"Death sentence" for Lesser Chechnya: the massacre of Duba's hamlet, forest clearings, fortresses, annihilation of the population and stanitsas on the sites of burned auls (1847-1851)

The strikes on Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) in 1847-1851 were accompanied by the annihilation of unarmed inhabitants, documented by the perpetrators themselves. On 6 March 1847 a detachment, led by a bribed guide, burst at dawn into the sleeping hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest); imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant in the assault, wrote: "the majority, caught by surprise half-naked, old and young, women, children and nursing infants, drowned in their own blood from the sharply honed bayonets that pardoned no one, spared no one"^[1]. On 15 June 1851 in the gorge of the Gekhi river, according to historian N. I. Pokrovsky, the detachment of General Sleptsov "annihilated a series of hamlets and auls. The inhabitants who had not managed to flee were slaughtered"^[2]; Sleptsov's own report of 20 June 1851 puts it more mildly - "those who resolved to defend themselves were killed, or a very few were spared and taken prisoner"^[3]. On 15 September 1851, at a crossing of the Sunzha river, the slaughter of those surrendering was admitted by the commander himself. Baryatinsky, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), described in a report to General Zavadovsky of 18 September 1851 how Chechens who had recognized the empire's power ("pacified") and Cossacks cut down the fleeing: "The pacified Chechens and our Cossacks, pursuing them along narrow paths, slashed without mercy. No one thought of defending himself... I myself and my officers tried to restrain the killings, but it was almost impossible"; he counts the dead at "more than 200 bodies"^[3]. On 16 November 1851 General Kozlovsky reported, in a report of 21 November 1851, on the annihilation of the aul Dakhin-Irzau: "I resolved to annihilate this aul, which I carried out at dawn on 16 November with complete success" - more than 40 killed, more than 100 wounded^[3].

Massacre as a means of intimidation was a conscious practice of the period - and the empire gave awards for it. Historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes of the strike on the hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest): "the Russian command did not renounce separate short strikes aimed at terrifying the Chechens. The object of one such strike was the hamlet of naib Duba... What took place was an outright massacre"^[2]. For this massacre the empire handed out awards: imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant in the massacre, cites the order - "for the excellent courage and bravery shown in the action at the annihilation of the aul of Duba, such-and-such are promoted, and from ensign to second lieutenant - Poltoratsky," while Vorontsov, the viceroy in the Caucasus, sent the detachment "128 badges of the military order" for the soldiers^[1]. An award for "the action at the annihilation of an aul" is official recognition of massacre as exemplary service.

The empire cut and widened forest clearings (prosekas) in the woods of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya). Historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes of 1848: "In January - February R. K. Freytag was clearing and widening the Goyta and Gekhi clearings"^[2]. Vorontsov, viceroy and commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, reported the purpose of the clearings to Minister of War Chernyshev in an official letter (otnosheniye) of 25 October 1847: "These clearings, together with those cut in the winter of 1845-1846, make it possible to penetrate Chechnya from several directions and punish hostile auls; constrained in their means of life, seeing their constant failures, the Chechens waver, and a large number of families are already resettling into our bounds"^[6]. Emperor Nicholas I placed the resolution "Agreed" on the dispatch (6 November 1847; with one organizational reservation - on the impossibility of forming new line battalions)^[6].

In the winter of 1847-1848 the empire built fortresses that locked in Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya). Imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant in the winter expedition of 1847-1848, wrote: "By the building of the forward Sunzha Line, from Groznaya to Vladikavkaz, we greatly constricted Lesser Chechnya, but by now constructing fortresses on the Martan, the Valerik and the Assa we were finally carrying out her death sentence"^[1]. Historian N. I. Pokrovsky records the continuation in 1848: "at the beginning of August the fortification of Urus-Martan was founded"^[2]. The stanitsas settled Cossacks on the sites of burned auls; the fortresses kept troops on that same land.

The empire destroyed the auls and hamlets of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) blow after blow. In November-December 1847 Golen-Goyta and the aul of naib Saib-dula (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest) were destroyed: imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant in the winter expedition of 1847-1848, wrote of the burned highlander houses (saklias) - "the charred skeletons of saklias and, on the ground, blackened thick pools of blood and human corpses scattered everywhere recalled the rich aul of Golen-Goyta that had existed so recently," and of the aul of Saib-dula: the column "took the aul by storm, annihilated everything in it and burned it to the ground"^[1]. On the night of 17 February 1850, under an order of the commander-in-chief in the Caucasus conveyed by the journal of military events of General Ilyinsky - "to annihilate there the dwellings of the harmful population stubborn in its insubmission" - the detachment of Colonel Sleptsov burned the hamlets of Muzuroyev and Nekhloyev and the aul Yasan-yurt: "Few of the inhabitants managed to save themselves... Having finished the annihilation of the hamlets and the aul in two hours' time, Colonel Sleptsov began his withdrawal"^[3]. On 15 June 1851 "a series of hamlets and auls" of the Gekhi gorge was annihilated^[2], and on 16 November 1851 - the aul Dakhin-Irzau: General Kozlovsky's report notes "the turning to ashes of the aul Dakhin-Irzau with enormous stores of grain and hay"^[3].

Short surprise strikes were the working mode of the troops in Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) in 1847-1851. The detachment against the hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest) set out "on 5 March, at 10 o'clock at night" and struck at dawn^[1]; the raid of 17 February 1850 took "two hours' time"^[3]; in June, September and November 1851 the auls were struck by the detachments of Generals Sleptsov, Baryatinsky and Kozlovsky^[3][2]. The frame of the practice was given by historian N. I. Pokrovsky: "separate short strikes aimed at terrifying the Chechens"^[2].

The empire drove the population of the mountain gorges of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) down to its fortifications. General Sleptsov reported to General Ilyinsky on 4 October 1850: "In two days, from 30 September to 2 October, the auls Galgayevsky, Eyshkaloysky, Nachkhoysky and Terloyev, scattered in hamlets, emptied. More than 150 families settled the space around Zakan-yurt and Kazakh-kichu" - next to the imperial fortifications^[3]. The report frames the resettlement as a request of the elders; the mechanism of coercion is named plainly by the same report - constraint by the future imperial settlements in the valley and the example of compatriots already resettled.

The squeezing of the Chechens out of the mountains was built on depriving them of the means of life - and the empire wrote about this openly. Vorontsov, viceroy and commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, reported to Minister of War Chernyshev in an official letter (otnosheniye) of 25 October 1847: "constrained in their means of life, seeing their constant failures, the Chechens waver, and a large number of families are already resettling into our bounds"^[6]. General Sleptsov, in a report of 4 October 1850, built on this a calculation for the future: the mountain communities, "constrained by our future settlements in the valley, ... will inevitably follow the example of their compatriots" - that is, they too would come down to the fortifications^[3].

The land of the evicted communities of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) passed to the empire. General Sleptsov, in a report to General Ilyinsky of 4 October 1850, summed up the displacement of the mountain auls: "the rich lands between the Sunzha and the Russian road have passed into the unaccountable possession of the government, so that the entire plain of Lesser Chechnya is now completely cleared of the hostile population"^[3]. "Unaccountable possession" is the report's own formula: the land was taken without any registration of the former owners' rights.

The colonization of the Sunzha Line (the chain of Cossack stanitsas along the Sunzha river) left the Chechen people a small part of its own land. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov sum up: "after the creation of the Sunzha Cossack line and other numerous military fortifications, the greater part of the country's population found itself herded onto a space roughly 70 versts from west to east and 40 versts from south to north" (a verst is slightly more than a kilometer); per person there was less than 2 desiatinas of land (a desiatina is slightly more than a hectare) against a survival norm of 5^[5]. Still earlier the empire took on the very order of settlement: "as early as the 1840s the Russian authorities strove to liquidate the numerous hamlets on the territory of lowland Chechnya, forcing their inhabitants to resettle into large villages with the aim of easing the collection of taxes and tributes and ensuring proper police control over the population"^[5].

In 1847-1851 Cossack stanitsas rose, name by name, on the sites of the auls of Chechens and Karabulaks (a Vainakh community between Chechnya and Ingushetia). Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov give the series: "In 1847 on the site of the aul Gazhariyn-Yurt the stanitsa Nesterovskaya was erected. In 1847 on the site of the aul Ekha-Borze the stanitsa Assinovskaya was raised... the village of Mokhmad-Yurt - the stanitsa Magomed-Yurtovskaya (1847), present-day Voznesenovskaya; the village of Eldarkhan-Yurt - the stanitsa Karabulakskaya (1851); the village of Semashki - the stanitsa Samashkinskaya (1851); the village of Zaki-Yurt - the stanitsa Zakan-Yurtovskaya, later Romanovskaya (1851); the village of Alkhan-Kala - the stanitsa Alkhan-Yurtovskaya, later Yermolovskaya (1851)"^[5]; of burned Akh-Borze they write plainly: "the burned Karabulak village of Akh-Borze is replaced in 1847 by the stanitsa Assinovskaya"^[5]. The empire planned the continuation of colonization in writing: Vorontsov, viceroy in the Caucasus, in an official letter (otnosheniye) to Minister of War Chernyshev of 25 October 1847, reckoned that after the felling of the forests and "the removal from there of the hostile Chechen auls," "in 1849 it will be possible to lay the beginning of the settlement of the 2nd Sunzha regiment"^[6]. Who the replacements were is visible from the empire's resettlement files. In 1847 families from the Don Cossack Host were moved to the Sunzha - according to the lists of the resettlement file, the first echelon set out on 23 May 1847 to settle the just-built stanitsas Magomet-Yurtovskaya and Assinskaya; the totals of the lists - 219 souls male and 221 female^[7]. In 1850 the empire planted in the stanitsas of the regiment, including Assinskaya and Magomet-Yurtovskaya, the families of married soldiers of the regular regiments, including those "belonging to landlord ownership" - former serfs^[7]. The first settler families lived, according to an imperial sketch, "in shanties covered with straw, or in dugouts"^[8].

Those resettled down to the fortifications were held by hostages. General Sleptsov, in a report of 4 October 1850, stated that he was holding in the Cossack stanitsa Sunzhenskaya, planted on the site of the Chechen aul Dibir-Yurt, hostages (amanats) - people the empire took from the families of the resettled in order to hold their communities in obedience under the threat of reprisal against those taken: "The amanats, taken by me in assurance of the unconditional submission of the resettled, I keep in the stanitsa Sunzhenskaya"^[3]. A hostage also secured the massacre of the hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest) on 6 March 1847: imperial officer Poltoratsky wrote of the naib's two bribed nephews - "while one of the two was, as an amanat (hostage), held under arrest in the guardhouse at Vozdvizhenskoye, the other... was leading the enemy detachment into his own native nest"^[1].

The massacre of the hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest) on 6 March 1847 was prepared by a targeted bribe inside the naib's family. Imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant in the assault, wrote of the detachment's guide: "This was naib Duba's own nephew, bribed together with his brother for a good cut out of the pocket of Meller" - Meller-Zakomelsky, who commanded the detachment^[1]. Both brothers were bought: one led the troops against his native hamlet, the other sat as a hostage in Vozdvizhenskoye - a guarantee that the guide would not change his mind.

Every strike on the auls of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) ended with people being carried off. From the massacre of the hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest) on 6 March 1847 the detachment, by the record of imperial officer Poltoratsky, "dragged along behind it 9 captives: three toothless old men and six women"^[1]. In the raid of 17 February 1850, "54 souls of both sexes" were taken captive^[3]; at the crossing of the Sunzha river on 15 September 1851 - 38 captives^[3]; at the annihilation of Dakhin-Irzau on 16 November 1851, "24 souls were taken captive"^[3]. The count in "souls of both sexes" in the reports is a count of civilians carried off, not fighters.

The empire conducted trade with the Chechens through controlled channels. The number of state barter yards (points of exchange of goods under the supervision of officials) in the second half of the 1840s "was increased to 11"^[5]. In 1850 the empire expanded trade - under the same control: historian N. I. Pokrovsky writes - "In 1850 the commander-in-chief, wishing to bring the unsubdued highlanders closer to the Russians, permitted the opening of a fair near the Groznaya fortress... After an exchange of amanats on 15 May an armistice of three days was concluded... On our side the sale of weapons and iron was not permitted" (an amanat is a hostage whom the empire took from a community as a guarantee of its submission)^[2]; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write of "the first Grozny trade fair," to which the highlanders brought "various goods on 500 arbas" (an arba is a two-wheeled cart)^[5]. The fair opened with an exchange of hostages; the sale of weapons and iron the empire did not permit.