Collective punishment in the abrek era: fines, quartering of troops and exile for Zelimkhan (1905-1913)
In 1905-1913 the Russian Empire dealt reprisals to entire Chechen villages: it fined them, quartered troops at the residents' own expense, exiled relatives and hundreds of families, demolished hamlets. There were two pretexts - the revolution of 1905 and the abrek Zelimkhan. By the beginning of the 20th century forty years had passed since the end of the Caucasus War, but, as historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write, "Chechnya was governed by measures characteristic of a state of martial law", a "military-occupation regime" persisted in the land, and the restrictive measures only grew[1]. Onto this background fell the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907: on 24 October 1905 martial law was imposed across the whole of Chechnya, and from January 1906 field courts-martial went to work[1]. The second pretext was the abrek phenomenon - "abrek" was the empire's word for a highlander declared an outlaw who had gone to the mountains with a weapon. The most famous of them was Zelimkhan from the village of Kharachoy: in 1901, by his own words, he was a family man from a well-off household with a mill and an apiary, but after a quarrel between two families over a betrothal the authorities arrested him together with his old father and relatives; Zelimkhan escaped from the Grozny prison and until his death in 1913 remained the administration's chief enemy in the land[1]. The authorities answered not him but everyone - on top of that there was the weapons ban, which "applied exclusively to the highlanders and the out-of-town settlers and did not extend to the Cossacks"[1]. Against individual villages and entire aul districts, the same historians record, "collective punishments were widely practiced"[1]. Such reprisals were lawless even by the empire's own standards: Article 50 of the Hague Regulations on the Laws and Customs of War on Land - a convention signed and ratified by the Russian Empire - laid down: "No general penalty, pecuniary or otherwise, shall be inflicted upon the population on account of the acts of individuals for which they cannot be regarded as jointly and severally responsible"[2]. And a military directive of late 1907 prescribed, in the event of an uprising, to act by "scattering the bands to the point of total annihilation, and likewise wiping off the face of the earth the villages that sheltered them, bearing in mind that such a method will be not only more effective but also more humane"[1]. The Chechen revolutionary Aslanbek Sheripov summed up the outcome: "The authorities terrorized the peaceful population, and the abreks terrorized these authorities..."[1].
Actors
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| G0009 | Russian Empire | 11 |
Instruments Applied
| ID | Name | Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| S0012 | Occupation and Controlled Administrations | 7 |
| S0010 | Regular Army | 3 |
| S0017 | Secret Police and Security Services | 1 |
Procedures Carried Out
On 10 October 1905, at the Grozny market, the troops of the Russian Empire fired not at the pogromists but at the Chechens whom armed reservists were attacking: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that the soldiers of the Shirvansky regiment, led by Colonel Popov, used their weapons, "...shooting the hiding Chechens, hunting them down in attics and cellars, while the reservists and hooligans smashed and looted shops before the eyes of the authorities"; by the historians' count, 27 Chechens were harmed in the pogrom, of whom 17 were killed[1].
A military directive of the Russian Empire of late 1907 prescribed to the commander of the brigade stationed in the Grozny and Vedeno okrugs, in the event of an uprising, "...to act with full energy, scattering the bands to the point of total annihilation, and likewise wiping off the face of the earth the villages that sheltered them, bearing in mind that such a method will be not only more effective but also more humane"[1]. The prescription was carried out. In August 1908 the village of Tsatsan-Yurt was subjected to an "execution" with mass searches, and its residents had a "contribution" for undelivered weapons exacted from them - 7 thousand rubles[1]. In 1911, in the Vedeno and Grozny okrugs, all hamlets built "without permission" were demolished, and 100 thousand rubles were exacted from the Chechen population of both okrugs in favor of those who had suffered "...during the attack of Zelimkhan's band"[1]. People from the abrek's circle were killed and hanged: Salambek Gorovodzhiev was hanged; in March 1911 Ayub Tomayev was killed in Starye Atagi[1]. Speech was persecuted in the same manner: "Any propaganda undermining the authority of the government and the local authorities was prohibited in the strictest way", and the offender faced up to three years of prison or a fine of up to 3 thousand rubles[1].
At the end of 1906 a punitive detachment of the Russian Empire, with artillery and Cossacks, was restoring imperial power in the Vedeno okrug: "the villages of Nizhaloy, Nokhch-Keloy, Khoy and Makazhoy, whose residents stubbornly refused to submit, were subjected to artillery bombardment"; it was noted that as a result of the punitive expedition "...the greater part of the population of the Vedeno okrug, seized by panic, fled to the mountains, where it suffers hunger and cold"; several hundred people were arrested, most of them convicted and exiled[1]. In August 1908 the village of Tsatsan-Yurt was subjected to an "execution" with mass searches[1].
Following the Chervlyonnaya conferences of 1905-1906 the Russian Empire established a mechanism of circular monetary responsibility: fines on the guilty, "and in the event of their financial insolvency - the penal sanctions passed to the village community to which the guilty party belonged"[1]. Starye Atagi was fined twice for sheltering its fellow villager, an abrek - 3, then 6 thousand rubles; the same village was ordered, within three days, to hand over "100 rifles, two thousand cartridges and 500 daggers", to give up the abreks Tomayev and Khorsiev who were sheltering in the village, and "to collect funds for equipping the village police station with telephone communication"[1]. Tsatsan-Yurt in 1908 paid a "contribution" for undelivered weapons - 7 thousand rubles[1]. In 1911, by order of the Viceroy, "100 thousand rubles were exacted" from the entire Chechen population of the Grozny and Vedeno okrugs in compensation to those who had suffered "...during the attack of Zelimkhan's band"[1].
In 1911 the Russian Empire appointed "government elders" in the zone of Zelimkhan's operations and put troops on the residents' own upkeep: "Military teams were sent to be quartered in the villages of Kharachoy, Dyshne-Vedeno, Mekhkety, Zavirkhi, Khattuni, Eshelkhotoy, Elistandzhi, Tauzen, Isti-Su, Mayrtup, Khoy, Ikharoy, Rigakhoy, Makazhoy, Avtury and the Varanda hamlets"[1]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write of this practice: "the sending of military units into Chechen villages was widely practiced, and their upkeep lay as a heavy burden on the local residents"[1].
In 1911 the Russian Empire demolished the Chechen hamlets of two okrugs: "A forcible demolition was begun of all the hamlets built 'without permission' (and there were no others here) in the Vedeno and Grozny okrugs"[1]; Chechen hamlets "were repeatedly demolished, including under the pretext of 'punishment' for sheltering abreks"[1].
In 1906 the head of the Vedeno okrug, Lieutenant colonel Dobrovolsky, as historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write, "found nothing smarter than to give the command to seize the women relatives of the abrek Zelimkhan in Kharachoy"[1]. "In the autumn of 1910 Zelimkhan's family was seized and exiled", and in November 1911 "24 relatives of Zelimkhan were exiled together with their families, after they failed to comply with the demand to hand over or kill Zelimkhan" - by the authorities' report, these people had also "...agitated among the rest of the population of Khorochoy that this should not be done"[1].
By 1913 the Russian Empire had arrested and exiled from the Terek oblast thousands of people "on the charge of sheltering the abrek"[1]. "In the course of suppressing the actions in the mountainous part of Chechnya, hundreds of peasants were exiled from the Vedeno okrug alone. As a result a great number of families lost their main breadwinners and found themselves on the brink of destitution" - part of his takings Zelimkhan spent on supporting the families of the exiled[1].
On 24 October 1905 the Russian Empire imposed martial law "in the Grozny, Vedeno and Khasav-Yurt okrugs of the Terek oblast, that is, in the whole of Chechnya", and on 23 December extended it to the entire oblast[1]. The weapons ban "applied exclusively to the highlanders and the out-of-town settlers and did not extend to the Cossacks. Moreover... the Viceroy of the Caucasus ordered that 10 thousand single-shot Berdan rifles and a million cartridges be distributed to the Cossacks of the Terek oblast free of charge"[1]. On 22 June 1909 martial law was lifted - but "in the Terek oblast a 'state of reinforced protection' was introduced at the same time", whose ordinances "effectively reduced to 'nought' the democratic rights and freedoms 'granted' by the imperial decree of 17 October 1905"[1].
In January 1908 the head of the Terek oblast, by a secret circular, ordered "to establish secret surveillance over the activity of the Muslim clergy, '...and likewise over the appearance of emissaries from Turkey'"[1]. In 1911 "the Russian authorities took an unprecedented step - in 1911 eight sheikhs at once, of both the Qadiri and the Naqshbandi tariqats, were exiled from the Terek oblast by administrative order (a sheikh is a spiritual mentor; a tariqat is a religious brotherhood of disciples around such a mentor)... Zelimkhan's chief protector - Bamatgiri-Haji Mitayev, as well as the Ingush sheikh Batal-Haji Belkhoroyev, died in exile"[1].
From 10 January 1906 the Russian Empire introduced field courts-martial in the Terek oblast - to them were handed over "...persons who have committed murder, brigandage, robbery and attack on a sentry or military guard, as well as armed resistance to the authorities and attack on the ranks of the troops and the police and on all officials in general..."; during the work of these courts, until 19 April 1907, 195 people in the Caucasus were sentenced to death and another 47 condemned to katorga[1].