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Caucasus Legend

The exploits of the 19th-century warrior Shamil have already gained mythical status. A new encyclopedia tries to distinguish fact from fiction.

By Nabi Abdullaev
Published: May 6, 2005

A folk hero in the North Caucasus for more than 150 years, the rebel leader Imam Shamil is admired equally by anti-Russian insurgents and those seeking integration with Russia. The Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev is said to take pride in bearing his name, while President Vladimir Putin has publicly cited Shamil's appeal for the people of the Caucasus to live in peace with Russia.

The warrior who resisted Russian troops in Chechnya and Dagestan for a quarter of a century is the subject of a new book written by Dagestani and Moscow-based historians, "Shamil: An Illustrated Encyclopedia." Lavishly illustrated and written in both Russian and English, the glossy volume is a highly readable mix of scrupulous academic research and anecdotal evidence.

Imam Shamil led the mountain people of Dagestan and Chechnya in an armed struggle against tsarist troops for 25 years in the mid-19th century. He ruled over an independent state that was governed strictly according to Islamic law. After his eventual capture by tsarist troops, the leader lived in exile in Russia and died while on a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1871.

In the encyclopedia published in Moscow last month, Shamil's story is placed in the larger historical context of Russia's thrust into the Caucasus, covering a time span of almost three centuries. The entries cover not only events related to Shamil and his legacy but also the everyday life of the mountain peoples and their mores and values, among which Islam occupied the central place.

Born in 1797 in a mountain village in Dagestan, Shamil excelled in religious studies as a teenager. He gained an early reputation for moral sternness by vowing to his father that he would kill himself if he ever again saw him drunk, the biographical section of the encyclopedia relates.

Shamil continued his studies until the late 1820s, when he became involved in the armed struggle against tsarist troops. At that time Russia was intensifying its campaign to capture the Caucasus, led by General Alexei Yermolov, who was notorious for his brutality. In order to create a more effective resistance force, Dagestan's Muslim leaders, or imams, tried to unite the region's scattered communities into a single political and military entity.

Shamil was proclaimed the third imam of Dagestan in 1834, and in the same year he founded a state called the Imamate of Dagestan and Chechnya, which lasted until his capture by tsarist troops. The centralized multiethnic state had strictly enforced laws based on Sharia. Slavery was banned, as were blood feuds. Alcohol abuse and bribe taking were punishable by flogging.

The newly created state introduced unified administrative, justice and tax systems over an area measuring 900 kilometers across and with a population numbering around 400,000. The encyclopedia recounts how senior Russian officers acknowledged the effectiveness of Shamil's reforms, which led to a dramatic decrease in crime and corruption.

Sodruzhestvo Regional Fund to Support State National Politics A painting by Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani showing Shamil's capture is reproduced in the book.

Alongside state building, Shamil and his followers continued to wage a bloody war against Russia. The long-drawn-out campaign saw severe casualties on both sides: The Russian army lost more than 90,000 soldiers and officers in the Caucasus in the 19th century, chiefly during the imamate period. Eventually, though, Shamil lost the unequal fight. Holed up with his followers in the village of Gunib, he surrendered to tsarist forces in 1859.

Later that year, speaking before the Russian public in St. Petersburg, Shamil said, "My conscience is clear. The whole of the Caucasus, the Russians and all the European nations will give me credit for surrendering only when the people in the mountains were reduced to eating grass." The leader is said to have been granted a meeting with Tsar Alexander II, at which he called for his sons not to fight against Russia.

Then followed years of honorable exile in Kaluga, where Shamil lived with his large family and followers on a generous state pension of 35,000 golden rubles a year. In 1869, the tsar allowed Shamil to set off on a pilgrimage to Mecca, and he died in nearby Medina in 1871.

The leader's reputation has undergone numerous revisions. In the 1930s Soviet historians depicted Shamil as the popular leader of an anti-colonialist rebellion, then in 1950 he was officially dubbed an agent of colonial Britain. An Azeri historian received the Stalin Prize in 1949 for a book portraying Shamil as a freedom fighter. When the official interpretation changed just months later, the author had his prize revoked and he committed suicide.

In recent years, Shamil has become an icon for Chechen separatists, but in Dagestan he is seen as a symbol of collective identity and integration with Russia. The encyclopedia avoids taking sides, including both entries that depict Shamil in an entirely positive light and chilling accounts of a state ruled by force. As the background information makes clear, the Imamate gave birth to outstanding statesmen and religious scholars, but also saw rebellion and bloodshed continue as a way of life in the North Caucasus.

"Shamil: An Illustrated Encyclopedia" is published by the Sodruzhestvo Regional Fund to Support State National Politics.

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