No 4 (2019)

In the history of Kabarda of the XVII century the battle on the Malka on the 12-th of July, 1641 is a significant event. Its political significance is connected with an internecine struggle inside of the princely house of the Idarovs – one of the most influential, active and ambitious houses in the history of Kabarda, wherein were involved the heads of almost all Kabardian feudal destinies and their main allies. For the right to inherit escheat property, struggled the patronyms of the Kambulatovichs and the Sunchaleevichs. Into this conflict were drawn not only all Inalids of Kabarda, but also the Russian government, the uluses of the Big and Small Nogai Hordes, and the feudal possessions of Dagestan. Due to the rich source base, including detailed reports about the battle itself, narrated by its direct participants, we are able to determine the main parameters of the battle at Malka. This is the date and place of the battle, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the military forces of the warring parties, the course of the battle, the features of the Circassian military strategy and tactic of the feudal era. The Battle on the Malka is the final stage of a long internal political crisis in the Kabarda, one of the largest events in its military history. It is the symbolic end of the Idarov’s era and of the relative political unity of Kabarda. 

The article considers the prerequisites for the creation, the structure and scope of powers of the Head department and the Council of the Caucasian Viceroy. The Regulation «On the Chief Office and Council of the Caucasian Viceroy» adopted on December 21, 1858 was analyzed in detail. It is noted that as the administrative and territorial changes in the region were carried out in the 40-50-s of the XIX century, the need to review the existing and adopt new normative acts regulating the activities of administrative structures in the region increased. The correspondence of the Caucasian Viceroy A.I. Baryatinsky with the heads of the highest authorities of the Russian Empire, which discussed the necessity and validity of this transformation, is analyzed. The structure and powers of the relevant departments (general affairs, court cases, financial and state property), the Department of Agriculture and Colonies of Foreign Settlers in the Caucasus and behind the Caucasus, the archive, the treasury, the register, the printing house, the public library and the editorial office of the newspaper Caucasus and the Transcaucasian Gazette were considered. The staff table of the General Directorate of the Mayor of the Caucasus for 1859-1860 was analyzed. It is concluded that during the administrative reforms in 1858 an administrative institution was established under the Caucasian Viceroy, to exercise his powers as a senior official in the province, to determine the main directions of development and development of the Caucasus region, to ensure the implementation of the orders of the Emperor and the highest bodies of state power of the Russian Empire.

This article investigates the role of the Lenin's Campus, opened in the city of Nalchik in 1924, in the modernization of Kabardian and Balkar culture. With that, the culture is seen in the widest sense of this word, i.e. includes not only the statement of values or literature and art, but also the material culture, customs and ceremonies. The role of the campus was not only training of specialists, the so-called domestic labor, but also mentoring of "new Kabardians, new Balkars." Beyond playing an important role in elimination of illiteracy, development of the educational system, formation of Kabardian and Balkar literature and art, the graduates of educational institutions of the town were an example of a new lifestyle, new values, new material culture. The Soviet version of cultural modernization was notable for its quick rate and violent methods. The cadets of the Lenin's Campus had not only to give up a great many of the traditional culture values, but also to wage a relentless struggle with them, which, in the long run, ended with the victory of new culture forms.

The article deals with the traditional Institute of mutual assistance for the peoples of Kabardino-Balkaria. The norms of mutual assistance determined the internal content of the mechanism of socio-economic interaction in the rigidly institutionalized society of highlanders and leveled its moral flaws. They were an integral part of the people's mentality and embodied the precedent of social order, stability and self-organization. The combination of stability and dynamics of traditions of mutual assistance ensured the transfer of ethno-genetic empathic complex of culture to the younger generation. In the folk art of Kabardians and Balkarians there are many examples of agricultural and economic interaction and implicative pre-religious types of assistance. Ethical obligations contributed to the improvement of the economic potential of small Patriarchal-tribal farms of the highlanders. Forms and types of mutual support functioned as a whole system and were voluntary. The need to perform a large amount of heavy agricultural work in a limited time required the unification of labor efforts of the whole village. During the Soviet period, the institution of mutual assistance suffered changes and was included in the process of forming the state social security system.

The study considers a set of topical issues of the power-political, social/economic and ethno-political development of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic during 2014-2019. This period of time is another milestone for the region due to the aggravation of contradictions in the field of interethnic relations and the partial renewal of the management team, appointment of a new leadership of the republic, elections to the Parliament, and launched implementation of the new development programme in the region. At the same time, by 2019, flashpoints of tension persist being directly related to social problems that have existed for a considerable stretch of time. Similar issues remain on the agenda of socio-political life, and high risks of unconstructive conflicts with violence manifest themselves against the background of the absence of fundamental shifts in the republic. The study examined the most urgent inertial problems: democratization of the political process, structural and managerial renewal, reducing the republic’s economic lag from all-Russian standards, land reform, the need to resolve existing tension in the ethno-political and confessional spheres. The analysis demonstrates the relevance of adjusting the strategy of federal and regional authorities to address the issues of social and economic development of the region. Without the search for alternative approaches based on the basic elements of political democracy, sustainable projects, and civic engagement, the transition to sustainable development is unlikely to be attained.

The article is devoted to the comparative analyses of ethnographic information about matchmaking and marriage in the traditions of Adyghs and their reflection in such genres of folklore as an archaic Nart epic, fairy tale and historical-heroic epic. The purpose of the work is determined by the task to establish the meaning and main poetic features of the verbal component in rituals associated with such an important stage of the life cycle as matchmaking and marriage.As a general regularity, it is established that the main features of really existing or existing customs found in folklore artistic reflection. Since folklore is primarily an art, there can be direct parallels and divergences between traditions in real life and representations in the context of works of art, sometimes so obvious, that folklore descriptions cannot correspond to reality. In different genres, they appear in accordance with the established system of artistic conventions in this area and are perceived as fiction. So for archaic epic in some cases it is characteristic that the marriage remained the second storyline on the background of the main feat, in others – it is closer in function to the cultural feat and thus comes to the fore of the narrative. The tale presents a greater variety of functions – from the secondary motive of matchmaking and marriage to the motive of procuring the bride as an adventurous crime. The closest thing to reality is the motif in the context of historical ad heroic songs and legends.

The article explores the image of the Milky Way – Shykhul'ague (Kabardino-Circassian), as one of the significant poetic constants in the lyrics of Alim Keshokov. The analysis of the image of the Milky Way in the poet’s work and the iconic semantics of this image in the Nart legend “Lepshre Zhig-Guaschemre” – “Tlepsh and the Goddess-Tree” and the cosmological legend about the appearance of Shykhul'ague – the Milky Way made it possible to reveal the commonality of their main meaning, based on ancient myths Circassians. The image of the Milky Way – Shykhul'ague in the Nart legend tells one of the basic elements of the Adyghe mythopoetic picture of the world – the horizontal structural coordinate of the cosmos. In the genre of mythological legend, this symbol receives additional semantic meaning – movement and path. The image of the Milky Way in the poetry of Alim Keshokov, preserving its main, implicit mythological semantics – horizontals, movements and paths, transforming and refracting by its poetic thinking, acquires new semantic connotations and appears as a symbolic, moral and ethical landmark of the poet’s spiritual universe. An analysis of the iconic semantics of the images and symbols of poems by Alim Keshokov revealed the mythopoetic component of the poet’s artistic consciousness, in particular, the traditional archetypal representations of the spatial structure of the Adyghe mythopoetic space implicitly present in it.

A socio-cultural study of various ethnic groups is impossible without involving into analysis of statistical sources, among which the richness and reliability of the data highlight the materials of the First General Census of the Russian Empire in 1897. In Russia, for the lack of regular censuses, the main source of statistical information was Zemstvo surveys. The first general census of 1897 was the most important event for the country and covered all its regions, all categories and social strata of the population and the census was conducted by trained specialists. The analysis and synthesis of census materials in order to establish quantitative indicators of the ethnic composition of the population of the Russian Empire and its regions presents certain difficulties, since it does not contain direct indications of the ethnic self-identification of the respondents. However, a cross-analysis of data on the distribution of the population by mother tongue and religion allows obtaining fairly reliable data on the number of different ethnic groups. This method is especially effective for the Jewish population due to the greater coincidence of its linguistic and confessional borders than in the case of other ethnic groups. This article discusses the main socio-demographic indicators of the Jewish population of the Terek region based on the data of the All-Russia Census of the Population of the Russian Empire of 1897.