Installation of a New System of Governance

The empire placed appointed overseers - pristavs - over the seized auls of Chechnya. The empire's Minister of War Chernyshev, by an official communication of 15 January 1839, conveyed to general Golovin, commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps - the head of the empire's troops and administration in the Caucasus, the will of emperor Nicholas I: in the communities that submitted voluntarily, "the authority over them is to be entrusted to natives devoted to us, members of those same communities", while communities "that will be subjugated by force of arms" were "to be entrusted temporarily to the authority of Russian military officials"^[1]. The pristavs in Chechnya were installed by Pullo, commander of the left flank of the Caucasus Line (a chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi): the imperial historian Yurov writes that Pullo "was ordered - for the installation of our pristavs, to uphold their prestige at the outset... to carry out in the winter of 1839-1840 a movement into Chechnya, to the Michik and to the Qachqalyq people", and the pristavs themselves "were chosen predominantly, if not exclusively, from among the militiamen" - from the highland militia, armed units of highlanders in the empire's service^[2]. The historian D. A. Khozhaev writes: "Appointed on 30 November commander of the Separate Caucasus Corps... Golovin, on the tsar's instruction, begins to introduce Russian administration on the occupied territory"^[3]. The regime of surveillance was described by general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line and Pullo's superior, in a report to Minister of War Chernyshev of 23 March 1840: "When our pristavs entered upon the administration of the tribes entrusted to them, their strict surveillance cut off the constant relations of the peaceful auls with the unsubdued"^[1]. The implanting of puppet religious authorities proceeded under the same directive (campaign C1159).