No 4 (2022)

This article presents the classification of one of the most common categories of burial equipment of the North Caucasus population during the pre-Scythian time: sewn plaques. These ornaments made of bronze and antimony were found at the Zayukovo-3 burial ground in the burials of the VIII–VII centuries BC. Departments are allocated based on the material, sub–departments according to the shape of the surface, types – according to the manufacturing technique. The place of plaques in the burial shows that none of the selected jewelry was used as buttons and the attribution of plaques to such is a historiographical mistake. Most of the studied plaques (except for bronze hemispherical ones with a jumper (type Ia1a1) and a loop (type Ia2a) on the back, cease to exist in the middle of the VII century BC. Thus, the remaining plaques are a chrono-indicator of the terminus ante quem of the finale of the classical stage of the Koban culture and the beginning of the Scythian time.

The article researches the transition of Nogai nomadic societies, transferred by the supreme central authorities of the Russian Empire at the end of the XVIII century from the Pre-Caucasian and Pre-Kuban prairies to the Melitopol district of the Taurida region to a settled state. This article reveals the climatic, socio-economic and political factors influencing the successful process of transition of nomadic societies into a settled state at the beginning of the XIX century. Particular attention is paid to the role of the central and regional apparatus of state authorities on the transformation of traditional forms of life, everyday life and economic sectors of the Nogais and the period of their adaptation to the general imperial realities. The author draws attention to the successful results of the sedentarization of nomadic Nogais implemented by the Russian administration in the first quarter of the XIX century cannot be assessed unambiguously, because of the mass exodus of Nogais living in the Tauride province to the Ottoman Empire in the 60s of the XIX century.

The article discusses the role and significance of Khadzhret Kabarda in the history of the national liberation movement of the Circassian people during the Caucasian War. The Khajrets, having an effective military organization, showing high military activity in this sub-region of the North-Western Caucasus for several decades, had an influence disproportionate to their numbers among the peoples beyond the Kuban. The Russian Empire took all measures to neutralize this factor, and the Ottoman Empire used it in its geopolitical interests. The leaders of the Kabardian Khajrets, well aware of the bureaucratic structure of the Ottoman Empire, were in constant contact with the Ottoman Porte. Based on Russian and Ottoman sources, new aspects of Ottoman-Circassian relations are revealed, the chronological framework for the beginning of the resettlement of Circassians to Turkey is specified. Pre-revolutionary Russian and modern historiography attribute the beginning of the resettlement process to 1858. Documents from the Ottoman archives, first published in the article, indicate that this process took place as early as 1835. They also make it possible to identify among the migrants a new category of persons – refugees, which should be distinguished from other categories that appeared later – emigrants and displaced persons.

The article examines the public-educational views and activities of supporters of Jadidism in Karachay and Balkaria in the second third of the XIX–first third of the XX century. The data on specific personalities who tried to carry out some reforms in the system of Muslim education and enlightenment within the framework of this cultural and educational movement are given. Their efforts to modernize the local education system and introduce gender equality in this area, the development of the press, introducing the native language in spiritual and secular schools, etc. are highlighted. The activities of a significant part of the Karachay-Balkarian Jadids continued in the Soviet era, when many of them contributed significantly to the formation of a new school system in their native language. One of the key places in the article is occupied by the personality of Effendi, teacher, public figure Ismail Akbayev, who shared the ideas of the Jadids, tried to put them into practice and contributed significantly to the development of Karachay-Balkar culture, especially education. It is concluded that, thanks to the innovation of the Jadidids, advanced educational ideas for their time were embodied in the Karachay-Balkar ethno-cultural environment.

The article examines the topics related to the armed intervention of three empires - the Ottoman, German and British on the territory of the Caucasus in 1918-1920. The reasons why these states implemented their foreign policy in the Northern Caucasus and Transcaucasian during the First World War and immediately after it are given. It is proved that the three empires had completely different motivations for invading the territory of the former Russian Empire in the Caucasus region. If the Ottoman Empire first of all hatched revanchist plans to return the region that once belonged to them to its state, using pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism as leverage, then the German Empire wanted to join the economic exploitation of the Caucasus, primarily the Baku oil fields. It is concluded that the most large-scale military intervention came from Great Britain, which was due to extensive pre-war investments in the oil industry of the Caucasus and, in this regard, the desire to protect their positions in this region, including by military means.

The article handles topical issues of the hydropower development the in Kabardino-Balkarian Republic in the 1920s–1930s. By organizing a hydrographic study of the region, the Soviet government was convinced of the design and construction effectiveness of small hydroelectric power plants as a cost-effective form of renewable energy. A five-year plan for the electrification of the region in 1925–1929 was developed, an integral part of which was the construction of a group hydroelectric station in the Malo-Kabardinsky district, in the east of the KBAO in the dry steppe zone with insufficient and unstable moisture. After laying the western canal of the Malo-Kabardinsky irrigation system, the local authorities began the construction of the Akbashskaya SHPP, which played a key role in supplying high-quality electricity to remote settlements and the first industrial enterprises of the district. Today, the use of the resources of small rivers, which form the basis of the hydrographic network of the region, will ensure the sustainable development of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic and create conditions for its energy security and scientific and technical modernization of industry.

The authors of this article consider the problem of the transfer in 1936 of the administrative center of the North Caucasus Region from the resort city Pyatigorsk to Vladikavkaz, which shortly before the mentioned event, was renamed Ordzhonikidze and became the capital of North Ossetia. Analyzing the decisions of the central and regional authorities, the materials of the periodical press of the North Caucasus, the authors conclude that the capital of the region from January 1, 1934 to May 26, 1937 with no interruption was actually and officially the city Pyatigorsk. The authors reveal a set of reasons for the cancellation of the earlier decision to move the North Caucasian center from Pyatigorsk to the capital of North Ossetia, and then to Stavropol, which became the center of the Ordzhonikidze region, but without autonomous republics.

This papers reveals that the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century foreign policy and foreign economic structures of the KBR (MFR KBR, KFEC KBR) and the Kabardino-Balkarian branch of the International Association «Rodina» for relations with compatriots abroad (KBBIAR) cooperated with the state country authorities of the Circassian and Karachay-Balkarian diasporas residence (Turkey, Jordan, Syria, etc.) and with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of these diasporas in the economical, cultural, educational, scientific, sport, and other areas. The essence of the ideological work of the KBR MFR and KBBIAR was the informing and explanatory work on reforms in the Russian Federation and the peaceful foreign policy of the state. A number of treaties and agreements were concluded between the authorities of the KBR and the countries of compatriots residence. Dozens of foreign compatriots companies (FC) and joint ventures with their companies were opened in the republic. But cooperation between the KBR and the FC in the economic sphere has not been broadly developed due to the unstable socio-political and economic situation in the North Caucasus region and the lack of guarantees for the security of foreign property. The activities of the MFR KBR, KVEC KBR and KBBIAR (organization of cooperation with the countries of residence of the Circassian and Karachay-Balkarian diasporas and with NGOs of these diasporas in the above spheres; ideological work with the FC; supplying to FC printed, video and audio materials; broadcasting radio programs to the Circassian diasporas in the countries of the Middle East; organization of recreation for FC children in the republic’s children’s camps; train educating of FC youth in the universities of the KBR), carried out in cooperation with the state authorities of the Russian Federation, was generally effective: it largely contributed to the preservation of the ethno-cultural specifics of the Circassian and Karachay-Balkarian foreign diasporas, the study of the Russian language and Russian culture by a considerable number of FC, the growth of pro-Russian position among them. 

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of the Caucasian War coverage in the Don pre-revolutionary historiography. The article shows that initially, in 1850-1870, the Caucasian War was not considered by the Don authors as a landmark event, and could not even be mentioned in the list of wars in which the Don Cossacks participated. It is established that the situation changed in the 1880s. under the influence of Russian historiography, in which the heroization of the image of Ya.P. Baklanov occurred. The author concludes many unclear statements about the degree of his real support, meaning the anniversary of Ya.P. Baklanov in 1909, after which Ya.P. Baklanov was included in the pantheon of Don heroes, but the celebration had a clearly expressed political background (monarchism and religiosity of the general were emphasized in every way). Only after this, publications of Don authors about the Caucasian War became regular, and they were financed from above, were patriotic, not scientific, and reduced the war to the exploits of Ya.P. Baklanov and several other Cossacks.

The article is devoted to the history of the socio-economic development researches of the South Caucasus in pre-revolutionary and Soviet historiography. This article determines the attitude of historians to the socio-economic situation in the South Caucasus in the XIX– early XX century. The ideas of the Caucasus, characteristic of the pre-revolutionary and Soviet schools, as a single historical and cultural region, as a region where there are all prerequisites for the development of the region’s economy, are highlighted.The summary of the researchers’ views, who note both the great ambitions of statehood and certain aspects of the socio-economic problems of the South Caucasus is conducted. The distinctiveness of Caucasian historiography is the study of works on individual areas, industries of the Caucasus, the complexity of the works written by them, an interdisciplinary approach to research. The peculiarities of the fact that the further development of Caucasian studies led to the differentiation of individual directions, to the isolation of various branches of Caucasian studies.The article studies the main trends of pre-revolutionary and Soviet historiography, notes various approaches to the assessment of historical experience, methodological principles of scientific research.It is concluded that despite the Russification and colonization policy of the tsarist government, there were progressive consequences of the socio–economic development of the South Caucasus, which was confirmed by historiographical studies of both pre-revolutionary and Soviet historians.

The funeral and memorial rites of the Adygs are one of the fundamental, structure-forming elements of the spiritual culture of the people. Starting from the late middle ages and up to the present time, the burial practices of the Adygs have been transformed under the effect of external and internal factors. In the late middle ages, when the predominant part of the Adygs adhered to paganism, under-barrow rite of the dead was dominated at the entire historical space of their residence.Barrows of the XIV-XVI centuries are represented by earth, stone or mixed mounds about a meter high, erected above the buried in a wooden block, usually oriented along the line W - E. Late medieval Adyghe mounds are on the plane and in the foothills.Adyghe mounds can be divided into three local groups: The Eastern Black Sea, Zakubansk (Belorechensk), Kabardino-Pyatigorsk. Each of these groups has its own specifics.The late medieval barrow burial grounds by Adyghs occupies the area from the Northern Black Sea region in the west to the borders of modern plain Chechnya in the east; from the Kuma River in the north to the foothills of the Rocky and Caucasian Ranges in the south (except for burial grounds in the mountains of the North-Western Caucasus, near the modern Karachay villages of Kart-Dzhurt, Uchkulan and Khurzuk). The belonging of the the North Caucasian barrows of the 14th – 16th centuries to the Adygs is confirmed by archeological data, narrative sources and folklore materials.

The publication continues the introduction into scientific circulation of the report on the field ethnographic work in Kabarda by E.N. Studenetskaya. When considering the report fragment, primary attention was paid to the social structure of Kabardian society issue, which was one of its key topics. In his report, the author describes thoroughly the social roles of representatives of all classes, gives information about the rights and duties of the privileged and dependent estates. Significant attention is paid to the forms of capture and the fate of the prisoners, since one of the dependent estates was also formed from them. The field material is oral histories, which in the middle of the XX century continued to be preserved in the memory of old-timers. An important circumstance that influenced the nature and structure of the collected material was that the informants of E.N. Studenetskaya belonged to the descendants of dependent groups of the local population.The report’s publishers pay the most important attention to native social terminology used in it, since the fixation of the material was complicated by the periodic absence of an interpreter, ignorance of the language by the researcher, as well as the conditions for translating the collected material into printed form, which was carried out by a typist who also does not speak Kabardian. The need to clarify the details related to social terminology is because there is still no complete clarity on the internal social stratification of traditional Kabardian society.

The dramaturgy of the North Caucasus people remains an unresearched field of ​​modern literary criticism. This article presents the introduction issues of scientific circulation and studying of the unpublished manuscript of the play “Andemirkan” (1943), placed in the RSALA fund by the Kabardian ethnographer, folklorist, playwright and artist Z.P. Kardangushev. This paper considers textological analysis and preparation for publication of the manuscript (85 pages with author’s comments and corrections). Analysis of the manuscript’s content makes it possible to present the translation processes of the author’s thoughts into a literary word and to reconstruct the creative history of his literary work. In practical terms, the analysis of the dramatic texts by Z.P. Kardangushev on Andemirkan is crucial for the study of the early twentieth century North Caucasian drama and identification of the artistic characteristics in the embodiment of time, place, and dramatic conflict.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the folklore descriptions’ evolution and the problem of identifying traditional expressive structures as typological markers. The article argues that the theory of “accelerated development of literatures”, especially its provisions on the drift of expressive structures from the space of oral folk art into the author’s literature, is mainly the result of the impact on the ethnic culture of the theses of the ideological doctrines. Authors conclude about the stadial development of the description in the pre-literary period and propose a scheme for its functional classification, arguing that the archaic descriptions in texts is not the result of folklore aesthetics influence and cannot serve as a base for defining the literary system as a “new-written”. The main concept of the article is the existence of character descriptive layers, the emergence of which is associated with the corresponding evolutionary periods of the society's development and the oral folk art; levels providing for the modification of the information content of the described objects from unconditional and non–activated markers in a plot and characters, to highlight features and attributes used consciously and purposefully. Analysis of the evolutionary modifications of the description, analysis of its functional resources and capabilities leads the article's authors to the conclusion that some categories and concepts of the theory of “accelerated development” are incorrect in relation to the literatures of North Caucasus people. In addition, they raise the question if the donor impact models of alternative cultural representations on the traditional is applicable (in this case, on Russian) literatures.

The article examines the main thematic and substantive aspects of the modern Russian-speaking Kabardian writer V. Mamishev, the structure, the dominant direction of his poetic and prose works. The relevance of the study is determined by most of the author’s works have not yet become the object of research. Meanwhile, Mamishev’s work reflects the original modern type of artistic consciousness, a close connection with the modern literary process and its features. The problems of ordinary people, a «small» person with antisocial tendencies, are at the center of V. Mamishev’s creativity. The article examines the national identity of the Russian-speaking author, the peculiarities of poetics, composition, style. The dominant direction in which artistic discourse is realized is postmodernism. The author is characterized by a funny entrance, mainly humorous and ironic perception. The research uses the method of artistic analysis. The results obtained can be used in preparing special courses on Adyghe literature, national literatures of the North Caucasus, Russia.

Songs and legends dedicated to the Eshanoko brothers are one of the most artistically perfect and popular works of oral folk art among the Circassians. Evidence of this is the high frequency of their recording in records and publications, the wide geography of their existence, the diversity and richness of their plot composition. Researchers of the Adyge folklore focused on individual motifs and plots of the cycle under consideration. However, until now there are no special works devoted to a detailed description of the entire plot-motive fund of the cycle about the Eshanoko, which is the reason for our appeal to the designated topic. This study gives, as far as possible, a complete analytical description of the plot and the main motives of the songs and legends included in the named cycle, in connection with which special attention is paid to determining the main plots and motives according to the international indicators (AT, SUS, etc.), established features of the genesis, evolution and transformation of the main plot-forming elements. Because of the study of materials, it is concluded that, as in the Nart epos, folklore universals stand out in the cycle about the Eshanoko brothers, which are the motives and plots about the marriage of the father of the heroes, about their birth, heroic childhood, obtaining a horse, deeds and death. Many of them are like objectification to the elements of a heroic fairy tale. All this allows us to conclude that the cycle about the Eshanoko brothers was formed in close connection with the more ancient genres of the Adyge folklore, in particular, with the archaic Nart epic and heroic tales.

The article is devoted to the research of Karachay-Balkarian riddles in the aspect of displaying objects and phenomena of the natural world, everyday life, the person himself, as well as concepts related to the material and spiritual culture of the ethnic group. The work emphasizes the evaluative, descriptive nature of the considered folklore units, identifies the means and ways of conceptualizing the guessing objects. These include metaphor, metonymy, comparison, antithesis, personification, etc., which can be used both individually and in combination. The analysis of the Karachay-Balkarian riddles allows us to assert that they enshrine, in an allegorical form, a complex of religious, aesthetic, moral and ethical ideas of the ethnos, reflect the features of its worldview, attitude. The study of the works of this genre, their popularization not only contribute to the intergenerational transmission of the cultural and historical experience of the people, but also help to reveal more deeply the specifics of the linguistic picture of the world of the Karachays and Balkars. Of no small importance is the pedagogical, educational potential inherent in riddles, that help the development of artistic, figurative, logical thinking of children and adults.

The article is devoted to the study of the formation and development of the literary Karachay-Balkar language history over the past hundred years. An overview of its study is given, current problems of functioning are outlined, and prospects for further improvement are determined. A multi-aspect analysis of the studied language is conducted, considering the main, crucial publications for the period under review. The fundamental projects “Explanatory dictionary of the Karachay-Balkarian language” and “Modern Karachay-Balkarian language” stand out as special achievements of Karachay-Balkarian linguistics. A new periodization of the development of the literary Karachay-Balkar language and its evolution into the status of the state language is proposed. Attention is drawn to the tasks considered for philologists to determine, at the junction of humanitarian disciplines, the specific contribution of the classics of the Balkar and Karachay literatures to strengthen the norms of the language being studied. Attention is paid to the development of issues related to writing, alphabet, spelling and terminology. For the further successful functioning of the native language, it is necessary to improve the very practice of creating complex studies, its method, and the unification of lexical norms. The expediency of developing scientific principles for the selection of linguistic phenomena is indicated, considering regional characteristics. The perspective possibilities of expansion of functions provided by the official status of “literary language” in two constituent entities of the Russian Federation are substantiated: the Kabardino-Balkarian and Karachay-Cherkess republics.

The review of the book “Nagaybaks: Dynamics of Ethnicity” (SPb, 2019) and other publications of the author and her supervisor is appropriate for broad discussions further, because it considers a good and original work of a young researcher, with only a few (albeit significant) comments. Our common object has become an unusual Turkic, serving ethnic group, connecting the problems of the era, scientific efforts, ethnic groups, religions, and even (which is rarely focused on) the regions of the Russian Federation and the CIS, the Baltics. The author, having structured the presentation in her own way, gave a complete overview of the traditional culture of the Nagaybaks. The helpful moment is the connection of typical ethnic material with biographical data and with new computer (up to “virtual”) information. The “project” method of the author’s analytics has also become very productive.The shortcomings should be considered the author’s adherence to the immediately given non-controversial scheme, the inexhaustibility of the previously presented literature, some hasty judgments. So, the reviewer’s version about the Nogais turned out to be annoyingly distorted. But the idea of ​​the ethnogenetic unity of the Nogais and Nagaibaks, mistakenly attributed to the reviewer, still gives reason to consider in more detail the ties between the regions of the South of Russia (the North Caucasus, the Lower Volga region and the Southern Urals), as well as analogies in the internal structure of the local ethno-confessional groups: the Nagaibaks and Mozdok Kabardins, the Ossetians and Tats of different religions, as well as the Orthodox - Kalmyks serving as Cossacks both in the south of the Urals, and earlier on the Terek river near the city of Kizlyar.As a result, the author remained underwritten by the combination of religions and beliefs in the Nagaybak environment, the adaptation process of other ethnic elements (including in connection with the main formerly ritual holiday).The reviewer is sure, however, that the enthusiastic and detailed work of his younger colleague is an important contribution to science and deserves, with particular reservations, a very high appreciation, paving the way for intensive ethno-regional and inter-regional research in the foreseeable future.