4. Adygs and Nogais: socio-economic, political and cultural development in the 16th - early 18th centuries.

1. Turkic-speaking nomads in the Kuban region.

The Middle Ages is usually called the period in European history that lasted from the 4th century. by the 15th c. The period of the early Middle Ages - 4-5 centuries. called the era of the "great migration of peoples." If we talk about the Kuban, this is the replacement of Iranian-speaking nomads by Turkic-speaking ones. Xiongnu - this was the name of a powerful tribal union moving from Northern China to the West. They included various tribes: Ugrians, Sarmatians, Turks. In Europe they were called Huns. In the 4th c. The Huns invaded the Kuban region. The Goths were the first to experience their blow. The power of Germanamiha in the Black Sea region fell. Part of the Goths fled to the Roman Empire to escape, part entered the Hunnic Union, and only a small part remained in the Black Sea region. The Gothic historian Jordanes, describing the Huns, said that “the Huns are the children of evil spirits and witches; they are centaurs."

The Huns conquered the Alans, destroyed the cities of the Bosporus. Following them, a wave of Turkic-speaking nomads moved into the steppe. The empire of the Huns was created in the steppes. It consisted of multi-ethnic tribes and was united by the force of arms. Attila was at the head. The bulk of the Huns moved from the steppes of the Kuban region further to the West, those who remained in the Black Sea region received the name Akatsir in the sources.

The earliest Turkic-speaking groups affected by the Hunnic movement appeared in the Kuban - the Bulgarians, who came from the Volga. They appeared on the historical arena in 354, and in the 5th-7th centuries. occupied all the steppes and foothill zones of Ciscaucasia. The Bulgarians were included in the Hunnic state.

2. Medieval states on the territory of the region: Turkic Khaganate, Great Bulgaria, Khazar Khaganate, Tmutarakan Principality.

In 576, the steppes of the North-Western Caucasus were united as part of the 1st Turkic Khaganate (center in Mongolia). All the tribes that entered the Khaganate began to be called Huns.

Hunnic-Bulgarian nomads of the Azov and Black Sea regions in the 6th century were tribes divided into several military-political organizations. Each tribe was headed by a ruler - a khan. The governor of the North Caucasian steppes of the Turkic Khaganate was Turksanf.

In 630, the Western Turkic Khaganate collapsed. The consolidation of the nomadic tribes of the North Caucasus began. So, in the eastern Ciscaucasia, the Khazar state is being formed, in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, the two main unions utigut and kutrigut, having concluded an agreement, absorb all the Bulgarian peoples. In 635, Kubrat, the Khan of the Kuban Bulgarians, united the Azov and Black Sea Bulgarians, as well as part of the Alans and Bosporans, into a state - Great Bulgaria. The main territory of Great Bulgaria is the steppes of the right bank of the Kuban, Taman, the Stavropol Upland, sometimes the left bank of the Kuban. Phanagoria became the center of the new state. Phanagoria was located in a very advantageous place.

In the middle of the 7th century, after the death of Kubrat, the state broke up into a number of independent hordes. Among them stood out the hordes of the sons of Kubrat Khans Batbay and Asparuh. At the same time, taking advantage of the weakening of Great Bulgaria, Khazaria expanded its borders at the expense of the steppes. Under the onslaught of the Khazars, Khan Asparukh moved to the Danube, where, together with the Slavs, he invaded Thrace. Having settled in Thrace, the Bulgarians were assimilated by the Slavs, leaving, however, their name to them and giving the name to the country. The eldest son of Kubrat Khan Batbay (Batbayan, Bayan) remained in the Kuban and submitted to the Khazars, but enjoyed relative independence. The Bulgarians paid tribute to the Khazars, but pursued an independent foreign policy.

In the Kuban settlements of the Bulgarians of the 8th-10th centuries. were of an open type (without fortifications). The population led a settled way of life. Cattle breeding was the leading form of economy. Of the crafts, pottery was widespread. The production of iron and products from it was also developed.

In the 7th century the eastern coast of the Sea of ​​Azov and the lower reaches of the Kuban were included in the Khazar Khaganate. The Khazars are Turkic-speaking tribes, from the 5th c. settled in the territory of the Lower Volga region and the North Caucasus. The Khazar Khaganate occupied the territory from the Caspian to the Black Seas and was a powerful military power. The capital of the kaganate was Semender in Dagestan, and later Itil on the Volga. At the end of the 7th c. Phanagoria became the center of the Khazar administration in the Kuban region, and from the 9th century. the administration of Southwestern Khazaria passed to Germonass. The city received a different name - Tumen-tarkhan, the Circassians called it Tamtarkay, the Greeks - Tamatarkha, the Russians - Tmutarakan. From Tumen-Tarkhan it was possible to control the Kerch Strait and the entire Taman.

Trade and agriculture played an important role in the khanate. The central government gave independence to the provinces. The state religion of the kaganate since the 8th century. became Judaism. Over time, the power of the kaganate began to weaken, subordinate tribes rebelled, separatism was observed in the provinces. The outskirts of the kaganate began to outstrip the center in development. In the steppe regions of our region, Guzes, or Torks, who came in the second half of the 9th century, began to settle. from the Lower Volga. They began to destroy the Khaganate, and in 965 the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav finally defeated Khazaria. The movement of the Circassians from the foothills to the Kuban began again.

Following Svyatoslav in the 70-80s. 10th c. Pechenegs appear in the steppes - Turkic tribes. They destroy agricultural cultures, Bulgarian settlements. There is an outflow of steppes to the foothills. Pechenegs in the 11th century. are replaced by Polovtsy (self-name - Cumans). The Polovtsians waged wars with farmers in the southern Russian steppes. The basis of their economy is nomadic cattle breeding. In the 12th century The social system of the Polovtsy is changing: from military democracy they are moving to a feudal society. The social stratification of the Polovtsy was as follows: khans (rulers), feudal lords (warriors), ordinary nomads, black people (dependent). The formation of the Polovtsian statehood was interrupted in the 13th century. Mongol-Tatars, the nobility was destroyed, the population was subjugated by the Horde.

After the defeat of the Khazar Khaganate (965), the Kyiv prince Svyatoslav with his retinue moved to Taman and captured the city of Tumen-tarkhan, which the Russians called Tmutarakan. At the end of the 10th c. (988) under Prince Vladimir, Tmutarakan and Kerch with agricultural districts formed the territory of the Tmutarakan principality, which became part of Kievan Rus. Vladimir's son Mstislav was sent to reign in Taman. Tmutarakan was a major political and economic center. The population was multi-ethnic: Russians, Greeks, Jews, kosogs, etc. Mstislav, nicknamed Udaly, took tribute from local tribes. During his reign, the Tmutarakan principality experienced a period of prosperity. The principality controlled the Don, Kuban, Lower Volga and determined the policy of the entire North Caucasus.

After the death of Mstislav, Tmutarakan became a place for outcast princes. Since 1094, Tmutarakan has not been mentioned in Russian chronicles. The Polovtsy cut off the Tmutarakan principality from Kievan Rus. The city began to submit to Byzantium. Under the Genoese (13th century), the Matrega fortress was built on the site of Tmutarakan. The city was involved in world trade with Western Europe and the East. In the 15th century The Taman Peninsula became part of the Crimean Khanate.

3. Italian colonization of the Northern Black Sea region.

From the second half of the 13th c. by the 15th c. on the shores of the Black and Azov seas there were colonies founded by the inhabitants of Genoa. The Mongol-Tatar invasion disrupted trade between the West and the East. It was necessary to look for new trade routes to the East. And they were found - through the Azov and Black seas. A fierce struggle flared up between Genoa, Venice, Byzantium for possession of the northern coast of the Black Sea. In this battle, Genoa won.

On the coast of the Black and Azov Seas, 39 trading settlements (ports, marinas, parking lots) were founded, stretching from Taman to modern Sukhumi. Kafa (Feodosia) in the Crimea became the center of the Genoese colonies. On the territory of our region, the Genoese founded the cities of Matrega (modern Taman), Kopa (Slavyansk-on-Kuban), Mapa (Anapa).

The main form of colonial activity of the Genoese in the Northwestern Caucasus was intermediary trade. With the local Adyghe population, it was of an exchange nature, because. Circassians were subsistence farming. Agricultural goods, fish, timber, and slaves were exported from the Black Sea. Imports were salt, soap, colored glass, ceramics, jewelry. By the 14th-15th centuries. numerous uprisings of the local population broke out against the Genoese merchants. In the 15th century the threat to the Genoese began to come from the Turks. By the end of the 15th century they captured the Crimea and the Caucasus, which were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire.

Genoese dominance in the Northern Black Sea region had both negative and positive aspects. The former include the predatory nature of their trade and management, the slave trade, which hampered the development of the Adyghe society. The positive aspects include the accelerated differentiation of the Adyghe society, cultural exchange between peoples, some improvement in the material life of the Adyghes.

4. Adygs and Nogais: socio-economic, political and cultural development in the 16th - early 18th centuries.

In the period of the early Middle Ages, the Adyghe tribes lived on the territory of the region. Adygs - the collective name of a group of related tribes of the North Caucasus. In Europe they were called Circassians. From the 15th century Circassians became dependent on the Crimean Khanate.

The main occupation of the Circassians is agriculture. Horticulture and gardening were developed. The Circassians were also engaged in cattle breeding, paid great attention to horse breeding. Trade was poorly developed and existed in the form of barter. Before the active Turkish expansion, the Circassians mostly professed Christianity.

By the middle of the 16th century, the Circassians, who lived in the foothills of the left bank of the Kuban, were completing the process of decomposition of patriarchal-clan relations. And by the second half of the 18th century, the class structure characteristic of feudal society took shape among the Western Circassians and Nogais. At the top of the emerging feudal social hierarchical ladder among the Circassians were pshi- princes who were the owners of the land and the population living on it. The closest vassals of the Adyghe princes - pshi were smoldering, which means "strong race" or "born of the mighty." Having received land and power, they distributed plots of land between workami – nobles who were somewhat lower in the hierarchical ladder, and community members - tfa boilers, receiving from them labor and natural rent. Another category of peasants were the pshitli serfs. They were in land and personal dependence on feudal owners.

The main feature of feudal relations among the Circassians was feudal ownership of land. The features of mountain feudalism also include the presence of such patriarchal tribal remnants as kunachestvo (twinning), atalism, mutual assistance, and blood feud. Atalychestvo is a custom according to which a child after birth was transferred to be raised in another family.

Internal trade was poorly developed due to subsistence economy, it had the character of simple commodity exchange. The Circassians did not have a merchant class and there was no monetary system.

Turkic-Mongolian tribes lived on the Right-Bank Kuban Nogais, who led a mostly nomadic life and were engaged in cattle breeding. Their murzas (mirzas) - large feudal lords, heads of individual hordes and clans - owned several thousand heads of cattle. In general, the feudal elite, small in number (four percent of the population), owned approximately two-thirds of the entire nomadic herd. The uneven distribution of the main wealth - livestock - was at the heart 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 commander. In fact, by this time the horde had already broken up into smaller formations, loosely connected both with each other and with the supreme ruler. At the head of these uluses were murza who have achieved hereditary transfer of their ownership rights. A significant stratum of the Nogai nobility was made up of the Muslim clergy - akhuns, qadis, etc. The lower strata of Nogai society included free peasant cattle breeders. The next group was chagars- serfs, who were both economically and personally dependent on the top of the Nogai feudal lords. At the lowest rung of Nogai society, there were slaves. The Nogais professed the Muslim religion.

A feature of nomadic feudalism among the Nogais was the preservation of the community. However, 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 delayed the development of a single socio-political organization. Neither the Trans-Kuban Circassians nor the Nogais developed a single state. The natural nature of the economy, the absence of cities and sufficiently developed economic ties, the preservation of patriarchal remnants - all these were the main reasons for feudal fragmentation in the North-Western Caucasus.

M.V. Pokrovsky

From the history of the Circassians at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century

Essay first. Socio-economic situation of the Circassians in the late 18th - first half of the 19th centuries

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 In the low Kuban zone, distinguished by its fertile soils, sedentary agriculture developed very early. The author of this work has repeatedly managed to find in the cultural layer of ancient Meotian-Sarmatian settlements and in cemeteries dated 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 Shapsug reservoir on the left bank of the river. Afips, near Krasnodar. During the construction of the dam of the reservoir, an ancient burial ground with soil and barrow burials of the 13th-15th centuries was unearthed. and the territory of the settlement adjacent to it, belonging to the same time. Among other items, iron sickles and shares for plows, stone millstones, ketmen for uprooting bushes and other tools were found, indicating a 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 hammers, tongs, etc.).

The same finds were also 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) an order by A. Golovaty dated December 16, 1792, instructing the head of the Taman detachment, Savva Bely, to organize the purchase of cereal seeds from the mountaineers for the settlers of the Black Sea Cossack army; 2) a report from the ataman of the Black Sea Cossack army Kotlyarevsky to Emperor Paul I, in which it was reported that due to an acute shortage of bread in the newly founded army, it was necessary to order to supply “the Cossacks on the border guard with bread exchanged for salt from Zakubans”.

Considering all that has been said, one should resolutely abandon the rather widespread view that agriculture among the Adyghes in the 17th-18th centuries. supposedly had an extremely primitive character. S. M. Bronevsky, describing the economic life of the Circassians at the beginning of the 19th century, wrote: “Agriculture is divided into three main sectors: agriculture, horse farms and cattle breeding, including cattle and sheep. Circassians plow the land with plows like Ukrainian ones, to which several pairs of bulls are harnessed. Millet is sown more than any bread, then Turkish wheat (corn), spring wheat, spelt and barley. They reap bread with ordinary sickles; they thresh bread with balbs, that is, they trample and grind the ears of corn by means of horses or bulls harnessed to a board on which a burden is heaped, just as in Georgia and Shirvan. The ground straw, together with the chaff and part of the grains, is given as feed for 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, everyone in the garden has a tobacco bed. There can be no doubt that the level of development of agriculture described by S. M. Bronevsky was achieved on the basis of the old local agricultural culture.

The role of agriculture in the life of the Circassians was also reflected in their pagan pantheon. Khan Giray reported that in the 40s of the XIX century. the image, personifying the deity of agriculture Sozeresh, 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 Sozeresh night, which coincided with the Christian holiday of Christmas, the image of Sozeresh was transferred from the barn to the house. Sticking wax candles to the branches and hanging pies and pieces of cheese on it, they put it on pillows and prayed.

It is quite natural, of course, that the mountain strip of the Western Caucasus was less convenient for arable farming than the Kuban lowland. That's why. cattle breeding, horticulture and horticulture 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.

The cattle breeding of the Adyghes 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, cattle were grazing even in winter. In fact. in winter, he descended from mountain pastures into the 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 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 abundance of meadows contributed to the widespread development of cattle breeding. Huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and herds of horses grazed on rich hayfields and pastures.

Indirectly, the size of cattle breeding and its nature can be obtained from the data of M. Paysonel, who reported that the highlanders annually slaughtered up to 500 thousand sheep and sold up to 200 thousand cloaks. Information about exports 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.

Among the pastoralists, the traits and remnants of the tribal system were especially pronounced. For example, in autumn, some families drove one of their cows, intended as a sacrifice to the god Ahin, into the sacred grove, tying pieces of bread and cheese to her horns. The local inhabitants accompanied the sacrificial animal, which was called the self-walking Achin's cow, and then slaughtered it. Ahin - the patron of herds of cattle - clearly belonged to the old pagan religion with its cult of communal sacred places, groves and trees, with common aul prayers and sacrifices. It is characteristic that at the place where the animal was slaughtered, the skin was not removed from it, and where it was removed, meat was not cooked; where they cooked it, they did not eat it, but they did all this, moving in turn from one place to another. It is possible that in these features of the sacrificial ritual, the features of the ancient nomadic life of pastoralists were manifested. Subsequently, they acquired the character of a religious rite, accompanied by the singing of special prayer songs.

It should be noted, however, that c. the period of time we are considering (the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century), property differentiation sharply increases among pastoralists. A large number of livestock were concentrated in their hands by princes, nobles, foremen and many wealthy community members - tfokotli. The labor of slaves and serfs was quite widely used during haymaking and fodder for livestock. From the end of the XVIII century. peasants began to show strong dissatisfaction with the capture of the best pastures by local feudal lords.

By the end 18th century horse factories owned by princes and wealthy elders acquired great importance. According to S. M. Bronevsky, many of them supplied horses to various Adyghe peoples and even, strange as it may seem, regiments of Russian regular cavalry. Each factory had a special brand with which it branded its horses. For forgery, its perpetrators were severely punished. To improve the horse stock, the owners of the factories bought Arabian stallions in Turkey. The Termirgoev horses were especially famous, they were sold not only in the Caucasus, but also exported to the interior regions of Russia.

Agriculture and cattle breeding were not the only economic occupation of the Circassians. Poultry farming, as well as fruit growing and viticulture, received great development from them. The abundance of orchards, especially in the coastal part, has always attracted the attention of foreign travelers and observers, such as Belle, Dubois de Montpere, Spencer, and others.

The Circassians were no less successful in beekeeping. They owned "noble beekeepers" and exported a lot of honey and wax to Russian markets and abroad. “In Achipsu,” wrote F. F. Tornau, “there is excellent honey, extracted from mountain bees nesting in crevices of rocks. This honey is very fragrant, white, hard, almost like sand sugar, and is very dearly valued by the Turks, from whom the Medoveevites exchange the necessary tissues exclusively for honey, wax and girls. In the 1800s, in the North-Western Caucasus, large bee houses owned by Russian entrepreneurs were, as a rule, serviced by hired workers from among the Circassians.

Foreign ships annually exported from the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea a large amount of yew and boxwood trees and timber. The Adygs exchanged boxwood for salt (a pood for a pood), in which they were in dire need.

Archaeological evidence suggests that already in the XIII-XV centuries. on the Adyghe territory, iron products were made (ploughshares, axes, picks, scissors, blacksmith hammers, etc.). In the XVIII-XIX centuries. this branch of handicraft activity is developing to such an extent that it begins to feel a shortage of raw materials.

One of the most difficult for the Russian authorities has always been the issue of passing iron through the Kuban. As a rule, the highlanders, "bringing obedience", insistently demanded that iron be transported to them freely. Fearing that it would be used for the production of weapons, the tsarist administration tried to regulate the norms of iron exports, scrupulously determining the need for iron for the manufacture of agricultural implements. On this basis, an endless number of misunderstandings and conflicting orders arose.

IN XVIII-XIX centuries a fairly large group of the Adyghe population were blacksmiths. Along with them, a special place was occupied by master gunsmiths who made edged weapons in a silver frame.

Women made braids for belts and trimming men's festive clothes, weaved cloth for men's clothes and thin woolen fabrics for themselves. According to F.F. Tornau, who observed the life of the Circassians when he was in their captivity, the Circassians were remarkable for their remarkable art in all these works, revealing "good taste and excellent practical adaptation."

In many auls, artisans made cloaks, saddles, gun cases, shoes, carts, and made soap. “The Cossacks,” wrote S. M. Bronevsky, “highly respect Circassian saddles and try to equip themselves with them in the discussion of the excellent lightness and dexterity of wooden archaks and the strength of leather tebenki, which serve instead of a saddle. The Circassians also prepare gunpowder and each one makes saltpeter for himself from bylnik (weeds), collected in July, which, having cleared of leaves and shoots, burn one stalk.

According to the estimates of O. V. Markgraf, the indigenous people of the North Caucasus had 32 handicrafts: furriery, saddlery, shoemaking, turning, wheeling, arbyanoy, production of cloaks, cloth, paints, wickerwork from twigs, mats, straw baskets, soap, etc.

However, only blacksmithing, weapon-making, and jewelry art have risen to the status of a true craft, that is, the production of products to order and for sale. All other types of handicraft activities were closely related to agriculture and cattle breeding and focused mainly on meeting the needs of the family.

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

LECTURE 3.

1. The social class composition of the Adyghe society, types of economic activity and crafts. Trade. Peculiarities of feudal relations (land relations) among the Circassians.

2. Nogais 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 are Nekrasovites.

LECTURE 3.

1. The social class composition of the Adyghe society, types of economic activity and crafts. Trade. Peculiarities of feudal relations (land relations) among the Circassians. Nogais 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. From other coastal Adyghe groups, Adams are known. The Khatukaevs, who lived along the Abin, Il and Aburgan rivers, belonged to a large ethnic group of the western Circassians. In the mountainous areas of the North-Western Caucasus, there were lands of numerous Natukhai, Shapsugs, Abadzekhs, who were considered "free Circassians", and in the future "democratic tribes", because. unlike the previous ones, they were not ruled by princes, but by elected foremen.

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

By the middle of the 16th century, the Circassians, who lived in the foothills of the left bank of the Kuban, were completing the process of decomposition of patriarchal-clan relations. Elders and nobility stood out within the ethnic groups, property and social inequality increased. And by the second half of the 18th century, the western Circassians and Nogais formed a class structure characteristic of feudal society.

At the top of the emerging feudal social hierarchical ladder among the Circassians were pshi- princes who were the owners of the land and the population living on it. Pshi, as a member of the rural community, disposed of not only the pile of ancestral land, but also formally communal land, distributing it to his vassals: smaller categories of nobles and peasants. Among them are nobles, vassals, serfs (dependent peasants) and slaves. The nobles, among others, enjoyed great honor and spent most of their time on horseback. They attributed trade and simple productive labor to the number of non-noble affairs. It was believed that the privileged part of the Adyghe society had 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 themselves and offered it as a gift, accepting in return the suitor's shell or shirt. For this reason, nobles were often dressed worse than their subjects. True, they never presented the accessories of their military equipment (weapons and horses), as well as boots. They were their prestige. For this reason, the princely-noble elite of the Circassians was often ready to give all their property for a good horse, more precious, which she had nothing.

All the inhabitants of Trans-Kuban 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 defend himself. This custom explains the lack of solidly built dwellings among the Circassians, and even more so fortresses.

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

In the conditions of feudal strife, the decomposition of the community under the influence of the process of feudalization, it became increasingly difficult to maintain personal freedom. Part of the tfokotles (free community members) became dependent on the feudal lords and foremen. The feudal nobility widely used the form of "patronage" to enslave direct producers. Because of the debts to the feudal lords, the tfokotli fell into bondage with them. Οʜᴎ carried labor and in-kind duties in favor of princes and nobles. Part of the tfokotles turned out to be subordinate to the feudal lords on "painful" conditions, which brought these "free farmers" closer to the serfs.

Another category of peasants were the pshitli serfs. Οʜᴎ were in land and personal dependence on feudal owners. Their labor rents in kind, determined by custom, were quite significant. Pshitley were inherited and could be sold, but by whole families. At the same time, mountain serfs had certain property, limited personal and family rights, and ran their own household. The lowest category of the dependent population were Unaut slaves. Οʜᴎ did not have any personal, property or family rights. Their work 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, a noble towered over a mere mortal; this was expressed in the fact that an earthen embankment (mound) was made for him, 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 performed in a specific form: she 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 adami. The feudal family belonged to the peasants who settled on its land and carried 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. Community 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 lands. Occupying in the community "the place of the eldest in the family" and relying on adats, they received the best and largest allotments of land.

The features of mountain feudalism also include the presence of such patriarchal tribal remnants as kunachestvo (twinning), atalism, mutual assistance, and blood feud. Atalychestvo is a custom according to which a child after birth was transferred to be raised in another family. He returned to his family as an adult. This custom connected families, and children grew up unspoiled.

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

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

To protect the crops from the winds and preserve moisture, trees were planted along the edges of the fields. The fields were carefully cleared of weeds. The main tool for cultivating the land was a hoe. For plowing the land gradually began to use plows, which harnessed oxen. Gardening and horticulture occupied a significant place in the economic activities of the Adyghes; they grew onions, peppers, garlic, cucumbers, pumpkins, etc. Fruits made up a significant part of the diet of the local population 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. Zakubantsy widely used the shifting system of agriculture. The same site was visited twice, changing the place every year. But after a certain time they returned to the same site. The territory of the Left-bank Kuban, inhabited by the western Circassians, was a fertile plains and foothills, suitable for agriculture. This was also facilitated by climatic conditions.

An even greater role in the foothills of the Kuban, where there were excellent pastures, was played by cattle breeding. The Circassians had a peculiar cult of domestic animals, in honor of which holidays were even arranged.

Beekeeping, hunting and fishing were widely developed. Everything extremely important for the family was produced with the help of home crafts. Women wove cloth, sewed clothes and shoes, and men carpentry, dyed 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.

Internal trade was poorly developed due to subsistence economy, it had the character of simple commodity exchange. The Circassians did not have a merchant class and there was no monetary system. Surplus agricultural and handicraft products went to the foreign market. Slaves were one of the profitable goods in foreign trade. Adyghe feudal lords sold captives captured during feudal strife and raids to Turkish merchants. Circassian slaves were highly valued for their strength, intelligence, and beauty. The slave trade undermined the economy, as young and able-bodied Circassians were sold into slavery. The economy was subsistence, internal trade was poorly developed. At the same time, the commodity exchange of the Adygs with Russia, the Crimea, Turkey increased from Russia, the Adygs received salt, fabrics, and metal products. From Crimea - spices, luxury items. Overseas wines, tobacco, eastern western goods came from Turkey. The main export items to Russia were skins, skins, honey, timber, lard.

Slaves were mainly exported to Turkey and the Crimea. Taman and Anapa were the largest points of trade. At the same time, the strengthening of aggressive tendencies in these countries often complicated trade relations. They practically did not develop among the Circassians and with their closest neighbors, the Nogais. The dominance of a subsistence livestock economy similar in type to both did not contribute to a wide exchange of goods between the Kuban and Trans-Kuban regions.

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

Turkic-Mongolian tribes lived on the Right-Bank Kuban Nogais, who led a mostly nomadic life and were engaged in cattle breeding.

Their murzas (mirzas) - large feudal lords, heads of individual hordes and clans - owned several thousand heads of cattle. In general, the feudal elite, small in number (four percent of the population), owned approximately two-thirds of the entire nomadic herd. The uneven distribution of the main wealth - livestock - was at the heart 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 commander. In fact, by this time the horde had already broken up into smaller formations, loosely connected both with each other and with the supreme ruler. At the head of these uluses were murza who have achieved 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 court 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 Nogais, from determining places for nomads to resolving intra-family disputes. Hordes were divided into generations, generations into auls, auls into cauldrons (families).

A significant stratum of the Nogai nobility was made up of the Muslim clergy - akhuns, qadis, etc. Οʜᴎ dealt with court cases, performed the necessary religious rites at weddings, funerals, etc., receiving appropriate remuneration for this.

The lower strata of the Nogai society included free peasant cattle breeders, who made up for the shortcomings of their own economy with seasonal work in the Don settlements.

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

At the lowest rung of Nogai society, there were slaves, in which prisoners of war were turned, and also acquired through purchase or exchange for livestock. They were called yasirs. 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 significant role in cattle breeding.

The Nogais 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 implementation of various religious requirements. For example, for the performance of wedding and funeral rites, the Nogais donated a quarter of the funds intended for these “events” to the priests. In the case 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 of 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. The semi-patriarchal labor rent was also preserved 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 delayed the development of a single socio-political organization. Neither the Trans-Kuban Circassians nor the Nogais developed a single state. The natural nature of the economy, the lack of cities and sufficiently developed economic ties, the preservation of patriarchal remnants - all these were the main reasons for feudal fragmentation in the North-Western 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.

At the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, the political situation in the North-Western Caucasus changed significantly: after the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople, in 1453 and the conquest of the Genoese colonies of the southern Crimea in 1475, the Ottoman Empire, having annexed the Crimean Khanate, came close to the lands of the Adyghes. The Turks delivered the first blows to the highlanders 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 in the 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 participated in hostilities and construction work.

Judging by fragmentary sources, the fighting in the Northwestern Caucasus was 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, slaves to the Tatar khans and participating in raids on Russian lands. So it was, for example, in 1521, when the Crimean khans reached Moscow itself and laid siege to it. At the same time, the Circassians repeatedly opposed the Crimean diktat. In the middle of the 16th century, the Crimean Khan was forced to send his troops more than once to suppress the Adyghe rebellions. At this time, the great Moscow sovereign Ivan the Terrible firmly established himself on the banks of the Volga, having conquered the Kazan Khanate. Against the Crimean Tatars on the southern borders of Russia, Ivan the Terrible strengthened the notch line in the form of numerous defensive structures, begun by his father Vasily III. The new border held back the Crimean khans, who were accustomed to enrich themselves through predatory raids.

The influence of the Crimean Khanate and Turkey was nevertheless 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-Western Caucasus, including the Circassians, was Christianity; Christian priests shogens (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 Adyghes, therefore, the impossibility of translating liturgical books, Christianity among the Adyghes fell into complete decline and disappeared, remaining only as numerous remnants in 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 fairly early penetration of Islam (Arabic inscriptions on gravestones from the Lower Arkhyz of the 11-12th century, the remains of a Muslim mausoleum of the 13th century near the station of Ust-Dzhegutinskaya), but these monuments are rare. Even in the 16th century, Christianity continued to be the leading religion among the Adygs. Basically, Islam began to establish itself 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 him the greatest respect and helped him in the spiritual enslavement of the masses.

The increased authority of the Russian state directed the eyes of the Circassians to the Moscow rulers. In 1552, an Adyghe embassy was sent to Ivan the Terrible, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ asked him to take the Circassians under his protection and protect them from the Crimean Khan. To clarify the situation, the Russian boyar Andrey Shchepotiev 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 entire land of the Circassian" they asked the Russian sovereign to accept the Circassians into their citizenship. Ivan IV generously rewarded the Circassian envoys and promised them military assistance against the Crimea. In 1555-1556, Ivan the Terrible sent his troops three times against the Crimeans to prevent their campaigns against the Kuban. During the struggle of Ivan IV with the Astrakhan Khanate, an ally of Crimea, the Adygs helped the Russian Tsar and successfully attacked the Turkish fortresses of Temryuk and Taman. Despite the military assistance of the Crimean Khan and Turkey, in 1556 Astrakhan surrendered to Russian archers and Cossacks without a fight.

Impressed by the successes of Muscovy, the Western Circassians 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 on 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 strife and aggressive neighbors, like the Crimean Khanate, forced some of them to enlist the protection of the Russian Tsar. The Moscow authorities, in turn, were looking for allies in the fight against the Crimea and the Ottoman Empire.

The Lebanese War, which began in 1558, diverted Ivan IV's attention from the North Caucasus, and the Ottoman-Crimean claims to this region resumed.

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 “for the state”, ᴛ.ᴇ, to the Adygs. to rule, and was not even opposed to converting his people to the Orthodox faith. Ivan IV in 1560, responding to a request for help and wanting to strengthen his political position in the North Caucasus, sent one of his best commanders, Prince Dmitry Vishnevetsky, with an army and Christian preachers, to the Adygs. At the beginning of 1561, having united with the Adyghe warriors, Vishnevetsky made a successful campaign against the Crimean Turkish troops in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov.

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 obscured the problems associated with the North-Western Caucasus.

Feeling the change in the political situation in 1562, the feudal lords of the northwestern Circassians suddenly broke off ties with Moscow.

It is likely that they saw in Ivan the Terrible's struggle 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 desire of the senior Kabardian prince Temryuk Idar with the help of Russia to unite all the Circassians. In this situation, the Ottoman Porte, using 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 Adyghe feudal lords on the Port and the Crimean Khanate did not meet the aspirations of the broad masses of the North-Western Caucasus. It was in this regard that, despite repeated attempts, the Crimean Khan did not manage to penetrate deep into the Adyghe territory and subjugate its population to his power.

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

In 1561, Ivan the Terrible marries the daughter of Temryuk Idarov Kuchenya (Goshanya) in Moscow, she was baptized and became the Russian Empress Maria.

The marriage of Ivan IV to a Kabardian princess was of great political importance; it further strengthened and expanded Russia's ties 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 headed by voivode Pleshcheev, and in 1565-1566 - with voivode Dashkov and Rzhevsky. At the same time, the Sultan and Khan continued to raid in subsequent years.

In the spring of 1570, the Crimean Khan Devlet Giray attacked Temryuk. In the battle near Akhupsa (the 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 serious impact on the position of Kabarda, and yet, no matter how hard the external and internal enemies tried to wrest Kabarda from Russia, they did not succeed. In the spring of 1578, a Kabardian embassy arrived in Moscow, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ confirmed the citizenship of the Kabardians of Russia.

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

But, despite this, basically Russian-Kabardian relations and the relationship of the Western Circassians with Russia at the end of the 16th and 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 statesmen of Russia.

4. The first Russians in the Kuban in modern times are 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 Believers". The reason for its manifestation was the church ritual reform, which Patriarch Nikon began to carry out in 1653 in order to strengthen 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 rites (two-finger was replaced by three-finger, during church services “alleluia” began to be pronounced not twice, but three times, etc.

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

Various strata of Russian society came to the defense of the "old faith". The masses, standing up for the defense of the "old faith", expressed their protest against the feudal oppression, covered up 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 ataman Denisov to destroy the refuge of dissenters on the Don, and to execute them themselves. At the same time, the schismatics, having learned about the intentions of the sovereign, decided to seek salvation outside the country: in the steppes of the Kuban and Kuma. The Kuban schismatics were led by Pyotr Murzenko and Lev Manatsky.

In 1692, another party of schismatics entered the Kuban from the territory of the Don Cossacks, accepting the patronage of the Crimean Khan. She was settled between the rivers Kuban and Laba. The settlers were called "Kuban Cossacks" after the name of the main river of their new places of residence. With the permission of the khan, they built for themselves a stone town on the elevated bank of the Laba River, which later (after the Nekrasovites moved to the Kuban) was called the Nekrasovsky town.

In September 1708, one of the outstanding leaders of the Bulavin uprising, ataman of the village of Esaulovskaya of the Don Cossack army, Ignat Nekrasov, fearing reprisals against the rebels by government troops, left with his families for 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 with seven guns. 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 providing internal autonomy. Having teamed up with the Kuban Cossacks of 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 vessels, fishing, traditional for their way of life. At the same time, one of their favorite pastimes 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 their external military manifestations. Their relationship with the Russian government was an alternation of daring Cossack raids and retaliatory punitive expeditions. Up to three thousand Nekrasovites participated in some campaigns. The government of Peter I took measures: by decree of the military board, the death penalty was introduced for not reporting on 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 fought fierce battles with the Nekrasovites in the Kuban. 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 separation takes place: 1600 families go by sea to Dobruja, where two towns were originally founded on the Danube estuaries: Sarykey and Dunavtsy. Another part of the Nekrasovites moved to Asia Minor, near Lake Manyas.

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

The Testaments forbade the exploitation of the labor of others for the purpose of personal enrichment. Those engaged in this or that craft 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, and benefits for the needy (the infirm, the elderly, widows, orphans). The "Precepts of Ignat" forbade the establishment of family ties with the Turks, on whose territory they lived after resettlement from the Kuban.

At the beginning of the 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 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 Nekrasov families (999 people) left Turkey and settled in the Stavropol Territory. The memory of the Motherland and its call turned out to be very strong among the descendants of the Nekrasov Cossacks, primarily because far from Russia, in an alien environment for them, they did not dissolve, retaining their culture, customs and native Russian language.

Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, in the 16-18 centuries, the 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 impose its citizenship on the peoples of the Kuban region by force, which could not be said about Turkey and its vassals, the Crimean khans. It was in the fight against the aggressive Crimea that the Circassians were forced to turn to Russia for protection.

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 Cossack Host: In 2 volumes (reprint 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 prowess of the Kuban. Krasnodar, 1999.

2. History of Kuban in dates. Ed. Ratushniak. 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. Korolenko P.P. Bicentenary of the Kuban Cossack Host. 1696-1896 (Historical essay). Ekaterinodar, 1896. Reprint edition, 1991.

6. The past and 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, warki, tfokotli, chagars, murzas, beys, bridles, adats, yasyr, mullah, effendi, old believers, ataman, Islam, military circle.

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

Themes of abstracts, reports, communications.

1. 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 policy of neighboring powers.

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

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

Test questions:

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

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

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

4. What military customs existed among the highlanders of the North-Western Caucasus?

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

6. How did the relations between the peoples of the North-Western 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 the place of their settlement?

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

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

M.V. Pokrovsky

From the history of the Circassians at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century

Essay first. Socio-economic situation of the Circassians in the late 18th - first half of the 19th centuries

social order

Already Xaverio Glavani, the author of the first half of the 18th century, noted the presence of elements of feudalism among the peoples of the Western Caucasus. He told, for example, about the Adyghe beys, completely independent in their possessions, although they were almost always under the patronage of the Tatar Khan.

Julius Klaprot, who in 1812 published a book about his journey through the Caucasus and Georgia, dwelled in more detail on the social structure of the Circassians. He noted that they are divided into five "classes": to the first he attributed the princes, to the second - workers (bridles, or nobles), to the third - princely and Uzden freedmen who are obliged to carry out military service in favor of their former masters, to the fourth - freedmen these "new nobles" and, fifthly, the serfs whom he erroneously called "thokotls". Tfokotlei Klaproth, in turn, divided into those engaged in agriculture and those who serve the upper classes. Further, he reported that various Uzden families belong to each princely branch among the Adygs, looking at the peasants inherited from their ancestors as their property, because the latter were forbidden to transfer from one owner to another. Certain duties lay on the peasants, which, however, could not be expanded indefinitely, for if "the bridle is too tight for the peasant, then he may lose it altogether." Yu. Klaproth cited a number of interesting facts: for example, he wrote that both princes and nobles have power over the life and death of their serfs and can sell domestic servants at will. As for the serfs who were engaged in agriculture, they could not be sold separately. Drawing the life and customs of the noble-princely elite, Y. Klaprot also spoke about the duties of the uzdens in relation to their princes. He noted that the prince has a "team" that he leads in the war, and commits "attacks and robbery campaigns with his knights and armed servants."

Yu. Klaproth's description contains some interesting and important details about the social structure of the so-called "aristocratic Circassian tribes". however, it suffers from superficiality and does not give a sufficiently clear picture of their social structure and the situation of the dependent population. Besides. Yu. Klaproth made terminological fuzziness in his work:

1) using the term "fokotl", he mixed two categories of the population: tfokotl as such, that is, free community members who carried natural duties in favor of the prince, and serfs - pshitl.

2) the term "bridle" combines with him both the paramount nobles, in whose favor the duties of the tfokotli were carried, and the petty non-possessing nobility, which had only serfs;

3) to characterize the social system of the Adyghe peoples, Yu. Klaproth used the inexpressive term "republican-aristocratic".

Interesting considerations about the social relations of the population of the Western Caucasus were expressed in the 20s of the XIX century. S. M. Bronevsky. Considering the upbringing, lifestyle and military life of princes and nobles, he emphasized that “the common people are brought up in the parental home and are prepared more for rural work than for military craft”, and that “the political security of the princes is based on this alienation from military education. and the enslavement of the peasants. This observation by S. M. Bronevsky speaks of the growing isolation of the Adyghe nobility from the patriarchal democracy in the person of tfokotls and various prospects for their further development.

Dubois de Montpere, in his essay “Journey around the Caucasus through Circassia and Abkhazia, Mingrelia, Georgia, Armenia and the Crimea”, published in 1841 in Paris, provided a number of important information about the duties of the Adyghe serfs. Quite vividly, he also described the life of the nobility, especially the predatory raids carried out by princes and nobles.

A much clearer description of social relations, and in particular the description of the duties of tfokotl, is contained in the articles of Khan-Giray dating back to the 40s of the 19th century. Being a bzhedukh by origin, he perfectly knew the life of the Circassians, and therefore his works are of considerable interest and value. In Features, the article “Prince of Pshskaya Ahodiagoko” is important, where he emphasized that “the most numerous class of people in the Bzhedug tribe are ... the so-called tfekotls”, who, according to him, occupied the position of free landowners. However, as can be seen from his further narration, they were in a rather strong dependence on their noble-princely elite.

Actually serfs, or pshitley, Khan-Girey divides into two categories: 1) leading their own economy (og) and 2) not having an independent economy and living in the courtyard of their master (dehefsteyt). The latter "worked only, as far as possible, for the owner and were fed at his expense." For this reason, Khan-Girey translated the term "dehefstate" in Russian as courtyards. Describing the position of the Bzhedukh serfs, he pointed out that they enjoyed the right of ownership guaranteed by a surety, and that the surety of outsiders (kodog) supposedly reliably protected their safety, life and property from the encroachments of the owners. But later on, obviously contradicting this statement, he was forced to admit that in reality the situation was different: among the bzhedukhs there was an unlimited arbitrariness of princes and nobles. They seized peasant livestock, and sometimes people under the pretext of "domestic needs", exacted fines for the slightest, sometimes imaginary, insult to princely dignity, etc. Khan Giray emphasized that princes and nobles had been the "ruling class" for a very long time .

In 1910, the son of the last sovereign prince of Bzhedukh, Tarkhan Khadzhimukov, published an article in the Caucasian collection. In it, he recalled with regret those "good old days" when "the title of prince was so sacred in the minds of the highlanders that each of them was morally obliged to protect his owner, sacrificing not only his property, but his very life," and did not allow bzhedukhs be likened to "wild Shapsugs and Abadzekhs". Khadzhimukov said that when the Prince of Bzhedukh made a trip out of his village, he was accompanied by Warks, bridles and chagars subject to them - one from each house. Chagars, by definition, were a transitional step between the nobility and the common people. They were divided into princely and noble ones, of which the former enjoyed the right to move away from their owners at any time, while the latter were deprived of this right. Both categories of Chagars "along with the black people" were considered "taxable people." .

If we ignore the obviously idyllic tone of the article and compare it with the writings of Khan Giray, then it gives reason to think that feudal relations among the Bzhedukhs were more developed than among other peoples of the Northwestern Caucasus.

Without dwelling on the works of other authors: I. Rodozhitsky, M. Vedeniktov, N. Kolyubakin, who also pointed to the features of feudalism in the social system of the Circassians, we note that the discovery of tribal institutions among them was very important. This circumstance in the historical literature was usually associated with the name of the English political agent Bell, who acted in the 40s of the 19th century.

However, as M. O. Kosven pointed out, in the same years, Russian researchers V. I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov and O. I. Konstantinov independently established that the Circassians had clan groups. As for Bell, his interest in the question of the social structure of the Circassians was determined, of course, by purely practical considerations of a political intelligence officer. Conducting work among them aimed at organizing the struggle against Russia, he naturally had to get acquainted with the individual strata of the Adyghe society and determine their role in this future struggle.

A significant step forward in the study of the social system of the Circassians was the research of K. F. Stal, carried out in the middle of the 19th century. He divided the Adyghe tribes into “aristocratic” and “democratic”, basing this division on the degree of predominance of the features of a communal-clan or feudal system in them. Emphasizing the role of the Adyghe community, K.F. life of every people. The community is originally a distinctive unit in which families or genera are all of the same origin and have the same interests. The community, as it grew, was divided into a greater or lesser number of communities, which immediately separated from each other and each formed an independent whole. The organization of a community or a tribe is the first political organization of a person. Below he added: “In this primitive knee structure, the Caucasian mountain peoples have remained from time immemorial, and each of them is divided into small independent societies.” There is no need to say how important this statement of K. F. Stahl was for its time, because, as M. O. Kosven pointed out, it is quite clear that, despite the well-known fuzzy terminology inherent in that era, “knee device” can be read as "generic device".

It is impossible not to dwell also on the studies of N. I. Karlgof, who, along with the features of feudalism, discovered the institutions of the tribal system in a number of Adyghe tribes. He made an extraordinarily valuable conclusion that the social structure he observed was not an exclusive feature of only themselves, but was characteristic of “all infant nations”, and emphasized that the study of it “can explain the dark and mysterious sides in the history of the first times of the formation of states”.

Undoubtedly, we add that if the works of N. I. Karlgof, K. F. Stal and their predecessors were known to the European scientific community, which underestimated the importance of materials about the Caucasus in the study of the evolution of human society, then they would have played a big role at that stage. development of historical science, when there was a struggle between supporters and opponents of the communal theory.

The Adyghe society, according to N. I. Karlgof, was based on the following principles: 1) the family; 2) ownership right; 3) the right to use weapons for every free person; 4) tribal unions with a mutual obligation to protect everyone from each other, to avenge death, insult and violation of property rights to everyone for everyone and to answer to other people's tribal unions for all of their own.

Thus, already in the first half of the 19th century, Russian Caucasian studies, despite the limited opportunities for research and observation due to the military-political situation in the Caucasus and the level of science at that time, accumulated sufficient material to talk about the complexity of the social system of the Adyghe peoples, about the combination and the interweaving of feudal and tribal relations.

Somewhat later, A.P. Berger gave a general ethnographic and sociological description of the tribes of the Caucasus, touching upon the Adygs in it. Pointing out that "the management of the Circassians was purely feudal", he noted the same features of the social structure. According to him, the society was divided into princes (pshi), nobles and bridles (works), free, subject and slaves. Berger also reported that the Natukhai and Shapsugs had no princes, but only nobles.

The capital work “History of the War and Dominion of the Russians in the Caucasus”, which belongs to N.F. Dubrovin, which uses numerous materials and sources, contains an essay on the Adyghe peoples. It contains information on the economy, ethnography and social structure of the Circassians. He defined this latter in a rather peculiar way: “The organism of Circassian society, for the most part, had a purely aristocratic character. The Circassians had princes (pshi), vuorki (nobles), ogs (the middle class, which consisted depending on the patrons); pshitli (loganoputs) and unauts (slaves) - a diverse class of peasants and courtyard people. Kabardians, Bzeduhi, Khatyukays, Temirgoys and Besleneyites had princes. The Abadzekhs, Shapsugs, Natukhazhians and Ubykhs did not have this estate; but nobles, peasants and slaves existed among all these peoples.

A lot of interesting and important materials on the social structure of the Adyghe society are contained in the collection of adats of the Caucasian highlanders, published by F.I. Leontovich, in which he used a number of data reported by K.F. Stahl in his study "Ethnographic essay of the Circassian people", information about the customs and bodies of the people's government of the Adyghes, collected by Kucherov, etc.

It should be noted that a significant part of the historians of the Caucasus did not engage in a detailed analysis of the situation of the Circassian slaves, serfs and free community members (tfokotl). Pointing out, for example, that the Tfokotls were the bulk of the Adyghe population, they, as a rule, limited themselves to a general description of their living conditions and did not take into account the changes that occurred during the struggle between the Tfokotls and the nobility.

Of particular interest is a small essay entitled "On the Hill", published in the November book of the "Russian Messenger" for 1861. Its author, Kalambiy, an Adyghe nobleman, an officer in the Russian service, who was educated in the cadet corps, apparently suffered some then a serious life failure, which forced him to leave the service in St. Petersburg and return to his homeland. A fairly broad outlook, combined with a well-known, albeit superficial, interest in the advanced ideas of his time (he himself wrote, not without sarcasm, that he had been breathing European air for quite a long time and, therefore, "picked up an abyss of humane ideas"), gave him the opportunity to draw the only one in an example of a true picture of the social life of the Adyghe aul in the middle of the 19th century. .

Kalambiy was cruelly ironic about the fact that the representatives of the Circassian nobility were not interested in anything other than talking about weapons, horses, empty boasting in the Kunatska about their exploits and idle chatter with neighbors during endless trips to guests. However, the irony was combined with anxiety for the future of this nobility, and with the consciousness of their own impotence in the face of developing historical events. For him, the historical doom of the military-feudal nobility and its inability to play an independent political role in the complex situation that had arisen by the 1960s were completely clear. in the Caucasus. Kalambiy did not hush up the sharp contradictions between the peasant masses and the propertied class, but at the same time he could not refuse the lordly dismissive and wary attitude towards the "rabble".

Talking about the peasant gatherings that took place on a hill near the village, Kalambiy wrote: “The assessors of the hill have their own special inclinations, their own way of thinking, their own view of things, their ideals, directly opposite to the aspirations, views and ideals of the kunatskaya ... Even the appearance of the kholmovniks differs in how - a kind of imprint ... plunging me into an insoluble doubt about their origin from the same clay from which the inhabitants of the Kunatsky are molded with such care. Those broad shoulders, thick short necks, ox-like legs, those hands that looked more like bear paws than human hands, those large facial features carved like an ax - what an impenetrable abyss between them and the graceful figures of the noble part of our aul!.. They have a very stern, uncommunicative disposition, chilling anyone who approaches them from another sphere ... but if they speak, then words come out of their mouths, poisoned by the most poisonous bile. Their caustic sarcasm has an extraordinary power to touch the most vital strings of the human soul; their joke is simply unbearable; it penetrates to the marrow of the bones. These people, one might say, have nothing sacred in the world, nothing that they would revere. Submission and silence itself breathe inexorable criticism against those to whom they submit and before whom they remain silent. All the bilious irony of their language is directed exclusively at the estate that lives in the Kunatskaya; they look at it with prejudice, as something very worthless and fragile, whose existence is in their calloused hands.

It is no wonder that in such a tense situation our hero from Adyghe, although not without damage, escaped from the administrative and police maelstrom of Nikolaev Russia (which, as he hinted quite clearly, could be overwhelmed for some apparently innocent liberal hobbies ), had to abandon in relations with their serfs many of the habits learned in the Russian officer environment, and follow the "spirit of the times". Emphasizing that the Adyghe serfs were by no means inclined to listen to appeals in the usual style of the Russian serf lexicon, such as: “Hey, man!”, “Hey, blockhead!” etc., he remarked: “When I speak with. With my peasants, I usually take a tone lower than how I spoke, living in Russia, with my batman.

The end of the Caucasian War, accompanied by the resettlement of most of the Circassians to Turkey, made it very difficult to further study their social system, especially since those who remained at home were settled all together in the Kuban lowland. However, after this war, the Russian government and local administration had to come to grips with the issues of their land management and the definition of their class-legal status. This largely explains the appearance in the periodical press of articles covering certain aspects of the life and social life of those who remained in their homeland. So, in 1867, the newspaper "Kuban Military Gazette" published materials detailing the living conditions of the Adyghe "dependent estates".

By the 70s of the XIX century. includes an official attempt to determine the rights of certain categories of the Adyghe population. This was due to the activities of the government commission of 1873-1874. by definition of the class rights of the highlanders of the Kuban and Terek regions. In the Kuban region, she did a lot of work: not limited to attracting data from printed sources, the commission studied some archival materials and conducted oral surveys of the Adyghe princes, nobles, tfokotls and former serfs. Such thoroughness in the fulfillment of the duties assigned to her was explained by a certain government assignment: to find out the rights of certain categories of the mountain population and equate these categories with the corresponding estates of the Russian Empire. As a result, a detailed note was drawn up, which contains a number of very interesting information.

The class struggle, which was of great importance in the history of the Circassians, was completely insufficiently reflected in literature. True, the facts of internal relations in the Adyghe society, in particular the so-called "democratic revolution" of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, did not pass by bourgeois Caucasian studies, but the nature and roots of social contradictions and their role in subsequent events were not revealed. The generally correct position of K. F. Stal about the primitive forms of social life in the Western Caucasus, however, does not fully correspond to the actual social relations that developed among the Circassians in the period under study. The author of this provision was not characterized by a historical approach to phenomena, due to which he was unable to reflect the profound social changes that had taken place by that time in the Adyghe society.

In the time we are studying, tribal relations among the Adyghe peoples were already in the stage of decomposition, there was a process of folding feudalism. This gave rise to many social surprises. Their essence is quite successfully noted by F. A. Shcherbina: on the one hand, the complete equality of the mountaineers, equality, forcing even the prince to stand on his feet and beg the guest-peasant to taste the prince's booze and lamb, and on the other - slavery in its most rude manifestations.

The pace of feudalization and the very process of becoming-feudalism among the various Adyghe peoples were not the same. They depended on geographical conditions, the degree of stability of the community and its institutions, the alignment of social forces, and a number of other factors. Therefore, the structure of the social elite of individual (groups of the Circassians) was outwardly very dissimilar, which was taken by modern observers as fundamental differences in the organization of the social life of peoples. This was reflected in the division of the Circassians into the so-called "aristocratic" and "democratic tribes". The "aristocratic" usually included the Bzhedukhs, Khatukaevs, Temirgoevs, Besleneevs, the Shapsugs (Natukhais, Abadzekhs) were considered "democratic". At first, such a division was nothing more than a purely practical service classification, very convenient for the Russian command by no means dictated by the motives of an abstract ethnographic and sociological interest.Applying this classification, the military authorities of tsarist Russia in the Caucasus, first of all, gave their subordinates a kind of political guideline in their relations with various social categories of society and thereby protected them from careless x and ill-conceived steps that could run counter to the official policy of supporting the military-feudal nobility.

To illustrate what has been said, let us dwell on one of the characteristic cases. In August 1834, the commander of the Separate Caucasian Corps, Baron Rosen, reported that Colonel Zass, who introduced the highlander Roslambek Dudarukov to the officer's office, incorrectly called him a prince. Dudarukov was denied production on the grounds that there are no princes in the tribe to which he belongs, but only "foremen or owners." Reporting this, Rosen warned Zass, and with him other Russian commanders who commanded separate sections of the line, so that in the future “both such representations and any evidence of the mountaineers’ clans were made with due diligence, so that those who did not have princely titles could not assign of them according to such erroneous ideas.

Caucasian studies, of course, could not bypass the problem of "aristocratic" and "democratic tribes." All researchers recognized that the Adyghe tribes were divided into two groups, they all noted the absence of princes and the restriction of the rights and privileges of the nobility among the Abadzekhs, Shapsugs and Natukhians. K. F. Stahl, for example, defined the difference between “democratic tribes” and “aristocratic” in this way:

1. Abadzekhs, Shapsugs, Natukhians and some small Abaza peoples do not have princes, but nobles and slaves exist among all peoples.

2. Tlyak-tlyazh among the Abadzekhs and Shapsugs is not as important as among the peoples with princes. In communities that do not have princes, the people are divided into independent societies (psuho), and each psuho is governed by itself by its elders.

3. The Abadzekhs also have an estate of paramount nobles (fly-flies); probably, they used to have the same importance that the flies still have among the Temirgoevs and Kabardians, but at present this has disappeared. So I'm left with one name.

4. The position of the non-free class (peasants) is somewhat easier (among the Abadzekhs. - M.P.) than among the Circassians ruled by princes.

But what is the real difference between "aristocratic tribes" and "democratic" ones? Neither K. F. Stal nor other researchers of that time were able to answer this question. In many respects it remains unclear to this day. The main difference between the "aristocratic" and "democratic tribes" was not in a greater or lesser degree of preservation of tribal institutions and not in the victory of the commercial bourgeoisie, whose representatives were allegedly the foremen, but in the special nature of the development of feudal relations between these two groups.

Aristocratic tribes are tribes with clearly expressed features of the emerging feudal system, with a legally formalized class structure of society, the dominant role of sovereign princes and nobles, and a feudal-dependent position of a significant part of the peasantry. All this did not exclude, however, the preservation of their communal-tribal institutions, which helped the Tfokotl to wage a stubborn struggle with their aristocracy until the very end of the Caucasian War.

The path of development of feudalism among the "democratic tribes" was more difficult. The steady growth of the feudal-serf tendencies of the nobility ran into more stubborn resistance than among other Adyghe tribes, the resistance of the mass of tfokotl, led by foremen. At the same time, relying on the community, which gave them the necessary local cohesion and means of resistance, the Tfokotli defended their independent existence. The foremen saw in this struggle a means to destroy the monopoly of the princely-noble elite on power.

As a result, the rights and privileges of the nobility were limited, and the supremacy in the political field passed to the foremen. They also discovered feudal tendencies and formed the core of a new stratum of feudal lords. Ordinary tfokotli, temporarily retaining their freedom and economic independence, were soon to become. object of feudal exploitation by the foremen.

The rivalry between Russia and Turkey, which sought to win over certain groups of the population, intertribal enmity, the absence of a state apparatus, the actions of the legal institutions of the tribal system - all this did not allow the noble-princely elite to completely paralyze the struggle of the Tfokotls for their rights and privileges.

It can be argued that the organization of the social life of both groups (“aristocratic” and “democratic”) at that time was based on a community (kuaj), which united a number of auls (khables). Several communities made up a tribe.

The fact of the communal structure of the Adyghe tribes is unconditionally recognized by most researchers, but this alone does not solve the question of what stage the social development of the Adyghes was on the eve of the conquest of the Caucasus by tsarism.

The communal system, as is known, went through a number of stages, each of which marked a new, higher stage of its development. Two historical forms of the community have been established: tribal and rural (agricultural). In draft drafts of a letter to V. Zasulich, K. Marx gave a clear methodological indication of the difference in their social essence and economic basis. He wrote: “In the agricultural community, the house and its appendage - the yard were the private property of the farmer. The common house and collective dwelling were, on the contrary, the economic basis of the older communities...

Arable land, inalienable and common property, is periodically redistributed among the members of the agricultural community, so that each cultivates the fields allotted to him with his own forces and appropriates the harvest individually. In older communities, work is done in common, and the common product, with the exception of a share set aside for reproduction, is distributed gradually, in proportion to the need for consumption.

So, four points distinguish the rural community from the tribal community: collective ownership of meadows, forests, pastures and arable land that has not yet been divided; private house and yard, which are the exclusive possession of an individual family; fragmented tillage; private appropriation of its fruits.

Analyzing specific historical material, as well as remnants of antiquity in the life of the Circassians, we come to the conclusion that the kuaj is a landed rural community with all its features.

The paucity of sources makes it impossible to establish more or less accurate chronological boundaries of individual stages in the transformation of the Adyghe community from a tribal to a rural one. This process was the result of a long evolution. The continuous movement of tribes and clans, constant wars, the natural process of disintegration of clan and tribal associations due to the growth of productive forces and changes in the conditions of production and property relations - all this led to a weakening of clan ties and the separate settlement of kindred groups, first by large patriarchal families, and then and small, individual. Separate families, branching off from the main trunk, formed "daughter settlements". Several dozen such families that had fallen away from different clans united. Tribal ties gave way to territorial ones. Among the Circassians, "not a single surname (genus) lives together in the same valley, just as families of different surnames or tribal unions live in the same valley."

Consequently, like any rural community, the kuaj was primarily a territorial union, the first social association of free people who were not connected by blood ties.

Being the last phase of tribal society, the rural community was a complex historical phenomenon with its own laws and development paths.

In the letter cited above to V. Zasulich, K. Marx noted that there are rural communities of a transitional type, in which elements of tribal and rural communities are combined. It seems to us that kuaj belongs to this type. The everyday life of the Circassians, the organization of political life, legal norms, traditions, and even the very structure of the community still largely retained the features of the tribal system. It is interesting that these features clearly prevailed in the life of the social elite of the Circassians.

Many observers of the last century correctly noted, in particular, the presence of large family groups within the kuaj, but greatly exaggerated their social role, forgetting that along with them there had long been individual families of free community members - tfokotli, whose appearance was completely different. They also did not take into account the fact that the patriarchal form of a large family gave the Adyghe nobility wide opportunities for the exploitation of impoverished fellow tribesmen. Bourgeois authors limited themselves to a simple statement of facts. So, talking about the return of "outsiders" (that is, the poor) "under the protection" of the heads of such families, they did not find out the true causes of this phenomenon. Meanwhile, according to numerous archival documents, such reasons were the ruin of tfokotl and the debt bondage into which they fell.

The features of ancient tribal relations were most distinct among the so-called "democratic tribes" (Shapsugs, Abadzekhs, Natukhais), but to a certain extent they were also typical of the "aristocratic" tribes.

A group of related families, connected by common ancestry in the male line, constituted a genus, or, according to Russian official terminology, a surname-Achih. Several clans formed a brotherhood, or tleukh. Members of the clan were bound by the duty of blood feud and mutual assistance.

The custom of adoptive kinship and twinning was quite widespread among the Circassians. It was associated with a special ritual. If people of different tribal unions or even foreigners decided to conclude an alliance between themselves for life and death, then the wife or mother of one of them allowed the new friend of her husband or son to touch her chest three times with her lips, after which he was considered a member of the family and enjoyed her patronage. There were cases when even Russian officers resorted to twinning.

F F. Thornau said that when he went on reconnaissance to the mountains and needed a reliable guide for this, he resorted to this particular means. With the help of an intermediary, he managed to become the sworn brother of a highlander named Bagry. “Bagra's wife, who came with her husband to stay in her father's house,” wrote F. F. Tornau, “was there, therefore, the matter did not present great obstacles. With the consent of my husband, Hathua related me to her, and several pieces of paper, canvas, scissors and needles, which were considered invaluable rarities in Psycho, and a dagger with a gold notch captured our union. Bagry, having entered the duty of an atalyk, belonged to me completely. Thanks to his superstition and the affection he had for his wife, I could rely on him as on myself.

The outstanding role of the family in the past explains such phenomena in the everyday life of modern Adygs as a large number of namesakes in villages, quarters consisting of kindred families, the predominance of one of the clans in the village, and other remnants of antiquity. To complete the characterization of a rural community, it is necessary to study the agrarian relations that dominated it. At the time under consideration, the community was at that stage of development when, with collective ownership of the land, its cultivation and the appropriation of the products of labor were carried out by individual families. Among the Circassians, contemporaries noted, “each family owns ... all its movable property and also a house and a cultivated plot of land; yet the space of land lying between the settlements of the families of the tribal union is in common possession, not belonging to anyone separately.

L. Ya. Lyul'e, who observed the life of the Circassians in the first half of the 19th century, emphasized that the Shapsugs and Natukhians had individual family farms. He said: “It is impossible to determine on what basis the division of the lands, which were fragmented into small plots, took place. The right of ownership is determined, or, rather, secured for the owners undoubtedly, and the transfer of inheritance from generation to generation is indisputable.

N. Karlgof wrote essentially the same thing. According to his observation, the right of ownership among the Circassians extended to movable property (primarily cattle) and such immovable property, which was in actual and direct possession of private individuals and required their own labor (houses and other outbuildings, constantly cultivated fields). The land lying in vain, pasture and meadow places, as well as forests. were not private property. These lands were indivisibly owned by societies and families, each of which has its own lands, passing from generation to generation, but there has never been a correct division and clear delineation of boundaries between them. Individuals used the land of their families or societies as needed.

We, unfortunately, cannot reproduce in full the appearance of the rural yard of the Adyghe community member of the late 18th - early 19th centuries. The Adyghe auls at that time consisted of separate estates, usually stretched along the gorges along the river bank and turned back to the forest. Next to the house, surrounded by a fence, there were vegetable gardens and not far from them plots of arable land, developed by individual families. Wheat, rye, millet and corn were sown in the gardens. Trees and entire groves grew around them, which were "primary necessity" for the Adyghe.

N. A. Tkhagushev concluded that the Circassians planted fruit trees on their personal plots. The assumption of N. A. Tkhagushev is also confirmed by the testimonies of contemporaries, who noted that a rare Adyg did not have a garden or several pear trees near his house.

The thesis about the main role of the individual family farm among the Adyghes is not contradicted by information about the organization of agricultural work, which was still observed in certain points of the Adyghe territory and consisted in the fact that at first they determined how much land was needed for plowing the entire aul, and worked together, and then the land was divided by lot according to the number of workers and oxen from each family.

From India to Ireland, according to Engels, the cultivation of landed property over large areas was originally carried out by precisely such tribal and rural communities, and the arable land was either cultivated jointly at the expense of the community, or divided into separate plots of land allotted by the community for a certain period to individual families, with constant common use of forests and pastures.

It is interesting to note that due to the growing economic importance of individual family farms in the life of the Adyghe tribes, one of the original legal institutions of the tribal system was blood feud in the 18th-19th centuries. included in the circle of its action phenomena related to the protection of material well-being. In the testimonies of many Circassians who fled from blood feuds because of the Kuban, there are often indications that they brought it upon themselves as a result of conflicts with neighbors that arose due to the violation of private property interests. So, the eighty-year-old Shapsug tfokotl Khatug Khazuk, who fled in 1841, said: “During my residence near the river in the village, I made a dispute with one Circassian of that village - Dzhambulet, to poison the sheep of his life, which belongs to me, which I pushed away from myself during the dispute, and he fell in the same place and died; which is why, upon excitation against me by the Shapsugs, I was forced to flee with my family under the protection of Russia and I wish to settle on the Karakuban Island. Leaving the true causes of the sudden death of his neighbor on the conscience of the venerable old man, one cannot but pay attention to the fact that the quarrel between them occurred because of the zhit grown on an individual plot of land, which was located inside the communal territory of the aul.

Economic motives are also heard in the complaints of other fugitives. Shapsug Selmen Tleuz testified that after the death of his father and mother, he and his wife were left “alone without any kindred and, living in auls according to their owners,” could not establish their own household in any way. This forced him to leave his native places, go to Russian territory and also ask to be settled on the Kara-Kuban Island. Emphasizing his economic insolvency, he ended his testimony with the following phrase: "... I have no estate, except for a horse and weapons."

So, in the XVIII-XIX centuries. among the Circassians, the lands cultivated by individual families are already allocated for their individual use. Private ownership of an individually cultivated field plot, on the one hand, collective ownership of undivided land and land, on the other, is the economic basis of the kuaj. Thus, the Adyghe community rested on undeveloped relations of land ownership, transitional from common to private.

Private property extended only to the land occupied by the estate, garden and vegetable garden. Field plots were allocated by the community as allotments. The rest of the land (wastelands, meadows, forests, pastures, pastures) remained in the indivisible possession of the community, constituting public property, which every member of society had the right to use as needed. Being already in the private and, moreover, hereditary possession of individual families, the land among the Adygs was not yet freely alienable land property. As a rule, it was not sold, bought or rented.

According to adat, the right to inherit was limited to kinship through the male line. The direct heirs of the Adyghe were recognized as sons, then siblings, nephews and then cousins ​​and their sons. After the death of the father, the sons received all his property and equally divided among themselves, allocating the widow some for a living, and then if she did not marry. She was also given the right to choose to live in the house of one of her sons or stepsons. The customary law of the highlanders deprived a woman of inheritance rights.

Over time, these restrictions partially disappeared, which was reflected in the norms of Sharia, which spread among the Circassians after they adopted Islam. In those mountain tribes in which Sharia prevails over adat, F. I. Leontovich pointed out, the following rules are observed when dividing the estate: the wife of the deceased receives 1/8 share of the whole estate; of the rest, 2/3 goes to the son and 1/3 to the daughter. If there are no sons left after the deceased, then according to the division of 1/4 of the part to the wife, the rest of the estate is divided into two parts (in the event that only one daughter remains after the deceased), of which half is given to the daughter, and the other to the closest relative. The inheritance law of the Circassians also retained some vestiges of matriarchy. So, according to adat, the husband did not inherit the wife's estate. It passed to the children, and in the absence of them, it returned to the parents or next of kin. The constraint and restrictions of the community member in the right to dispose of his land delayed the development of the institution of private land ownership and the maturation of the elements of feudalism in the Adyghe society, entangled the emerging feudal relations (with numerous patriarchal and tribal remnants, but they could not stop their forward movement. Despite all the obstacles, nearby with a small free peasant economy based on personal labor, a large economy of the Adyghe princes, nobles, foremen and wealthy tfokotl grew up, based on the labor of slaves and serfs.The prerequisites for this were created by the very economic structure of the rural community, that is, a contradictory combination land use.

The concentration of land in the hands of princes, nobles, foremen and wealthy tfokotles took place on the basis of a practice consecrated by adat, which objectively served their economic interests. They used the community-established principle of dividing the land between families, taking into account the number of their members, the number of production tools and draft power. This opened up scope for the plundering of communal lands. Even more important was the fact that when dividing the land, the social position of the family was also taken into account. For "honorary persons" (princes and paramount nobles in the "aristocratic tribes", foremen - in the "democratic"), the preferred right to dispose of and use the best plots was recognized.

In the “Collection of Information Relating to the People’s Institutions and Laws of the Highlanders - Adat, 1845”, it is written: “Princes ... use the best places for grazing their livestock throughout the entire expanse of land, on which the villages of the same tribe they patronize live, and near the aul in which they themselves live, they even enjoy the right to limit for themselves the most convenient land for arable farming and haymaking, which the inhabitants of this aul, as well as others, cannot cultivate for their own benefit except with their permission.

It should be noted that the later claims of the Adyghe nobility to the land were based on this. Not limited to the rights recognized by custom, the princes often tried to seize communal rights and lands, which inevitably led to litigation between the communities and their princes and social conflicts. This fact was so obvious that it could not fail to catch the eye of any attentive observer. So, in K. F. Stal we come across the following interesting remark: “Princes and nobles never had land property separately from their people among the Circassians. So at least it is evident from many disputes started by communities against their princes. Whether K. F. Stal wanted it or not, his remark directly points to the internal inconsistency of the Adyghe society of that time. One of the sources of social struggle was precisely the forces of communal rights to land, on the one hand, and the emergence of large landed property of the feudal type to the detriment of small free communal land ownership, on the other. Among the duties of the Bzhedukh tfokotl, of particular interest is the obligation of each family to give a lamb to the owner of the aul for burning last year's grass on communal pastures. This, undoubtedly, manifested the desire of princes and nobles to undermine the collective ownership of land and establish their supreme sovereignty over it. Apparently, this is the earliest and, moreover, a form of appropriation of communal ownership of land by the feudal lord, which is specific to a settled pastoral and agricultural economy. This assumption is confirmed by the direct testimony of contemporaries, which we have already dwelled on above: “... given the custom that existed in many localities, that the earth, just like air, water and forest, is a public property that everyone can use without any restriction , it was assumed that some of the honorary persons had a preferable right to dispose of the land over others. By the 19th century the evolution of this right led to the fact that the ogs even began to pay princes and nobles a special fee for the use of land.

The feudal claims of the Adyghe nobility were especially clearly manifested in the petition filed by the Bzhedukh princes and nobles in 1860 to General Kusakov, where they claimed that they allegedly “have long been considered possessive persons of the common people” and that they alone owned the land, which they “given away for the use of the people ".

Another tendency of the feudalizing nobility was to attempt to establish power over rural communities and subjugate their free population. The Circassians themselves, having no written language, left no evidence that would allow them to follow the entire course of the struggle that unfolded on this soil between the communities and the tribal aristocracy. However, on the basis of folk legends, the beginning of this struggle can be attributed to the middle of the 18th century. It took on a protracted character and covered the entire first half of the 19th century. In the context of a deep decomposition of tribal relations and far-reaching property and social differentiation, one of the means of enslaving ordinary community members was the spouses preserved by the Adyghes, help and other types of mutual labor assistance, which princes, nobles and wealthy tfokotls used to exploit free peasants. It is no coincidence that the social elites of the Adyghe society so tenaciously held on to the surviving remnants of tribal orders. Help, wrote F. A. Shcherbina, were sometimes arranged for charitable purposes. In other cases, help was arranged not only for the poor, but also for the rich, and then they somewhat lost their communal character, being something like a tribute to the rich and influential people on the part of the poor.

So, the social structure of the Circassians in the 18th - the first half of the 19th century was characterized by the presence of quite pronounced features of tribal relations, but elements of feudalism were no less clearly visible in it.

Feudalism among the Adyghe peoples is one of the most complex and peculiar phenomena of socio-economic history. The key to understanding it is provided by the well-known proposition of Marxism, which says that the generality of the laws of historical development does not exclude specific forms of manifestation of these laws. “The same economic basis,” wrote K. Marx, “one and the same from the side of the main conditions — thanks to infinitely different empirical circumstances, natural conditions, racial relations, historical influences acting from outside, etc. — can be found in its manifestation of endless variations and gradations, which can only be understood by analyzing these empirically given circumstances.

Unlike the countries of Western Europe, in which feudalism was formed on the basis of the contradictory interaction of two processes - the decomposition of the slave-owning mode of production in the late Roman Empire and the tribal system among the tribes that conquered it, the Adyghes who bypassed the slave-owning formation (although slavery existed among them as a way of life) , feudal relations developed as a result of the decomposition of traditional communal ties. The territorial community was preserved among them in the purest form and lasted longer than among many other peoples. Relying on it, the Adyghe peasantry more successfully resisted enslavement. The process of feudalization took place here, therefore, very slowly. Numerous patriarchal-tribal survivals entangled various areas of the life of the Circassians. The stability of pre-feudal orders in society is largely due to the natural geographical conditions of the Caucasus. Historically, it was determined that "traces of the existence of the brand have survived to the present time almost only in high mountainous places." The mountains and forests of the Western Caucasus, created by nature itself, the isolation and isolation of individual regions contributed to the preservation of archaic forms of social life and hampered the transition to a new stage of its organization. In the narrow and cramped mountain valleys, neither the organization of a large-scale estate economy, nor the intensification of agriculture, nor, moreover, any developed urban life, seemed possible at that time.

A certain role in the long-term preservation of tribal remnants was played by the interest in this of the tops of the tfokotl, which used the remnants of antiquity to weaken the positions of the old nobility.

Along with this, there were factors that contributed to the development of feudalism among the Circassians. One of these factors was the Caucasian wars of the 18th-19th centuries. At that time, an unusually complex political situation was created in the Caucasus. On the one hand, feudal Turkey and the European powers that were hostile to Russia sought to spread their influence on the Adyghe population. The interference of these states in the internal affairs of the Circassians and their impact on the social life of the indigenous population was of great importance and, as it seems to us, was not taken into account by the researchers. On the other hand, the tsarist government was also looking for ways that would speed up the assertion of its power over this population. In an effort to create a social support for itself, tsarism, as a rule, was guided by the nobility. One of the means of attracting her to his side was the encouragement of her seizure of communal lands. Of great importance was the constant inter-tribal hostility. The chronic state of war contributed to the growth and exaltation of the noble-princely nobility.

The necessary conditions for the existence of the feudal system are the monopoly of the ruling class - the feudal lords on land and the personal dependence of the direct producer - the peasant, endowed with land. The maturation of these conditions was the main content of the birth of feudalism. It is presented as a two-way process: the seizure of land by feudal lords, on the one hand, the dispossession and enslavement of the once free community member, on the other. Among the Circassians, this happened in a peculiar way. The developing feudal relations have not yet reached the level where large-scale landownership becomes the dominant form. The materials at our disposal do not allow us to assert that the land was unconditionally monopolized by the nobility.

Legally, neither the princes nor the nobles were considered the owners of the land that they actually owned. Feudal ownership of land undoubtedly already existed at the time in question, but in a hidden form. She was entangled in the remnants of tribal society. Therefore, the opinion that has been established in bourgeois Caucasian studies that princes and nobles do not have landed property is correct only formally. Numerous archival materials give us clear indications that the feudalizing Adyghe nobility stubbornly sought to extend their ownership rights to communal lands. However, she failed to break the adat and legalize this capture. By the time of the conquest of the Caucasus, the social elite had only managed to achieve recognition of their preferential rights to land and develop certain legal ideas and class customs (workkhabze), which sharply separated it from the rest of the population.

Thus, the main feature of the Adyghe feudalism was the originality of the basis of feudal production relations: part of the public land. was actually appropriated by the feudal lords, although this fact was not officially recognized and the legally sovereign right to land was retained by the community. The absence of full private ownership of land created the most serious obstacles for the feudal nobility. The Circassians did not yet have freely alienable land property. Hence the originality and slow pace of feudalization.

The landed property of the Adyghe feudal lords was deprived of many specific features. Here, the system of land retentions characteristic of feudalism and the personal dependence of one feudal lord on another did not develop, since the subordinate did not always receive hereditary land ownership from the master. When analyzing the features of Adyghe feudalism, one cannot ignore the fact that its formation took place among the local indigenous population in that historical period when feudalism as a whole was already a moribund formation. This did not create a solid foundation for its development. An extremely original situation was taking shape: feudal relations, not having had time to develop and become stronger, were already doomed to extinction.

Due to rather broad economic ties with the outside world, the Adyghe nobility and especially the top tfokotl represented by elders were increasingly involved in trade and commodity-money relations. This contributed to the economic prosperity and socio-political rise of wealthy boilers. So, natural conditions, foreign policy situation, internal social struggle and other factors complicated the process of feudalization in the Adyghe society, and therefore it was carried out slowly, in a highly original way, bypassing the slaveholding formation. But slavery persisted for a long time as a way of life. In subsistence economy, trade and money transactions played, however, a rather significant role.

Let's move on to the question of the social structure of the Adyghe peoples. The Adyghe society, not yet having a clear class division, was at the same time already deeply dissected. In official documents and historical literature, individual social divisions were usually called "estates". Such "estates" were: princes (pshi), nobles (warks), free community members (tfokotli), not free - slaves (unauts), serfs (pshitli) and feudally dependent (ogs).

Princes and nobles of various degrees constituted the feudal elite in the structure of society. As “honorary persons”, they enjoyed a number of advantages and privileges assigned to them by adat: heredity of title, the right to trial by equals, etc. Among the “democratic tribes”, after the “coup” of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, which we will to speak below, the so-called foremen began to play the main role.

Adat strictly distinguished between possessing and non-possessing nobles. Princes and paramount nobles were considered sovereign. The legal justification for their ownership rights was their descent from former tribal leaders, that is, the tradition indicated by adat. Princes enjoyed special honor and influence in the "aristocratic tribes". Elder: a member of the princely family was considered the owner of the tribe. The title of prince was hereditary and passed from the father to all legitimate children born from equal marriages. As for the son born from the marriage of a prince with a simple noblewoman, he received the name "tum" (illegal) .

One of the most important privileges of the prince was the right to administer justice and reprisals against his subjects. In addition, he had the right to declare war and make peace. When dividing the captured booty, the prince was allocated the best part, even if he himself did not participate in the raid. According to the adat, the prince had the right to receive increased fines for material damage caused to him. He could raise his "subjects" to the nobility, and these new nobles formed his vassal circle.

In the middle of the XIX century. a number of communal rights have already passed to the princes, such as the right to decide on the settlement of new persons in the territory subject to them, which in turn opened up the possibility for them to single-handedly dispose of communal lands in the future.

Among the main economic privileges of the princes was the pre-emptive right already noted above to allocate the best lands for themselves and their vassals, as well as to collect trade duties (kurmuk) from their subject and passing merchants. Finally, and most importantly, the princes received from the population of the auls subject to them natural dues in the form of grain, hay and other agricultural products, and in some cases they could even involve the inhabitants of these auls to work on their farms. Such work represented an embryonic form of labor rent. It is characteristic that all these duties were covered with a shell of voluntariness, although they were sometimes very difficult.

The princes, like the nobles of the first degree, usually did not have their own large plowing, satisfying the needs and needs of their court at the expense of “voluntary offerings” of those under their control. These offerings gradually developed into natural duties. Their steady growth over time objectively should have led to the enslavement of the free population. Without leading a large-scale agricultural economy, the princes, however, possessed a large number of cattle, which they had the right to graze not only on pastures allocated from communal lands, but also on the entire territory subject to them.

The next group of feudal lords were the nobles of the first degree, who had almost the same rights as the princes, only in a smaller area, and differed from them only in that they received somewhat lesser honors. Their number was small. They were followed by nobles of the second and third degrees. They were not possessive and lived in auls that belonged to a prince or a nobleman. Their duty was military service to their lord.

The nobles of the second degree had slaves and serfs, led an independent economy, the picture of which, due to the lack of sources, is extremely difficult to restore.

Nobles of the third degree constituted a permanent princely retinue. They were kept at the princely court at the expense of products collected from the peasants. Another source of their livelihood was booty. Like typical feudal warriors, they had the right to leave.

Archival documents allow us to conclude that many petty nobles constantly moved from one tribe to another and, offering their services to participate in military enterprises, gradually formed a kind of intertribal layer of “mercenaries”. In some cases, the path of such people was very bizarre and sometimes ended even with the fact that they fell into serfdom. Let's take one typical example. The petty Khamysh nobleman of Kluko-Khanuko Abidok, after the death of his patron Hanukkah, passed to the Abadzekhs. After staying with them for three years, he went to the Shapsugs. Not getting along with them either, in 1825 he moved to Anapa, where he was invited by a relative of his late lord Hanuk Barecheko. This latter had a large farm on the Natukhai territory, which supplied grain and cattle to the Anapa market. Living with him, Kluko-Khanuko Abidok, in his own words, was "more in the steppe, where the owner of his Hanukkah is arable and hay is produced." The new patron of Abidok was on good terms with the Turkish authorities in Anapa, and especially with the influential Natukhai foremen. Therefore, he decided to enslave the noble Adyghe nobleman, who faithfully served his deceased relative. Fortunately for Abidok, he found well-wishers who informed him in time that if “he lives longer with his aforementioned master, he will make him a serf and sell him to the Turks.” After that, Abidok could only run to the Russians with, as he stated, "to be forever devoted to Russia."

From the history of the Circassians at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century: Socio-economic essays.

- Krasnodar, 1989.

Editorial

Introduction

Essay first. Socio-economic situation of the Circassians in the late XVIII - first sexes. 19th century

Territory

social order

Tfokotli and the formation of a new feudal stratum

Unauts, pshitli and ogs

Essay second. Settlement of the Black Sea Cossack Host in the Kuban

Essay third. 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

Essay four. 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 class privileges of the Adyghe nobility.

Fifth essay. The attitude of the Russian administration towards the Adyghe slaves, serfs and their owners

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

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

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

Essay six. Muridism in the Western Caucasus.

The spread of Muridism in the Western Caucasus.

Organization of administration of the Adyghe peoples subordinate to Magomed-Amin.

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

Essay seven. Western Caucasus during the Crimean War.

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

Unsuccessful attempts to raise the Circassians to fight against Russia

Military operations in the Western Caucasus during the Crimean War

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

Bibliographic list

Editorial

The author of these essays, Krasnodar scientist Mikhail Vladimirovich Pokrovsky (1897-1959), Doctor of Historical Sciences, went through an interesting but difficult path from a graduate of a local pedagogical institute, then a teacher of history to the head of the department of history of the USSR in his native university. He has devoted more than twenty years to developing the issues that are covered in this book. From month to month, from year to year, studying in the archives thousands of plump cases (storage units) of a century ago, he carefully restored the 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 history. That is why the researcher's efforts were focused on penetrating into a bygone era. His work, like any serious historical work, is valuable not only for the abundance of cognitive factual material.

For the modern reader, the very dedication of the author to the chosen topic, the desire to deeply and objectively understand the most complex political and socio-economic vicissitudes with sincere respect for the history of each people - all this, undoubtedly, can serve as an example of cultivating historicism in thinking, the lack of which has become, unfortunately, acute. feel lately.

In this regard, a characteristic feature of the scientific method deserves attention. Having a mass of conflicting facts at his disposal, he did not find himself in the thrall of tendentiousness and was able to see the general patterns of historical progress behind the numerous and varied details of being.

As a result of a long search, he came to a number of reasonable conclusions, among them the conclusion about the mutual penetration of the cultures of two neighboring peoples - Russians and Adygs, who, despite the long-term unstable situation in the region, plowed the land nearby, mowed hay, fished. .. All this gave rise to the possibility of socio-political communication between the lower classes of the Cossack army and the peasant masses of the Adyghe population. It is no coincidence that the participants in the Cossack rebellion in 1797 told the authorities that if their demands were not met, they would kill the officers, and themselves "go to the Circassians." On the other hand, the hopes for getting rid of the hard fate 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 flows of mountaineers-refugees.

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's Turkey and its European allies, the official course of Russian tsarism, the ambiguous policy of the local noble-princely and foremen's 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 especially 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.

A deep penetration into the factual material made it possible to draw a reasonable conclusion: the features of the emergence and development of feudalism among the Adygs 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 legislate 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 (psho). The latter had the features of a land (rural) community.

Examining in detail what was the real significance of various tribal remnants and feudal relations in the public life of the Adyghes, the scientist notes that the pace of feudalization, the very process of development of feudalism among different Adyghe peoples are not the same. They depended on geographical conditions, the degree of stability of the community and its institutions, the alignment of social forces, and a number of other factors.

A significant place in the essays is occupied by the history of the anti-feudal struggle among the Circassians. The author characterizes in detail the position and relationships of certain categories of the population, shows a high degree of property differentiation and the severity of social contradictions that resulted in armed clashes between the tfokotls and the nobility.

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

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 Adygs at the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century, are presented quite briefly, others - just as a background of events or left out of the narrative.

This edition is posthumous. Therefore, for the complete preservation of the author's manuscript, increased caution was shown. Where necessary, reductions in repetitions and overloads with factual material were made, terms and names were clarified. However, for the most part, personal names and geographical 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 were not subjected to any corrections either. Therefore, the originality of the author's text is fully preserved.

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

In this case, we consider ourselves entitled to reduce the number of references, especially to those sources that have already been mentioned earlier, but the quotations have been left. The presence of a bibliographic list justifies the expediency 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 system of the Adyghe peoples (XVIII - the first half of the XIX century)" (M., 1967), "The socio-economic and political situation of the Adyghes in the XIX century." (Maikop, 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 get to know the history of the Adyghe peoples better, but will also become a definite contribution to Soviet Caucasian studies.

The editorial staff would like to thank him for carefully preserving and providing his father's manuscript for publication.

INTRODUCTION

Fraternal friendship among all the peoples that make up the Soviet Union is one of the foundations of the might of the Soviet state and social system.

From this it is clear how responsible and important the task of in-depth study and truthful elucidation of a number of problems of the historical development of the peoples of our country. Among such problems is the socio-economic history of the Adyghe peoples in the 18th - 19th centuries.

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

18th and 19th centuries arena of struggle between Russia, Turkey and England. The Caucasian question was part of the Eastern question, which at that time was one of the urgent 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 public circles in Russia and Western European countries in the tribes and peoples inhabiting it, which caused a constant stream of observers, travelers, journalists, writers of everyday life, novelists, overt and covert agents of powers interested in the Caucasus, as well as the appearance extensive literature, which has accumulated a large amount of factual material and left many valuable observations.

A truly scientific theoretical analysis and generalization of the collected specific 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, what is especially important, allows us to approach the correct understanding of many of the most important political events that took place in the Western Caucasus in the 19th century. This alone already sufficiently speaks of the need and relevance of further scientific development of issues related to the social structure of the Circassians.

Unfortunately, no written sources have come down to us from the Circassians themselves due to their lack of written language, and the study of their social system, difficult in itself due to the uniqueness of their social development, is further complicated by this circumstance. The customary law of the Circassians was preserved only in the oral tradition and was subjected to later literary processing as materials on customary law.

Because of 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 has 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 Host 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 public 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, memorandums and reviews, orders and relations contain a large amount of data relating to various aspects of the life of the Circassians.

This work was written on the basis of documents stored in the State Archive of the Krasnodar Territory (GAKK), the Central State Historical Archive 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 moment the Black Sea Cossack army moved to the Kuban; the policy of Russia and Turkey in relation to various social categories of the hellish 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 Circassians 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 Adyghes and obscures the acuteness of social contradictions associated with the feudalization of the Adyghe 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 occupied 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 own interests.

This circumstance was expressed not only in the fact that they persistently drew the nobility and the senior nobility 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 government circles in Turkey, England and Tsarist Russia. .

The struggle between them “for 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 went as far as declaring the independence of tfokotl from feudal encroachments by princes and nobles. Moreover, even the non-free population of the Northwestern Caucasus, slaves and serfs (Unauts and Pshitli), were also drawn into the orbit of European politics and used in a complex political game. In particular, tsarism, along with the methods of open military-colonial expansion, widely applied demagogy towards the indicated social groups of the population, not stopping at freeing runaway slaves and serfs and raising some of them "in Cossack dignity", in order to politically influence them. owners.

On the basis of archival materials and foreign printed sources, one can trace the influences that certain social groups of the population were subjected to by foreign governments.

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

Trade relations between the Circassians and the Russian population seriously impeded the strengthening of Turkey's positions and became the subject of a competitive struggle, in which the English trading company based in Trebizond also took part. The British ruling circles were well aware of the danger of Russia's economic penetration into the Caucasus and could not come to terms with it, because this meant recognizing its claims to the Caucasus.

In the complex intertwining of military and political events that played out in the Western Caucasus, with moments of internal social struggle that took place among the Adygs, one can clearly see the desire of the majority 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 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.

Arguing with English reviewers who attacked Haxthausen's book "Transcaucasia, essays on peoples and tribes between the Black and Caspian Seas", the author of which held the idea of ​​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 recognized Russia, fell in love with it, and his "Transcaucasia" is imbued with sympathy for Russia and for Russian rule over the Caucasus. English reviewers, of course, call it, if not prejudice, then prejudice. In fact, 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." How much we can be judges in our own case, 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 start of the war.

Constantly communicating with the Russian population, the Adyghes, in turn, influenced their way of life. This was reflected in the adoption by the Cossacks of the Adyghe costume (Circassians, cloaks, beshmets, hats, leggings), as well as items of cavalry equipment and horse harness. the life of the stanitsa population of the Black Sea coast and were used by them in the mud as the main mode of transport.

The creation of the so-called Black Sea breed of horses, 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 the river. 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 ships that lifted several hundred pounds of cargo and sailed along the entire middle and lower reaches of the river. Kuban.

The high level of Adyghe horticulture influenced the development of orchards in the Black Sea region, where varieties of Adyghe apple trees, cherries and pears were widely cultivated. The Circassians 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 the "out-of-town industrialists" also almost entirely followed the methods used by the Circassians in caring for bees, and in the 50s of the 19th 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 Russians found its expression in a number of other points 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 failed to raise them to fight against Russia.

Of particular interest 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 used all the means at its disposal to win over the Adygs to its side. Even the assault on Novorossiysk by the allied squadron, undertaken at the end of February 1855 in order to bring the Tfokotls out of the state of political passivity, did not achieve the desired results, and the official documents of the London Admiralty reflect the deep disappointment of the English command about this (9, 100-102). Questions of purely military history are given relatively little space in the work, since there are a sufficient number of works that cover in detail the external side of the Caucasian war. Therefore, without setting ourselves such a task, we concentrated our attention in this area only on those events that provide some new data regarding the aggressive plans of foreign powers in the Caucasus.

Essay first.

Socio-economic situation of the Circassians in the late 18th - first half of the 19th century

Territory

The western part of the Caucasus Range with the adjacent strip of foothills descending to the Kuban lowland, in the 18th century. was occupied by the Adyghe peoples. By the time the state border of Russia was advanced to the river. Kuban, they have come a long way of historical development. On the pages of Russian chronicles, the Adygs are first mentioned under the name 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. Along the Main Caucasian Range and along the Black Sea coast in a general direction from northwest to southeast, the lands of the Natukhians were located. In their form, they resembled a large triangle, the base of which rested on 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 Tsemess Bay to the river. Pshady lived Shapsugs, called in official correspondence "Shapsug Natukhians", and in the vicinity of Anapa - a small tribe of Kheygak. (By the beginning of the 19th century, they settled in the Natukhai auls.)

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

To the east of the Natukhaydevs, the Shapsugs lived, divided into large and small ones (the so-called Big Shapsug and Small Shapsug. Big Shapsug was located north of the Main Caucasian Range, 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, behind which the Ubykhs lived, and from the west by the Dzhubga River, which separated it from the Natukhai.

To the east of Bolshoi Shapsug, in the depths of the Caucasus Mountains and on their northern slope, 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 the Bzhedukhovs, from the east its border was the river. White, and from the South it rested on the Main Caucasian Range, 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 pool. The most densely populated by them were the valleys of the rivers Vunduk Kurdzhips, Pshachi, Pshish, Psekups. Here were the villages of the main Abadzekh communities (Tuba, Temdashi, Daurkhabl, Dzhengetkhabl, Gatyukokhabl, Nezhukokhabl and Tfishebs). In the official correspondence of the Russian military authorities, Abadzekhs were usually divided into upland, or distant, and flat, or near ones.

Between the northern border of the Abadzekh territory and the river. Bzhedukhs were located in the Kuban, subdivided into Khamysheevs, Chercheneys (Kerkeneevs) and Zheneevs (Zhaneevs). According to folk legends, the Khamysheevites first lived on the river. Belaya among the Abadzekhs, but then they were driven out by them to the upper reaches of the river. Psekups, where their fellow tribesmen lived - Chercheni. Then both of them, under the pressure of the Abadzekhs, moved even closer to the river. Kuban: the Khamysheites settled between the rivers Suls and Psekups, and the Cherchenians - between the rivers Psekups and Pshish. Most of the Zheneevites soon merged with the Khamysheevites and the Cherchenevites, and a part moved to the Karakuban Island, within the Black Sea coast.

The continuous inter-tribal struggle led to the fact that by the 30s of the XIX century. the number of bzhedukhs decreased significantly. According to the available archival data, only 1,200 Khamysheev “simple courts that paid tribute” to the Khamysheev princes went to the Abadzekhs and Shapsugs. “4 princes were killed at different times, 40 nobles, more than 1000 simple ones”, and over “900 souls of men and women with their property” were taken prisoner.

To the east of the Chercheneys, between the Pshish and Belaya rivers, lived the Khatukaevs. Still further east, between the lower reaches of the Belaya and Laba rivers, there was an area occupied by the Temirgoys or "chemgui". A little further to the south-east lived their neighbors - Egerukhaevtsy, Makhoshevtsy and Makhegi (Mamkhegovtsy), who were considered related to the Temirgoys and were often mentioned in Russian official correspondence under the general name "chemguy" or "kemgoy". In the 19th century Temirgoev, Egerukhaev and Makhoshev united under the rule of the Temirgoev princes from the Bolotokov family. A significant Adyghe people in the Western Caucasus were the Besleneevs. Their possessions bordered in the northwest on the territory of the Makhoshevites, in the southeast they reached the river. Laby and its tributary river. Hodz, and in the east - to the river. Urup. The so-called fugitive Kabardians and a small number of Nogais also lived among the Besleneyites.

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. It adjoined the region of Kabarda and the territory of the Abaza.

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 Temirgoevs and Egerukhais as only 8 thousand people, and claimed that there were 80 thousand Temirgoys alone. The number of Abadzekhs, however, reached 40-50 thousand people, and there were 260 thousand of them. The total number of Shapsugs was determined 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 subject to them was even more contradictory. Comparing the available data, one can only approximately determine the total number 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 Kuban zone, 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 Meotian-Sarmatian settlements and in cemeteries dating back to the 4th century BC. 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 Shapsug reservoir on the left bank of the river. Afips, near Krasnodar. During the construction of the dam of the reservoir, an ancient burial ground with soil and kurgan burials of the 13th-15th centuries was unearthed. and the territory of the settlement adjacent to it, belonging to the same time. Among other items, iron sickles and shares for plows, stone millstones, ketmen for uprooting bushes and other tools were found, indicating a 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 hammers, tongs, etc.).

The same finds were also 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) an order by A. Golovaty dated 01.01.01, instructing the head of the Taman detachment, Savva Bely, to organize the purchase of cereal seeds from the mountaineers for the settlers of the Black Sea Cossack army; 2) a report from the ataman of the Black Sea Cossack army Kotlyarevsky to Emperor Paul I, in which it was reported that due to an acute shortage of bread in the newly founded army, it was necessary to order to supply “the Cossacks on the border guard with bread exchanged for salt from Zakubans”.

Considering all that has been said, one should resolutely reject the rather widespread view that agriculture among the Adyghes in the 17th-18th centuries. supposedly 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. Circassians plow the land with plows like Ukrainian ones, to which several pairs of bulls are harnessed. Millet is sown more than any bread, then Turkish wheat (corn), spring wheat, spelt and barley. They reap bread with ordinary sickles; they thresh bread with balbs, that is, they trample and grind the ears of corn by means of horses or bulls harnessed to a board on which a burden is heaped, just as in Georgia and Shirvan. The ground straw, together with the chaff and part of the grains, is given as feed for 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, everyone in the garden has a tobacco bed. 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 also reflected in their pagan pantheon. Khan Giray reported that in the 40s of the XIX century. the image, personifying the deity of agriculture Sozeresh, 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 Sozeresh night, which coincided with the Christian holiday of Christmas, the image of Sozeresh was transferred from the barn to the house. Sticking wax candles to the branches and hanging pies and pieces of cheese on it, they put it on pillows and prayed.

It is quite natural, of course, that the mountain strip of the Western Caucasus was less convenient for arable farming than the Kuban lowland. That's why. cattle breeding, horticulture and horticulture 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.

The cattle breeding of the Adyghes 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, cattle were grazing even in winter. In fact. in winter, he descended from mountain pastures into the 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 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 abundance of meadows contributed to the widespread development of cattle breeding. Huge flocks of sheep, herds of cattle and herds of horses grazed on rich hayfields and pastures.

Indirectly, the size of cattle breeding and its nature can be obtained from the data of M. Paysonel, who reported that the highlanders annually slaughtered up to 500 thousand sheep and sold up to 200 thousand cloaks. Information about exports 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.

Among the pastoralists, the traits and remnants of the tribal system were especially pronounced. For example, in autumn, some families drove one of their cows, intended as a sacrifice to the god Ahin, into the sacred grove, tying pieces of bread and cheese to her horns. The local inhabitants accompanied the sacrificial animal, which was called the self-walking Achin's cow, and then slaughtered it. Ahin - the patron of herds of cattle - clearly belonged to the old pagan religion with its cult of communal sacred places, groves and trees, with common aul prayers and sacrifices. It is characteristic that at the place where the animal was slaughtered, the skin was not removed from it, and where it was removed, meat was not cooked; where they cooked it, they did not eat it, but they did all this, moving in turn from one place to another. It is possible that in these features of the sacrificial ritual, the features of the ancient nomadic life of pastoralists were manifested. Subsequently, they acquired the character of a religious rite, accompanied by the singing of special prayer songs.

It should be noted, however, that c. the period of time we are considering (the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th century), property differentiation sharply increases among pastoralists. A large number of livestock were concentrated in their hands by princes, nobles, elders and many wealthy community members - tfokotli. The labor of slaves and serfs was quite widely used during haymaking and fodder for livestock. From the end of the XVIII century. peasants began to show strong dissatisfaction with the capture of the best pastures by local feudal lords.

By the end of the XVIII century. horse factories owned by princes and wealthy elders acquired great importance. According to information, many of them supplied horses to various Adyghe peoples and even, strange as it may seem, regiments of Russian regular cavalry. Each factory had a special brand with which it branded its horses. For forgery, its perpetrators were severely punished. To improve the horse stock, the owners of the factories bought Arabian stallions in Turkey. The Termirgoev horses were especially famous, they were sold not only in the Caucasus, but also exported to the interior regions of Russia.

Agriculture and cattle breeding were not the only economic occupation of the Circassians. Poultry farming, as well as fruit growing and viticulture, received great development from them. The abundance of orchards, especially in the coastal part, has always attracted the attention of foreign travelers and observers, such as Belle, Dubois de Montpere, Spencer, and others.