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

✍ Scribed by Michael Khodarkovsky

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Year: 2014
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 216
• Edition: Reprint
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

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.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Title Page, Copyright Page
Contents
List of Maps
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The Frontiers of the North Caucasus
2. Atarshchikov’s Childhood
3. Journey through the Northeast Caucasus
4. Inside Ermolov’s “Iron Fist”
5. St. Petersburg and Poland
6. Return to the North Caucasus
7. Interpreter and Administrator
8. Russian Policies and Alternatives
9. The First Desertion
10. From Semën Atarshchikov to Hajret Muhammed
Conclusion
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index