This memoir article by M. I. Venyukov, On the History of the Settlement of the Western Caucasus,1861–1863 (Къ исторіи заселенія Западнаго Кавказа. 1861–1863 гг.), was published in the historical journal Russkaya Starina (Russian Antiquity), in1878 (pp. 249-251). Click here to see the article!

On the History of the Settlement of the Western Caucasus

1861–1863

I arrived in the Caucasus at the end of 1861, that is, at the very height of the war which, three years later, would finally decide the fate of this land.

At that time, the Eastern Caucasus had already been conquered, and its former leader, Shamil, was living peacefully in Kaluga. In the Western Caucasus, Magomet-Amin, having been placed in a difficult position by the actions of the Shapsugs and Abadzekhs, was compelled, with our assistance, to relocate to Constantinople.

The war was being conducted with relentless and merciless severity.

We advanced forward step by step, but irrevocably, clearing every piece of land of the mountaineers, down to the very last person, wherever the foot of a soldier once set itself.

Mountain villages were burned by the hundreds as soon as the snow melted, but before the trees had put on their green foliage (in February and March). Crops were grazed down by horses or simply trampled underfoot.

The inhabitants of the villages, if they could be caught by surprise, were immediately taken under military escort to the nearest Cossack settlements and from there sent to the shores of the Black Sea and further on to Turkey.

How many times, in huts abandoned at our approach, did we find warm porridge still standing on the table with a spoon stuck into it; clothing being mended, with the needle still left in the cloth; children's toys lying on the floor exactly as they had been left beside a child.

At times—though, to the credit of our soldiers, very rarely—acts of cruelty occurred that descended into outright brutality.

These cruelties were all the more shocking because they were entirely contrary to the spirit of the valiant Russian soldier, who was ordinarily so good-natured.

Such was the character of the war.

Entire tribes, such as the Besleney, were deported in a sweep within the course of one or two days.

The villages of the Barakays and of the Abadzekhs on the Fünfte and Fars rivers burned for some three days, filling the air with smoke for thirty versts around, when, in February 1862, our operations began for the expulsion of these mountaineers.

It is understandable that a war conducted in such a manner quickly produced decisive results.

The Russian inhabitants of the forward stanitsas, newly established on the frontier, were already able, in the very year of settlement, to plant gardens and even cultivate small fields, provided that the late season did not prevent it.

Life in the stanitsas was lively and, at times, genuinely cheerful.

Peaceful songs, and sometimes the vigorous strains of a Cossack dance played on the balalaika, could often be heard in places where, only a year earlier, the thunder of gunfire and the cries of war had echoed.

The resettlement of 1862 proceeded with extraordinary success.

But, as I have said, I arrived in the Caucasus already in 1861, and in that year there occurred two episodes which demonstrated that even the brave and self-sacrificing Cossacks of the Kuban Host were not entirely eager to move to the advanced lines, where they would stand face to face with the enemy not only with their battle-tested detachments, but also with their wives and children, their elderly people and their young ones—that is, with everything dear to a husband, father, brother, or son.

One cannot, of course, be surprised by such reluctance to leave one's homeland.

Yet these events are worth recalling, if only because every page of the history of the Caucasus is precious to us, while some of those pages are written only reluctantly by our official historians.

In the time free from my duties, in bivouacs and camps, and partly in Stavropol whenever I happened to be there, I tried to record some of what I saw and heard.

In 1863 I even prepared a general historical memorandum on the colonization of the Western Caucasus. However, having given it to a prominent person in St. Petersburg who was interested in the matter, I never received it back, nor was I in a position to demand its return.

Only a few scattered materials from that former work remained in my portfolio.

It is from these remnants that I now venture to publish some selections, in order to save them from the very possible—and indeed probable—fate of oblivion.

Let the readers not reproach me for the dryness and lack of continuity of what follows; it is, after all, raw material in the strictest sense of the word.

Nevertheless, the connection is evident from the documents themselves; and to explain the essence of the matter under discussion, it is sufficient to recall that in the spring of 1861, during the resettlement of the Khoper and Black Sea Cossacks beyond the Kuban, a certain opposition arose among them—entirely lawful in form, though armed, yet one which did not lead to bloodshed.

All those who participated in this agitation were unconditionally pardoned by the Sovereign Emperor in that same year, 1861, during His Majesty's personal visit to the Western Caucasus, and many of them later continued to serve with honor both in the saddle and in public councils.

For reasons that are readily understandable, I shall omit all personal names, replacing them merely with initials.

M. I. Venyukov