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Khajar VERDIEVA
D.Sc. (Hist.), Senior research fellow at the Azerbaijan Studies Scientific Research Center, Baku State University (Baku, Azerbaijan).
THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE’S MIGRATION POLICY IN THE CAUCASUS
Abstract
After conquering the Caucasus, the Russian Empire carried out a target0 ed migration policy in order to create an ethnosocial base for establishing its political supremacy. The main thrust of this policy was colonization and the inculcation of Christianity. It led to serious demographic changes in the region: the
appearance of new foreign ethnic groups— Germans and Russians and an increase in the number of Christians in the Caucasian population, to name a few. These sociopolitical collisions resulted in the formation of the so-called Caucasian Knot, which is still an integral part of the global geopolitical system.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The Caucasus is one of the cradles of the human civilization. The geographical location of this region has long attracted the attention of foreign states wishing to conquer it or expand the sphere of their influence there. The new historical period has created several geopolitical problems for mankind, one of them being the Caucasian Question or Caucasian Knot—a definition used in Russian historiography.
The 18th-19th centuries were turning points in the history of the Caucasus. The many centuries of struggle by the leading world states to conquer the Caucasus ended in victory for the Russian Empire. New political and geographical realities appeared after it established its power there, i.e. the Northern Caucasus and the Transcaucasus, the emergence of which did not reflect the historical and
geographical gradations of the region. The Russian state based its reasoning on the fact that the area encompassing the territory to the south of the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range and included in the concept “Transcaucasus,” was located beyond the Caucasus. So to meet its imperial ambitions, Russia separated the nations of the region, introducing a gradation along the northern and southern parts of the Caucasus. Consequently, as certain political scientists of the post-Soviet period believe, the category “Transcaucasus” was a means for achieving czarist Russia’s political goal.1
As a result of Russia’s success, the geographical border of the Transcaucasus underwent vast changes. After the Peace Treaty of San Stefano was signed in 1878, the Russian Empire annexed the Kars Region located in the southwestern part of the Caucasus, incorporating it into the geographical framework of the Transcaucasus. But after losing this territorial entity during World War I, Russia later, on the basis of documents, no longer included it in this definition.
The southern part of Azerbaijan or the Southeastern Caucasus, being an integral component of the region as the result of the division of Azerbaijan (1828), became part of the Persian state and remained outside the attention of Russian, and then Soviet, historiography.
Keeping in mind both the special features of the Caucasus that historically developed and the present-day geopolitical reality in the region, and having rejected the Russian system with respect to this region, contemporary Russian political scientists divide the Caucasus as follows: Central, Northern, and Southern. In so doing, they consider it worth “to designate essentially new ways for developing the integration processes in the Caucasus.”2
On the basis of the above, it appears expedient to rely on the indicated gradation of the Caucasus, thus paying special attention to its Northern and Central parts.
How the Caucasus was Conquered
In the mid-16th century, Ivan the Terrible, after subduing Kazan and Astrakhan, was able to come right up to the Caucasus. From the geopolitical viewpoint, the latter was a component of the Eastern Question, which essentially focused on the rivalry among the great powers over the arc that included the territory from the Balkans to the Caucasus. What is more, the Caucasian region was an area where the economic trade interests of the leading European nations intercepted. After taking possession of the region, these nations tried to extend their sphere of influence in the East and become a dominating entity on the way to India.
The beginning of the 18th century ushered in a time of radical sociopolitical changes for Russia. After relinquishing Old Russia, Peter the Great tried to turn the country into a sea power in order to strengthen Russia’s position on the international arena. After successfully completing the Northern War (1700-1721) and taking possession of the Baltic Sea, Peter the Great was able to open “a window” to Europe. In so doing, the southern seas were also vitally important for strengthening the power of the empire in the international system. But at the beginning of the 18th century, Russia was unable to gain access to the Black Sea. The unsuccessful Prut campaign of 1711 deprived Peter the Great of the previous advantages he gained: Azov went to the Ottoman Empire, and the Russian ports built here were torn down. The leading European powers—England, France, and Austria—openly let Russia understand after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession that they would not tolerate its further advance in that direction. So, due to the military-political situation that developed, Peter the Great turned his attention to the Caucasus.
1 See: E. Ismailov, Z. Kengerli, “The Caucasus in the Globalizing World: A New Integration Model,” Central Asia and the Caucasus, No. 2 (20), 2003, pp. 139.
2 Ibid., p. 141.
As a result of Peter the Great’s Caspian campaign (1722), the western shore of the Caspian Sea was conquered, and the Istanbul Treaty (1724) enforced these Russian achievements in the international system. But after the emperor’s death, the Biron’s regime, which was established in Russia and was not interested in the Caucasian question, signed the Rasht (1732) and Ganja (1735) treaties and easily wrote off Peter’s conquests. But Empress Elizaveta Petrovna resolutely continued her father’s cause. During the years of her reign, the Black Sea problem, as well as the Caucasian question, became primary tasks in Russia’s foreign policy. Later, under Catherine II, after the Russian-Ottoman War of 1768-1774, the Kuchuk Kainarji Treaty (1774) strengthened Russia’s position in the Crimea and on the Azov coast and ultimately incorporated Kabarda into the Russian Empire, thus extending the sphere of its influence in the region.
The struggle for the Caucasus continued even after ratification of the Kuchuk Kainarji peace treaty. In 1783, the Crimea joined the empire and Russia gained supremacy in the North Black Sea Region. The same year it was able to reinforce its position in the Central Caucasus after signing the Treaty of Georgievsk with Irakly II, the ruler of the Kartli-Kakhetia czardom, who recognized Russia’s protectorate and declined from pursuing his own foreign policy.
Later, the Georgian Military Road was built in order to reinforce the czar’s influence in the Central Caucasus and link the Northern Caucasus with the Kartli-Kakhetia czardom. For the sake of security, in 1784, the Russian government built several fortification points, including the Vladikavkaz fortress, along the road from Mozdok to the entrance of the Daryal Pass.
But another Russian-Ottoman war (1787-1791) forced Russia to withdraw its troops from this territory. After the victory over the Ottomans and signing the Yassy Peace Treaty (1791), the Russian Empire firmly established its supremacy on the northern shores of the Black Sea and strove with all its might toward the Central Caucasus. After annexing the Kartli-Kakhetia czardom in 1801, it did not hide its true intentions, but began encroaching on Azerbaijan. With the support of the Western countries, the Persian state fought back in an effort to oust Russia from the Central Caucasus. The two Russian-Iranian wars ended in victory for the Russian Empire, and after signing the Turkmanchai Treaty (1828), the autocracy also incorporated the Central Caucasus into its political-geographic expanse.
Christianization— An Integral Part of the Russian Empire’s Colonial Policy in the Caucasus
During the conquering of the Caucasus, the czarist government carried out a targeted colonial policy in order to subdue this territory, the essence of which was to assimilate the local population and turn the Caucasus into an inviolable part of the Russian Empire. Christianization and the migration policy were the main components of this strategy.
By launching its campaign to conquer the Caucasus, Russia clearly understood that the Muslim region it seized would be a weak link in the state, since a population with an alien confession would not accept a foreign invasion. The empire’s ruling circles were very well aware that the recalcitrant region could not be ruled by the force of the sword, rather with the help of religious rapprochement between the metropolis and the colony, or, to be more exact, by introducing and inculcating Christianity in the Caucasus. So as early as the end of the 18th century, a Spiritual Ossetian Commission was created in Tiflis, the activity of which ceased at the turn of the 19th century due to the military-political processes in the region. The work of this missionary commission was revived on 30 August,
1814, and its main task was to spread Christianity among the Muslims of the Caucasus in order to enhance rapprochement with Russia.3
In those years in the Caucasus, representatives of alien-Orthodox teachings were also engaged in missionary activity in the Caucasus. The Scottish Missionary Society formed in Astrakhan on 22 June, 1815 on a decree of the Minister of the Interior carried out its activity in a narrower geographic area along the coast of the Caspian Sea, and its main goals were to spread and preach the Gospel in this territory.4
Along with the Scots, Christian missionaries from Switzerland also worked here, whose activity encompassed the territory “between the Black and the Caspian seas.”5 The Basel Missionary Evangelical Society entrusted the missionaries with the task of spreading Christianity in the Caucasus, being guided in so doing by the rules of the British and Foreign Evangelical Society.6 In turn, the Russian Empire entrusted the Basel missionaries with a task of its own: to create an “academy and printing shop [between the Black and Caspian seas] for spreading Christianity among the pagans and Mohammedans.”7
The work of the foreign Christian missionary societies did not yield the anticipated results. The indigenous people of the Caucasus did not show the expected interest in Christianity, only isolated cases were recorded. This situation did not meet the tasks of the Russian Empire’s Christianization policy in the Caucasus, and the official representatives of the czarist government came to the conclusion that the missionaries sent by the Edinburgh and Basel societies were of no help to the nation in spreading and inculcating Christianity in the conquered areas. So the activity of the Scottish and Basel missionaries was stopped and a society for spreading the Orthodox faith created instead.8 But in so doing Russia’s ruling circles did not understand the simple truth that Islam and the Muslim culture had been the determining factors in the self-consciousness of the Caucasian population for many centuries and it was not that easy to convert them to Christianity. The perturbed czarist officials, who did not take this reality into account, decided to spread Orthodox-style Christianity in the conquered areas in order to strengthen Russian power. Nor did the activity of the Spiritual Ossetian Commission meet the state interests of the Russian Empire. For this purpose, on 13 April, 1829, the Holy Synod issued a decree on establishing the rules for forming a Missionary Society in the Caucasus, which was supposed to promote the pacification, appeasement, and development of the area. Its priority task was “to bring the mountain-dwellers closer to the government, pacify the area, and promote universal well-being.”9
However, it was not until 1860 that the Society for Restoring Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus was created in the region in order to spread Orthodoxy and the Ossetian Spiritual Commission abolished.10 This society was entrusted with restoring and maintaining the old Christian churches and monasteries in the Caucasus, building new churches and parish schools, and distributing the Holy Gospels among them.
During these years, Orthodox facilities were built in the Caucasus with the approval of the Russian administration: in 1854, the St. George church was built in the village of Gakh (Azerbaijan) and, in 1889-1898, the Alexander Nevsky church was built in Baku.11 This process also continued at the
3 See: Acts collected by the Caucasian Archeographic Commission (hereafter—ACAC), Vol. VIII, Tiflis, 1881, pp. 248, 249, 253.
4 See: Ibid., p. 312, doc. 229.
5 Ibid., p. 319, doc. 232.
6 See: S. Zelinskiy, “Plemennoi sostav, religia i proiskhozhdenie gosudarstvennykh krestian,” in: Svod materialov po izucheniiu ekonomicheskogo byta gosudarstvennykh krestian Zakavkazskogo kraia (hereafter—Svod MIEBGKZK), Vol. II, Tiflis, 1887, p. 42.
7 ACAC, Vol. VIII, p. 320, doc. 232.
8 See: Ibid., p. 320, doc. 232; p. 256, doc. 172.
9 Ibid., p. 258, doc. 172.
10 See: ACAC, Vol. XII, Tiflis, 1904, p. 526, doc. 456; p. 529, doc. 459.
11 See: Kh. Verdieva, Pereselencheskaia politika Rossiiskoi imperii v Severnom Azerbadzhane, Altai Publishers, Baku, 1999, p. 43.
beginning of the 20th century, for example, in February 1906, the chief superintendent of land planning and farming in the Caucasus approved projects to build the Orthodox Salyan cathedral of Peter and Paul and Zuyd-Ostrovo-Kultuk cathedral of St. Nicholas.12
Churches were also built on subsidies provided by the Society for Restoring Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus. On 8 August, 1904, on the occasion of the birth of the heir to the Russian throne, the Society’s council adopted a decision to build a church in Tiflis in honor of Hierarch Alexiy. The Society also built other churches in the Caucasus during these years, for example, in the village of Shvatskali of the Sukhumi eparchy, in the village of Kelmechurakh of the Signakh uezd, and in the Jelal parish of the Gori uezd.13 An active campaign to build Orthodox churches in the region for inculcating Christianity achieved a certain amount of success: by 1913, 18 such churches functioned in the borough of Baku alone.14
Summing up the above-mentioned facts, it can be stated that the Russian Empire deliberately inculcated Christianity in the region in order to establish and strengthen state power in the Caucasus. In so doing, the stakes were placed on the Orthodox confession, the main task of which was confessional assimilation and turning the Caucasus into an inalienable part of the empire.
But certain representatives of post-Soviet Russian historiography believe that the Russian Empire did not conduct a policy aimed at spreading Christianity in the Caucasus, and on the whole there were only isolated attempts to Russify the indigenous people of the region.15 But, relying on extensive facts, we cannot agree with the views of these researchers.
Special Features of Russian Colonization in the Caucasus
Since ancient times, conquering states have carried out a migration policy in the countries they conquered in order to reinforce their political power. In order to strengthen their positions in the conquered lands the Sasanids and later the Arabian caliphate carried out a migration policy aimed at creating a social base.
By beginning its expansionist policy with respect to the Caucasus, Russia also tried to turn this region into an inalienable part of the empire. As early as the end of the 19th century, the supporters of the autocracy believed that “Russia had spent too much money to be able to give up the Caucasus, and the Caucasus would forever be a fundamental and inalienable part of Russia,”16 “the nature of which contradicts the intrinsic separation of suburbs or individual regions.”17 At the end of the 18th century, the Russian state began incorporating foreign, foreign-language, and foreign-confessional ele-ments—Russians, Germans, and Armenians—into the ethnoconfessional composition of the Caucasian population. This infiltration process was part of the empire’s colonial policy. As one of its components, the migration policy pursued certain goals: to incorporate the Christian ethnic groups into the ethnoconfessional nomenclature of the Caucasian population, create an ethnoconfessional base, and carry out Russian colonization. Its primary aim was to absorb the Caucasus in every way—politically, ethnically, militarily, economically, ideologically, and religiously.
12 State Historical Archives of the Azerbaijan Republic (hereafter—SHAAR), rec. gr. 13, inv. 1, f. 319, sheet 4.
13 See: Review of the Activity of the Society for Restoring Orthodox Christianity in the Caucasus for 1860-1910. General Description of the Society’s Activity for the Period under Report, Tiflis, 1910, pp. 10-11.
14 SHAAR, rec. gr. 46, inv. 3, f. 458, sheet 32.
15 See: V. Chebotareva, Narkomnats RSFSR: svet i teni natsional’noi politiki 1917-1924 gg., Moscow, 2003, p. 31.
16 V. Kovalevskiy, Istoria zavoevaniia Kavkaza, Vol. 2, St. Petersburg, 1915, p. 270.
17 V. Velichko, Kavkaz. Russkoe delo i mezhduplemennye voprosy, St. Petersburg, 1904, p. 186.
When studying this problem, we found an unusual approach to the North and South gradation in Russia’s migration policy in the Caucasus: whereas in the Northern Caucasus it was based on Russian colonization, in the Central Caucasus, the emphasis was placed on the Armenians. It was believed that “according to united Christianity and under the protection of the Russian government, they nurtured fundamental devotion to the Russian leadership for their own benefit.”18
After the Kuchuk Kainarji Peace Treaty was signed, the southern borders of the Russian Empire encompassed the territory as far as the Kuban River, in other words, conquest of the Northern Caucasus had begun. In order to reinforce its borders, Russia engaged in colonization in this part of the region in order to prevent the emergence of a Fifth Column. It was not until the last quarter of the 18th century that Cossack stanitsas were created at the Pavlovskaia, Mariinskaia, and Georgievskaia fortresses. Four thousand Russian peasants from the Kursk, Voronezh, and Tambov gubernias were also settled here.19 Then, after the Yassy Peace Treaty was signed, the number of Cossacks in the area from Taman along the right-hand bank of the Kuban River reached 25,000 people. Later Russians, mainly natives from the Don, also came to live in this area.20 In the 19th century, Russian colonization continued in the Northern Caucasus, and the Ukrainian Cossacks formed its social base.21
During the conquering of the Caucasus, Russia, which was interested in rapid subjugation of the region, resettled German colonists in the Northern Caucasus from the Volga area. For example, on 27 October, 1778, Catherine II approved a special report On the Resettlement of Colonists from the Meadow Side of the Volga to the Line Drawn Between Mozdok and Azov.22 But until the mid-19th century, migration of the German colonists to the Northern Caucasus was spontaneous, and five German colonies were not registered in the Northern Caucasus until the end of the 1840s.23
The first Christian migrants were German separatists who came from the Wurttemberg kingdom. The Russian government offered them privileges and subsidies. But the ruling circles later became disillusioned in the German migrants and considered it inexpedient for them to remain any longer in the Central Caucasus, where they had been endowed with the role of culture inculcators and Christian missionaries.24 But facts prove the opposite and emphasize the diligence, orderliness, and temperance of the migrants from the Wurttemberg kingdom.25 Subsequently, German migration was halted. But the colonists who settled in the Central Caucasus, and in particular in Northern Azerbaijan, were well remembered in Azerbaijan’s history, becoming a topic of study for certain researchers of domestic historiography.
Russia’s ruling circles explained their Armenian colonization policy of Azerbaijan by the fact that the Armenians, being Eastern Christians, were allegedly more “adapted” than others to the standards of living in the Eastern countries. For they lived primarily in Muslim states and were very well adapted to the changed political and confessional conditions.
The specifics of the Russian Empire’s migration policy in the Central Caucasus, as well as in the conquered lands of Azerbaijan in the first half of the 19th century, consisted in its striving to decrease the size of the Azerbaijani population and, after incorporating the foreign, unorthodox, and alien-lan-guage component into the monolithic mass of the followers of Islam, create an alien-Muslim confessional base. As a result, after signing the Turkmanchai and Adrianople peace treaties, the czarist authorities settled 119,500 Armenians in Northern Azerbaijan.26 In the subsequent decades of the
18 N. Dubrovin, Istoria voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, Vol. 4, St. Petersburg, 1879, p. 44.
19 See: Istoria narodov Severnogo Kavkaza s drevneyshikh vremion do kontsa XVIII v., ed. by B. Piotrovskiy, Moscow, 1988, p. 373.
20 Ibidem.
21 See: Caucasian Calendar (hereafter—CC) for 1917, Tiflis, 1916, General Section, p. 250.
22 See: T. Plokhotniuk, Rossiiskie nemtsy na Severnom Kavkaze, Moscow, 2001, p. 6.
23 See: Ibid., p. 7.
24 See: ACAC, Vol. VIII, p. 320, doc. 232; S. Shelukhin, Nemetskaia kolonizatsiia, Odessa, 1915, p. 44.
25 See: P. Basikhin, “Nemetskie kolonii na Kavkaze,” Kavkazskiy vestnik (Tiflis), No. 1, 1900, p. 22.
26 See: Kh. Verdieva, Naselenie Severnogo Azerbaidzhana v pervoi polovine XIX veka, Baku, 1993, p. 27.
19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, migration of the Armenians to the Central Caucasus continued. As a result, their percentage rose, and the number at the beginning of the 20th century in the Central Caucasus, not counting the Tiflis and Kutaisi gubernias, reached 1,208,615 people.27
In the first third of the 19th century, the Russian Empire also settled Russians in the Central Caucasus. In so doing, at this historical time, the social base of Russian colonization consisted of sectarians and dissidents, and on the whole this colonization was not consistent or orderly. The growth rates in the number of Russians in the Central Caucasus did not meet the demands of the Russian Empire’s colonization plans, whereby the domination of Armenian colonization confirmed the “misalignments” in the empire’s migration policy.
When drawing attention to the empire’s mistakes in its migration policy in this region of the Caucasus, N. Shavrov, a supporter of pre-revolutionary Russia, pointed out: “We did not begin our colonization activity with exiling Russians to the Transcaucasus, but with exiling foreigners.”28 Supporting N. Shavrov’s viewpoint, another Russian supporter, G. Evreinov, noted: “The Transcaucasus is a vast area for Russian colonization.”29 F. Gershelman also believed that “the Armenians do not guarantee political reliability.”30 As early as the end of the 19th century, the Russian Empire systematically settled Orthodox Russian peasants in the region from the central gubernias, adhering to the well-known thesis of great Russian ideology: “Russian state power in the Caucasus was indeed there to be Russian,”31 thus strengtheningRussia’s might and prosperity.32
As a result of the new wave of Russian colonization of the Central Caucasus, 89 migrant settlements formed in the Mil and Mugan steppes of Northern Azerbaijan alone at the beginning of the 20th century,33 and at the beginning of the 20th century, the size of the Russian population in the Central Caucasus alone amounted to more than 350,050 people.34
On the whole, Russian colonization of the entire Caucasus was targeted and systematic and a single goal was pursued—to colonize, Christianize, and Russify the land acquired by the force of arms, gradually and ubiquitously incorporating them into the empire.
Results of the Russian Empire’s Migration Policy in the Caucasus
When conquering the Caucasus, the Russian Empire carried out consistent and targeted resettlement of foreign ethnic groups: Germans, Russians, and Armenians. During colonization of the region, priority went to Christianization and Russification, which resulted in qualitative-quantitative changes in the ethnoconfessional structure of the Caucasian population. For example, new ethnic groups, Germans and Russians, appeared in the ethnic nomenclature of the region’s population during the period being studied. The former were able to adjust to the uncustomary climatic conditions and
27 See: Kh. Verdieva, Pereselencheskaia politika Rossiiskoi imperii v Severnom Azerbaijane, p. 234.
28 N. Shavrov, “Novaia ugroza russkomu delu v Zakavkazie: predstoiashchaia rasprodazha Mugani inorodtsam,” in: Istoria Azerbaidzhana po dokumentam i publikatsiiam, Baku, 1990, p. 63.
29 G. Evreinov, Natsional’nye voprosy na inorodcheskikh okrainakh Rossii, St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 103.
30 D. Gershelman, Prichiny neuriadits na Kavkaze, St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 70.
31 A. Liprandi, A. Volynets, Kavkaz i Rossia, Kharkov, 1911, p. 9.
32 See: N. Shavrov, Russkiy put’ v Zakavkazie, St. Petersburg, 1883, p. 3.
33 See: Kh. Verdieva, Pereselencheskaia politika Rossiiskoi imperii v Severnom Azerbaijane v XIX—nachale XX vekov, Author’s paper for defense of a doctor of historical sciences degree, Baku, 2005, p. 37.
34 See: Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis naselenia Rossiiskoi imperii 1897g., St. Petersburg, 1905, Iss. LXVI, pp. 272-273; St. Petersburg, 1905. Iss. LXIX; CC for 1917, Tiflis, 1916, pp. 178, 182, 194, 218-219.
subjectively unfair attitude of the Russian government circles, and their number in the Caucasus at the beginning of the 20th century reached more than 90,000 people.35
The Russians who settled in the Caucasus in the 18th century were also a new element in the ethnoconfessional structure of the region’s population. Intensified and targeted Russian colonization had a certain effect. For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, the number of Russians in the Northern and Central Caucasus amounted to more than 3,760,000 people.36 An interesting point in this colonization was that the Northern Caucasus accounted for the lion’s share of Russians— 3,492,912 people,37 which proves the thesis about the total Russian colonization of this region.
Organized and consistent migration of Armenians due to the establishment of Russian supremacy in the Caucasus dramatically increased their percentage in the ethnic composition of the Caucasian population. The number of these people in the region at the beginning of the 20th century reached more than 1,400,000 people.38 Most of the Armenian population was concentrated in particular in the historical lands of Azerbaijan—in the Baku, Elisabethpol, and Irevan gubernias.
The demographic changes of this time also occurred as a result of the national-liberation movement of the peoples of the Caucasian Region. The general resistance of the Caucasian people was not repressed by Russia until 1864 when the Caucasus ultimately fell under Russian domination. The Circassians “living beyond the Kuban, who had lost the hope of engaging in further resistance after the fall of Shamil, moved en masse to Turkey.”39 In those years, according to V. Linden, 470,000 Circassians left their native land.40 The Caucasian people were also subjected to forced resettlement—deportation. In order to crush the resistance of the Caucasian people, the Russian authorities moved them from the mountains to the Maikop, Ekaterninodar, and other uezds.41 As a result, in 1915, there were only 131,662 people from among all the mountain-dwellers in the Kuban Region with a total population size in the region of 2,598,205 people.42
But, unable to reconcile themselves to the foreign domination, the Caucasian people continued their struggle. At that time, the Azerbaijani people expressed their protest against the Russian dominance, which was reflected in the movement of Gachags that lasted until the fall of the Romanov dynasty and the years of Soviet power (until the end of the 1940s).
The Russian authorities mercilessly suppressed the resistance of the Caucasian peoples. The national-liberation struggle of the Ajars during World War I was drowned in blood. For example, in the Chorokh valley alone as a result of the actions of Governor-General of the Batumi Region Liakhov, 45,000 Ajars were exterminated and the rest of them filled the ranks of refugees of Caucasian
Muslims.43
Unable to reconcile themselves to the supremacy of the autocracy, the Caucasian people would not accept the establishment of Soviet power in the Caucasus either. The Ganja revolt of 1920, the Sheki revolt of 1930 in Azerbaijan, and the uprising of the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, and Ingushes against Soviet power during World War II confirm the unbroken spirit of the freedom and independence fighters. In response, the Bolsheviks deported entire nationalities, and this had a serious effect on
35 See: Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis naselenia Rossiiskoi imperii 1897g., St. Petersburg, 1905. Iss. LXIX; CC for 1917, pp. 224-235; Kh. Verdieva, Pereselencheskaia politika Rossiiskoi imperii v Severnom Azerbaijane, p. 226.
36 See: CC for 1916, pp. 30-39; CC for 1917, pp. 198-201, 214-217, 224-235; Kh. Verdieva, Pereselencheskaia politika Rossiiskoi imperii v Severnom Azerbaijane v XIX—nachale XX vekov, Author’s paper, p. 40.
37 See: CC for 1917, pp. 224-235.
38 See: CC for 1917, pp. 198-201, 214-237, 224-235; Kh. Verdieva, Pereselencheskaia politika Rossiiskoi imperii v Severnom Azerbaijane, p. 234.
39 V. Linden, “Kratkiy istoricheskiy ocherk bylogo obshchestvenno-politicheskogo pozemel’nogo stroia narodnos-tei, naseliaiushchikh musul’manskie rayony Kavkazskogo Kraia,” in: CC for 1916, General Section, p. 252.
40 See: Ibid., p. 252.
41 See: Ibidem.
42 See: Ibidem.
43 See: T. Swietochowski, “Russkiy Azerbaijan,” Khazar, No. 1, 1990, p. 85; SHAAR, rec. gr. 335, inv. 1, f. 1.
the ethnoconfessional nomenclature of the Caucasian population. Until the collapse of the U.S.S.R., the Meskhetian Turks and Crimean Tatars were deprived of one of their fundamental rights—the right to live in their homeland. All of this led to serious demographic changes. According to the data of the 1989 census, the number of Circassians amounted to 52,363 people, and there was a total of 271,715 Crimean Tatars throughout the Union. These data graphically show the serious consequences of the colonization processes in the Caucasus.
C o n c l u s i o n
In this way, the Russian Empire’s migration policy in the Caucasus resulted in sociopolitical collisions in the region’s history which continue to give the Caucasian Knot special significance in the system of international relations today. For example, the Karabakh, Ossetian, Abkhazian, Ajarian, Meskhetian questions, which are integral parts of this knot, are being used in the geopolitical games of the leading world powers to expand their spheres of influence in the region.
