Russian-Muslim Confrontation in the Caucasus: Alternative Visions of the Conflict between Imam Shamil and the Russians, 1830-1859

256 Pages·2004·1.93 MB·English

by  Gary Hamburg

RUSSIAN—MUSLIM
CONFRONTATION IN THE
CAUCASUS
This book presents two important texts, The Shining of Daghestani Swords by al-Qarakhi
and a new translation for a contemporary readership of Lev Tolstoi’s Hadji Murat,
illuminating the mountain war between the Muslim peoples of the Caucasus and the
imperial Russian army from 1830 to 1859. The editors offer a complete commentary on
the various intellectual and religious contexts that shaped the two texts and explain the
historical significance of the Russian—Muslim confrontation. It is shown that the
mountain war was a clash of two cultures, two religious outlooks and two different
worlds. The book provides an important background to the ongoing contest between
Russia and indigenous people for control of the Caucasus. The two translations are
accompanied by short introductions and by a longer commentary intended for readers
who desire a broader introduction to the tragic conflict in the Caucasus whose effects still
reverberate in the twenty-first century.
Thomas Sanders is Associate Professor of Russian History at the U.S. Naval
Academy. Ernest Tucker is Associate Professor of Middle East History at the U.S.
Naval Academy Gary Hamburg is Behr Professor of European History, Claremont—
McKenna College, U.S., specializing in the cultural and intellectual history of imperial
Russia.
SOAS/ROUTLEDGECURZON STUDIES
ON THE MIDDLE EAST
Series Editors
Benjamin C.Fortna, SOAS, University of London
Ulrike Freitag, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
This series features the latest disciplinary approaches to Middle Eastern Studies. It covers
the Social Sciences and the Humanities in both the pre-modern and modern periods of the
region. While primarily interested in publishing single-authored studies, the series is also
open to edited volumes on innovative topics, as well as textbooks and reference works.
ISLAMIC NATIONHOOD AND COLONIAL INDONESIA
The Umma below the winds
Michael Francis Laffan
RUSSIAN-MUSLIM CONFRONTATION IN THE CAUCASUS
Alternative visions of the conflict between Imam Shamil and the Russians, 1830–1859
Edited and Translated by Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker and Gary Hamburg
RUSSIAN—MUSLIM
CONFRONTATION IN THE
CAUCASUS
Alternative visions of the conflict between Imam Shamil
and the Russians, 1830–1859
Edited and translated by Thomas Sanders, Ernest
Tucker and Gary Hamburg
With an extended commentary ‘War of Worlds’
by Gary Hamburg

LONDON AND NEW YORK
First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New
York, NY 10001
RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis
or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
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© 2004 Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker and Gary Hamburg
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or
by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from
the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been
requested
ISBN 0-203-34389-1 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-38751-1 (Adobe e-Reader Format)
ISBN 0-415-32590-0 (Print Edition)
CONTENTS

Preface vi
Acknowledgments viii
Note on transliteration ix
Chronology x
Maps xi

Introduction 1

6
PART I

The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Certain Campaigns of Shamil (Selected 9
Passages)

Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY
ERNEST TUCKER AND THOMAS SANDERS

67
PART II

Lev Tolstoi, Hadji Murat 69
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY THOMAS SANDERS AND GARY
HAMBURG

152
PART III

War of worlds: A commentary on the two texts in their historical context 153

GARY HAMBURG

Glossary (compiled by Ernest Tucker) 224
Index 230
PREFACE
But surely he is great and holy because he is a man, a
madly and tormentingly beautiful man; a man of the whole
of mankind.
Maxim Gorky on Lev Tolstoi, Reminiscences of
Tolstoi, Chekhov and Andreev
There was one nation which would not give in, would not
acquire the mental habits of submission—and not just
individual rebels among them, but the whole nation to a
man. These were the Chechens…
Alexander Solzhenitsyn on the
Chechens, The Gulag Archipelago
This work began as a post-Soviet project and ended as more of a post-modernist one. In
the early 1990s, in dismay over the general level of misinformation on the history of
Russian—Chechen relations, we began to search for ways to alert the educated public to
the complexities of that history. An obvious point of reference for newcomers to the
Caucasus region is Lev Tolstoi’s posthumously published novella, Hadji Murat, whose
title character was a major figure in the mountain war of the mid-nineteenth century.
Unfortunately, English readers commonly encounter this little gem in the incomplete,
unsatisfactory rendition by Tolstoi’s English disciple, Aylmer Maude. The Maude
version is rife with archaic Anglicisms and punctuated by dialogue whose meaning is
sometimes as remote as the peaks of the Caucasus. We decided, therefore, to begin our
project by providing readers with a more accessible translation of Hadji Murat.
We also wanted our readers to have access to at least one indigenous account of the
Caucasus’s unhappy history. To capture the mountaineers’ voices, we chose to translate
Muhammad Tahir al-Qarakhi’s The Shining of Daghestani Swords in Certain Campaigns
of Shamil. A scribe who enjoyed the confidence of Imam Shamil, the military and
religious leader of the anti-Russian forces during the mountain war of 1830–1859, al-
Qarakhi was exceptionally well placed to know the principal events of the war and to
convey the mountaineers’ singular perspective on those events. Moreover, since The
Shining of Daghestani Swords derives from the Middle Eastern tradition of chronicling
and hagiography, our translation gives readers the chance to examine the formal
divergence between mountain techniques of representation and the more familiar
European genre of historical fiction.
Thus, our book presents two perspectives on the Caucasus: Tolstoi’s enlightened
European viewpoint and al-Qarakhi’s indigenous interpretation. The commentary at the
end of this work analyzes the war of worlds between imperial Russia and the Islamic
mountaineers. Because of the currency of the subject matter, the eminence of Tolstoi, and
the privileged proximity of al-Qarakhi to Imam Shamil and to the imam’s view of the
conflict, we think this book is an excellent case study of cultural collision. As such we
hope it will be of interest to specialists in Russian and Middle Eastern studies, to teachers
of world and European history courses, and to the educated public in the English-
speaking world and beyond.
Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker and Gary Hamburg
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book is very much a joint effort. Tucker translated al-Qarakhi directly from the
Arabic version of the text collated by the Soviet Arabist A.M.Barabanov. Sanders
translated Barabanov’s Russian variant of al-Qarakhi’s text into English too, and those
two English translations were utilized to prepare the translation presented here, one that
seeks to balance both fidelity and clarity. With the same goal in mind, Hamburg and
Sanders collaborated on the translation of Tolstoi from the Russian.
Tucker and Sanders wrote draft essays dealing with the mountain and Russian sides,
respectively. Hamburg incorporated that material into his commentary, significantly
extending and elaborating upon these preliminary essays. Students at Notre Dame and
midshipmen at the Naval Academy have read and reacted to the translations at various
points in the process, and their responses have helped refine the translation. As
colleagues at the Naval Academy Tucker and Sanders had the advantage of proximity in
consulting on issues relating to the texts. Hamburg, meanwhile, solicited an expert
reaction to the portion of the commentary on al-Qarakhi from his friend and colleague,
Paul M.Cobb. The Tolstoi section was read critically by Nancy L.Ickler. We wish to
thank Ivan Jaksic, Andrzej Walicki, and Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter for reading the
entire commentary and furnishing their constructive criticisms, and Jon Parshall for
creating the maps.
Sanders and Tucker received summer research support from the Kennan Institute and
from the Naval Academy Research Council, whose support they now gratefully
acknowledge. Hamburg gratefully acknowledges support from the History Department at
Claremont McKenna College, which reacted with warmth and critical discernment to his
commentary
Most importantly, Sanders would like to thank his wife Jolene and children Brooke
and Joseph; Tucker, his wife Sarah and children Claire and Carl; and Hamburg, his wife
Nancy and children Michael and Rachel. Without their support and devotion, this project
could not have happened.
We want our readers to know that executing this project has been an exhilarating
challenge that has paid us large intellectual dividends. We wish each reader comparable
rewards in coming to terms with that place beyond the Caucasus’s towering ridge where,
as the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov once hinted, genuine freedom may perhaps abide.
Thomas Sanders, Ernest Tucker and Gary Hamburg
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
In order to preserve the distinctive voices of the two texts, we have retained Arabic
versions of names in the al-Qarakhi translation but used the Russian versions of all names
in the Tolstoi translation. The glossary gives a list of important name variants. Arabic
adjectival versions of place names, such as “al-Qarakhi” for someone from Qarakh, are
also indicated in the glossary. In general, the versions of names used in this work are
taken from Moshe Gammer, Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of
Chechnia and Daghestan (London: Frank Cass, 1994), although diacritical marks have
been omitted. Note the following exceptions to this rule: “Baku” is used instead of
“Baqu” and “Hadji Murat” is preferred over “Hajimurad” since the former has become
the conventional Western spelling for Tolstoi’s work and for its main character.