in the campaign “"Military-Popular Administration": the Colonial Regime of the Terek Oblast (1858-1917)”
On 1 April 1858 the "Regulation on the Administration of the Caucasus Army" created a special section for the mountain peoples at the Main Staff - historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova calls this "the first legislative confirmation of the system of 'military-popular administration' that had in fact taken shape as the land was being conquered"[1]. In 1859, "in connection with the reform of the local administration and the entry into force of the Regulation on the Main Directorate of the Viceroy of the Caucasus", State Control was "deprived of the ability to monitor the activities of the local authorities": within the viceroy's Main Directorate a special control department was set up, answerable not to the central agency but to the head of the Main Directorate himself[1]. On 16 January 1860 Emperor Alexander II approved the regulation by which the Left Wing of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on Nokhchi land) was renamed the Terek oblast[1]. On 24 May 1860 Baryatinsky, viceroy in the Caucasus, ordered the creation at the Main Staff of the Caucasus Army of a "Chancellery for the Administration of the Caucasus Highlanders" - later it was called the "Caucasus Mountain Administration", then the "Caucasus Military-Popular Administration"[1]. On 25 December 1860 the "provisional staffing tables of the military-popular administration of the Terek oblast" were approved: the oblast was divided into six okrugs (districts) - Kabardian, Vladikavkaz, Chechen, Kumyk, Ichkerian and Argun[1].