Punitive Expeditions

in the campaign “Devastation of the Kachkalyk villages of the Nokhchi and displacement of their inhabitants beyond the mountains after the Dadi-Yurt terror (1819)”

The Russian Empire sent troops to lay waste to Nokhchi villages and drive their inhabitants off the land. Historian D. A. Khozhaev writes that under Yermolov "cruel punitive raids on peaceful Caucasian auls, disgracing Russian arms, with the destruction of the population, houses, crops, orchards, and forests, the driving off of livestock, and the plundering of property, became the rule"[1]. General Yermolov writes in his "Notes" that on September 30, 1819, he "went in person with 6 battalions and 16 artillery pieces toward the Kachkalyk villages" and on October 2 attacked "the village of Goryachevskaya, the strongest of them," while Major General Sysoyev simultaneously invaded from the direction of Groznaya through Khan-Kale, drawing the Chechens’ forces away from the Kachkalyk plain[2]. The imperial historian Potto confirms that the Apsheron men "burst into the aul and consigned it to the flames"[3].

ID: C1144.T0077
Technique:  Punitive Expeditions
Start: September 1819
End: October 1819
Contributors: decolonial.ist project

References