Another foreign visitor to Cherkessia, James Bell, who also left evidence of his stay in Cherkessia during the national liberation war, characterized the peculiarity of Cherkess statehood in the following manner: "Popular opinion and established customs—this is what, in my view, represents the supreme law of the land, and I can only be amazed by the order that flows from such state of affairs. Violent and cruel offenses and outright crimes occur, but most of these are the result of quarrels and their consequences and their occurrence is relatively rare. Only a few states with established laws and complex mechanisms of justice can boast such a level of morality, accord and good manners—all these things distinguish this people in their everyday interactions” [1].
*Note to Readers: In response to readers’ requests, Chechnya Weekly will occasionally feature articles related to the history of the North Caucasus.
Russian expansion on the territory of the Caucasus region, which resulted in a full-scale Russian-Chechen war, continued for more than a century (1763-1864). The first territorial unit to fall under the relentless assault of the Russian imperial machine was the Cherkess town of Mozdok in 1763. This was followed by the annexation of the territories of Eastern Cherkessia–Kabarda, which were populated by highlanders since antiquity.
By the 1830s Russia began to annex the territories of Western Cherkessia by crisscrossing them with various cordon sanitaire lines that it forcibly populated with a militarized semi-Slavic but also exclusively Orthodox Christian population—the Cossacks. This is how ...
The Caucasus region was
not present in the Polish political thought until early 1830. After the first failed Polish uprising against
Russian occupation in 1831, which all the political forces had fled outside, that
became the so-called "the Great Polish Immigration”, when 10,000 people from
Polish political, military and cultural elite had migrated and had decided to
go into exile to France and Britain in particular, which began to considervery
carefully the current events in the North Caucasus, where the Circassians and
Chechens were still resisting the colonial war against Russia.
The main reason for this interest is the presence of about 9,000
soldiers from the former Polish army, who were forcibly sent by Russians to the
...
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