In the history of the North Caucasus of the XIX century. There are two key and difficult topics: the Caucasian War and mass migrations of the war and post-war period. The latter are associated with the processes of muhajirism (or mahajirism) and Russian colonization of the region. Muhajirs-from the Arabic "migrant, emigrant" - were mountaineers who were forced to leave the Caucasus after the end of the Caucasian War, ceding their lands to the Cossacks and Russian immigrants. Despite the fact that more than a century and a half has passed since the eviction of mountaineers, this topic is perceived today in the North Caucasus very painfully. The importance of muhajirism for the historical memory of the region is well indicated by the titles of works dedicated to it [Kasumov A. Kh., Kasumov Kh.A., 1992; Kudaeva, 1998; Tragic Consequences..., 2000].

Emigration from the Caucasus developed against the backdrop of political confrontation between the Russian and Ottoman Empires. It reached its peak between the Crimean (1853-1856) and Russo - Turkish (1877-1878) wars. The American historian Mark Pinson figuratively called this confrontation a " demographic war "(Pinson, 1970, p.I) Both powers periodically "exchanged" subjects. Ottoman Turkey pushed for the immigration of Muslims from the Russian border to strengthen at their expense the most vulnerable areas of its frontier in the Balkans, Asia Minor and the Middle East. In turn, Russia received and settled on its border lands the Christian population that left the borders of the Ottoman Empire, primarily Armenians and various Orthodox minorities, strengthening their southern borders, including in the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia.

The significance of the mass migrations of the 19th century on the borders of the Ottoman and Russian Empires is often underestimated. Meanwhile, according to the correct remark of the Turkologist Justin McCarthy, they largely created the modern society and political map of the Caucasus, the Balkans, and Asia Minor. He calls Republican Turkey, which emerged from the wreckage of the Ottoman Empire, a country of immigrants (McCarthy, 1995, p. 2). This thesis can also be attributed to the Russian North-West Caucasus. The roots of Russification of the region, which took place here already after the Soviet national reforms of the XX century, go back to the first decades after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. The socio-cultural significance of muhajirism and Russian colonization should also be noted. The forced displacement has caused deep trauma to the region's Muslims, which is evident in several generations of diaspora emigrants.

The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian State Scientific Foundation as part of the research project "Documents on the history of North Caucasian Muhajirism in the Eastern Department of the Cyril and Methodius People's Library (Sofia, Bulgaria)", project No. 08 - 01 - 00107a.

1 Noting the interesting formulation of the question, we have to admit that the task of an adequate historical study of the "demographic war" between the Russian and Ottoman Empires has not yet been completed. Mark Pinson only outlined in his dissertation the main directions of such work. Neither he nor other researchers have yet compared the sources of Ottoman and Russian archives on muhajirism.

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In contrast to the Caucasian War, the study of mass migrations and Russian colonization of the North Caucasus remained under an unspoken ban for a long time. Due to the official position about the "voluntary entry" of the eastern suburbs into Russia and the solidarity of their workers with the Russian people, a historical study of the mass flight of mountain Muhajirs from "fraternal" Russia was not welcomed. In addition, under the "iron Curtain" conditions, collecting materials about North Caucasian emigrants in the foreign Middle East was simply impossible for the vast majority of Russian scientists. The situation has changed dramatically in recent decades. Since the 1990s, there has been a flurry of publications, PhD and doctoral theses on muhajirism. Many of them were later published as separate books and pamphlets [Magomeddadaev, 1996; Kushkhabiev, 1993; Kushkhabiev, 1997; Badaev, 1998; Abdulayeva, 1999; Avakyan, 2001; Aliev, 2001; Baderkhan, 2001; Ganich, 2007, etc.].

Like the Caucasian War, this topic remains popular among Russian historians and ethnologists to this day. Before turning to the history of Muhajirism, it is worth noting the danger that lurks here. As with the perception of the Caucasian War, science, emotions, and politics are intricately intertwined in these issues. The topic of muhajirism is still used for political purposes. Even scholars lose their objectivity when they turn to muhajirism. Their assessments often suffer from excessive straightness and lack of "semitones". The definition of muhajirism as a "genocide" of mountaineers by Russia, as a result of which, according to the famous remark of P. K. Uslar, "they were laid in the cemetery of peoples", is one-sided. After all, mass migrations to the North Caucasus and emigration from the region were no less dependent on the actions of Russia's main rival, Ottoman Turkey. It should not be assumed that the authorities did not exercise the same strict diktat in relation to Russian immigrants. It is enough to recall the violent Cossack colonization of the Trans-Kuban region, which resulted in the appearance of the famous Kuban Cossacks.

The general course of mass migrations in the North Caucasus of the XIX century was set during the Caucasian War. The very concept of "muhajirism" appeared in these years. Muhajirs were the followers of the Imamate who took refuge in his territory. According to Muslim historical tradition, the first muhajirs were the Prophet Muhammad and his companions, who were forced to migrate (hijrah) from Mecca to Medina because of the oppression of the enemies of Islam. The North Caucasian muhajirs identified themselves with the heroes of early Islam. In his memoirs, Shamil's son-in-law 'Abd ar-Rahman of Kazikumukh explains:" Muhajir is an Arabic word meaning a person migrating from dar al-harb ("area of war" - non - Muslim lands that are at war with Muslims) to Dar al-Islam ("Muslim world" - territory that is located in the Middle East). under the rule of Sharia and Muslim rulers. - V. B.). Our Prophet Muhammad, may peace be upon him, was the first to migrate from Mecca to Medina. After that, it became a custom (sunnah) for his Ummah (Muslim community. - V. B.) under the conditions specified in the Islamic books "[Abdurakhman of Gazikumukh, 1997, p. 1046].

As a social phenomenon, muhajirism grew out of wartime internal migrations. These included spontaneous migrations of Kabardian peasants to Transcuban Circassia, the descent of mountaineers to the plain, the creation of enlarged villages and fortress cities in the Central and Northwestern Caucasus, and organized military colonization. Such migrations primarily concerned mountaineers. Most of all, the Adygs of Transcuban Circassia, who had the greatest resistance to the Russian advance to the Caucasus, suffered from them. Cossacks of the Line and Black Sea troops were involved in the resettlement. Another source of internal migration was the expansion of the Caucasian line. As the Russian authorities pushed mountaineers out of the strategically important foothills and river valleys, they resettled Cossacks and military settlers in their place. It was the areas of mass internal migration during wartime - Kuban and Kabarda, Ossetia and Ingushetia - that later became the centers of muhajirism.

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Mass population movements in the North Caucasus of the 19th century were more often violent. All the forces involved in the struggle for the region used them for political purposes. On the one hand, Shamil relied on the Muhajirs as the imamate's military elite. With his support, some of them made a dizzying career, such as the famous naibs Daniyal bey Ilisuisky and Hadji Murad Avarsky. The Muhajirs lived at the expense of employment and deductions from the spoils of war. On the other hand, Shamil was suspicious of the migrants. He introduced the practice of forcibly relocating rural communities that resisted the imamate. Having destroyed Khunzakh as a stronghold of the Avar Khanate in 1843, he moved its inhabitants to the lands subordinate to the imamate. In 1844, the inhabitants of Chirkey went over to the side of Shamil and were settled by him on the territory of the" free society " of the Avars of Salatavia. This policy was carried out until the fall of the imamate in 1859.In the North-West Caucasus, the Shamil naib of Transcuban Circassia, Muhammad-Amin (1848-1859), resorted to it [Omarov, 1997, pp. 279-281].

In turn, the Russian military carried out relocations both to encourage "peaceful mountaineers" and Cossacks, and to punish them. So, in 1810, the Ingush, having pledged to protect the Georgian Military Road in the area of the Daryal Gorge, won the right to " use land and forests... bezvozbranno on the right side of the Terek River " (AKAK, 1870, IV, pp. 899-901). In the 1820s, the elders of the Ossetian mountain communities received the flat lands in the Central Caucasus taken from the nobility of Lesser Kabarda. Around Mozdok there was a network of farms and villages of baptized Ossetians assigned to the Cossacks. In the 1830s, most Ossetians voluntarily moved from the mountains to the plain according to the plan approved by Yermolov of the commandant of Vladikavkaz, Colonel Skvortsov. The settlement of the plain around Vladikavkaz continued in 1832-1849 during the so-called military colonization. The villages of the Terek Cossacks were transferred here.

In the projects of "pacification" and "development" of the North Caucasus, prepared by the military in the 30s and early 60s of the XIX century, resettlement and colonization were given an important place. Their creators, like the commanders of the Caucasian Army who often replaced each other, did not have a single plan for migration policy. Even the chiefs of different sections of the Caucasian Line sometimes held opposite views on this issue. The vision of the problem of mass migrations in the court environment and among the highest Petersburg bureaucracy remained contradictory. The Chief of the General Staff of the Caucasian Army A. P. Kartsov, the staff of the Terek region troops I. Zotov and the head of the Kuban region N. I. Evdokimov advocated the dispersal of mountaineers from hard-to-reach mountain gorges. Their proposals were supported by the Governor of the Caucasus, Prince A. I. Baryatinsky (1856-1862). Other influential military officials and officials considered it necessary to keep at least part of the former lands for the highlanders in order to avoid new unrest. Such views were shared by the leaders of the Right Wing of the Caucasian line G. I. Philipson, the Kabardian district V. V. Orbeliani, the adviser to the Russian Embassy in Constantinople V. A. Frankini, and the Minister of War Field Marshal General D. V. Yushchenko. A. Milyutin. There was a constant struggle between supporters and opponents of the Russian colonization of the region. It worsened after the end of the war, in the late 1850s and mid-1860s. The course and results of this struggle largely determined the development of Muhajirism.

In 1860, after the capture of Shamil, a meeting of the army command was held in Vladikavkaz, dedicated to the prospects for ending the war in the North-West Caucasus. At the meeting, the plan developed by N. I. Evdokimov for the occupation of unruly regions of Transcuban Circassia by Russian troops was adopted. It consisted in the gradual displacement of the highlanders either to the open marshy plains or to the Ottoman Empire. The lands taken from them were to be occupied as Cossack villages, which were intended to protect the southern borders of the empire along the Black Sea coast and the Main Caucasian Ridge. By dividing the Highlanders into "tribes", more and more

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less" dangerous "for Russian rule in the region, Evdokimov advised sending the former without exception to Ottoman Turkey as "secret enemies" of Russia [Problems of the Caucasian War..., 2001, p. 106]. At the same time, he suggested that the grassroots administration actually expel mountaineers from the Russian possessions, but in words keep them in their homeland in every possible way.

Having supported this project, the commander of the army, the governor of the Caucasus, Prince Baryatinsky, recognized "the only means of our firm establishment in the Trans-Kuban region... the establishment of Cossacks on the front lines in order to gradually restrict the highlanders and deprive them of their means of living. There is no reason to spare those tribes that persistently remain hostile, state necessity requires the seizure of their lands " [RGVIA]. The authorities of the Caucasian viceroyalty were not averse to getting rid of their restless subjects, tired of the endless resistance of the mountaineers. The general attitude of the government towards emigrants, who often left the Caucasus under the guise of hajj pilgrims, is very clear, although Baryatinsky sharply expressed it: "You know what? After all, it's probably not a bad thing that this bastard, who is only a burden to us, will leave. Don't stop them, let them go to Mecca or wherever they want" (for more information, see [Mukhanov, 2007]).

Largely due to the fact that Evdokimov's point of view prevailed in the north-west of the region in the last years of the Caucasian War, mass migrations after the war end reach a higher, interregional level. Along with the incessant internal migrations, the mass emigration of mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire, which began in the North Caucasus in the first half of the XIX century, is taking on a massive character. It was at this time that a movement was formed, which in the literature was called muhajirism. Among the settlers were many former muhajirs from the Shamil Imamate, which was defeated by Russia in 1859, in particular the Naqshbandi Sheikh Jamal ad-din Kazikumukhi (d. 1869, Istanbul), a former spiritual mentor of the imam, popular in the North-Eastern Caucasus. Emigrants who went to Ottoman Turkey also began to call themselves muhajirs. So this name was fixed for the entire resettlement movement.

It should not be assumed that the emigration of mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire was caused only by forced migrations. In fact, muhajirism had not just one, but a whole range of reasons. Otherwise, it would not have taken on such a massive character and would not have continued for half a century. Across the region, these reasons were similar, but not identical. The main reason for leaving for the Ottoman Empire was, of course, the expulsion of residents of the North-Western and a number of regions of the Central Caucasus from their homes in the mountains and foothills. Most of the mountaineers of Transcuban Circassia could not settle down on the unusual coastal plains. In addition, after the Russian conquest, the economic and social life of the region changed dramatically. A number of activities that are familiar to mountaineers have become a thing of the past. Slavery and the trade in prisoners of war, which had been banned in Russia as early as 1804, were destroyed, and they were an important source of income in Transcuban Circassia, in particular among the Ubykhs, who completely left the North Caucasus after the end of the war. The economic reason for muhajirism was the growing ruin of the nobility and the de-colonization of the highlanders after the end of the Caucasian War. In Kabarda and Daghestan, the clans of mountain princes and nobles never succeeded in returning the possessions confiscated from them by the Russian military and imams during the Caucasian War. The legal privileges of the nobility were not restored.

Realizing the seriousness of the land issue in the North Caucasus, the Russian government began to resolve it immediately after the end of the war. Estate and land commissions began to work throughout the region. However, sometimes the inept actions of officials only increased the ferment in mountain society. Judging by the information received by the Caucasian Viceroyalty from the districts, the beginning of the

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Russian reforms of the second half of the 60s of the XIX century caused fears of the indigenous population. Thus, the head of the Kabardian district, analyzing the reasons for emigration, put the land issue and reforms in the first place among them [Far from Home, 1994, p. 96]. Representatives of the former military nobility of Ossetia and Balkaria emigrated in whole clans, trying to preserve their slaves and serfs. They hoped to make up for their lost property and privileges in the Sultan's military service. Many of them quit their jobs in the military administration of the region. Along with the clans of the nobility, families of dependent peasants left, dissatisfied with the resettlement and de-land development.

It is necessary to note the influence of local elites on the development of muhajirism. Among them were quite a few businessmen who got a good job first in the Russian and then in the Ottoman military administration. Thanks to them, entire nations left for the Ottoman Empire. Musa Kundukhov (1818-1889), a native of the Muslim nobility (Aldarov), who left interesting memoirs, is a striking example of this type of figure [Memoirs of Musa Kundukhov, 1995] .2 After graduating from the Pavlovsk Military School in St. Petersburg, Kundukhov made a brilliant career in the Russian army, rising to Major General, head of the Military Ossetian and Chechen districts. At the head of mountain militia units, he participated on the Russian side in the Caucasian and Crimean wars, the suppression of the Cracow rebellion of 1846 and the Hungarian Revolution of 1849, and the last unrest in the North Caucasus in the 1860s.

In 1864, Kundukhov abruptly changed his life. He resigns and, in coordination with the authorities of the Caucasian viceroyalty, for a reward of 10 thousand rubles in silver, organizes the resettlement to the Ottoman Empire of more than 5 thousand families of Chechens, Ingush and several dozen Muslim Ossetians, whom he previously ruled. Together with them, the Kundukhov family also leaves. For the property and land left in the Caucasus, he received compensation from the Russian government in 45 thousand rubles. rubles in silver [ARSA-O] 3. In exile, Kundukhov made an equally rapid military career. After settling in the Sivas vilayet, he began serving in the army, where he gradually gained wide popularity and authority among the Ottoman authorities. In the Ottoman army, Kundukhov rose to the rank of pasha with the rank of mirliv. Already on the Ottoman side, he participated in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878. After the war, he commanded the Erzurum garrison for a long time. Thanks to such a successful career, the Kundukhov family took a high place in the Ottoman political elite. His son was the Minister of Foreign Affairs in republican Turkey.

Among the emissaries of the Muhajir movement in the North-West Caucasus were many representatives of the local Muslim elite, who, like Kundukhov, served in the Russian army and military administration. Among them are Kabardian Colonel Fitsa Abdrakhmanov of the Caucasian Mountain semi-squadron, Major General Mogukorov of the Kuban Cossack army, Lieutenant General Temirkhan Shipshev, head of the Shapsugsky district, Ossetian Aldar Abisalov from Digoria, and Muslim Ossetian foreman Akhmet Tsalikov of the Kurtatinsky Gorge. Using their authority among the mountaineers, they organized parties of immigrants in the districts they ruled and sent them to Turkey. Only in 1863-1864. Temirkhan Shipshev persuaded about 60 thousand people to emigrate. shapsugov. Religious figures such as Kabardian Mullah Zhamurza Varitlov, who led up to 900 Kabardians to the Ottoman Empire in 1865, Mullah Ishaq among the Shapsugs, Qadi Muhammad-Efendi Khubiev among the Karachays, and Muslim ulema Khut, Chanakhok, and Chelyagashtuk among the Bzhedugs were less common among the leaders of the Muhajir streams from the Adygs and Vainakhs.

In the North-Eastern Caucasus, sheikhs of the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya Sufi brotherhood were more often the initiators of resettlement. Many of them enjoyed considerable success.

2 The full text of his memoirs was published in the emigrant magazine Kavkaz in Paris. See: Le Caucase, 1936-1937.

3 I am grateful to A. A. Ganich for the kindly provided archival materials.

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He was an authority at the Sultan's court and among the Muslim elite of the Arab vilayets of the Ottoman Empire. Among them, we should mention Muhammad-Haji al-Madani, who was close to Abdul-Hamid II from the village of Kikuni (Bobrovnikov, 2006, pp. 154-157). Sheikh Abdallah-Haji, the son of Husayn al-Daghistani, who emigrated before him, lived in Mecca in 1868, receiving a large monthly pension of 350 reais (riyali gurush) [NBKM, f. 278Ar, arch. ed. 162]. The Muslims of Dagestan and Chechnya were more influenced by the letters with appeals for resettlement that were distributed in the 1860s and 1880s by participants of the jihad during the Caucasian War and the uprising of 1877. A student of Jamal al-din Kazikumukhsky, who left for Istanbul, the famous Naqshbandi Sheikh Abd ar-Rahman from Sogratl, wrote in Arabic in the late 1870s. This is an essay on hijrah. According to the sheikh, when Muslim lands fall under the rule of non-Muslim rulers, and the faithful can no longer fulfill their religious duties and there is no hope of restoring the rights of Islam with the help of ghazawat, every Muslim must leave the territory that became dar al-harb and move to the territory where the laws of Islam prevail [Hazihi Risala Sharif, p. 91a-94a]; see about it: [Kemper, 2003, p. 286]. This view was shared by the aforementioned Kikuni sheikh, a disciple of Abd ar-Rahman of Sogratl.

There are poems in support of Muhajirism written in the mid-1860s. Irchi Kazak (c. 1830-c. 1879), a famous Kumyk poet from Zasulak Kumykia. After returning from Russian exile, where he was caught for abducting the slave of the last shamkhal Tarkovsky, Irchi Kazak felt hard about the new order established in the post-war Caucasus: soldiers who flooded the region, bribes that are taken in offices. The Russians built schools and "cast-iron roads", but this did not make life easier for Muslims. The poet appeals to his fellow countrymen: bad people sell their faith for money; those who love Islam will leave (make hijri). "Let the Muslims gather their families and leave for the Ottoman State," he writes. "Especially since the tsar of Moscow allows us to leave. Sultan (khunkar) this is our mainstay." "Those who migrate will find themselves in paradise, and those who love peace should stay in Dagestan" (Bobrovnikov, 2005, p. 250). These and other satires of Irchi Kazak with calls for muhajirism were listed all over the North Caucasus.

The history of the migration of mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire and Russian colonization in the North Caucasus is often limited to the second third of the XIX century. This is not entirely correct. The North Caucasian (Circassian) diaspora began to form in Ottoman Turkey at least from the 16th century. In the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries, some representatives of the Adyghe and Dagestani diasporas made a brilliant military and spiritual career in Istanbul. Warriors from the North-West Caucasus and scientists from Dagestan were especially valued here [Bobrovnikov, 2006, p. 156]. By the 1840s, some key positions in the central Ottoman administration were held by former Circassian Mamluks. Having maintained their ties with their homeland, they later provided considerable support to their compatriots, who were forced to leave for the Ottoman Empire in droves after the end of the Caucasian War.

The prehistory of muhajirism should begin with mass internal migrations during the Caucasian War. As an independent movement, Muhajirism took shape in the last period of the war and the post-war fiftieth anniversary. There are usually six stages in the history of Muhajirism: 1) the second half of the 1850s; 2) the first half of the 1860s; 3) the second half of the 1860s-early 1870s; 4) the 1870s; 5) the 1880s and early 1890s; 6) the second half of the 1890s-1920s- 2000s. The internal migrations and Russian colonization that continued in the North Caucasus generally had the same periodization. The number of emigrants, the direction of migration flows, and the migration policy of the Government changed from period to period. During the wars between Russia and Ottoman Turkey, the borders between both countries were closed, and the scale of resettlement was reduced. Muhajirism continued intermittently until the 1920s.

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In different regions of the North Caucasus, the chronology of migration had its own differences. In the north-west of the region, its first stage begins before the 50s of the XIX century. In 1858, the Prikuban Nogais and Circassians left for the Ottoman Empire. At the second stage, the famous resettlement project of General Evdokimov described above was implemented, mainly in relation to the Natukhai, Abadzehs, Bzhedugs, upper Abadzehs, Temirgoevs, Khatukaevs and all other mountaineers of the Black Sea region. They were settled in flat and steppe areas. They were separated from the mountains by a chain of Cossack villages. Many of the defeated refused to live in these conditions. Therefore, the first half of the 1860s was the time of the most massive migrations of mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire; then a significant part of the western Adygs and Kabardins moved. This period of muhajirism and Russian colonization of the region is best described in Russian documentary sources and correspondence [Kumykov, 1994, pp. 21, 47, 76].

Authors who have written about mass migrations in the post-war North Caucasus, as a rule, limit themselves to a colorful description of the suffering of mountaineers in the Ottoman quarantines [Kushkhabiev, 1997, p. 58]. But the Cossacks settled on their former lands were not in a better position. Evdokimov, who was in charge of colonization of the Trans-Kuban region, conducted business very coolly, driving the Black Sea Cossacks to new places with whole villages. The violence committed by the district authorities in this case caused serious unrest among the Cossacks in Chernomoriya. After that, the administration of the Kuban region created in its place made concessions, agreeing to limit the relocation of hunters and those on the waiting list for relocation. In 1860-1864, 83 new Cossack settlements were established in the upper reaches of the Kuban and in the Trans - Kuban region. In the North-Eastern Caucasus, the district authorities did not accept the plan of Russian colonization of the acquired lands, implemented in the Kuban region by Evdokimov. In Dagestan, the Russian colonization of territories was carried out only on the plain, and very tight. There was no mass exodus of mountaineers to the plain. Even villages that had been moved from the mountains to the plain for some misdeeds were returned after a while.

At this time, both the Russian and Ottoman sides are beginning to develop migration legislation. If before the beginning of the 1860s financial support for the eviction of mountaineers by the Russian authorities to the Ottoman Empire was episodic, then from 1862 the question arose of financing all stages of emigration from the Russian treasury. On May 10, 1862, the Caucasian Committee issued a resolution "On the resettlement of mountaineers", according to which it was decided to finance the Muhajir movement. A commission was set up to deal with the relocation of mountaineers to Turkey. The Commission was authorized to organize the resettlement of mountaineers of the North Caucasus, issue them passports and cash benefits for eviction, and negotiate with the owners of transport vessels for the transportation of emigrants. Additionally, sub - commissions headed by commissars were organized in the Black Sea ports of Anapa, Taman, Tuapse, Sochi and Konstantinovsky to monitor the loading of mountaineers on sea vessels. A little later, the Konstantinovsky and Anapa quarantine and customs posts were established. The heads of the Commission and the commissioners of the sub-commissions drew up detailed reports on the dispatch of mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire, including financial reports, for submission to the General Staff of the Caucasian Army.

The High Commission for Resettlement in Istanbul was established in 1860. It was headed by the governor of Trebizond Hafiz Pasha. At first it was subordinate to the Ministry of Commerce, and from July 1861 to May 1875 it operated independently. In 1861, a special agreement on emigration was concluded between Russia and Turkey, which went down in history under the name of the Lobanov-Loris-Melikov Commission after the names of the Russian officials who headed it. The Ottoman authorities pledged to accept and settle Muhajirs from the North Caucasus on the lands of the empire, but they themselves demanded that the Russian government begin resettlement no earlier than May 1864 and resettle no more than 5 thousand families annually. Russian ruler-

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The Government pledged to send mountaineers in small batches and complete the resettlement in 10 years. In 1865, this stage of emigration of mountaineers to the Ottoman Empire was completed [NBKM, f. 1A, arch. units 65169-65176]. In fact, both sides have repeatedly violated the agreements.

At the third stage, in the second half of the 1860s and early 1870s, the migrations were mainly related to Russian reforms in the North Caucasus. At this time, the migration of residents of mountainous and foothill areas to the plain took on a particularly massive character in Bolshaya Kabarda, Ossetia and Chechnya. In order to facilitate the supervision and management of small mountain villages, the formation of so-called enlarged villages of the North-Western and Central Caucasus began during this period. They were created by forcibly transferring communities of various foothill and lowland villages to a new location. Thus, in the 1860s, 116 Kabardian villages were enlarged into 45 auls (Babich and Stepanov, 2009, p. 21). In the North-Eastern Caucasus, there was no consolidation of settlements and generally no relocation of mountaineers to the plain until the beginning of the Soviet transformations of the 1920s.

Faced with numerous violations of the Muhajir treaties by the Russian side and the country's general lack of preparedness to receive tens, if not hundreds of thousands of displaced persons, the Ottoman Empire begins to restrict the flow of Muhajirs. In Tiflis and St. Petersburg, opponents of emigration also prevailed. There was a ban on mass emigration to the Ottoman Empire. The order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Army "On stopping further eviction of mountaineers by masses" was issued, followed by the order of the head of the Terek region "On prohibiting residents of Bolshaya and Malaya Kabarda from leaving for Turkey and on arresting persons agitating Kabardians for resettlement (with sending them to prison in Vladikavkaz)". In an attempt to circumvent official barriers to emigration, Muhajirs resort during this period to obtaining tickets that allow them to temporarily leave Russia for the pilgrimage to Mecca. Many pilgrims stayed in the Ottoman Empire forever.

At the fourth stage, in the 1870s, supporters of mass migrations began to reappear among Russian civil and military officials. At this time, a certain G. Butkevich prepared a plan for the complete eviction of the mountain population from the North Caucasus. As in the projects of Velyaminov and Evdokimov discussed above, he divided the highlanders into less and more dangerous for the state interests of Russia. Butkevich proposed to evict the most dangerous people from the Caucasus, including the Western Adygs, Kabardins, Chechens and the peoples of Dagestan. According to the author of the project, "Kabardians living on the route of our main communications with Transcaucasia should be given not only complete freedom to move to Turkey, but even facilitate eviction... As for the Chechens, the most fanatical, unreliable and robber population in the Caucasus, which occupies the richest part of the Terek region in all respects, their total eviction is extremely necessary and desirable, and if it did not take place voluntarily, it would be necessary to use force for this" [Tragic Consequences..., 2006, p. 245 - 246].

A new surge of migration occurred in the 1880s and early 1890s. This was due to several reasons. First, the migration of mountaineers from the North-West and Central Caucasus to the plain and the peasant colonization of the region intensified. Secondly, after the suppression of the uprising of 1877, there was a mass expulsion of supporters of this last act of Muslim insurrection to the inner provinces of Russia. Many of those exiled for supporting the uprising in the late 1970s and early 1980s managed to escape from Central Russia and illegally made their way to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, in 1893-1894, the Dagestani Sheikh Mohammed-haji from Kikuni, mentioned above, came to Istanbul [Bobrovnikov, 2006, p. 154]. The role of rumors has grown dramatically. The mountaineers were afraid of the spread of universal military service, introduced in Russia in 1876, and fled to Turkey. Local authorities ' refutations are not accepted.

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they helped. In part, the wave of migrations was also provoked by the active organization of military Cossack settlements on the borders of mountain villages.

At the fifth stage, the Caucasian administration continued to argue about the eviction of mountaineers and support for peasant colonization on their former lands. Many supporters of these projects worked in the administration of the Kuban region, which is most affected by the Muhajir movement. They still believed that the Highlanders were doing "a great deal of harm to the Russian population of the Kuban region, giving themselves up extensively to looting and theft." To get rid of this "restless element", they offered to take advantage of the mountaineers ' desire to leave for Ottoman Turkey and permanently remove them from the Russian Caucasus. Such drastic measures were opposed by a number of equally influential people, including the well-known statesman who replaced Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich as ruler of the Caucasus region, the commander - in-chief of the civil part in the Caucasus, A. M. Dondukov-Korsakov (1882-1890). He tried in every possible way to limit even voluntary migrations to the Ottoman Empire, finding them harmful to the peace of the region and to Russian rule in general.

The result of the disputes was a new change in the Russian migration legislation in the North Caucasus. In 1885, new "Rules for the resettlement of mountaineers" were adopted [Problems of the Caucasian War..., 2001, pp. 277-313]. Restrictions on the voluntary departure of mountaineers abroad were lifted. The resettlement of a rural community required the consent of 2/3 of its members (later half) and the consent of the Ottoman side to accept it. Emigrants had to pay for their own relocation. They forever lost the right to return to their homeland and their former possessions, which were transferred to the property of the Kuban Cossack Army in the north-west of the region. Mountaineers who decided to stay in the North Caucasus were obliged to unquestioningly follow all orders of their superiors, including on relocation. The Ottoman side also took measures to establish state control over the resettlement. In 1887, the Supreme Commission for Resettlement, which had been abolished in 1875, was restored. The resumption of its work is associated with a sharp increase in the number of Muhajirs. In the late 1880s and first half of the 1890s, many mountaineers of the Terek and Kuban regions took advantage of the new rules and left the Caucasus.

During the sixth stage, from the second half of the 1890s to the 1920s, the internal causes of migration related to the peasant colonization of the region became the most important. The most widespread emigration at this stage was that of mountaineers from Chechnya and Dagestan. In the Northwestern Caucasus, its size was more modest. Since the 1890s, the propaganda of muhajirism from the Ottoman Empire has been renewed throughout the North Caucasus, including in Kabarda, Chechnya, and Dagestan. One of the main incentives for migration was religious. Cultural and economic ties between the North Caucasian diaspora and the remaining mountaineers in the region have expanded. Graduates of North Caucasian madrasas continued their education in the Ottoman Empire, primarily at the famous al-Azhar University in Cairo (Bobrovnikov, 2005: 275-276).

Migration routes from the North Caucasus to the Ottoman Empire were established in the first half of the 19th century. They were finally established in the second half of the 1850s. There were both sea (via the Black Sea) and land (via Transcaucasia) emigration routes. In the Northwestern and partly Central Caucasus, muhajirs more often chose the Black Sea route through Taman and Kerch, and later through the Russian ports of Odessa, Novorossiysk, Poti and Batumi. In addition to the Russian Black Sea company, they were transported by Ottoman and European vessels. Muhajirs arrived in the Turkish port cities of Istanbul, Samsun, Trabzon, Sinop [NBKM, f. 258A, arch. units 121, 221-222; f. 261A, arch. units 2111-2112].

The land route of the Muhajirs lay through Transcaucasia to Van, Izmir, and Erzurum [NBKM, f. 233A, arch. units 440, 663-664; f. 236A, arch. units 2037-2042; f. 238A,

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arch. units 461-465]. This route was preferred by Dagestanis, most of the Chechens, Ingush and Ossetians. Mountaineers of the North-West Caucasus were forbidden to use the land route. Crossing the Great Caucasian Ridge in the area of the Zakatala district or following the Georgian Military Road through Vladikavkaz and Tiflis, they came to the Russian-Turkish border through the Erivan and Tiflis provinces. Then they went to the Anatolian cities of Kare and Mush [NBKM, f. 243A, arch. ed. 493-499]. Especially many illegal immigrants went this way. They usually crossed the border at night, in small groups. The police and cordon guards regularly detained them in the Tiflis and Alexandropol districts and along the Georgian Military Road, but they could not block the flow of illegal immigrants.

According to the data of the chairman of the Caucasian Archeographic Commission A. P. Berge, only in 1858-1865, when the size of emigration was greatest, 439,194 people left the North Caucasus (Berge, 1882, p. 167). The vast majority of them were Circassians of the North-West Caucasus and Abkhazians close to them in language and culture. According to official data, in 1856-1925. About 40 thousand Chechens and Ingush, 39,660 Nogais (including Nogais of the Kuban region), 8-10 thousand Ossetians and 20-25 thousand Dagestanis left the North-Eastern Caucasus. From the mid-1960s to the beginning of the 20th century, about 200 thousand more emigrated from the Caucasus. muhajirs. Many researchers tend to consider these figures underestimated. For example, A. Kh. Kasumov gives the figure of 900 thousand rubles. Adygs who emigrated from Russia to Ottoman Turkey. Taking into account the mass mortality of refugees from epidemics and travel difficulties, the well-known Turkish historian Kemal Karpat estimates the number of Muhajirs who left Russia at 1.2 million [Karpat, 1985, p.68]. People from the Circassian diaspora go to extremes, bringing the number of Muhajirs to two million people.

All this data is too approximate and inaccurate. First, no accurate statistics were kept on the mountain population of the North Caucasus prior to its final Russian conquest. In order to comply with the terms of the Treaty of 1860 and its own interests, the Russian regional administration has long downplayed the number of emigrants who left the North Caucasus. In addition, one passport was issued for the whole family (for the head of the family), and one person was entered in the statistics. Not all archival documents have survived. We should also not forget that a significant number of Muhajirs (for example, participants in the uprising of 1877) crossed the border illegally, mainly through the Main Caucasian Ridge and Transcaucasia. The size of illegal emigration from the pre-revolutionary North Caucasus was very high. As for the Ottoman statistics, they did not take into account the mass death of Muhajirs from starvation and disease on the way and before settling in Turkey.

North Caucasian muhajirs were settled in the" hot spots " of the empire, in places where the Ottoman authorities were weak and the anti-Ottoman resistance was strong. Chechens and Dagestanis were used to protect the capital (Istanbul) and the strategic routes leading to it. In the south-east of Asia Minor, the Muhajir paramilitary settlements were supposed to restrain the development of the national movement of Armenians, Kurds and Kyzylbash. In the Middle East (mainly on the territory of the Damascus Vilayet - modern Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan), the Muhajirs were used as a buffer force protecting the borders of the empire from Bedouin tribes and Druze. Unlike natives of the North-West Caucasus, migrants from Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan were not placed in the Balkans. There are no documents confirming the presence of Muhajirs in the Balkans.

In the Ottoman Empire (and the nation-states that emerged from its ruins), the authorities used the Muhajirs and their descendants in the same capacity as Russia in the North Caucasus used the Cossacks who settled on the lands from which the Muhajirs were driven. First of all, they formed police units, as well as irregular military units (bashi-bazouks) and gendarmerie, which were used to support the ruling regime.

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the regime and suppression of unrest, in particular, the April uprising in Bulgaria in 1876, which served as one of the reasons for the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878 [NBKM, BIA, f. 772, arch. ed. 1, p. 383]. Irregular cavalry regiments were created from Kurds and North Caucasian Muhajirs. After the then-ruling Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909), they were named Hamidiye. These units were used to quell insurgent movements on the outskirts of the Ottoman Empire. According to A. G. Avakyan, the project of creating a Hamidiyeh was developed in 1878 with the active participation of muhajirs Musa Kundukhov and Shamil's son Ghazi-Muhammad (Avakyan, 2001, pp. 168-169).

Muhajirs were readily used in the gendarmerie. Thus, in Erzurum in 1903, out of the 300 gendarmes available in the city and its environs, the overwhelming majority were muhajirs or descendants of immigrants from the North Caucasus (cf.: [NBKM, f. 236A, ed. ch. 399]). The use of people from the Circassian diaspora in the army and police remained a tradition in the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In Syria and Lebanon, which in 1920 formed a French territory under the French mandate, detachments of Circassian cavalry became part of the so-called special forces with the functions of the gendarmerie. Since 1925, Circassian irregulars have been the mainstay of the French operational forces. Circassian cavalry units played a similar role under the British in Transjordan (Aliev, 2001; Ganich, 2007). After independence, the military "specialization" of the Circassian diaspora remained. Having lost its connection with the historical homeland, it became a separate, rather privileged stratum of Muslim society in the Middle East, which played an important role in the socio-political transformations of the first half of the XX century.

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