"Mow Down Everything, Beat and Hang Without Mercy": Suppression of the 1877 Uprising and the Executions in Grozny (1877-1878)
The uprising of 1877 - historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov call it a peasant war - was suppressed by the empire through the annihilation of everything that could sustain the insurgents. The methods were summed up by historian A. I. Ismailova: "The burning of auls, the deportation of the population, the destruction of crops - these are the main methods of struggle that the tsarist command applies with merciless consistency"[1]. The tone of the orders was set by Svistunov, head of the Terek oblast - in his instructions to General Smekalov, according to historian A. I. Ismailova, one demand was invariably repeated: "For God's sake, just do not fall back, but advance at least little by little, mercilessly destroying everything and everyone before you... Our forces will keep arriving; just mow down everything without pity, beat and hang without mercy"[1]. The principle of punishment was formulated by the viceroy in a memorandum: "so that punishment falls not only upon the fanatics seeking the feat of self-sacrifice, but also upon the guilty milieu surrounding them, so that by the fear of inevitable collective punishment... the mass is induced to counteract them"[2]. The people's answer was recorded by the same imperial side - the inhabitants of Mekhkety refused the head of the Terek oblast, who threatened to deport the aul, the surrender of Uma Duev, leader of the uprising in mountain Chechnya: "...only the possible should be demanded of a people. You know how hard it is for us to part with the graves of our fathers and with our homeland, yet we submit without protest. But we cannot hand over Uma. He was our guest"[3].
Actors
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| G0009 | Russian Empire | 15 |
Instruments Applied
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| S0010 | Regular Army | 14 |
| S0012 | Occupation and Controlled Administrations | 1 |
Procedures Carried Out
In May 1877 the detachment of Colonel Batyanov suppressed the uprising in borderland Salatavia: historian A. I. Ismailova writes - "The suppression of the uprising, which went on through the entire second half of May, was carried out with extreme cruelty. The auls of Almak, Dylym and Burtunay with their hamlets were destroyed"[1]. On 12 July 1877, "significant detachments of troops were moved against the Bass auls. But the inhabitants, with their families and all their movable property, hid in the forests. The punitive expedition destroyed the auls, and the crops it ravaged and trampled down"[1]. On 16 July Colonel Nakashidze entered Cheberloy in two columns: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - he "destroyed 5 villages, including the auls of Makazhoy and Sadoy, arrested up to a thousand people and seized a large number of livestock"[3]. On 14 August the troops took the aul of Dyshni-Vedeno at the walls of the Vedeno fortress - the insurgents, according to historian A. I. Ismailova, defended every saklia (a highlander's house) "despite the murderous artillery fire"[1].
In the instructions of Svistunov, head of the Terek oblast, to General Smekalov one demand was invariably repeated: "advance at least little by little, mercilessly destroying everything and everyone before you... Our forces will keep arriving; just mow down everything without pity, beat and hang without mercy" - the instructions are quoted by historian A. I. Ismailova from the imperial publication "Materials for the Description of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78"[1]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov record: at the final stage the punitive forces "acted in full accordance" with this order[3].
The order of Colonel Lokhvitsky of 17 July 1877 for the Cheberloy uchastok (administrative section) prescribed: "to raze to the ground the villages of Nizheloy, Rigakhoy and Nuy-Khoy"[1]; historian A. I. Ismailova sums up: "The auls and crops of the Cheberloy uchastok were destroyed wholesale; the same fate befell many auls of the Shatoy and Evdokimovsky uchastoks. The inhabitants hid in the forests"[1]. In October 1877, on the way back from the Simsir hamlets, historian D. A. Khozhaev records: "the Russians burned and destroyed Zandak and, for the second time, the village of Benoy - everything, down to the last house, including the mosques, they leveled to the ground"[4].
Svistunov, head of the Terek oblast, wrote to Smekalov on 18 August 1877: "As for Benoy and Zandak, they must be deported to Siberia to a man, or, if these scoundrels refuse, all of them must be killed off in winter like cockroaches and destroyed by famine"[1]; the same directive of Svistunov is quoted by historian D. A. Khozhaev[4]. In the imperial publication of the correspondence (letter to Smekalov of 18 August 1877, No. 226) the formula reads: "to freeze them all out in winter, like cockroaches, and destroy them by famine"[5]. The food base was being destroyed from the very first days: on 13 April 1877, merely for letting the detachment of Alibek-Haji, leader of the uprising, pass through the village, "the hayfields and maize fields of the inhabitants [of Benoy] were completely burned by the tsarist troops"[2]. Colonel Batyanov, according to historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "widely applied the destruction of stores of grain and hay," believing that this made many "come to their senses"[2]. In Cheberloy the troops stood for about 20 days - "All this time they were ruining the fields of the Cheberloy villages. Their inhabitants meanwhile were in such a state as if the greatest of floods had struck them"[3].
Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write about the teams of "hunters": "the militiamen had orders to kill not only abreks in hiding, but any inhabitant heading from his village into the forest. As a reward for every person killed or caught in the forest the authorities paid 25 rubles" (abrek - the empire's label for a highlander it had outlawed)[3]; separate sums were set for the leaders - "for Alibek-Haji - several thousand rubles"[3]. Captives were to be killed if an attempt was made to free them - and this was carried out: "during an attack by the insurgents on the detachment escorting 135 arrested inhabitants of the village of Mekhkety to the Vedeno fortress, the soldiers killed up to 20 Mekhkety villagers"[3].
Svistunov, head of the Terek oblast, ordered the head of the Argun okrug on 20 August 1877: "In the event not only of any aul receiving the mutineers, but of the slightest disorder in it or disobedience to the authorities, you will send the amanats of that aul to Grozny, and I will have them shot" (amanat - a person the empire took from a community as a hostage)[1]. Colonel Batyanov, according to historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, declared that he considered it "a useful measure to shoot five of the amanats of every aul that had broken away"[2].
Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes about the surrender of Alibek-Haji and his naibs (naib - a district governor appointed by the authorities) in November 1877: "The head of the Terek oblast, General Prince Loris-Melikov, deceived them, giving his word of honor that all who turned themselves in would be pardoned"[4]. Alibek-Haji's secretary Goytukin Rasu, an eyewitness, recorded the mechanism of the deception: Alibek was told "that if he came to the authorities in peace, he would keep his freedom. Trusting their words... he presented himself to the commandant of the Vedeno fortress. The commandant at once ordered him seized and, having shackled his legs and arms in irons, sent him to the town jail"[4]. Those who surrendered were tried by a field court-martial and executed.
The field court-martial sat in Grozny on 4-6 March 1878: "Of the 17 persons tried, 11 were sentenced to death, among them Alibek-Haji, Uma Duev, one of his sons, and Dada Zalmaev"[3]; historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova counts 18 tried and 13 sentenced to death, the rest - to 20 years of katorga (penal labor)[2]. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes: "On 9 March 1878, at 6 o'clock in the morning, in the town of Grozny, on the fairground square, they were hanged and buried in a common pit" - and gives the list of the eleven by name[4]; Akhmadov and Khasmagomadov add: the execution took place "amid dead silence and the evident sympathy of the assembled townspeople for those being executed"[3]. A participant in the suppression who was present at the execution admitted: "I was struck by the calm with which these people died"[2]. The bodies, buried by the authorities in a common pit, were secretly reburied by Chechens at night according to Muslim rites - historian D. A. Khozhaev relays the tradition of a cemetery near Samashki, historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova - of the Tyrtov grove near Grozny[4][2].
"Already in August 1877 the first 150 inhabitants of the villages of Zandak and Dattykh were deported; small parties of exiles were being sent off throughout the autumn"[3]. "In the spring of the following year, 1878, another 110 families were deported from the Terek oblast, and 660 families from Dagestan. Most of the deportees died within the first months of exile. It is also known that over 500 Chechens were sentenced to lifelong katorga labor"[3]. Historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova gives the count for a single governorate: "of the 1625 highlanders deported in 1878 to the Novgorod governorate, 429 died within the first months (118 of them men, the rest - women) and 74 were declared hopelessly ill"[2]. The conditions were described by journalist Yu. Poluyansky, who visited the exiles: "In Cherepovets the highlanders are housed in a half-ruined, long-uninhabited hovel... Of the fifty people, up to thirty have already died, mostly children, of consumption and typhoid fever... For subsistence the adults are allotted 6 kopecks a day, the children 3 kopecks"[2]. Within Chechnya, mountain villages were being driven down onto the plain: "From the locality indicated, the villages of Mekhkety, Khatuni and Tauzen have been deported almost to a man"[3]; the plan for the wholesale deportation of the Salatavians, "up to 3000 souls," to the northern governorates was cut down to 200 people only for lack of escort troops[1].
The order of Colonel Lokhvitsky of 17 July 1877 for the Cheberloy uchastok obliged the punished themselves to cut a road for the troops into their own mountains: "the entire uchastok is to be obliged right now, within the very shortest time, to make a wide forest clearing (proseka) from the Bosoevskaya mountain to the Sharo-Argun river over a stretch of upwards of 6 versts" (a verst is slightly over a kilometer)[1].
Following the suppression of the 1877 uprising the empire took away the land of the mountain communities: historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova records - "Thousands of inhabitants of mountain villages were resettled onto the plain; their lands were confiscated"[2].
The starshina (headman) of Shali, Borshchik Khambulatov, who organized the repulse of the insurgents in April 1877, "was granted the rank of ensign of the militia and an annual salary of 600 rubles, and received a lifelong pension - 100 rubles a year"[3]; historian A. I. Ismailova puts the pension at "about 400 r. a year"[1].
Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "On 3 October there came to General Smekalov... a certain inhabitant of Benoy named Biy-Sultan. In exchange for a full pardon and permission to gather the remains of his property, Biy-Sultan volunteered to serve as a guide to Alibek-Haji's last fortified point. Thanks to this unexpected help the Simsir hamlets were quickly captured"[3].
The viceroy in the Caucasus, Mikhail Romanov, expressed the wish to bring the Dagestani militia (militia - armed detachments of highlanders in the empire's service) into the military operations in Chechnya, and on the Dagestan side, near the village of Botlikh, a detachment of regular infantry and 12 sotnias of mounted and foot Dagestani militia was concentrated[3]. At the beginning of May a detachment under Colonel Nakashidze was assembled in neighboring Dagestan - two battalions of the Apsheronsky and Samursky regiments, 6 druzhinas and 3 sotnias of militia with guns[3]. The rout was completed in the same manner: the village of Sogratl in Dagestan, where the leaders of the uprising had taken refuge, was surrounded by Russian troops and the Dagestani militia[4]. Part of the suppression the empire shifted onto the colonized themselves, keeping for itself the role of arbiter and entrenching enmity between neighbors.
The troops that occupied Chechen territories during the suppression of the 1877 uprising plundered the population. During the destruction of the five villages of Cheberloy the detachment of Nakashidze "arrested up to a thousand people and seized a large number of livestock"[3], and historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova records the practice beyond the orders: "the soldiers looted with impunity in the occupied territories, and also ravaged crops, took horses away from the population, slaughtered livestock even without any need for it"[2].