Bitter Choices: Loyalty and Betrayal in the Russian Conquest of the North Caucasus

Bitter Choices: Loyalty and Betrayal in the Russian Conquest of the North Caucasus
ISBN-10
0801462908
ISBN-13
9780801462900
Category
History
Pages
216
Language
English
Published
2011-10-18
Publisher
Cornell University Press
Author
Michael Khodarkovsky

Description

Russia’s attempt to consolidate its authority in the North Caucasus has exerted a terrible price on both sides since the mid-nineteenth century. Michael Khodarkovsky tells a concise and compelling history of the mountainous region between the Black and Caspian seas during the centuries of Russia’s long conquest (1500–1850s). The history of the region unfolds against the background of one man’s life story, Semën Atarshchikov (1807–1845). Torn between his Chechen identity and his duties as a lieutenant and translator in the Russian army, Atarshchikov defected, not once but twice, to join the mountaineers against the invading Russian troops. His was the experience more typical of Russia’s empire-building in the borderlands than the better known stories of the audacious kidnappers and valiant battles. It is a history of the North Caucasus as seen from both sides of the conflict, which continues to make this region Russia’s most violent and vulnerable frontier.

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