North Caucasus resistance leader Sheikh Mansour(Published on the occasion of the 212th anniversary of the death of sheikh Mansour-Ushurma).
By Emil Souleimanov, special to Prague Watchdog
Having conquered the Tatar Khanates of Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556), the Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible obtained northern access to the Caspian Sea and the foothills of the Greater Caucasus. However, Russia's attempts to take control of the Northern Caucasus region (such as Duke Khvorostin's 1594 expedition and Duke Buturlin's 1604 military campaign to Dagestan) failed primarily because of internal political instability, the so-called Time of Troubles (Smutnoye vremya), which culminated in the occupation of Moscow by the Poles (1610).
Nevertheless, in 1722 Tsar Peter the Great sent troops to the Caucasus in order to prevent the Ottoman Empire's invading the western coast of the Caspian Sea, and he also set up the St. Cross Fort (later Prikumsk, today Budennovsk). This was the official start of Russia's colonial policies in the Caucasus, which included introducing serfdom (interestingly, serfdom /krepostnoye pravo/ was abolished in Russia only in 1861) and other laws that were typical to the Russian state, but alien to the mountaineers. The borders of the Empire gradually extended southward, and in 1770-80 a fortified line was built from Mozdok to Azov. Moreover, in the late 18th century, the Georgian Military Road was built across the mountain range that would connect Russian bases with the Southern Caucasus. And even though the Russians used Cossacks to ease tensions with the mountaineers, rebellions were inevitable.
The first organized uprising of the Northern Caucasian mountaineers against the Russian expansion was led by sheikh Mansour Usurma. He was born in the Aldy village, which today is part of Grozny. Under the green flag of Islam, the sheikh consolidated Chechens, Dagestanis, Circassians, Kabardians and Adygeans in order that they could protect their homeland from being taken over by the "infidels".
Meanwhile, the Russians figured they were also in danger from Mansour’s attempts to join forces with the Osmans who, being unhappy with Russia’s penetration into the Caucasus, began building fortifications along the coastline of the Black Sea.
The Russians retaliated by starting a secret campaign against the Chechens. An army of 3,000 strong, under the command of Colonel Pieri, advanced upon Aldy where they not only burned and burglarized Mansour's native village, but rampaged through it destroying everyone and everything that stood in their path.
Taken completely by surprise, the villagers headed for the mountains. The sheikh lost everything: his house was leveled to the ground, and he and his family barely escaped. Whatever friendly ties he once had toward Russia, instantly became a thing of the past; he now vowed in the name of the Prophet to take revenge. The entire country of Chechnya flared up in anger when they heard about his misfortune. And the sheikh, who had now become the head of the mountaineers, immediately declared a holy war - a ghazavat.
The mountaineers’ vengeance wasn’t long in coming. All the men that were left from Aldy and surrounding villages decided to hide in the woods and await Pieri’s retreating soldiers. And as soon as the army started to cross the Sunzha River, the mountaineers attacked. During the bitter struggle Pieri’s army was decimated, and its young and passionate commander was killed.
The sheikh soon had 12,000 volunteers, the majority of whom were Chechens and Dagestanis. In 1785, his goal was the fort in Kizlyar, the then headquarters of the Russian governor of the Caucausus. At that time this was an important strategic and administrative point that joined the Caucasus to “continental” Russia.
In July 1785, the sheikh’s army of 5,000 men, made up mostly of Chechens, Dagestanis, and northern (Sunni) Azerbaijanis, attacked the fort with lightening speed. However, they were driven back by enemy artillery fire. Mansour retreated so that he could repeat this assault in August, which proved to again be unsuccessful.
Two years later war broke out between Russia and Turkey, but Mansour withdrew to the northwestern Caucasus where, allied with the Osman army, he could coordinate various undertakings. Here he was joined by rebels from differing tribes, but despite the bravery and tenacity of his own volunteers, they suffered many defeats.
In June 1791, Mansour was captured and imprisoned in the Turkish fort Anapa, and eventually convicted of inciting the mountaineers against Russia. He died under mysterious circumstances in the Schluesselburg fort near St. Petersburg on April 13, 1794.
The fall of Mansour’s short-lived resistance movement helped to intensify Russian colonial expansion in the Caucasus. This was further strengthened by the unilateral withdrawal from the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783) by Emperor Alexander I (1801), which meant the destruction of the East-Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and annexation of its territories by the Russian empire.
But the spread of Islam was underway. Thanks to Mansour’s preaching and military actions it became an ideology of a national-liberation movement of linguistically and politically heterogeneous Caucasian ethnic groups. However, complete Islamization of Chechens, Ingush and other North Caucasian peoples didn’t take place until the 19th century. Islam became somewhat of a basic idea source for the national-liberation wars of the Caucasian mountaineers against Russian colonialism.
Islam’s expansion in the Caucasian mountains was mainly influenced by regional and contemporary circumstances. Even Soviet Chechen historians admitted that “the logic of their situation alone inevitably led them to consolidate under one ideological religious banner. And that was best provided by a new religion - Islam; a common religion for all natives of the Northern Caucasus, except for some Ossetians. The cruel policies of the Tsarist administration against the mountaineers contributed to Islam’s unprecedented and violent expansion.”
Mansour’s endeavors influenced a long line of anti-colonial and armed uprisings in the Northern Caucasus that later followed. But even more significant was the method by which this ideological and military precedent united the resistance fighters and later also influenced the establishment of the military-theocratic state of Shamil, the Grand Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya. However, the Caucasian War (1830-1859/1864), which flared up under Shamil, is another chapter in the region’s history.
PhDr. Emil Souleimanov, PhD, is a political scientist working at Charles University in Prague. He is a regular contributor to Prague Watchdog. (E/T) RELATED ARTICLES:
· A Strategy of Resistance: Sheikh Mansour Aldinsky and Sheikh Abdul-Khalim Argunsky (Sadulaev) (The Jamestown Foundation; February 16, 2006)
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