Russian conquest of the Caucasus

• 1. Early Russian Expansion

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  In the 9th century, Rus' traders appeared along the Volga trade route. They began raiding around the Caspian Sea from the late 9th century onward. The expedition of 943 saw Rus' rowers push up the Kura River deep into the Caucasus mountains. They defeated forces led by Marzuban bin Muhammad and captured Bardha'a, the capital of Arran. By the mid-16th century, an isolated group of Cossacks settled on the Terek River. Around 1550, these Cossacks established themselves on the Don River as well. Russia conquered Astrakhan in 1556, securing a base at the northern end of the Caspian Sea. This victory allowed them to make an alliance with Kabardia and build a fort at the mouth of the Sunzha River. After about 1580, Russia disengaged from the region for roughly two centuries. During this period, they held Astrakhan while slowly pushing settlement south toward the Black Sea. In 1722, Peter the Great temporarily took control of the west and south shores of the Caspian during a Russo-Persian War. He later returned the land through treaties of Resht and Ganja to secure an alliance against the Ottoman Empire. Catherine the Great sent a punitive expedition in 1775 after a Russian explorer died in captivity. That force briefly captured Derbent before withdrawing following her death in November 1796.

• 2. Annexation Of Georgia

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  In July 1783, Heraclius II of Georgia declared himself a vassal of Russia rather than Persia under the Treaty of Georgievsk. The same year Crimea was annexed by Russia. Pavel Potemkin sent 800 men to begin construction on the Georgian Military Highway through the Darial Pass. By October 1783, he drove to Tiflis in a carriage drawn by eight horses. On the 3rd of November, two Russian battalions and four guns reached Tiflis on the newly built road. A gloomy day greeted them as locals remarked that their new friends had brought their weather with them. The troops were withdrawn in 1784, though their presence further provoked Persia. In 1795, Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar sacked Tiflis during the Battle of Krtsanisi. Viceroy Gudovich arrived in January 1791 with fifteen infantry battalions, fifty-four cavalry squadrons, and two Cossack regiments but did nothing to stop the Persian advance. Agha Mohammad was assassinated in 1797 while preparing a second invasion. In the summer of 1800, Fath-Ali Shah Qajar demanded George XII send his son to Teheran as a hostage. General Knorring commanded the Line and prepared nine infantry battalions. The Persians backed off, but the Avar Khan Omar invaded anyway and was defeated by General Lazerev on the Alazani River. Dying, George XII offered Russia increasing authority. Paul I of Russia responded by annexing the kingdom on the 18th of December 1800. Some sources give the date as the 28th of December 1800 or the 8th of January 1801 due to multiple decrees.

• 3. Russo-Persian Conflicts

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  In September 1802, Pavel Tsitsianov was appointed commander-in-chief of Georgia and Inspector of the Line. He descended from Georgian nobles who had fled to Russia with Vakhtang VI in 1724. His first concern was removing remaining members of the royal family. Prince Aleksandre of Georgia had already defected to the Persians. When General Lazarev went to arrest the late king's widow, she stabbed him to death. She spent eight years confined in a convent before dying in 1850. In April 1804, the Kingdom of Imereti became a Russian protectorate after military pressure. Much of Georgia was reunited after four hundred years of division. The coastal fort of Poti remained under Turkish control until later conflicts. In March 1805, an expedition captured the Turkish fort of Anaklia on the Abkhaz border. Under Ottoman threat, Tsitsianov withdrew, calling it unauthorized action by a subordinate. In May 1805, the Karabakh Khanate submitted to Russia. Abbas Mirza arrived with twenty thousand men, but the garrison held out for three weeks before one hundred survivors cut their way out. Fath-Ali Shah Qajar approached with forty thousand men but retired without fighting. In January 1806, Tsitsianov took over the Shuragel Sultanate and Shirvan Khanate. He crossed the Shirvan Khanate and arrived before Baku before the 8th of February 1806. Town elders delivered him the keys to the city. He returned them asking to receive them from the khan in person. The khan rode out with an escort while Tsitsianov advanced with two other men and was shot dead. The guns of Baku opened fire on the Russian army, forcing General Zavalivshin to withdraw again.

• 4. The Murid War Era

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  Yermolov arrived in the autumn of 1816 bringing Velyaminov as chief of staff. They built three new forts: Grozny in 1818, Vnezapnaya in 1819, and Burnaya on the mountain above Tarki in 1821. These were connected by a line of smaller forts. In 1818, Dagestanis formed an alliance including Avaria, Mekhtuli, Karakaitag, Tabassaran, Kazikumukh, and Akusha. Pestel advanced to Bashli in Karakaitag but was forced back to Derbent losing five hundred men. Yermolov moved south from Tarki to Mekhtulil, sacked Paraul, stormed Djengutai, and abolished the Mekhtuli khanate. Bashli was retaken and destroyed before Yermolov returned to the Line. On the 15th of September, Dadi-Yurt was bloodily captured, causing remaining clansmen to flee west to the mountains. In November, Yermolov and Madatov attacked Akusha. Elders came out to parley and were kept talking until late at night. When they left, Russians made a flanking maneuver and defeated them at Lavashi the next morning. The Akusha people submitted and kept faith for seven years. In June 1820, Matadov crossed the mountains from Shirvan and defeated twenty thousand men near Khosrek. The khan fled to his capital while inhabitants shut gates against him and surrendered to Russia. Kubachi, famous for its weapon makers, also submitted. By early 1826, Beibulat started a new rebellion supported by a holy man claiming angelic visitation. On the 9th of July 1825, two thousand rebels captured Amir-Haji-Yurt on the Terek and killed most of the garrison. They besieged Gerzel the next day but it was relieved by Grekov and Lissanevich. Three hundred local leaders arrived unarmed to offer submission. Uchar Haji refused to surrender his kinzhals when demanded. Grekov tried to disarm him by force; Uchar stabbed him in the stomach killing him instantly before turning on Lissanevich.

• 5. Circassian Expulsion

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  The long Russo-Circassian War continued in the western mountains until 1864. Several hundred thousand Circassians were expelled to Turkey during this final phase. In 1836-1844, the first Cossack settlements were built on the coast near Anapa. Between 1837 and 1839, the Black Sea Coast Defensive Line was constructed from Taman to south of Sukhum-Kale. It later extended south to Fort Saint Nicholas at the Turkish border. A number of these forts were destroyed by Circassians in 1840 and restored in 1841. During the Crimean War (1853-1856), the Coast Defensive Line was abandoned. In 1855, an Anglo-French attack hit Novorossisk while a Turkish landing occurred in Abkhazia. At the end of the war in 1864, several hundred thousand Circassians were expelled to the Ottoman Empire. Their lands were subsequently settled by Cossacks. Also that year, the Principality of Abkhazia was formally abolished. The eastern coast of the Black Sea had four parts: flat land around the Taman Peninsula inhabited by Circassians, mountainous coastal regions also home to Circassians, wider plains with Abkhazian populations under Georgian influence, and Muslim Turkish areas further south. Poti led to Georgia while Anapa in the north connected to the steppes and main body of Circassians.

• 6. Geopolitical Frontiers

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  Russia held the lowlands south of the mountains by 1813 without difficulty. They controlled the North Caucasus Line along the northern side of the mountains as a base for attacking mountaineers. This line served as a center from which Russian population expanded. The Terek River became a nominal border between Russia and Persia from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries though neither empire exercised much control there. Derbent sat at a narrow point on the Caspian coast acting as the ancient northern gate of Persia. It had no natural harbor but was captured four times by Russians between 1722 and 1806. Baku practically functioned as a city-state with the only good harbor on the west coast. In 1796, Valerian Zubov took Baku during an expedition that quickly gave it up after Catherine's death. Tsitsianov died accepting a feigned surrender here while the Khan of Quba drove off the Caspian Flotilla in summer 1805. By 1826, the southernmost khanate, Talysh, was finally annexed. From that date, the Iranian border has not changed significantly. Anapa surrendered to a naval squadron in 1807 and remained Russian after falling to a thirty-six-day siege in 1828. Novorossisk became a major port when Russians built one for the Black Sea Fleet in 1838. Batum joined Russia along with Adjaria in 1878 becoming an important oil port by 1900.

• 7. Literary Cultural Impact

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  The acquisition of new peoples invigorated Russian culture according to historians Bondarevskii and Kolbaia. The turbulent life in the Caucasus injected a potent spirit into progressive thinking across Russia. Writers like Alexander Griboyedov, Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, and Leo Tolstoy were influenced by these interactions. They generally supported the Caucasian fight for liberation beyond the chauvinism of colonial autocracy. Pushkin wrote The Prisoner of the Caucasus between 1820 and 1822 as both travelogue and war correspondence. His poem celebrated military conquest while introducing dissonance regarding native peoples' liberty. A Hero of Our Time appeared from 1839 to 1841 under Lermontov's pen. Tolstoy published The Cossacks in 1863 and later Hadji Murat in 1912. These works shaped views of the region among landed Russians. One famous work included overtones of national identity appealing largely to nineteenth-century elites. Professor Ronald Grigor Suny noted that Pushkin's imaginative geography averted the eye from military conquest yet introduced dissonant notes about purity and generosity. The Literary Caucasus became a body of narratives surrounding Caucasian stories within Russian literature.