"Military-Popular Administration": the Colonial Regime of the Terek Oblast (1858-1917)

On 1 April 1858 the "Regulation on the Administration of the Caucasus Army" created a special section for the mountain peoples at the Main Staff - historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova calls this "the first legislative confirmation of the system of 'military-popular administration' that had in fact taken shape as the land was being conquered"^[2]. In 1859, "in connection with the reform of the local administration and the entry into force of the Regulation on the Main Directorate of the Viceroy of the Caucasus", State Control was "deprived of the ability to monitor the activities of the local authorities": within the viceroy's Main Directorate a special control department was set up, answerable not to the central agency but to the head of the Main Directorate himself^[2]. On 16 January 1860 Emperor Alexander II approved the regulation by which the Left Wing of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on Nokhchi land) was renamed the Terek oblast^[2]. On 24 May 1860 Baryatinsky, viceroy in the Caucasus, ordered the creation at the Main Staff of the Caucasus Army of a "Chancellery for the Administration of the Caucasus Highlanders" - later it was called the "Caucasus Mountain Administration", then the "Caucasus Military-Popular Administration"^[2]. On 25 December 1860 the "provisional staffing tables of the military-popular administration of the Terek oblast" were approved: the oblast was divided into six okrugs (districts) - Kabardian, Vladikavkaz, Chechen, Kumyk, Ichkerian and Argun^[2].

Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "in 1867 Major General Prince Tumanov was appointed head of the Middle military otdel, while of the eight heads of the mountain okrugs six were colonels and two were majors"^[1]. The head of the Terek oblast united civil, military and Cossack authority in one pair of hands and, in the words of the same historians, could against the highlanders "at his own will use... arms and raise against them the troops and Cossacks subordinate to him, hand highlanders over to a military court and administratively expel 'undesirable elements' from the oblast"^[1]. From September 1866 the viceroy received the right to replace highlanders in the posts of pristavs (superintendents appointed by the empire) with incomer officers - historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova records the result: for a long time highlanders could rise no higher in the administrative system of the Terek oblast than the office of village elder^[2]. The elders themselves were hand-picked by the authorities and sworn to "unquestioning execution... of all instructions and demands of the administration"; the population was left no choice - "The local authorities did not consider it possible to grant even the right to elect aul elders, since they 'found no sufficient guarantees that this would not entail serious inconveniences in the matter of governing the highlanders'"^[2]. The court system was crowned by the same officers: in 1862 an oblast Main People's Court was created, all of whose members were appointed by the head of the oblast, and in 1870 - okrug "Mountain verbal courts" chaired by officers of the administration; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov conclude: "Thus the court system created for the highlanders of the Terek oblast was not merely not removed from the control of the military authorities but, on the contrary, directly subordinated to them"^[1]. The 1895 regulation on village communities handed the right of assembly to a limited number of "elected representatives", and the okrug head could strip an "elected representative" of his office and dissolve the entire village assembly^[1].

The oblast was recut in 1862, 1869, 1888 and 1899^[2]. From 1 May 1888 the Vedeno and Argun okrugs were merged into the Grozny okrug - under the formula quoted by historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "to shield the Cossacks from the 'corrupting' influence of the highlanders"^[2]. The Chechen villages on the right bank of the Terek, which were slated for transfer to the Kizlyar and Pyatigorsk otdels (Cossack divisions), were set apart as a special uchastok (sub-district) and temporarily left under the head of the Grozny okrug; the mountain okrugs were divided into uchastoks, while the Cossack otdels were divided by the pattern of manning military units, into sotnias (Cossack hundreds) and regiments^[2]. From 1 January 1899 the oblast was recut once more: four otdels - Pyatigorsk, Mozdok, Kizlyar, Sunzha - and four okrugs: Vladikavkaz, Khasav-Yurt, Nalchik, Grozny^[2].

The Groznaya fortress, founded by General Yermolov on the Sunzha on 10 June 1818^[4], became the town of Grozny in 1870^[1]. On 21 March 1888, by decree of Emperor Alexander III, the names of peoples were erased from the names of the okrugs of the Terek oblast: the Chechen okrug was renamed the Grozny okrug, the Ingush - the Nazran, the Kabardian - the Nalchik, the Kumyk - the Khasav-Yurt, the Military-Ossetian - the Vladikavkaz^[2]. Okrugs named after the peoples living in them received the names of imperial fortresses and slobodas - the map of governance ceased to call the peoples by name.

From 1882 "especially important" cases in which the accused were highlanders were transferred to the field court-martial; in 1893, with the emperor's permission, a significant share of highlanders' criminal cases was withdrawn from the general civil courts - into whose jurisdiction these cases passed, the source does not specify^[2]. Punishment could also be imposed without any court: the head of the oblast jailed highlanders for up to one month at his personal discretion, and imposed penalties on aul communities for harbouring^[2]; on 19 November 1893 the rules of administrative deportation to Eastern Siberia on accusation or suspicion of stealing horses and livestock were extended to the Terek oblast^[2], and according to historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov the decision on administrative exile for a term of up to five years was taken by the commander of the Caucasus Army, and the place of exile was Chechen Island in the Caspian^[1]. The 1894 "Temporary Regulation on Measures to Restrain the Native Population of the Terek Oblast from 'Predation'" - its draft was submitted for approval by the head of the Terek oblast, general Kakhanov - according to historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, wrote the collective liability of the village community for committed crimes into law^[2]; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov record the mechanics: mountain villages paid for stolen livestock "if the tracks of the stolen livestock turned out to be lost near the given village", while "the possibility that the thieves might not be highlanders at all was completely ignored"^[1]. Indigenous inhabitants were barred from holding the posts of pristav and okrug head and from serving as justices of the peace^[2]; the 1888 regulation on the administration of the Terek and Kuban oblasts established, in the words of historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "a narrowly caste-based military-Cossack administration, without the participation not only of representatives of the mountain peoples but of the non-Cossack element as well... the highlanders were placed outside the operation of the general laws"^[2]. In the 1890s the administration, by a separate order, forbade Cossacks to keep kunachestvo with highlanders (kunachestvo - sworn brotherhood, an institution of friendship between households)^[2]. Service was segregated too: the "political unreliability" of the Caucasus Muslims led the authorities to give up forming line units from them, and from 1886, by order of the Minister of War, recruits from the Terek oblast were assigned only to troops stationed in the Caucasus^[2]. Zemstvos were never introduced in the oblast at all; the proposal on zemstvo institutions in the Terek oblast, submitted to the State Duma in 1914, was not adopted before the revolution^[2].

The 1894 "Regulation on Residence Permits" enshrined estate inequality: nobles, officials and merchants received passport books of unlimited duration, while highlanders ascribed to village communities received five-year books or short-term passports and bilets (written passes) for absence^[2]. Historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova states the regime's effect from the oblast's records: "Terek highlanders, should they appear beyond the Kuban or in other parts of the Russian Empire without passports, were considered vagrants and malefactors and were punished as such"; she also writes: "The passport system served the administration of the Terek oblast as a favourite means of constraining even persons well known to it"^[2]. Inside the oblast a regime of absences operated: leave of up to a month was granted by the village elder, for a longer term - by the okrug head; unauthorized absence was punished by fine, arrest or public works, and a highlander could not move from one community to another without the consent of two village communities - the one he was leaving and the one he was joining^[1].

As early as 1880, by decree of the viceroy, all highlanders were expelled from the Shatoy sloboda - "owing to the decrease of Russians in the sloboda" - with a ban on settling there henceforth^[2]. On 14 May 1893 the eviction of highlanders from the towns and slobodas of the oblast began; the bans were lifted piecemeal over decades: for Grozny - on 18 March 1901, for the Vozdvizhenskaya sloboda - on 27 February 1906, for Vedeno and Shatoy - only on 10 May 1916^[2]. The head of the oblast justified the repeal not by the rights of the evicted - he petitioned for the repeal of the law of 14 May 1893 as one "serving as a brake on the Russification of the tribes"^[2]. By order of 26 August 1898 the head of the garrison of the Shatoy fortification banned entry into the fortification without a bilet - the population of three uchastoks was left without access to the post and telegraph office, the savings bank and the pharmacy^[2].

On 17 August 1884 the "Binding Decree on the Sale, Storage and Carrying of Combat Firearms in the Caucasus Krai" was approved: combat rifles - only under police permits, and the sale and purchase of army-pattern weapons were banned^[2]. On 1 July 1899 the decree was tightened: previous permits were annulled, annual renewal was required, and weapons without a permit were confiscated and sold for the benefit of the treasury^[2]. In 1892, by order of the head of the Terek oblast, all weapons with which highlanders appeared in Russian settlements were confiscated, including weapons brought for sale; from 1893 the authorities were allowed to search homes for weapons^[2]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov record the contrast: highlander militiamen in imperial service carried weapons at all times, "unlike ordinary highlanders, who could not appear armed outside their villages"^[1].

Historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova writes: from the 1860s the administrative apparatus in Chechnya and Ingushetia "was maintained chiefly on funds collected from the people"^[2]. The empire did not trust the highlanders with military service - and taxed them in money instead: by the laws of 2 and 9 June 1887 a monetary levy in place of military service was introduced for the Muslims of the Terek oblast, its size "did not exceed 22 kopecks per 'dym'"^[2] ("dym" - a separate household, homestead)^[2]; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov confirm: "in 1887 the Russian government introduced a special monetary levy for them"^[1]. From then on the levies only grew: "From 1887 to 1905 the sum of taxes rose from 228.1 to 678.8 thousand rubles, that is, it nearly tripled over these years", while the podymnaya tax - the tax on each household - "in the Terek oblast reached in the 1890s up to 70 kopecks per desiatina, while at that time in the interior provinces of the country it was no more than 17 kopecks, or four times less"^[2]. On top of the levy, village communities bore obligations in kind: maintaining the elder and the village board, the roads, ditches and watch posts^[1].

Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: fine moneys were spent on maintaining exiles and secret agents, and at times covered officials' embezzlement - in 1893 the head of the Nadterechny uchastok, lieutenant Tomashevsky, embezzled over 300 rubles collected from Chechen villages^[1]. The nature of the power was admitted from within by colonel Belik, appointed in 1860 the first head of the Chechen okrug; he later wrote: in Chechnya "there reigns for the most part not law but arbitrary rule, often founded on the dishonesty of the chief, and thereby we only sow in the people distrust of ourselves, even hatred"^[1].

On 15 March 1873 the coat of arms of the Terek oblast was approved: "In a black shield, a silver wavy bend to the right. An Imperial standard on a golden staff. The shield is crowned with the ancient Tsar's Crown and surrounded by golden oak leaves joined by the Alexander ribbon"^[2]. Historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova reads the meaning of the sign thus: the silver bend is the Terek, which had long been a border, and now "both its banks were united by the Imperial standard, and the Terek became fully Russian - such is the basic meaning of this coat of arms"^[2]. The draft coat of arms of the city of Grozny was made by B. V. Köhne, an official of the Heraldry Office: on an azure shield a silver mountain between two golden sea lilies, and in the dexter canton - the arms of the Terek oblast^[2], so that the city's emblem carried the imperial symbol of the oblast. The land was marked with the figure of the conqueror as well. The first monument to Yermolov in Grozny was "the carefully preserved dugout in which he lived during the founding of the Groznaya fortress"^[2], and later a bronze bust of the general was set up by the dugout. What this sign meant, Ibragimova puts thus: the bust recalled the most tragic years of the conquest of the Caucasus and was a symbol of the dramatic fate of the mountain peoples, and the monument to the general who "with barbaric cruelty exterminated whole peoples in the name of the conquest of the Caucasus" became for Chechens "a kind of 'eyesore'"^[2]. The sign outlived the empire: under Soviet rule the monument "was blown up by night with enviable regularity and just as regularly restored by night"^[2].

At the start of the twentieth century the Terek authorities began to bring in military detachments and Cossack units for mass searches of highland auls - formally to confiscate weapons and to "detain fugitives"^[1]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write what this turned into: sweeping searches of mountain villages "were as a rule accompanied by looting and other unlawful acts by soldiers and Cossacks, which was encouraged in every way by the Terek authorities, who constantly sought a pretext for applying harsher measures against the highlanders"^[1]. How literally this encouragement worked is visible in November 1902: during a search staged by Cossacks at the bazaar of the village of Shaami-Yurt mass disturbances broke out, the ataman of the Samashkinskaya stanitsa, Gridnev, forbade his men to use firearms, and the clash ended without bloodshed - after which the head of the Terek oblast removed Gridnev from his post and expressed displeasure to the Cossacks who had taken part in the disturbances for their "passivity"^[1]. The sanction came from the very top: when the head of the Terek oblast reported that the clashes between Chechens and Cossacks were bringing material damage and human casualties and that these groups of the population should be kept apart, Nicholas II replied that "it is precisely this neighbourhood that keeps up in the Cossacks their old ancestral daring, and therefore there is no need whatever to take measures to soften the situation"^[4]. Bloodshed in Chechen villages was for the authorities not an incidental cost but the working condition of the land.

The military teams and Cossack units brought in at the beginning of the 20th century for sweeping searches of the mountain auls robbed the residents with the authorities' encouragement: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that the searches "were as a rule accompanied by robberies and other unlawful actions of soldiers and Cossacks, which was encouraged in every way by the Terek command"^[1].