in the campaign “"Military-Popular Administration": the Colonial Regime of the Terek Oblast (1858-1917)”
Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write: "in 1867 Major General Prince Tumanov was appointed head of the Middle military otdel, while of the eight heads of the mountain okrugs six were colonels and two were majors"[1]. The head of the Terek oblast united civil, military and Cossack authority in one pair of hands and, in the words of the same historians, could against the highlanders "at his own will use... arms and raise against them the troops and Cossacks subordinate to him, hand highlanders over to a military court and administratively expel 'undesirable elements' from the oblast"[1]. From September 1866 the viceroy received the right to replace highlanders in the posts of pristavs (superintendents appointed by the empire) with incomer officers - historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova records the result: for a long time highlanders could rise no higher in the administrative system of the Terek oblast than the office of village elder[2]. The elders themselves were hand-picked by the authorities and sworn to "unquestioning execution... of all instructions and demands of the administration"; the population was left no choice - "The local authorities did not consider it possible to grant even the right to elect aul elders, since they 'found no sufficient guarantees that this would not entail serious inconveniences in the matter of governing the highlanders'"[2]. The court system was crowned by the same officers: in 1862 an oblast Main People's Court was created, all of whose members were appointed by the head of the oblast, and in 1870 - okrug "Mountain verbal courts" chaired by officers of the administration; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov conclude: "Thus the court system created for the highlanders of the Terek oblast was not merely not removed from the control of the military authorities but, on the contrary, directly subordinated to them"[1]. The 1895 regulation on village communities handed the right of assembly to a limited number of "elected representatives", and the okrug head could strip an "elected representative" of his office and dissolve the entire village assembly[1].