Hostage-Taking

in the campaign “Suppression of the 1860-1861 uprisings, the execution of Baysangur, and the shooting of the zikrists near Shali (1860-1864)”

In devastated Dzhumsoy in June 1860 the troops spared those who handed over hostages: "left untouched were those houses and plowlands whose owners appeared at their places and handed over amanats" (an amanat is a person whom the empire took from a community as a hostage, to keep it in obedience by the threat of reprisal against the one taken)[1]. After the Shali shooting, according to the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "The families of the zikrists who had not been caught were taken into custody and deported to Yekaterinograd. Because of this, one zikrist gave himself up so that his family would be released" - Yekaterinograd here is not the Kuban Yekaterinodar but the stanitsa of Yekaterinogradskaya on the Terek, now in Kabardino-Balkaria; the auls of Chechnya "were bound by mutual responsibility", with lists of those answerable to the government[2].

ID: C1169.T0099
Technique:  Hostage-Taking
Start: June 1860
End: February 1864
Contributors: decolonial.ist project

References