Jerzy Rohoziński
The story of the last years of Imam Shamil, the great leader of the Caucasian highlanders, holding out against Russian imperialism, has its own “Polish” subplot. And it is not a pleasant one. Also, it is not exactly clear how “Polish” it really is.
“Gunib captured, Shamil seized…”
The Caucasian War had been raging since 1817, at the cost of much blood and humiliation for Russia. Finally though, after several decades and the disastrous defeat of the Crimean War, the Russian Empire managed to subdue the Caucasus — or at least that is how it seemed. The turning point arrived in 1859.
The Russian offensive advanced at a lightning pace in late June and July. Valley after valley, village after village surrendered, their names having once served as ominous reminders of previous Russian failures. The leader of the Caucasian rebellion, Imam Shamil, was in flight. A swift advance of the left flank of the Caucasus Army forced him up into the higher altitudes, to the barely-accessible settlement of Gunib. For the moment at least he was safe there, though surrounded on all sides by forty thousand enemy troops. Viceroy of the Caucasus, Prince Alexander Baryatinsky, issued him with an ultimatum: surrender within 24 hours, or face the wrath of a massive Russian assault. Shamil defiantly responded: “Gunib lies high, Allah even higher, and you are down below.” Yet following a series of mutual threats, Shamil appeared unexpectedly before the prince on August the 24th, led on horseback by two murids [muridism, an Islamic faction] and escorted by forty more. Upon seeing him, Prince Baryatinsky uttered the famous words, repeated ad nauseum in many illustrated pamphlets and booklets: “You wished not to appear before me, so I took it upon myself to go to you. Now there will be no terms. It is the end. I have taken you in battle, and the only thing I can now do is spare your life and the lives of your family. The rest is down to the Tsarist Emperor.”
On August the 26th, Baryatinsky sent another telegram to the Tsar, the second one in the space of four days, this time with the momentous news: “Gunib captured, Shamil seized, will soon depart for St. Petersburg.”
Depart he did, and this Russian tour of the defeated Shamil morphed into a grand spectacle titled “The Descent of the Caucasian Leader from the Harsh Mountain wilderness to the World of Progress.” Authors of press “accounts” elaborated on the “miraculous transformation” that supposedly occurred in Shamil following his capitulation, as he listened to the Viceroy of the Caucasus mercifully proclaim a willingness to spare his life! Journalists and pamphleteers vied in their showy descriptions to reflect the sudden cultural shock felt by Shamil upon abandoning his mountain hideout in Gunib to witness the material and technological “wonders” of Russian culture. “Stavropol Governorate News” described a smile permanently etched on Shamil’s face as he observed a theater performance with great excitement, then how later in the evening he watched in admiration the fireworks display and music put on especially for him. In Kharkiv, Shamil was treated to a university visit, a circus, a governor’s ball, and a visit to a notable local on Yekaterinoslav Street. It was reported that Shamil confessed to regretting those protracted years of war with Russia. “I am sorry,” he supposedly said, “had I only known Russia earlier, I would have sought out her friendship.” In Kursk, according to the local newspaper, he listened with fascination about the railways, telegraphs, and other “civilizational accomplishments”. But the culmination of his clash with Western culture and the Russian world awaited him in St. Petersburg. Upon arriving at Nikolayevsky Station, he swiftly proclaimed to a crowd gathered on the platform: “If only I had known Russia earlier and seen all that I now see and have seen already, I would have surrendered much sooner.” Rumors of the Caucasian leader’s current whereabouts spread rapidly among residents. Crowds often gathered wherever he was alleged to be making an appearance. Throngs poured into theaters each evening, hoping to catch a glimpse of that exotic captive from afar. The Caucasian “celebrity” was paraded through the most European cities of Russia, where the local public appeared ecstatic at the Imam’s every reaction to manifestations of “Europeanness.”
On October the 10th, Shamil and his entourage finally reached Kaluga, the designated place of exile. In the words of the local newspaper, a ceaseless crowd of Russians marveled at his smiling face, fur coat, and beautiful white turban as he peered out of the hotel window. People were in ecstatic raptures at reports that “Shamil truly likes our city and says it reminds him of Chechnya.” Happy, content, and settled in Kaluga — such was the impression of Shamil that emerged from press reports, with each subsequent account only seeming to confirm it.
“The Pole Spoils the Fun”
Whoever wanted to believe in this idealized image did so; those who preferred not to “spoiled the fun”, so to speak – one such “spoilsport” being Lieutenant Colonel Paweł Przecławski, who arrived in Kaluga on April the 1st, 1862, to spend the subsequent four years as overseer, or personal supervisor, to Shamil and his family. The Caucasus was well known to Przecławski, him having been actively involved in fighting there since 1844. Shortly prior to his arrival, he had served as the head of the Derbent administrative region and as military assistant to the chief of Dagestan. Whilst there, he developed an ethnographic interest, learning Arabic and, as was the case with many tsarist officers, he left behind an account of local customs. “A Muslim never shares bad news with his fellow believers or even Christians; but with good news, he is willing to travel 50 versts, certain in his belief that he’ll receive the customary gift,” he wrote in the Military Compendium. “In more densely populated villages, there are 10 to 12 mosques, each with a mullah or qadi, with whom young people prepare for the clergy, it being the most lucrative and untroubled of occupations. […] The mullahs carry out no village duties; on the contrary, they live off the community, enjoying, as alims (scholars), great respect among their fellow villagers. That is without mentioning the income they accrue from marriages, circumcisions, and funerals. These mullahs, as judges, make a show of their favoritism and self-interest, never failing to settle any case without acceptance of a bribe.”
He certainly was not the only tsarist military ethnographer to view Islam as a “harmful growth” on the “healthy body” of “authentic” Caucasian customs.
And so, Przecławski arrived, and he set about dismantling the naive image of Shamil as enchanted by the achievements of European civilization in Russia, an image keenly fed by the local press and readily swallowed by its susceptible readers. He gave expression to this in his journal, published in Russian Antiquity. As noted in the editorial: “Coming from the narrator’s pen, the once-feared Imam of Chechnya and Dagestan comes across as a rather quarrelsome and frail old man, exhibiting all those traits—not necessarily praiseworthy, but typical—of Caucasian highlanders. In his domestic and family life, the exiled Shamil is far from the figure we imagined him to be in his native Caucasian mountains, based on his long-standing war with Russia.” Where did this disappointment spring from? In reality, throughout his stay in Kaluga, Shamil tried to maintain active contact with Sufi leaders from the North Caucasus. Furthermore, “strictly obeying Sharia rules” – as noted by the lieutenant colonel – he put consistent pressure on Russian officials, even the tsar himself, for permission to travel to Mecca before his death.
Other members of his family also desired to leave Kaluga, the climate of which was particularly harsh for the Caucasian captives. His sons-in-law, for instance, Abdurahman and Abdurahim, solicited Przeclawski in secret, requesting from him positions for them in the Russian cavalry stationed in Dagestan. Shamil got to know about all of this and became enraged that the officer was meddling in his family affairs. Yet still no permission was granted. Shamil came to the conclusion (or perhaps it was suggested to him by someone) that Przeclawski was torpedoing his attempts to organize the journey to Mecca. In the spring of 1863, he informed the local governor of his “extreme dissatisfaction” with the lieutenant colonel’s work, further alleging that the supervisor with Polish roots had told him about the January Uprising. Shamil’s favorite son, Kazi-Muhammad, was the one to approach authorities with his father’s request to find a replacement for “the Pole”, suggesting an officer “of purely Russian descent.” “I can’t stand him any longer,” Shamil again wrote of Przeclawski to the governor of Kaluga, Vladimir Spassky, in August 1865. From the outset, the chief of staff of the Caucasus Army, General Alexander Kartsev, had been for his removal, and now declared himself in favour of this proposal, calling for his replacement with “a Russian officer of the Orthodox faith.”
However, Shamil was erroneous in thinking that a mid-ranking officer could have impeded his petition to the tsar. It was the viceroy, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich, along with other high-ranking officials who expressed their opposition to the petition, fearing that if news of Shamil’s journey reached the Caucasus, the local highlanders might once again resort to armed struggle.
The outcome? In 1866, the Ministry of War relieved Przeclawski of his position as supervisor. And the reason? Przeclawski had spent significantly more time with Abdurahim and younger members of Shamil’s family than with Shamil himself and Kazi-Muhammad. Overseeing was only one of his many tasks; he was also meant to build some rapport with Shamil, gain his trust, friendship, and gratitude – something that he had consummately failed to achieve.
Ultimately Przeclawski was cleared of all “charges,” but not for a lack of explaining on his part! He was repeatedly forced to emphasize how he had left the Polish Kingdom 25 years earlier and “had nothing to do with his compatriots.” For the official record, he stated his family hailed from nobility in the Tver province. In 1873, he retired from service as a lieutenant colonel, but the Caucasus was still able to lure him back. He re-enlisted in 1877, during the Russo-Turkish War, attaining the position of assistant governor of the military district of Erzurum. What is to be made of all this? Firstly, following the January Uprising, Polish identity in the Russian Empire became, as can be observed, highly suspect, and any ties to the uprising constituted strong “leverage”. Shamil must have been all too aware of this. Secondly, a situation where conquered peoples report on each other proves extremely convenient for the tsarist elite. Assigning each rebellious leader a personal “Pole” to soak up their grievances and frustrations was, frankly, an ideal solution.
Dr. Jerzy Rohoziński is a historian, cultural anthropologist, and assistant professor at the Center for the Study of Totalitarianism (Pilecki Institute). His research interests cover the socio-religious history of Tsarist Russia and the USSR. He is the author of several books, including Saints, Flagellants, and Red Khans: Transformations of Muslim Religiosity in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan; Cotton, Samovars, and Sarts: The Muslim Borderlands of Tsarist Russia, 1795–1916; Georgia: The Beginnings of the State; The Birth of Global Jihad; The Most Beautiful Jewel in the Tsar’s Crown: Georgia under Russian Rule, 1801–1917; and Pioneers in the Steppe? Kazakh Poles as Part of the Soviet Modernization Project. He has been awarded the Golden insignia of Merit by the Siberian Exiles Association.
Illustration source: Russkij Chudozhestvenny Listok, 1859–1860
Translated by Jan Dobrodumow