Suppression of the 1860-1861 uprisings, the execution of Baysangur, and the shooting of the zikrists near Shali (1860-1864)
For twenty-five years the Chechens and Dagestanis held their own state against the empire - the Imamate created by Imam Shamil: with sharia courts, taxes, an army, and naib governors in the districts. In 1859 the Imamate fell: in April the troops took its capital, Vedeno; in August, near the Dagestani aul of Gunib, Shamil himself surrendered. He was taken to Russia under surveillance: Emperor Alexander II designated Kaluga as his place of residence, where the imam and his family were given a mansion and twenty thousand rubles a year in upkeep - a captivity the sources call "honorable". More than ten years later he was allowed a pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj); in 1871 he died in Medina (the Arabian Peninsula, now Saudi Arabia) and was buried there[1]. After that, Chechnya was held by force. In 1860-1861 uprisings broke out in Ichkeria and the Argun district - they were suppressed by expeditions with the destruction of auls and the eviction of the inhabitants, and those who led them were executed or sent into exile - to the inner provinces of Russia, to Siberia, and to fortresses: Baysangur of Benoy was hanged by sentence of a field court-martial; naib Atabi-Mullah Atayev and Uma Duyev were sent off to different provinces; Sheikh Kunta-Haji - indefinitely, to Ustyuzhna in Novgorod province; his brother - to the Vyborg fortress; rank-and-file followers - to fortress labor with settlement in Siberia. In January 1864, near the village of Shali, troops shot down an unarmed procession of followers of Sheikh Kunta-Haji - a Muslim preacher who taught that God must be remembered aloud, in chorus, with singing and circling in a ring. Such remembrance is called zikr - hence the imperial nickname of his followers, the zikrists. What moved the insurgents was recorded by the imperial side itself: Colonel Belik reported to the head of the Terek oblast in late May 1860 about the Benoy people who had returned to their burnt-out homes - they "earnestly begged permission to settle in their old places, - otherwise they had all sworn to die rather than submit"[2]. The program of the period was set down by the chief of the Main Staff of the Caucasus Army, Kartsov (Kartsev in other sources), in a secret memorandum of 1864: "the only sure means of securing the lasting submission of the Chechens is to organize their mass resettlement, partly to Turkey, partly to the plain, far away from the mountains"[2]. The outcome of the massacre near Shali is summed up by the historian D. A. Khozhayev: "the tsarist authorities provoked the highlanders into an action and staged a slaughter, gunning down with cannon the crowds of murid-zikrists who had advanced on the soldiers' squares with nothing but daggers and empty scabbards"[3] - murids are a sheikh's disciples.
Actors
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| G0009 | Russian Empire | 8 |
Instruments Applied
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| S0010 | Regular Army | 6 |
| S0012 | Occupation and Controlled Administrations | 2 |
Procedures Carried Out
In early June 1860, troops, Cossacks, and militia were sent into Benoy, where the deported families had returned without permission, led by Baysangur of Benoy, head of that society under Imam Shamil (the leader of the highlanders’ resistance to the Russian conquest)[2]. On 28 September 1860 the troops took Benoy by storm: the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "the desperate resistance... was quickly suppressed by artillery fire"; the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova dates the taking of the aul to 26 September and adds: "The retaliatory repressions were directed at the entire population of the insurgent districts"[2][4]. In December 1860 - January 1861 General Kundukhov's operation swept through Ichkeria - ten infantry battalions, four hundred Cossacks, and seven hundred Chechen militia: "'flying' detachments were widely used to pursue the insurgents, while the main mass of the troops was engaged in 'combing' the terrain"[2]. From spring until late autumn 1861, according to the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "on the territory of Chechnya, from the Assa river to the aul of Gekhi, a military-punitive expedition operated... evicting the Chechens by force of arms into the foothills and onto the plain"[4]. In autumn 1861 three detachments forced the last leaders of the uprising to surrender - an imperial report of 22 December 1861 sums it up: "The persistent actions of our troops in the severe winter of last year... compelled the Ichkerians to declare unconditional submission"[5].
In June 1860 the troops devastated the aul of Dzhumsoy, abandoned by its inhabitants: according to a July 1860 report from the commander of the troops of the Terek oblast to the Viceroy, it was "devastated to the ground, and part of the crops annihilated"[5]. The outcome of Kundukhov's operation in the winter of 1860-1861 is summed up in his own report, quoted by the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova: "All the buildings, in the auls as well as in the khutors, have been burned to the ground... the hay not only in the auls but even on the very summits of the mountains has been annihilated by fire, at which the inhabitants themselves marveled, seeing that in inaccessible thickets and on the heights the hay was burning"; General Bazhenov reported on 29 November 1860: "Today I have finished with the Termoy people. All the auls are destroyed. In Ezi you cannot even recognize the place, so thoroughly has it been taken apart"[4]. In all, according to the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov, "15 villages and a multitude of mountain khutors were left destroyed"[2]; the historian D. A. Khozhayev writes: "about 15 auls implicated in it [the uprising] were destroyed... Benoy was burned once again"[3].
The historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov reckon: "more than 1200 inhabitants of Benoy, Engenoy, Dattykh, Gendargen and other villages of Ichkeria were forcibly resettled"[2]; the historian D. A. Khozhayev details the mechanism of dispersal: the inhabitants of Benoy "on 29 January 1861, numbering 1218 people, were deported and dispersed, 5—10 households at a time, among the lowland villages of Chechnya assigned to them"[3]. Deportations went on in winter as well: the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova writes - "Especially hard for the Chechens was the resettlement undertaken in December 1860, during severe frosts. 120 highlander families, having no way to shelter in the forest in winter, were resettled onto the plain within 2 days, their dwellings devastated by the troops. Over the winter of 1861, 1500 mountain Chechens were deported to the Chechen plain"[4]. The Akki mountain society was deported in its entirety in July 1860: according to an imperial report, "The mutinous Akkins were dispersed among the Galash people and other neighboring tribes; their dwellings were destroyed"[5].
A report of 6 August 1860 from the commander of the Caucasus Army to the Minister of War records, concerning the deported Akkins: "the land they occupied has been declared state property, and thus the matter of the Akkins has been settled conclusively"[5]. The historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov confirm: the inhabitants of the Akki society "were dispersed over the course of July among the Galash and other neighboring societies. The land of the Akki society was thereby declared 'state property'"[2].
Baysangur of Benoy was taken prisoner by the troops on 17 February 1861: General Kempfert reported to the Minister of War on 28 February - "...Despite desperate resistance, [we] took prisoner Baysungur and four of his companions... the families of Baysungur and Sultan-Murad were also seized — 14 people in all"[3]. In March 1861 a field court-martial in Khasav-Yurt sentenced him to hanging; the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova relays the Chechen oral tradition about the execution: none of those standing by the gallows agreed to act as executioner, and "only after the officers in charge of the execution offered a monetary reward to a volunteer executioner did one of the Dagestanis standing in the crowd take this role upon himself"[4]; Baysangur's family and sons were exiled to Siberia[3]. The leaders of the uprising who surrendered - Atabi-Mullah Atayev, naib of Lesser Chechnya, whom the imperial papers call Atabai (14 November 1861), and Uma Duyev (14 December 1861) - Emperor Alexander II ordered exiled to the inner provinces - separately: "Uma... is to be sent to reside in provinces distant from the Caucasus... but on the condition that he not be in the same town as Atabai"[5]. Sheikh Kunta-Haji, a Muslim preacher who taught that God should be remembered aloud, in chorus, with singing and circling in a ring (such remembrance is called zikr - hence the imperial nickname of his followers, the zikrists), who had been under permanent police surveillance since the beginning of 1862, was arrested on 3 January 1864 in Serzhen-Yurt by order of the Viceroy. His followers had a single demand: "The main demand of the zikrists, as before, was the immediate release of those arrested and an end to new arrests. In that case the Kunta-Haji followers promised to obey the authorities once more"[2]. The head of the Chechen district, General Tumanov, rejected the demands and pressed for the surrender of those who had escaped arrest; on 18 January 1864, near Shali, the matter ended in a shooting. Those who came had left their firearms behind deliberately - the decision to go with blades alone is attributed to Machik-Mullah, who announced that Kunta-Haji, having appeared to him, would fill the soldiers' rifles with water[2]. The historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "the Kunta-Haji followers advanced on the dense squares of regular troops with nothing but shashkas and daggers in their hands. Tumanov allowed them to attack, and then gave the order to open rifle and artillery fire"; they put the dead at "over 150"[2]. The historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova gives the count at the site of the slaughter: "164 dead remained at the site of the clash. Among those bayoneted there proved to be 5 women's bodies"; the detachment's losses - 8 dead and 33 wounded[4]. Eighteen people were exiled in this case - the sheikh himself, indefinitely, to Ustyuzhna in Novgorod province; his brother Movsar - to the Vyborg fortress; the vekils, the sheikh's trusted men, - to Smolensk province; nine rank-and-file zikrists - to fortress labor with subsequent settlement in Siberia[2][4]. In the archival register of persons under surveillance in Novgorod province for 1865 the sheikh is entered in a single line: "Chechen Shikh-Kunty. Age 35. Exiled for spreading the fantastical teaching of 'zikr'... Receives 1 rub. 80 kop. a month"[4]. Having lived in exile a little over two years, Kunta-Haji died of starvation[2].
After the shooting near Shali the empire demanded that the Chechen societies hand over the survivors. On 26 January 1864 Loris-Melikov, head of the Terek oblast, assembled the naibs and "honorable" residents in the Groznaya fortress: the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova writes - he "announced to the assembled Chechens that they were obliged to hand over all the zikrists [followers of Sheikh Kunta-Haji]. A final deadline was set - 1 February, after which the head of the oblast threatened to commence military operations. He also forbade the performance of zikrist rites"[4]. The historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov quote the demand verbatim: "...to assist in restoring the order disrupted by the zikrists...", and record the ban on the "loud" zikr, compliance with which was to be watched over by the clergy and the village elders[2].
In devastated Dzhumsoy in June 1860 the troops spared those who handed over hostages: "left untouched were those houses and plowlands whose owners appeared at their places and handed over amanats" (an amanat is a person whom the empire took from a community as a hostage, to keep it in obedience by the threat of reprisal against the one taken)[5]. After the Shali shooting, according to the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "The families of the zikrists who had not been caught were taken into custody and deported to Yekaterinograd. Because of this, one zikrist gave himself up so that his family would be released" - Yekaterinograd here is not the Kuban Yekaterinodar but the stanitsa of Yekaterinogradskaya on the Terek, now in Kabardino-Balkaria; the auls of Chechnya "were bound by mutual responsibility", with lists of those answerable to the government[4].
In Kundukhov's operation in the winter of 1860-1861 marched the "7 hundreds of Chechen militia" of Colonel Chermoyev[2]; Atabi-Mullah Atayev, naib of Lesser Chechnya (Atabai in the imperial documents), surrendered in November 1861, according to a document, "to the commander of the Chechen irregular cavalry divizion, Vagap Aduyev" - Aduyev, who served the empire holding its rank[2]. Against Sheikh Kunta-Haji the authorities mobilized loyal clergy: the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "measures were taken to induce the most prominent representatives of the Chechen Muslim clergy to come out openly against Kunta-Haji and the teaching he preached"[2].