Russo-Circassian War and Caucasian War: A Visual History

The Caucasian War (conventionally 1817-1864, with fighting from 1763) was Russia's conquest of the North Caucasus highlanders. In the east, the Murid movement under Ghazi Muhammad and Imam Shamil fought a holy war from the forests of Chechnya and the crags of Dagestan until Shamil surrendered at Gunib in 1859. In the west, the Circassian (Adyghe) tribes resisted from the fortified lines Russia built from 1763 until their final defeat in 1864, after which most of the Circassian population, perhaps 800,000 to 1.5 million, was expelled or fled to the Ottoman Empire, with vast loss of life at sea and in camps. The war gave Russian literature Lermontov and Tolstoy and shaped the region's later conflicts.

When it was fought: the era ribbon

The bold bar is Russo-Circassian War and Caucasian War. The lighter bars are empires and wars from the same era and the same part of the world. Click any bar to jump to its page.

Circassian population in the Caucasus

Estimates vary widely; the fall of 1860-1867 reflects expulsion and death.

Timeline of the Russo-Circassian War and Caucasian War

1. 1763
   Fort Mozdok builtConventional start of the Circassian war.
2. 1817
   Yermolov's campaigns begin
3. 1829
   Murid jihad begins
4. 1834
   Shamil becomes imam
5. 1845
   DargoVorontsov's disaster.
6. 1859
   Shamil surrenders at Gunib
7. 1864
   Qbaada; Circassian expulsion21 May.

Lines and forts

Russia reached the Terek in the sixteenth century, took Georgia in 1801 and Dagestan and Azerbaijan from Persia by 1828, leaving the mountains between as hostile territory. General Yermolov (1816-1827) built Grozny and burned villages to subdue Chechnya. The Circassian coast, ceded by Turkey in 1829, was ringed with forts that the tribes besieged.

Shamil

Ghazi Muhammad launched a Sufi-inspired jihad in Dagestan in 1829; his successor Shamil (imam from 1834) built a state with laws, tax and artillery and beat Russian columns for 25 years, escaping the siege of Akhulgo in 1839 and defeating Vorontsov's 1845 expedition to Dargo. Baryatinsky's systematic forest-clearing and encirclement finally cornered him at Gunib in August 1859. Shamil was received with honour by Alexander II, lived in Kaluga and died on pilgrimage in Medina.

The end of Circassia

With the east pacified, Yevdokimov's army swept the Circassian valleys in 1860-1864, offering the tribes settlement on the plains or exile in Turkey. Most refused resettlement; entire peoples were marched to the Black Sea ports and shipped to the Ottoman Empire in overloaded boats, dying of typhus, hunger and drowning in huge numbers. The last battle at Qbaada on 21 May 1864 is marked as the day of Circassian mourning; the Ubykh people ceased to exist as a community and their language died in 1992. Sochi, site of the 2014 Olympics, was the deportation port.

Related empires and wars

Chosen automatically by overlap in time and geography, plus a few hand picked connections.

Empires of the same era and region

• Russian Empire (1721 to 1917)
• Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922)
• Qajar Empire (1789 to 1925)
• Mamluk Sultanate (1250 to 1517)
• Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569 to 1795)
• Safavid Empire (1501 to 1736)

Wars of the same era and region

• Crimean War (1853 to 1856)
• Chechen conflict (1994 to 2009)
• French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1792 to 1815)
• World War I (1914 to 1918)
• Russo-Japanese War (1904 to 1905)
• Northern Wars (1554 to 1721)

8 surprising things about the Russo-Circassian War and Caucasian War

1. Shamil held out for 25 years and Russia at times deployed 200,000 troops against him.
2. Tolstoy served in the Caucasus and wrote Hadji Murat about one of Shamil's lieutenants who defected to Russia.
3. Circassian descendants in Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Israel outnumber those in the Caucasus by perhaps ten to one.
4. Georgia recognised the Circassian genocide in 2011; Russia has not.
5. The Circassian mamluks had ruled Egypt for centuries; the diaspora supplied Ottoman generals and Jordanian royal guards.
6. Shamil met the tsar and toured St Petersburg after his surrender, and asked to be allowed to make the hajj.
7. Circassian women were famed in Ottoman harems and Western fantasy as the world's most beautiful; 'Circassian beauties' were exhibited by P. T. Barnum.
8. The 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi were held on the 150th anniversary of the deportations from that very shore.

Sources

• Caucasian War Wikipedia
• Circassian genocide Wikipedia
• Shamil Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Charles King, The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus (2008) Oxford University Press

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