasus Mountains. The “Caucasus Wall,” in the foothills north of the main Caucasus range, seemed to block further Russian expansion southward.

Cossack settlement along the Kuban and Terek rivers led to creation of the Kuban-Terek Line as the empire's southern boundary. None the less expansion followed, including colonization by military and private landlords, but the rough terrain and the fierce resistance of Circassian, Avar, Chechen, and other warriors led to a long and difficult struggle, the so-called Caucasian War, which lasted through three-quarters of the nineteenth century.⁸

Western interpretations of Ukrainian and Russian history savour the image of the mounted Cossack, wild and terrifying, sweeping all before him.

They are all but born on horseback and being used to riding from their earliest years, become extremely expert in this art and ac­customed to covering great distances without fatigue. Having an abundance of horses not pampered in stables, they choose those only which are noted for their swiftness, strength, and activity... The mountaineers' weapons are their personal property, handed down from generation to generation. They value them highly, carefully pre­serve them, and keep them in excellent order... All domestic work is performed by the women, while the men who are sufficiently well-off do hardly any work at all. Their only occupation is raiding.

The report continues:

The Cossack on the other hand, is an agriculturalist as well as a sol­dier. Being very often withdrawn from his military occupations by field work at home, he cannot use either horse or arms with the same skill as the mountaineer; nor being for the most part of the time near his own house, is it possible for him to become acquainted with topo­graphical details over a wide area... The Cossack... being on the defensive, spends most of the time vainly awaiting the enemy... Work and danger are almost his only lot - an insufficient compensation.⁹

Given these factors, the Kuban-Terek Line might well have become the em­pire's permanent southern border.

However, fate intervened. In 1801, the dying King George XII of the Kingdom of Georgia, south of the main Caucasus range, willed his realm to Alexander I of Russia, a fellow Orthodox Christian. In 1797, Georgia's Persian overlords had launched a particularly destructive invasion.

Over some seventy years, a series of competent and determined Russian generals ruthlessly crushed that resistance. A.P. Yermolov (1777-1861) set the tone for future commanders, Ivan F. Paskevych (1782-1856) was a Ukrainian nobleman with an aristocratic bearing from Poltava province, and Prince Aleksander I Bariatynsky (1814-1879) finally broke the resistance, able after the Crimean War ended in 1856 to transfer the bulk of Russia's now-numerous battle-hardened troops to the North Caucasus. Yermolov's term 1816-27 as viceroy of the Caucasus, military governor of the “line,” and governor of Georgia established the basic strategy and tactics of Russian expansion.¹²

A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and exposed to French influences, Yermolov held some progressive views that were critical of the autocracy. But in the Caucasus his principal tactic was to beat or scare the tribesmen to death. He steadily expanded Russian rule outward, conquered the East Lowlands, the so-called Shamkalate, made constant raids into the mountains, and built a great fortress in the north, which he boldly named Grozny (The Threatening), now capital of Chechnya. He once was reported to have said: “I desire that the terror of my name should guard our frontiers more potently than chains or fortresses, [and] that my word should be for the natives a law more inevitable than death.

Yermolov was also in these years ambassador to Persia, but with no time for diplomatic niceties. “My grim visage,” he explained, “always expressed pretty clearly what I felt, and when I spoke of war conveyed the impression of a man ready to set his teeth into their throats. Unluckily for them, I noticed how little they liked this, and consequently, whenever more reasonable arguments were wanting, I relied on my wild beast's muzzle, gigantic and terrifying figure, and extensive throat; for they were convinced that anyone who could shout so vociferously must have good and weighty reasons.”¹⁴ Such ferocity was reciprocal. In 1829 the Russian envoy to Tehran, A.S. Griboedov, was ruthlessly murdered by Persians in the streets of their capital, his body left to rot amid a heap of corpses. Russia was hated for its expansion in the north, and the ambassador had sought apparently to protect escaped Armenian slaves.¹⁵

Yermolov was followed in the Caucasus by the more refined Paskevych, who, however, carried on most of his policies. He took the city of Kars in the western Caucasus and sent a Russian army to Armenia and Russian troops to Kurdistan in the south.